Keith Tillotson
Guadalcanal (1944)
I was the second engineer on the SS Mexico, also. We had four boilers, and the first engineer didn't have to stand a watch. They had a junior engineer, third engineer, and second engineer.
I had a crew, but they could only speak Spanish or some language. I think it was Spanish. I think there were a lot of 'em from Spain. I couldn't understand a one of 'em. You'd want something done, you couldn't tell 'em. I'd have to go through the third engineer, which he was also Spanish. He speaks for me.
On the way down to Guadalcanal, the tubes burnt out in one of the boilers – the super-heater tubes. I figured out why. When they shut down a boiler in port, they would never open up a particular valve to let it ventilate. So, you'd have moisture inside these tubes. It's just like puttin' a frying pan on the stove and turnin' the heat on, right?
Well, I just re-plugged the tube. We had plugs to plug up the tubes. It burnt up, see? But that's a lot of work, to open up one of those boilers and close it up. Then, when I went back to fill it and fire it up I wanted to open that valve. I couldn't convince them that that valve had to be open. They didn't want to do it.
And I had a hell of a job – in fact, we almost got into a fight. One of 'em come at me with a crowbar. They were a weird bunch, I'm tellin' you.
But I finally got the thing lit off, and got the valve open. Probably hadn't been opened for years. I said, "This is the way you gotta do it, or you're gonna burn up tubes just like you did." I'm doin' all this through this one engineer that could talk to 'em. I couldn't talk to 'em.
While we were down in Guadalcanal, we're takin' on oil there. Now, you gotta watch all the tanks. The only way we had was word of mouth, or somebody running, to shut it off. "This tank is full, shut it off!" You'd do that down in the engine room – stop puttin' oil in that tank.
The Army officer decided to have a drill with his troops, while we're takin' on oil. We couldn't get that job done – we were spilling oil on deck! So I got up there and I'm screaming at this Army officer up there in the bridge looking down. I said, "Damn it, stop your training! We got to get the word to these people. We're gonna spill oil all over the place!" We had oil runnin' out on the deck. They couldn't shut it off 'cause they couldn't get the word quick enough. So, I wasn't too popular with that guy either 'cause I was cussin' him out.