BERN DREIER
Age: 85
Born: Aug. 21, 1925
Hometown: New York City; Marysville, Wash.
Residence: Desert Edge
Military branch: U.S. Navy; USS Robert I. Paine (DE-578)
Years served: June, 1943-August, 1946
Rank: Electrician second class
Family: Wife Phyllis (deceased); five children, Doug Dreier, Glen Dreier, Russell Kelly, Dan Graive and Pat Graive, all of Snohomish County, Wash.; eight grandchildren, six great-grandchildren.
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 Stuart Anderson of Rancho Mirage.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II online today at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Bern Dreier and the crew assigned to the newly constructed USS Robert I. Paine (DE-578), were a little leery about the namesake's acronym — R.I.P. — Rest in Peace.
But the ominous initials didn't jinx the escort carrier.
The ship, a submarine hunter stationed in the North Atlantic, survived its tour of duty during World War II.
Dreier wanted in on the war early — “I enlisted when I was 17 because I didn't want to get drafted,” he said.
But school came first.
“My mother wouldn't let me go in until I graduated,” he said.
Right after Dreier graduated from vocational school in June 1943, he enlisted in New York City and was sent to an armory in Manhattan for his physical.
“You stripped down to your shorts — you kept on your shoes,” he said. “Then they would mark on your chest — a green line for ‘drafted,' a blue line for Navy, for Army, red; different colors to show what service you were going in. There were thousands of people going through.”
After being sworn in at noon one day in late June, Dreier was ordered to be at Penn Station at 5 p.m.
The train delivered about 150 newly sworn-in men to a receiving station in Norfolk, Va. It was the longest trip Dreier had taken in his young life.
“I'm a kid that hasn't been more than 25 miles from home,” he said.They were greeted with a barrage of questions when they arrived.“They said, ‘How come you're not in Navy clothes?'” Dreier said. “We said we didn't know.”The men not only didn't have uniforms, they hadn't even attended boot camp.They Authorities didn't know what to do with the new guys. Since they couldn't be sent back, the men were put to work as mess cooks and did other odd jobs as needed around the base.“They said, ‘Then we can give them some boot training here,'” Dreier said.“I'm the envy of every Navy man who went to boot camp,” he said, laughing.
Dreier's boot camp consisted of marching and learning a little bit about Navy operations — taught by an instructor who read from the Navy manual.
Two weeks later, “boot camp” was over and the men — who never received firearms training — received their orders for overseas duty.
The only time Dreier fired a gun was during training with the state National Guard, as a 16-year-old volunteer.
“We would train once a week and play soldier with wooden rifles,” he said laughing. “We didn't have enough (real) rifles at that time.”
Later, with the Guard, he had the opportunity to get in a little practice shooting rifles, shotguns and machine guns.
“That was the only training I have had with guns in all my life,” he said.
Minimally prepared for naval warfare, in December 1943, he was sent to Hingham, Mass., where he was assigned to the USS Robert I. Paine.
Dreier and the first crew of the DE-578 were “plank holders” — which meant they were the crew that put the new ship in commission.
“We put her in commission in February 1944,” he said. “The ship was 300 feet long, 36 feet wide and there were about 200 men aboard.”
“We were on convoy duty,” he said. “A destroyer escort is mainly a sub hunter. We only had three 3-inch guns, depth charges and sound gear — sonar to locate the submarines.”
The ship traveled with convoys, protecting the ships ferrying men back and forth from ports in New York, Boston and Portland, Maine, to the Mediterranean and North Africa.
According to historic accounts, the DE-578 joined the Atlantic Fleet on April 24 and departed Brooklyn the same day to screen the carriers USS Ranger (CV-4) and USS Card (CVE-11) as they transported Army aircraft and Allied personnel to Casablanca, Morocco.
Dreier said he didn't see much of the action, because he was stationed in the bowels of the ship.
“I'm in the engine room,” he said. “I was an electrician. Electricians controlled the propulsion of the screws (propellers) of the ship.”
Once the convoy landed in Casablanca, the ships were unloaded and then started again on their return to the States.
After about a day out at sea, the DE-578 was ordered to rendezvous with another task force. Reaching the predetermined meeting spot, the task force was no where to be seen.
There were no signs of ships on the second day.
“It's a lonesome feeling when you're out there by yourself,” he said.
“We found them the third day,” he said. “What we picked up was a baby aircraft carrier — a freighter that had been cut down and outfitted with a flight deck,” he explained. “One of the destroyers had motor trouble. We were replacing that particular one.”
“On May 29, 1944, somewhere off the coast of Portugal — at sunset — I was topside and I saw a splash of water come from the carrier,” he said. “The carrier had been hit by a torpedo.”
But Dreier couldn't stay to watch the action. He had to hustle back down to the engine room.
“I saw nothing after that,” he said. “I took care of my gauges.”
The carrier, the USS Block Island (CVE- 21), had been sunk.
The DE-578 rescued nearly 300 men and also moved in to protect another escort, the USS Barr (DE-576), that had been hit in the stern.
The torpedoes were launched from U-549. The German sub was sunk shortly thereafter.
Dreier found out later the loss of the carrier had been kept secret — “They didn't announce the sinking until May 1945,” he said.
