Veteran reflects on life aboard ship

Capt. Robert A. Jaycox served in Navy, was harbormaster

Memories of World War II remain vivid for a Navy veteran whose service took him from Lorain to seas around the world.

Capt. Robert A. Jaycox, 91, of Lorain, is the author of “Navy Tin Can Man: World War II,” a memoir about his boyhood, his time serving in the Navy and his life afterward.

The book is serious in parts when Jaycox

reflects on his transition from 17-year-old boy to sailor ready for combat on the high seas in wartime.

But in conversation, Jaycox peppers his recollections with some humorous stories about criss-crossing the Atlantic, serving in the Mediterranean Sea, then going to the Pacific Theater.

Getting started

Jaycox said he first heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as he rode with his parents in their car.

He said they were traveling across Sandusky Bay when the news broke.

“I wanted to be a P-51 pilot, I dreamed of that,” Jaycox said, referring to the P-51 Mustang fighter plane that became famous during World War II.

When Jaycox tried to enlist, the Army Air Corps deemed him too young. He joined the Navy on his 17th birthday in 1943, leaving behind his days as a Lorain High School student.

“I got an education in the Navy,” he said.

Meeting a president’s son

At Mers El Kebir, a port city in Oran Province, Algeria, Jaycox joined the destroyer USS Mayrant, DD402.

The ship was known for an attack by German planes in July 1943.

Despite severe damage, the crew kept the Mayrant afloat, got to port and patched the hole in its hull.

Eventually, the Mayrant got to the Algerian harbor where Jaycox boarded in a crew of about 14 sailors.

The ship’s executive officer was Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., the son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The elder Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the president’s son there, Jaycox said.

“They came aboard the Mayrant and spent some time, and I thought to myself, boy, I’m in company with some pretty good people here,” Jaycox said.

On the forecastle, Roosevelt Jr. welcomed Jaycox and the sailors new to the vessel.

“He came up to every one of us and asked us, what do you want to be?” Jaycox said. “Well, me being a 17-year-old kid that didn’t know what the hell he was doing, I said, I want to be a carpenter.

“And he laughed and

he says, a carpenter? He says, them ships are long gone. Wooden ships — he made a joke out of it. But he says, you’ll do fine, son. Go ahead, do whatever you want. And I ended up being a bosun’s mate.”

North Atlantic

The Mayrant eventually went to Charleston, S.C., for repairs, then to the North Atlantic in winter for patrol and escorts.

The watches included pounding the guns with wood mallets to break off ice, Jaycox said.

“It was rough duty though, terrible duty, zero temperatures almost all the time,” he said. “And Nova Scotia up there, it’s a cold area.”

On the bridge, Jaycox, a sky and surface lookout, could hear the ping of the sonar sounder.

It was annoying, he said, until he began to recognize the change in tone when the vessel detected an enemy submarine.

“Countless times, I was amazed at how close to the coast them German subs got,” Jaycox said. Sometimes not. “Anyway, we killed more red snapper fish than we killed Germans,” Jaycox said. “That damn sounder would pick up schools of fish and they’d drop depth charges on them.”

Off Nova Scotia, even in the cold of winter, men would come out in small boats to collect the fish that became casualties of war, he said.

Into the Pacific

As the war wound down in Europe, the Mayrant eventually made its way to the Pacific Theater, where fighting continued later into 1945.

While there were threats at sea, the sailors in the Pacific witnessed the effects of island battles.

“I think every one of us on the ship had more respect for the foot soldiers than for ourselves,” Jaycox said.

Jaycox was part of the crew operating the “whale boat” that would take officers ashore.

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Mayrant went to Marcus Island so its officers could accept the surrender of Japanese forces there.

Ashore, Jaycox and another sailor wandered away from their boat to explore.

When they saw the officers returning, the sailors took a shortcut and ran down the beach to beat them back to the landing boat, Jaycox said.

He and his fellow sailor thought they were unseen.

The next day, the entire crew of the Mayrant was granted shore leave to take photos — except for Jaycox and his fellow sailor. They had been spotted scurrying back to the boat.

From the deck of the Mayrant, Jaycox said he could watch a crew of Japanese working on the beach he ran the day before.

The deck officer told him they were digging up landmines planted in the sand.

“I look back and I think, boy, I got two legs, I could have lost them,” Jaycox said. “That’s about as close as I ever got, right there. And there I had no business doing that.”

Living life

Jaycox mustered out of the Navy in June 1947. Later, he met Virginia, the woman who would become his wife; she died in 2007 at 80.

They had two children, Robert Jr., a Vietnam veteran who worked with his father in fishing; and Carol, who now is retired from CenturyLink.

“Navy Tin Can Man” is loaded with memories about boats, Lake Erie and Lorain.

Jaycox also penned a volume about his wife, titled “A Love Story Good Grief,” and has a mystery novel in draft form.

He keeps his Lorain home adorned with mementoes from life on Lake Erie and his days as the Lorain harbor master and owner of a charter fishing boat.

And, of course, Navy memorabilia, including his bosun’s whistle.

Capt. Robert A. Jaycox