GLENN THOMPSON
Age: 93
Born: March 13, 1917
Hometown: Seattle
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Merchant Marine
Years served: 1941-1945
Rank: Gun crew messman
Family: Wife Kathleen (deceased); two sons, Lyle Thompson of Andrew Thompson of Los Angeles.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II 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
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran John Paul Kelley of Indian Wells.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Glenn Thompson's two-week stint as a crew member aboard the luxury liner SS Aleutian whet his appetite for future sea adventures.
Thompson, a Merchant Marine veteran, had recently graduated from high school when he received a call from a cousin working as chief steward on the cruise ship.
“He called me and said his bellhop came down with the measles,” and he needed a replacement, Thompson said.
The ship was getting ready to embark on a 14-day cruise through Alaska's inside passage in June of 1937.
“He said, ‘Can you make the trip to Alaska?,' I said, ‘I sure can!'”
“My job was to service all the passengers who were on board,” he said. “Everything was so first-class — the food and everything.”
“I enjoyed it so much, when I got back to Seattle I decided to take out papers to become a Merchant Marine,” he said.
After filing his papers, he found a job working at a paint manufacturing company in Seattle.
When World War II broke out, Thompson received a deferment.
He was manufacturing blackout paint used to block light coming through windows — a precaution taken while the U.S. was under threat of attack.
But the deferment was short-lived. He soon was soon called to duty as a member of the Merchant Marines.
His first assignment was aboard the cargo freighter Hamlin F. McCormick.
The ship would soon be making a run up to Alaska, but it was no SS Aleutian.
“It was in Lake Washington in the scrap pile,” he said.
There was a shortage of freighters available to haul supplies to military bases. So old, World War I-era ships and other barely seagoing clunkers were put back into service.
“It took two weeks to clean it up and get it ready to go to Juneau, Alaska,” Thompson said. “It was full of rats.”
In Juneau, the 12-man crew spent nine days at the Army dock, loading bombs, ammunition, and general supplies and equipment to deliver to bases in the Aleutian Islands.
For protection, the cargo ships carried six gunmen — three stationed fore and three aft. Thompson served as gun crew messman aboard ship.
“My duty was to take care of the gun crew,” he said. “I made sure they had clothing and everything they needed. I took care of their quarters.”
Their first stop was the island of Adak.
“We left Juneau in a terrible storm,” he said. “The Gulf of Alaska was very rough. “We lost some road (grading) equipment that was tied on but broke the lines on deck.”
“We only traveled at night and were completely blacked out” to avoid being detected by the enemy, he said.
“We were lucky to get across the gulf with an old ship that was creaking and cracking.”
Six days later, the ship arrived at Adak, where the men unloaded the cargo assigned for that drop-off point.
The second stop was Amchitka, “Another sad island with no trees, no brush and the wind blowing all the time.”
Big caves had been dug on Amchitka to house military electronic equipment.
In one cave, “They even had a movie screen. We got to see a little movie.”
When the crew departed Amchitka, they were bound for Attu, the westernmost island in the 300-island chain.
Attu was in enemy territory.
“We were there for four days unloading,” he said. “When we left Attu to come back to Juneau for another load, the ship wouldn't steer.”
The ship was raised up higher in the water after all the heavy cargo had been removed.
“We had to go to Amchitka and load more junk on,” he said.
“Because of the delay in crossing the Gulf of Alaska, we needed to replace some food for the gun crew,” he said. “They drank a lot of milk, so I got 25 gallons (delivered) by sea plane.”
Thompson slept in the fantail — or “rear end,” of the ship.
The sound of the shaft axle, turning all night long, became familiar and comforting.
If the purring drone of the machinery stopped, that's when he'd start to worry.
“You get so accustomed to the sound of the engine,” he said. “It was peaceful. I enjoyed that.”
When the men returned to Seattle, the ship was taken out of commission and returned to the “bone yard,” Thompson said.
“I signed on the Baranof, a much smaller ship but (it) still carried a gun crew,” he said. “Her job was to travel to all the small villages (in Alaska) and load out canned salmon and take it back to Seattle.”
“We were the second ship in Nome after the ice broke up,” he said. “Huge icebergs were floating all around us. We were not allowed to go ashore because of the danger of (traveling in) small boats in the ice-covered bay.”
“The Baranof was having some engine problems so we took it back to Seattle and signed on to the Cordova, a small freighter with a gun crew. We traveled (to) all the water ports hauling freight and salmon.”
The merchant mariner soaked up the scenery.
“The trip from Seattle through the Straights of Juan de Fuca is absolutely the most beautiful trip you'll ever see.”
