William Ferrand
Era: Korea
Military Branch: Navy
Mr. Ferrand served in the Korean War. He served in the U.S. Navy. He enlisted in 1948. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Turner (DDR 834). His rank was Third Class Fireman fire control technician. Mr. Ferrand was born in Stromford, Nebraska.
Source: Interview (see below)
“Mr. Ferrand: well I suppose I’ll just start from the beginning. I come from a small town, Stromford (Nebraska), I don’t know if you’ve heard of it or not, it’s about a 100 miles west (of Omaha) It’s a Swedish community, and we had a class size of about 30 or so. I think there were fifteen guys. Anyhow, 3 of us decided we would join the Navy just as soon as we got out of high school. So we had already gone and talked to the recruiter and everything and by mid-June we were already sworn in and on our way to San Diego. This hear, is a picture (he points to photograph) of our graduating class from boot camp in San Diego and I think I’m right here (points to himself in picture). You have to realize this was some 50 years ago.
INTERVIEWER: Wow, you guys look so young.
MR. FERRAND: Yeah, we were real young, we were 18. But after we graduated boot camp, we took some battery of aptitude examination and we qualified, all 3 of us, the other 2 guys (shows me the other 2 guys in the photograph) are here somewhere. Anyhow we qualified high enough that we could pick any school we wanted. So this tall kid and I, we took fire control school because they recommended fire control like we put out fires, this is in control of gun batteries. So it’s kind of electronics but with ordinates. The other kid here, my other friend, he went into submarines. I kind of lost track of him, you know I’ve seen him since, but he went into sub school and that was that. We went on and went to fire control school technician school. Then we graduated from that school and as soon as we graduated we were assigned a ship. This is the ship, it’s a destroyer (points to photograph of ship) It’s the USS Turner (DDR 834). We picked that up in San Diego just after we graduated in August of 1949. This was only after about 12 or 14 weeks it seems like at Fire Control School. We picked this ship up and soon after we started down to South America and went through the Panama Canal and came back up to New Port, Rhode Island and that became our home port. From there on I spent 3 and a half years aboard that ship. Now during that same time we made three trips to the Mediterranean, on one trip to Cuba, and one to Puerto Rico. Of course what you do a lot is go out and practice war games, submarine warfare, and this sort of thing. That’s basically it. These things here (points to table), this is a copy of my discharge papers. This is not very important here either, but these are two medals I received (points to box with his two medals). This one here is Good Conduct and just about anybody gets that if you haven’t fouled up in three years, I think. This one is European Occupation and I think theoretically they’re should be two little clasps that go in there indicating that you actually were in occupation for like three years. So that doesn’t amount to a whole lot but that’s basically it and I don’t know what else you might want to find out.
INTERVIEWER: What was life like on the ship?
MR. FERRAND: Well, I didn’t mind ship duty. You were young and it was kind of fun. A destroyer is an awfully small ship and they ride awfully hard. You get out in the North Atlantic and you spend about half the time under the water because they take on so much water. Yeah, but the ship duty was good, we enjoyed it. Of course we were young and we got to go over and through the Mediterranean, and we got to go to Italy and those places. We went through Greece, Athens, and Spain.
INTERVIEWER; Did you get to spend much time at these places?
MR. FERRAND: Yeah, we could take leave. One of the things I wish I would have done, we went to a couple of ports and they had some tours going on in those ports. It would cost you a few extra bucks to go and at that time I didn’t think much of it. But now I regret it of course, some of those tours and things would have been pretty great but we had fun and it was interesting. I don’t think I would have wanted to spend twenty years on a ship because, boy it didn’t ride too great. A destroyer is a small ship and their kind of expendable. If you were operating with an aircraft carrier or something, you would have the carrier in the middle, and then they have cruisers, and then we’d be outside. The theory there is that we would be able to catch incoming stuff before it got to the big ship, And this particular ship (points to photograph of his ship), it’s a DDR, radar picket. So we had extra radar picket. So we had extra radar on ours so we would be able to pick up incoming aircraft prior to the rest of them and hopefully stop them before they got to the big ship. Like I said, I enlisted in 1948 for three years. But then in 1951 the Korean War started, and then we all got extended another year. So I have one year in the Korean War, of course we didn’t actually go to Korea. We were in the Seventh Fleet over in the Mediterranean. But that’s how I got to be a Korean War Veteran.
INTERVIEWER: So you had to stay for another year?
MR. FERRAND: Oh, yeah, there was no question. Harry Truman gave us that one. We were ready to get out at the end of the three years, but it wasn’t all that bad. I did have a couple of opportunities. I could have gone to an advanced fire control school which was in Washington D.C., I think. That was something like a 400 week school. But I thought I was going to get out, so that’s something I didn’t do. Fire control was really never something I enjoyed too much, I mean there’s other things I would have rather done in retrospect. I thought when I enlisted the first thing I wanted to do was get into aerial photography. In aerial photography you probably would be shore based or on an aircraft carrier or something. You wouldn’t have been on a destroyer. But you know hindsight is better than foresight, but it was enjoyable and right after I got out of high school I didn’t know what I wanted to do. When I had about 18 months in, the Gunnery officer came down and he had a whole arm load of books and told me they were going to send one person to Reserve Officers Training and he asked me if I wanted to go but I was never that good in school and books and all that, and I was thinking I wanted to get out at that time anyways. That’s basically the whole thing, like I said, it’s not very romantic or anything.
INTERVIEWER: So where was your favorite place you went?
MR. FERRAND: Yeah I think Italy was really great, that was very interesting. Spain was also pretty interesting. I went on shore leave for a little while in Turkey and that was different, that language I just couldn’t understand at all. At one time went up into the Swiss Alps and in Cortina, Italy. That was really neat, they had a ski resort and ice skating and all this stuff and that was fun. We enjoyed that, but like I say we were just too young. We just got out of high school and came from a little town of 1,000 people and all of a sudden you know, so that was all different all right.
INTERVIEWER; So then you were single while you were in the service?
MR. FERRAND: Oh yeah
INTERVIEWER: Did you have family in the service?
MR. FERRAND: Just Uncles. But now we’re going back to World War II. But no, not anybody else, it was just something the three of us decided we wanted to do. I think the I know when we got discharged all the guys were anxious and they said what they were fact that we lived so far from the ocean, we wanted to all go out and see what it was like. going to do was throw an anchor over their shoulder and walk inland until somebody asked them what that was, and that’s where they were going to stay. There’s something fascinating about the sea, and I could go for the ocean life. On that ship there was only like a war time complement of (around) 173 people. So, you get to know pretty much everybody on that ship, which was nice for the most part. But you know, those things rode real hard. The Turner (USS Turner) has been decommissioned 25 or 30 years. They don’t even “mothball” them anymore because it’s so obsolete. Being in fire control, (points to picture) this right up here is the fire control tower that controls the gun Batteries. There’s some little fire control stations that control some smaller 40 mm guns. We were out practicing one time, and it was just about the time the jets were coming in and we were suppose to play war games with them. Our radar was so slow that by the time we locked onto them they were already over us.
INTERVIEWER: So during the actual way, you said you were in the Mediterranean?
MR. FERRAND: Yeah, we didn’t go over to Korea at all. I’m not sure if that ship ever did get over into a war theatre. You went were ever the fleet was going at the time ours was in the Mediterranean. It took quite a while to cross the Atlantic because you were playing war games all the way across, anti-submarine warfare, or working with an aircraft carrier. The smaller ships like that would run plane guard. And as they were launching, or a pilot had to ditch or something, it was our job to go pick them up. We never did on our ship, but everyone once in a while something would happen, you would lose one over the side or something.
INTERVIEWER; What was your typical mission like during war-time? Were you still playing war games??
MR. FERRAND: Well, the war didn’t really affect us a whole lot. I mean we were in training all the time. So, I imagine had at any time they needed us we could have been shipped over there and been ready. We were just on those training missions most of the time, keeping the good will over there through the Mediterranean. We were received pretty well over there. Like I said, I don’t have any horror stories to tell you, fortunately.
INTERVIEWER; So do you keep in touch with any of these guys (referring to his pictures).
MR. FERRAND: There was a fair amount of those guys from right here in Nebraska or Iowa and then a bunch fro Texas and Louisiana. That picture is starting to show a little bit of wear; it’s more than 50 years old now. Anyhow, no, I haven’t really kept in touch with them, except the tall one that I mentioned earlier, the one I graduated with. He was 6’5” so he was one of the taller guys in there. And here’s the other one that graduated with. Me, the one that went into submarine school (points to picture). He’s now in Arizona.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have any great memories or favorite missions?
MR. FERRAND: Each time we went through the Mediterranean it was something different. It’s an interesting place to be. We went through the Catacombs and that was pretty dreary, but it was very interesting. We went on that skj trip up in the Alps, which was fun. We went into Monte Carlo one time but we didn’t go up in the gambling casinos because you couldn’t go there in uniform, if I remember right, and we didn’t have any money making a $100.00 a month or something like that. Spain was also pretty neat. We spent a lot of time in Italy too. One of the things I really remember thinking is, Boy, coming from a little town, I came out to California and stick my boots on and then the first time I went overseas, I thought, wow!!! You know, the first thing I see over there is Coca Cola and shell gas. Of course the area we were in we stayed right close to the ports.
INTERVIEWER; Did you ever want to go over to Korea and get in the mix of things?
MR. FERRAND: I would’ve rather not (laughs). No, I was fine where I was. I always thought with the Navy, that you usually got a bed to sleep in, and chow to eat, that wasn’t always that great, but it was better than C-rations. And I thought, with the Navy that if you were in the action that chances are you would either come back in one piece or you wouldn’t. I suppose if I had to do it all over again I may go into a different area, like aerial photography like I mentioned earlier. But I would probably go Navy again.
INTERVIEWER; For clarification, what was your job title in the Navy?
MR. FERRAND: I started as a Third Class Fire control technician. We would control the five inch 38’s here (points to picture). We would fire either sleeves, or sleds. You would fire them and someone would check you out and see where it was at, so you could go back and correct it weather you were over or under. The 40mm guns were controlled by this main tower here (points to picture) and of course that was for airplanes and they had to get in quite a bit closer. When I first got on this ship we had 20mm’s. But when the planes got better, they wouldn’t reach out far enough. So, they took off those and replaced them with ‘Hedgehogs’ instead. There kind of like rockets and if your going after a submarine they fire a pattern and they just sink down and if they hit the sub then great, and then as you come over the top you drop your ash cans or depth charges. Yeah, they kept upgrading as we went along. You know, one destroyer now probably has the power of 50 of those(points to picture of USS Turner). They took off some of the guns and put on ‘3 inch-50’s. It’s a smaller gun. But boy, it’s got a loud crack. You wouldn’t want to be too near one of those when it went off or you would break your eardrums.
INTERVIEWER; What did you do after you got out of the Navy?
MR. FERRAND: I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do so I went back to my hometown and you know there was nothing there. I really should have gone back to school and used the G.I. Bill, but you know how that is. Anyhow, I worked around home there for a while and then joined up with my Uncle in North Platte (Nebraska) and went to work with him at Union Pacific Railroad. There I repaired boxcars, but I couldn’t seem to build up any seniority so I thought I would go and see about becoming a ‘switchman’. So I went over and took the test and classes, got my license, and worked out there in North Platte for awhile. I decided that I should transfer down to Omaha in hopes of better work. But it wasn’t a whole lot better here (Omaha). It was kind of a low time, you would work two days and then be off three or four. Well, eventually through one of my Aunt’s connections, I found out about a job opening in the Parks Department (City of Omaha Parks Department). I went in and applied and the rest is history. I did quit a couple of times, to try my own business and some other things, but ultimately I ended up taking over the Green House (Hanscom Park Green House in Omaha) and worked down there for a good 25 years.
INTERVIEWER; Did your experience in the Navy change your life in any way? I went to San Diego, and then all of a sudden I was in Europe. So that definitely opened my eyes a little to the rest of the world. I suppose Omaha was the biggest town I had been in before that. It was a good experience and we had fun. No regrets. There may have been a few things I would have done differently, like with anything else you know, but it was good.
INTERVIEWER; What was the longest time you spent at sea?
MR. FERRAND: I think 3-4 weeks was the longest we went before we would see land. They could cross the Atlantic a lot faster than that, but we would meet up with ships and things and chase submarines.
INTERVIEWER; Did you work with other countries during your time?
MR. FERRAND; No, not really. We were tied up alongside a British ship once, and that was kind of interesting. They were really British and we had a real hard time understanding them. But other than that, we really didn’t have a connection with anyone else.
MR. FERRAND; There is a Turner Convention that they have all over the United States every year. I just started getting their bulletin these last few years. I’ve never been to one, but last year it was down in Mobile, Alabama because the Battlewagon is down there, the ‘Alabama’ and you would have chow and there’s a submarine there they’d take you aboard. But we had done enough traveling last year, so I decided not to go. But I may try to do that in the next year or two. A lot of the people that served on this ship (USS Turner DDR 834) served at a different time than me, but there might be a few you would run into that you would know and serve with. You would leave for shore leave and stuff, and we would have some time off, but that was it.
INTERVIEWER; Did you stay on that ship for all 4 years then?
MR. FERRAND; Well I think you learned a lot. I came from a real small town; Yeah, I was on that ship for 3 and a half years. It became home to us.”
