Joe Roderick, a fisherman’s story • Part 2

Story as told by Joe Roderick, part 2 of 5

I was in the service from '43 to '45. I went to the submarine service in New London, went cross-country by train and took transport to Pearl Harbor. And from there I went all the way to the Marshall Islands.  I was on a submarine tender. I volunteered for it because my wife at the time was having a baby. l got extra money for hazard duty. I wanted to go to any school. Then I'd be in training for a long while and I would be able to come home. I could have her come up. The first time I went in for an examination, I was going in for PT boats. I had gone out the night before and had a few drinks. I had high blood pressure. They wouldn't pass me. A couple weeks later, the navy wanted volunteers for submarine duty. Submarine duty would have been even closer to home. That was as close as I could get.  Before, it was Davisville, RI. for PT boats.

Submarine training was in New London. I finally went there and they passed me.  My wife had just had the baby.  She comes back to New London while I'm going to school.

I was in New London for about sixteen weeks. I went to diesel school there. When I came out of book camp I had gone to diesel school. I used to run the engine, which was a diesel engine, on the Amelia R when I was fishing with my father-in-law. The first experience I had wasn't as the skipper of the boat. I was the engineer. In fact, that's where they put me in the Navy. I was the engineer.

I got out of the navy in '45. In fact, the only reason I got out so quick was we were bombed in July by a Japanese plane. I took a photo of the northern part of Japan. We were going between two islands in the northern part of Japan by a point, Kamshafka, that sticks down from Siberia. We were going in there to sink fishing boats. That was going to be our job, to go in there and sink fishing boats. We got caught on the surface going between two islands. The plane comes out of nowhere and drops a bomb right on the side of the sub. Well, it did enough damage to make us turn around and come back out. We went all the way back to Pearl for repair. We were in there being repaired and were just about ready to go out on another patrol back to the Yellow Sea when they bombed Hiroshima. I was in Pearl Harbor at the time. They sent us home right off. We were one of the first Navy ships that came home. We were all ready to go out to the Kuril Islands. We had picked up two downed pilots. In fact, at one time I thought that maybe one of them was President Bush, but it wasn't.

When I came back I bought the Ameila R from my father-in-law.  I owned the boat in ‘48.  All that summer we weren’t able to operate the boat dragging.  (Another boat I lost on October 20, 1942)* (We hooked up on something on the bottom when we were hauling back.  That’s why the boat looks so neat there in the picture.)* There was a hopper down in front of the cold storage over in North Truro.  I used to bring men over here to build her.  These men lived in Provincetown.  They’d be here all week.  They had no means of transportation over to that hopper. We used to take them over with the fishing boat. Then we'd go out and go tuna fishing all that summer.  Then we’d come back in at 4 o'clock, come over to the ramp, and take them back to Provincetown. That was a job I had. I couldn't go fishing because the engine was all shot.  I  started harpooning tuna, but then we started using hooks. At that time they didn't have hooks strong enough. That’s when they were developed. It was over 50 years ago, in 1948, when all that big tuna was around here.  It was just to survive. I put in an engine that Fall. I got a surplus engine for $5,000.  That’s how much I had to spend to go out, buy the engine and put it in. I had to go and get a mortgage, a $6,000 mortgage.

I had gone to the insurance company. I had insured the boat. Seven days after I had put the engine in the boat, l go out fishing. We were off the west side of Stellwaggen Bank. The first day I set out and was towing along the bottom. I was hoping to go for flounders, but I hooked on something on the bottom. I think it was an anchor that was attached to a wreck. And I got it up so high the doors were up, but the net and the cables were still down underneath. They used to use 15 to 25 feet of cable from the net down to the doors. Whatever was on the bottom was more than the boat could handle without capsizing. So when I got it in a certain position, I was paralyzed. I mean, there was nothing I could do really about releasing given the kind of rig that we had. We were at the.point when what was coming up off the bottom couldn't come up any more without turning us over. And when she came, it just flipped us right over. The thing was still hooked to the bottom.

My younger brother Sonny and Gus Reis were fishing with me. Gus Reis climbed up the bottom of the boat and sat on the keel. Didn't even get his feet wet. My brother Sonny, to get away from the boat, dove off the side of the boat as it was going over. I was caught in the pilothouse. We had an old, small pilothouse. It was only half a pilothouse. On one side was a wooden door, just a small half a door.  On the other side was a full door. Up in the rigging we used to have a spare net. That net came right across the open door. There was only one place that I could get out. If I got bumped in the head or something and I couldn't unhook this door on the side, I would have been right underneath the net. I don't know what would have happened. I got out. I dove and came out underneath. I had to wait for the engine to stop. The engine was still turning even though the boat was upside down because the air was trapped in it and it didn't fill with water. I dove and I came out and I sat on the keel with the other two fellas, my brother and Gus Reis. And then while we were sitting on the keel, Manuel Thomas comes alongside. That was the same·year that Manuel Thomas bought the Joan and Tom. He was the one that picked us up. I think he'd been fishing for three or four days. It was his third day. When we went out, he was just going out too.  He came alongside while l was sitting on the keel. We jumped on the boat without any trouble.A few seconds later one side of the boat come up, lets the air out and down it went. It stayed tight there. It was too deep at that time to salvage.

The Insurance company paid off. I hadn't paid one red cent to them. I had a piece of paper saying that the boat was insured. It was. I always remembered because it wasn't from the fellow that owned the insurance company. It was from his secretary and her name was on it. I always remembered her name was Agnes Asperin. Always remembered it. And I was a friend of the fellow that owned the insurance company. The $6,000 insurance money more or less took care of what I originally put in the boat, but I was $3,000 or $4,000 more in debt.  Well, $3,000 or $4,000 then was a hell of a lot of money. I bought the boat originally for $6,000. That was a lot of money.  It was almost two or three weeks out until I got the Amelia R. straightened out and finished what I had to do for the Coast Guard. Then I went with Manuel Thomas on the Joan and Tom as one of his crew members.  The next December I decided maybe we ought to go to California. 

Part 3 coming soon …