Veteran Jerry Grassi stands with an American flag at his Palm Desert home. He saw heavy combat action in the Pacific aboard the USS Gatling. / Jay Calderon, The Desert Sun
Provided photo
JERRY GRASSI
Age: 85
Born: Feb. 19, 1925
Hometown: East Harlem, N.Y.
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Navy; USS Gatling (DD-671)
Years served: May 1943- Nov. 27, 1945
Rank: Coxswain
Family: Wife Evelyn; one child, Bobby Grassi of Palm Desert, two grandchildren
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The men on the USS Gatling destroyer partied so hard when they got word the war was over, it was a good thing there weren't any straggling Japanese ships or planes lurking nearby.
“If the enemy would have come that day, they would have wiped us out. Everybody was drinking torpedo juice,” U.S. Navy coxswain Jerry Grassi said.
But thanks to Grassi, he and his friends imbibed something a little more refined than the 180-proof grain alcohol fuel used in torpedo motors.
On one of his trips ashore, Grassi smuggled booze inside an empty box of Nestle chocolate bars he taped around his leg.
He stashed the two pints of whiskey in his locker.
“I had this saved for special friends,” he said.
“When V-J Day came,” he broke out the booze and the boys had a big celebration.
Grassi saw heavy combat action in the Pacific aboard the USS Gatling.
“I went from the Marshall Islands up to the strikes in Japan,” he said.
When Grassi was drafted, he was working at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, delivering flowers for $14 a week, plus tips.
“I was delivering boutonnieres to Cole Porter,” he said.
“I was the breadwinner of the family,” Grassi said. “Those were Depression days.”
President Herbert Hoover and his wife were staying at the hotel, and Grassi would deliver floral table centerpieces for the couple's dinner parties.
“They lived in a suite,” he said. “Room 28A.”
“Even the wife wanted to give us a tip,” he said. “She was a beautiful woman. A very nice woman. I just called her ‘Mrs. Hoover.'”
Every little bit of extra cash helped.
“In those days, you turned everything over to your family,” he said.
After training, Grassi was assigned to the USS Gatling, a brand new destroyer.
The 300-man crew escorted the aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, through the Panama Canal.
In late October 1944, the men of the USS Gatling had a close call during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea — one of the four major naval engagements during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
“All of a sudden, our ship is dead in the water,” when an enemy plane dropped a bomb, he said.
It was a narrow miss.
As the bomb fell toward the water, “All of a sudden the ship takes off,” he said.
Nearby, the aircraft carrier USS Princeton was getting ready to launch its planes for an air attack. In preparation, many containers of gasoline had been brought up on deck.
“They got hit with a bomb,” Grassi said. “The fire was burning pretty bad. ... All hell broke loose,” he said.
The men of the USS Gatling pulled about 300 survivors from the water. The ship, which already carried 300 crew members, was packed tight for four days before the Gatling landed the survivors at Ulithi.
The Gatling then rejoined carrier task force groups for November and December strikes against the Philippines.
In January 1945, hoping to locate and destroy a Japanese fleet in the area, Adm. William Halsey took the task force into the China Sea and hit targets in Indochina and on the China coast.
On Feb. 19 and 20, as part of Destroyer Division 99, she escorted the battleship, the USS North Carolina and heavy cruiser, USS Indianapolis, to support the Marines invading the Japanese stronghold on Iwo Jima.
Months later, on July 26, 1945, the world's first operational atomic bomb was delivered by the USS Indianapolis to the island of Tinian. The bomb would be loaded into the B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, and dropped over Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6.
Days after delivering the bomb to Tinian, the USS Indianapolis, traveling unescorted, was hit by Japanese submarine torpedo fire.
The ship went down, and nearly 900 crew members perished. It's considered the greatest naval disaster in history.
“On my 20th birthday, we invaded Iwo,” Grassi said.
“Iwo was the main one. “I was on a 40 mm machine gun. We were supposed to take it in three days.”
It took more than a month to secure the island.
When the flag was being raised on Iwo Jima, an announcement came over the ship's loudspeaker: “If you want to see history being made, look 90 degrees off the port bow.”
“You could see the flag going up,” he said.
Later, “We anchored in Guam,” he said. “You could see the fleet. ... From horizon to horizon you could see ships, which meant one thing. They were getting ready for the invasion.”
Fortunately, the declaration of the end of war came before the attack was launched, he said.
Shortly after completing his military service, Grassi was back at his old job at the Waldorf Astoria — where he had the opportunity to speak to a special hotel guest.
“(President Harry) Truman was out for his walk,” Grassi said. “I said, ‘Mr. Truman, I want to thank you for dropping that atomic bomb because you saved lives on both sides.'
“He said, ‘I appreciate that, because it was a tough decision.'”
