Gene Good, World War II
Gene Good, Jr. graduated from Columbian High School in 1940. He desired a degree in business, and since Heidelberg did not have a Business Department at that time, he went to Miami University at Oxford, Ohio.
During his sophomore year, he joined a V-12 Unit and trained to become an officer. He took courses under an accelerated program and graduated in 1943. He remembers that his sailor hat had a blue and white band.
Gene was assigned to a unit attached to Northwestern University, and to a specific site across from the Navy Pier. At this officers school of the U. S. Naval Reserves, he was trained in seamanship and navigation. The training lasted 90 days which gave rise to the term, “90-day wonders” for the ensigns who graduated from the program. It was also humorously referred to as the Donald Duck Navy.
In 1943 he was sent to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba. Assigned to harbor patrol, he found himself on a converted personal yacht and a coastal mine sweeper.
From Cuba, he went to Fleet Sound School in Miami to learn to use underwater detection gear for newly developed sonar systems. The sonar equipment sends out a ping, and the operator can tell by the sounds that return whether it has encountered a submarine, and whether the sub is moving toward the ship or away from it. It will also give information about most large underwater obstructions.
From Miami, he went to Orange, Texas, a coastal city, as an accomplished sonar operator. There he was assigned to a ship which was being built. The ship, APD –72, the Jack C. Robinson was a high-speed destroyer escort. It was built to carry four LCVP’s with 38 marines assigned to each, a total of 152 marines that also required dormitory space on the ship. The four teams of marines with their LCVP’s were to be used for underwater demolition in invasions. Gene was in charge of the sonar team aboard the destroyer escort. The ship had a crew of 200 seamen.
The APD-72 was commissioned in February 1945, and after a few sea trials, she went through the Panama Canal and on into the western Pacific. Her duties were to escort larger ships and patrol for submarines. The ship was assigned to form an anti-submarine ring around the island of Okinawa.
There were several suicidal Kamikazi attacks on many Allied ships during the Okinawa campaign, the last great battle of the Pacific theatre. Gene’s ship was never hit, but it was fully engaged in the invasion. Surely the Allied and Japanese forces that were involved in and around Okinawa can never forget the skies full of screaming, diving, and exploding planes, the burning ships, the thousands of men moving toward the shore in landing craft, and the noise of the big guns that were bombarding the island ahead of the landing parties.
Added to the tragedies of the battle, a typhoon caused several ships in Buckner Bay to drag their anchors and were blown aground. Other ships were blown into each other. Fortunately the Jack Robinson was not one of them.
After the peace treaty was signed at the end of the war, the Jack C. Robinson went to Ykosuka, Japan. Afraid that some of the Japanese subs had not yet heard about the ending of hostilities, the Navy assigned APD-72 to escort large ships.
While on duty escorting the LST 936 from the Philippines to Tokyo Bay, a typhoon arose. In the midst of heaving seas, the LST had an internal explosion probably due to an acetylene tank. The blast caused a hole so deep in the side of the ship that it threatened to sink. Because of the giant swells, the two ships could not get very close. A breeches buoy was rigged between the two ships, and one by one, 196 Army personnel were safely transferred. Only two men were lost in the explosion.
The crew of the LST-936 managed to keep the ship afloat after a gallant effort, and the ship limped into Buckner Bay. While it was anchored there, another typhoon blew up and her anchor chain broke and she was blown onto a reef in Buckner Bay and was never in service again.
The Jack C. Robinson returned to Norfolk early in 1946. After exercises in the Caribbean, she traveled to Brooklyn, and because of her need for extensive repairs, she was towed to Green Cove Springs, Florida and decommissioned in December, 1946. Later she was sold to Chile, and in 1984, she was scrapped.
Lt.(jg). Gene Good was discharged from the U. S. Naval Reserve in 1946. He returned to Tiffin and began to work in the Good Office Supply Co. He married Mary Jane Chapman in 1948. Their daughter Carolyn is an elementary teacher in Mansfield; their son Stephan has a franchise for Val-Pak in Hemet, California; and Patty, in Tiffin, sells General Electric Long Term Care Insurance. Gene’s two grandchildren are in California.
Mary Jane died August 21,1981. Meredith Van Dyke and Gene were married October 9, 1982. Meredith died October 24, 1990. Mary and I thank you, Gene, for sharing your story with us and our readers.
– Percy