Roy E. Grice
Age: 98
Hometown: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Residence: Indio
Military branch: U.S. Navy; USS Medusa — the U.S. Navy's first purpose-built repair ship. She served in the U.S. Navy from 1924 to 1946.
Years served: 1931-1941, 1942-1945
Rank: Chief petty officer
Family: Wife Bernice (deceased); three children; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II Wednesday through Sunday through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
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Roy Grice had already served 10 years in the U.S. Navy by the time the country entered the war in December 1941.
“I joined the Navy by accident,” said Grice, 98.
Grice, who now resides in Indio, said the stock market had just crashed, he couldn't find work and found himself hanging out at the Navy recruiting station in Cedar Rapids.
Day after day, “I just sat there talking to them,” he said.
One day, a chief asked him if he'd like to join him and three Navy recruits he was taking to Des Moines for physicals.
He told Grice he'd enjoy the company on the long drive back home.
As it turned out, one of the recruits was “scared to death” about joining because he was afraid of drowning. The recruit told the doctor how he'd heard stories about how a couple of men drowned during every training class.
Grice said the chief turned to him and asked if he was game to join the Navy.
Grice made the decision, on the spot, to enlist.
“I went to San Diego instead of going home,” he said.
It was 1931, and a then-19-year-old Grice had just finished basic training.
He was sent to machinists mate school in Norfolk, Va., where he spent nine months learning everything about machine shop work.
Soon after, Grice was sent to San Pedro where he was assigned to the USS Medusa, a fleet repair ship.
Such vessels are equipped to make extensive repairs to ships of the fleet. They've been called “small Navy yards.”
As soon as Grice walked up the gangplank to board the ship, word came down that he was to report directly to the quartermaster.
“The quartermaster said, ‘You're a mess cook; report to the galley,'” Grice said recalling the orders.
“I didn't even have a clothes locker yet,” he said.
So, after nine months of machine shop training, he'd been assigned to spend three months in the galley. His job was to serve 20 sailors — two tables of 10 men — three meals a day.
His brother, who also served in the Navy, told him the better the service, the bigger the tips from the sailors on payday.
“I used to get $5 to $10 apiece from these guys each pay period,” said Grice.
After his stint in the galley, Grice spent much of the next 10 years repairing battleships of the Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor.
One by one, the ships would pull up alongside the Medusa, docked in San Pedro, for repairs.
“Each ship had a year to make up a list of repairs, and we had 21 days to complete them,” Grice said.
The USS Nevada, USS Arizona, USS New York, USS California and USS Idaho were among the many battleships Grice worked on.
“We worked on all the battleships,” he said. “We'd go out to Pearl (Harbor) once in a while. “When we went in to Pearl, we'd tie-up in battleship row.”
There, Grice and his buddies had many conversations about an inevitable attack on the harbor.
“We sat around talking about it every night,” Grice said. “We knew there was going to be war. It was no surprise.”
After 10 years in the Navy — two weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor — an executive officer asked Grice if he was going to be shipping overseas.
Grice said yes but wanted to see his newborn son for the first time before leaving the country. Grice asked for a 30-day leave, but was told only chiefs and officers were given leave.
So Grice left the Navy, went home to San Pedro to meet his second-born son — and, like the rest of the nation — heard the news on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
“I cried like a baby,” he said, fearful that his close friends on the Medusa may have been killed in the attack.
“I've got to go back, they need me there,” Grice said he told his wife.
As it turned out, the Medusa, which had been tied up at battleship row in the USS Nevada's spot in Pearl Harbor when the battleship returned, was looking for a new spot to tie-up at the time of the attack.
“She got hit by rifle fire by the planes,” but no one aboard was killed, he said.
Grice rejoined the Navy in 1942 and was sent to Camp Elliott in San Diego to wait for his orders.
As it turned out, Grice was one of the senior enlisted men at Camp Elliott and ended up being put in charge of a group of new recruits for about three days.
Then, instead of being sent overseas, he was named fire chief of the base.
He received a weeklong crash course in fire safety, prevention and control from a handful of Marines — then all the responsibility was turned over to Grice.
“We had a lot of brush fires,” he said. “Naval airplane pilots on their way back to base dropped off their extra flares,” he said.
They'd bomb the hills, and Grice and his crew were responsible for putting out the fires.
Although Grice was in a position of great responsibility and had been promoted to chief petty officer, he was still itching to join the battle in the Pacific.
He was eventually sent to a camp in Northern California, to wait — along with about 75 to 80 other chiefs — for new orders.
While waiting to get his orders, the war ended, he said. Grice said he still regrets not getting overseas in time to join the battle.
