Mario Sivilli

“…The Captain said, “This may well be a suicide operation.”

Mario Sivilli enlisted in the Navy in 1940, when he was 18 years old. He served as a Radio Man, 3rd Class, but did the job of a 1st class Radio Man. Mr. Sivilli’s ship was torpedoed on September 15th, 1942, killing two of his good friends and creating a 32-foot hole in the side his ship.

I was 18 when I enlisted. I was in a movie house when Pearl Harbor was bombed, in the 86th Street Theater in New York City. They stopped the movie and the manager came up on stage and said, “We have an announcement to make.” He said, “All service men please report to your bases.” And I did.

I went back to the ship in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Officer of the deck who was in charge at the gangway said “Nothing’s going to happen. You might as well go and finish your leave.” So I went home.

The USS North Carolina, BB55, 1942.

The next morning we were ready to leave the Navy Yard. This was a new ship; it was a first of the many. There was still a lot of work being done; welding lines and power cords all across the ship, back and forth. You might say it was still under construction, but was still ready for sea.

When we first arrived at Pearl Harbor, many of the ships were still sunk. There was a lot of activity going on, and there was a lot of oil in the water. We got quite a welcome. When we pulled in with the Saratoga, a huge ship over a thousand feet long, and they saw a brand new battle ship, it raised morale tremendously.

When we came back from the Guadalcanal operation, (we had been there about two months), from August 7th to September 20,th and we had been through storms and a carrier battle, the ship’s paint looked awful, and we looked pretty ragged. They said that the Captain from the enterprise sent us a message by TBS. TBS was talk between ships—line of sight communications. He said “showboat,” which was our nickname, “showboat are you on fire?” They told us later that when they looked at our ship all they saw was smoke and flame. Our guns were just going so fast and so much smoke that even at that speed they could hardly see the ship. They thought we were burning, but it was all the excessive anti-aircraft fire going out.

CR Division, USS North Carolina, BB55, 1941.

We had what they called a Fleet Marine force detachment, every major ship has them, and still do. They manned among other things mount one and two, mount one and two is two guns in each mount, and we had 10 mounts all together with twenty-five inch guns. They were powerful and they were fired so fast that the muzzles of the guns had the paint burned about five inches back. That was the first time a new battle ship had been in that kind of action and they set the pattern at that time.

Our task force was formed up with three carriers: one battle ship, cruisers, destroyers, and supply ships, with a large group called the 1st Marine Division. That was called the Umbrella Division because they brought in people from other divisions, other sections and other assignments to be assigned under the 1st Division for the landing in Guadalcanal.

We left about two weeks later and formed up task force 16, and headed toward New Caledonia. Outside of New Caledonia, we teamed up with a large force of transports and supply ships, of which the transports carried the Marines for the landing. That was on August 7, 1942.
The landings actually started a half hour earlier just north of Guadalcanal across the bay. There was a place called Tulagi and Gavutu Island and that’s where the fighting started before the main landing on Guadalcanal. On those two islands, the fighting was ferocious and that’s where this flag was raised, on Gavutu Hill.

At seven o’clock the main body landed at Guadalcanal and there wasn’t much activity because the Japanese didn’t have a lot of first line troops there. So, going in on the first day of Guadalcanal was a breeze for the Marines. What followed the next five months was horrendous. A lot of very vicious, and bloody battles.

The day we were torpedoed, September 15, 1942, the carrier Wasp was hit with 3 torpedoes and the remaining 3 went across 4 and a half miles of ocean. One hit us by accident and another hit a destroyer called the O’Brien. The O’Brien sank later, but we suffered a 32-foot hole on the side of the ship. I came very close to cashing in my chips that day. A friend of mine who slept above me was about to take a shower and I said, “Lets go see what’s happening.” Because we heard that the Wasp was on fire. And he said “No I want to take a shower and get a little rest before I go on watch.” I kept after him and he said. “No I need to get 15 minutes of sleep.” So anyway he went forward to the head. The head is a bathroom, shower. There were three men working in there, they call them ship fitters, and they were working on the plumbing. A torpedo had hit right below that and all four of them were killed. I very nearly went to the bathroom myself but I said I could wait as I wanted to see what’s going on. The rules on a ship for traveling are up and forward on the starboard side, which is the right side, down and aft on the portside. In other words it’s this way down and after on the portside. That’s the route of travel. I was about to sneak up on the portside and if I got caught, I would have been put on report. I would have been turned in. Nothing serious, but against the rules. Instead I crossed over and went forward and up. I came up and we were in a turn. When I came up on the main deck, and the carrier Hornet was on the right side, also turning, as we were protecting the Hornet, I started to run between the two turrets to go across. Halfway over, the torpedo hit. I went down hard. From standing and running to being face down. I don’t remember falling, but I went down on my nose and it bled. I got cut on my knee, but it wasn’t serious. I was trying to reach friend of mine who was on watch to ask him what was happening. As it was, the water that came up, a huge rush of water sucked him over the side. If I had been 10 seconds sooner, if I would have gone up the left side of the ship, against the rules, to talk to him, I would have gone over with him. Just within 15 minutes, I could have been killed twice, or might have been. When I fell, I turned over and saw the tube of water rising. It went up so high, I thought when will it stop going up? Then, finally, a lot of it started coming down and I was soaked with salt water and gunpowder from the torpedo and oil from the ship. I smelled pretty bad for a while. That was September 15, 1942. One submarine was credited for sinking a carrier—a destroyer—and damaging a new battle ship.

Reunion on BB55, Wilmington, NC, 1986 with Al Phillips, Mario Sivilli, and Lou Metz.

The fellow who slept above me, Leonard Pone, was killed. The fellow that was topside as the look out in front of a twenty-millimeter gun, Bob Geary, was killed, and he was a good friend of mine. His bunk was just across from mine. I had two friends that I lost the same day. You don’t dwell on it. You just go ahead with your work and you have your private thoughts. For other incidents, we had burials at sea. It was depressing for a while but I didn’t have a psychologist at my elbow; we had each other. I think that was better than a psychologist. Then, for those of us closer to those men who were killed, were pallbearers and carriers and we took the men off the ship to an island called Tonga Tabu. We buried them there, and that was satisfying. They didn’t just pick people at random, they picked those of us closest.

I don’t usually talk about it. In late June, we were moving west along the Solomon’s. We were starting to invade the New Georgia Islands, which is part of the Solomon chain going west. Some of our men had landed there and one day the Captain came on the speaker, which the Captain on a big ship seldom did in those days. He said we were asked by Admiral Halsey to take on a mission and it was likely that we would not return. The mission was to cruise between Rendover and Munda, which was a northern island of the New Georgia group.

Between Munda and Rendover there was a channel called Blanche Channel, a very dangerous channel. We were supposed to go through that channel with cruiser and destroyers and bombard Munda where the enemy troops were. The captain asked for volunteers only. When we left, everyman was on that ship. No one stayed behind. I didn’t want to be left behind; I had too many friends on the ship. I think everyone felt the same way. You wouldn’t want to go home with the thought that you left the ship at the time when they needed you the most.

When we got back to Pearl Harbor I was transferred to a ship called U.S.S Curtiss. The Curtiss had a more active front line war record then many war ships. I was radio operator and I was assigned to Admiral Hoover’s flag, which they call Admiral Hoovers staff. We had a lot of radio traffic, it was a major network operation and it was a 24-hour thing with three eight-hour watches. We got ready for the first operation at Tarawa, which was in the Gilberts. When we got there, they were still fighting on the island. We pulled into the lagoon and we could see the tragedy of the Marines; the trap that they fell into. There were bodies in the lagoon all over. When we dropped the anchor, they sent an assignment of men and boats to pick up the bodies because they were just scattered everywhere.

One of the major problems that happened to the invading force at Tarawa, there was a Japanese transport off shore in the lagoon that had been sunk days or weeks before. The Japanese had placed machine gunners on that abandoned transport, and when our Marine’s went in, they were machine gunned from behind as well as from the front. So those poor guys never had a chance. Then our planes came in and destroyed the transport. I was sent to shore with a packet of confidential papers called guard mail. I had to wear a pistol. Who ever has guard mail wear a pistol and little putties and an armband and they knew who you were and nobody bothered you. When I talked to the Marine Captain on Tarawa he said “don’t go up that end of the island they’re still fighting there.” and we could see it, it was only a mile away, maybe less, but we could hear it and see it. He said, “There’s still a lot of action going on there” so I did what he said. Meanwhile the ship I had been on, the battle ship that I had left was bombarding all these islands with their guns. They were huge, the shell stood 6 feet tall and the armor piercing shells weighed 2700lbs, like a Volkswagen. We could shoot one 26 or 28 miles. I kept the record of bombing raids on the islands that we had taken from the Japanese. They were not too far away so they’d come over as soon as we’d taken those islands. They’d come over with high altitude bombers and from 20,000 feet. On a dark night, they could drop a row of bombs down the airstrip, right down the middle of the strip. They had people specially trained for night vision. They didn’t have radar when they would fly in at night. They did a lot of damage. They used these night lookouts for ranging. We used radar, they used humans, and the bombers did the same thing, they could see farther than any of us could, as they were specially trained for it. We were bombed 52 times, in the time I was on the Curtis from the Ellis Islands to the Gilbert Islands to the Marshall Islands.

1986 Reunion BB55. L-R 4 Survivors of the Japanese 1-19 submarine which torpedoed Mario Sivilli’s Battleship North Carolina and sank Carrier Wasp and Destroyer O’Brien, September 15, 1942 at Indispensible Straits, off Guadalcanal.

1986 Reunion BB55. L-R 4 Survivors of the Japanese 1-19 submarine which torpedoed Mario Sivilli’s Battleship North Carolina and sank Carrier Wasp and Destroyer O’Brien, September 15, 1942 at Indispensible Straits, off Guadalcanal.Then I left and of course the bombing continued after I left. I went back to amphibious training at Iriquoise Point on Oahu. After the invasion of the Marines at Peleliu on September 15, 1944 we went in as a communication support team in case the Marines needed us. We were dressed the same way, we had rifles, ammunition, equipment, but we were held back from the front lines, they were the ones doing the shooting. The island was 5 by 7 miles long. You couldn’t run very far and the bullets that missed the guys at the frontline came after us. The landing at Peleliu was suppose to take 2 days, the invasion and occupation of the island took 3 months and the Marine Corps called it the most vicious fighting in the history of the Marine Corps, worse than anything else, and you consider Iwo Jima which was a bigger operation.

On Peleliu there was coral and no place to dig a foxhole. If you fell and cut yourself, there was a good chance you’d get coral poisoning. Also, the water they sent over was tainted. A lot of guys got sick. So here we are in 100 degrees heat, 100% humidity sometimes, and its high as 115 degrees, bad water, not much food. Those guys went through hell. There’s a saying that came out of Guadalcanal, and it goes, “and when his time has come, to St. Peter he will tell, one more Marine reporting sir, I served my time in hell.”

After the occupation in Peleliu I stayed on two more months. I had a minor injury, which wouldn’t heal. It was on my ankle, on the right leg. In February ‘45 is when I left Peleliu for the hospital in Guam. From Guam to Hawaii and then back to the states. I landed March 1st in San Francisco and I was overseas almost exactly 33 months. Of course I went to Treasure Island and they sent me to the hospital for some treatment and I got 30 days leave and went home. After that I reported to New Port, Rhode Island, to the barracks. From there all of us in the barracks were sent to the hospital for treatment.

They said you could pick your assignment. For some reason I don’t know why I picked Charleston Navy Yard, I just wanted to see the south. It was good duty. Then after six months they said, “well your leg injury is healed, at least we think it’s healed.” It wasn’t really, but they said, “We’ll have to release you.” I had gone in and enlisted on a six-year cruise with the intent of staying in for twenty years. But he said, “You can’t stay in the Navy.” Today they wouldn’t say that. But in those days you either had to be fit for duty or not at all. So they said, “this could come back at any time and then disable you.” So they released me. I was in the Navy 5 years, 6 days, 2 hours. and that’s the story of my life in the US Navy.,

The most dangerous thing I ever did was a toss up between Peleliu and the Munda Operation. We actually expected that we would be sunk. We had pretty well accepted that as the Captain said, “This may well be a suicide operation.” When a Captain said that, and he wants to sort out the crew, separate and have only volunteers enough to man the ship. That gets you thinking about the consequences. As I say I think most guys were not afraid. It may have been our youth. I did things when I was a kid that I wouldn’t do now. Well I think too there was also collectiveness as incentive. There was teamwork: a feeling of teamwork, a feeling that whatever happens at least I’m not alone. I think that kept most of us going. You know, its one thing to be in trouble but the thing you dread the most is being in trouble alone. When you are in trouble with other people you have company you have understanding and you have maybe an effort to counter act the problem. When you are alone, it could be the worst feeling. I think that may be part of what kept the prisoners of war going. If they had been separated and isolated like one in one town and one in another, I don’t think they would have made it. They had each other to rely on and to support. I think that was a big part of it. I think it’s really how we were on the right side made a big difference. The Japanese thought they were on the right side. We did find that whenever we did take Japanese prisoners, and that wasn’t too often, we treated them right. We always did–if you took a prisoner you treated them well. Fed them, gave them cigarettes. It was amazing how they would tell you everything they knew. You didn’t have to grill them, you didn’t have to threaten them. They would just speak up and tell you everything. They didn’t expect humane treatment; they were even told that as an American Marine you had to kill your mother and father. You never heard that one? This is what they were told. You had to kill your parents to be a Marine. That’s really stretching a point, but the Japanese people believed it. What they didn’t realize is that it put fear in them. They weren’t aware of it at the time, but the fear was implanted. I would be afraid of a marine who killed his parents, but that wasn’t true. A lot of things were said; the Japanese people were very sheltered. Nothing got in that the Japanese authorities didn’t want in. I don’t feel as harsh against the people of that period, as I would of the people today. Today they are worldly wise; they are experienced with communications all over the world. Those days they were very sheltered and very blocked out. They were blocked out of communication, out of the communication cycle. So they believed whatever they were told.

We used to listen to the radio and hear Tokyo Rose. When we were off watch, we would sometimes be lucky and catch a broadcast. She would say things that…you know what’s amazing? Their intelligence was far more reaching than we realized. It was something like, “we know where you are Admiral Hoover, and we know what you are doing.” We were amazed. We couldn’t figure out how she could know. By putting different pieces of intelligence together, they would come up with a pattern. They realized that Admiral Hoover was taking on an assignment at a certain time. Some how they found out he went aboard the Curtiss and when the Curtiss left. When you put it all in the mill, then it takes a team of intelligence people to do that, you can come up with a ninety percent probability. They were good at that. They were very courageous, you know. If you ask a Marine whom you would rather go up against, a Muslim terrorist or a Japanese, I think he would say, I’d take the terrorist. Japanese were very clever–very resourceful. They did things that nobody expected. They did some very dumb things too; they made some mistakes just as we did. You know, there was a saying at one time that the reason we won the war was because we made fewer mistakes.

When the war was over I felt like the other thirteen million other GI’s: I wanted to go home. Well, I was discharged at a time when a lot of them were being discharged.

I wanted to stay in for the same reason I wanted to join the Navy in the first place, I liked the life–it was a good life. It’s still a good life. Most of the guys in the Army couldn’t wait to get out; you can’t blame them. In the Navy, you can look for progress and educational areas in technology. In the Army as a soldier you were very limited. If you just wanted to, if you like the Army and you just wanted to enjoy post-war life with minimal responsibilities, it was a good life. Those who wanted to advance in the Army in technology did, and same way with the Marines. The Navy, was high-tech, it had to be. You had ships you have apparatus, electronic, electrical equipment. Optical equipment navigational apparatus, everything was technology. They were far more high tech than the other services. There was more of a future in the Navy.