Gerald George Torvund
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Navy
Gerald George Torvund served in World War II.
Mr. Torvund served in the U.S. Navy.
He was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1923. His father’s name was Olaf; he was Norwegian. His mother’s name was Florence; she was German. They were both Lutheran. His family lived in Central Hillside. His uncle (and godfather) was named George.
The family moved to Marquette, Michigan, when he was two years old. They lived there until he was nine. There he snowshoed and hunted rabbit. They returned to Duluth, where he attended the Franklin School. Later, he attended Duluth Junior College.
Mr. Torvund joined the Navy in 1942. He knew his vision was not good enough, but he wanted to join so much that he memorized the eye chart used to test recruits. He passed.
He was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois, for naval training. He was trained in Morse code communications at Butler University for four months. He was sent to Connecticut and to New York.
He and his unit went to North Africa early in the war. They were sent to transport a Construction Brigade (CB) outfit to Algiers. While there, he met members of the 125th Field Artillery.
Back in the United States, he and his unit boarded the freighter Julia Ward Howe, on which Mr. Torvund served as an armed guard. It was part of a convoy crossing the Atlantic. They ran into a hurricane, and his ship was separated from the convoy. After the hurricane had passed, a German U-boat, U 442, spotted them. It surfaced. The date was January 28, 1943.
The captain of the U-boat was in his early 20s; another of the Germans had a black beard. The one with the beard recommended that they torpedo the freighter along with her crew. Instead, the U-boat captain ordered the Americans to lower one of their life rafts into the water and board it; the Germans then torpedoed the freighter. The captain told the Americans he’d give them a chance to survive, and added that the hurricane was on its way back. The U-boat submerged, leaving Mr. Torvund and his crewmates adrift somewhere southeast of the Portuguese archipelago, the Azores, without food or water.
They floated in the north Atlantic.
The next day, they were rescued by a passing Portuguese destroyer, the Lima. The boat, like Portugal, was neutral. On board, the Americans ate white rice, a hunk of bread, and red wine three times a day. Then the hurricane returned. The Portuguese destroyer somehow managed to survive; in fact, there is a famous image of it that one sometimes sees on postcards, showing the destroyer listing in the water at a 45°-67° angle. Remarkably, it didn’t sink.
Their Portuguese rescuers brought Mr. Torvund and his crewmates to Saõ Miguel island in the Azores, where Allied and Axis troops coexisted on neutral Portuguese territory. Mr. Torvund was hospitalized.
He was there long enough to feel antsy to get going. Eventually, a deal was made, and he was allowed to return to the United States.
After his return, Naval officials determined that since he had endured so much already, they were going to give him an easy job. They put him in charge of officer training for armed guards at Dartmouth University.
Mr. Torvund was later diagnosed with a “nervous stomach” and internal bleeding. He was put on light duty and given shore patrol duty in Pennsylvania. Subsequently, he was assigned to coastal patrol in California. He liked California: he liked the food, and he had a good time.
He and his roommate lived next to UCLA. His roommate was a piano player. He himself was a musician, a drummer. He and his roommate were part of the “Boston Pops” in California. He had limited duty.
Rita Hayworth lived close by, and he and his roommate sometimes observed her sunbathing.
At the time the invasion of Okinawa was being planned (the largest amphibious landing of the war), all available troops were brought into it. Despite the orders that Mr. Torvund have limited duty, he was sent across the Pacific and assigned to an amphibious Higgins boat. His boat arrived on the east side of the island, which had already been secured by the Marines. After the harbor was secured, Mr. Torvund was assigned to guarding barges loaded with provisions.
The Marines bore the brunt of combat, and as Mr. Torvund said, “I lucked out.” At night, he and his crew would raid other supply barges and steal beer. (It was a point of pride that they secured 42 cases of beer.) They spent some of their free time decorating the barges. They painted their ship Chinese red, and they painted other ships with robin’s egg blue paint or wood varnish. Admiral Price of the 5th Fleet was so impressed by the stories he heard about the unit that he came to tour it personally. He said how proud he was of them and the fact that they took pride in their vessels.
Once the Armistice with Japan was signed, Mr. Torvund boarded a troop ship back to Portland, Oregon, and he was discharged.
By war’s end, Mr. Torvund had endured service in North Africa, a hurricane (that struck him twice), being discovered and released by Germans, being adrift in the north Atlantic for two days, being rescued by the Portuguese and left essentially captive on a neutral island, and being part of the amphibious landing in Okinawa.
Source: Oral interview with Dan Hartman of Veterans' Memorial Hall (currently being transcribed); The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II by Robert Cressman (Naval Institute Press), pp. 144-145 (see below)
"ATLANTIC. Portuguese destroyer Lima recovers survivors from U.S. freighter Julia Ward Howe, sunk by German submarine U 442 on 28 January [1943], about 350 miles southeast of the Azores."
