`Hell broke loose'; WWII vet remembers ship attack.DUDLEY - "At midnight, hell broke loose." Frank A. Hmay looks at the words he wrote in pencil in the thin notebook almost 64 years ago and says he remembers that night well. There were 26 German bombers and torpedo planes attacking the convoy that Mr. Hmay's destroyer USS USS abbr. 1. United States Senate 2. United States ship USS abbr (= United States Ship) → Namensteil von Schiffen der Kriegsmarine Blakeley was helping protect off the coast of Africa on April 12, 1944. A torpedo hit a nearby destroyer, killing everyone in the engine room. A German bomber was hit by a British fighter and crashed into mountains. Mr. Hmay's ship, a reconditioned re·con·di·tion tr.v. re·con·di·tioned, re·con·di·tion·ing, re·con·di·tions To restore to good condition, especially by repairing, renovating, or rebuilding. World War I four-stack destroyer, opened fire on a German plane whose torpedo went astern a·stern adv. & adj. 1. Behind a vessel. 2. At or to the stern of a vessel. 3. With or having the stern foremost; backward. after the ship made a hard turn, its guns blazing at the airplane. "Boy! What a sight," Mr. Hmay wrote in the diary. The diary covered the departure of a convoy of 92 merchant ships and 11 escorts from Norfolk, Va. on March 24, 1944 to April 27. It was recently rediscovered in a chest at Mr. Hmay's Joshua Place apartment. "I don't think I had seen that diary in 30 years," Mr. Hmay, 83, said. The convoy entered the Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean Sea [Lat.,=in the midst of lands], the world's largest inland sea, c.965,000 sq mi (2,499,350 sq km), surrounded by Europe, Asia, and Africa. Geography The Mediterranean is c.2,400 mi (3,900 km) long with a maximum width of c. on April 9 and was off the coast of Algiers when it was attacked. "We were under continuous air attack for an hour by enemy planes... What a night. First time I was ever in enemy action and I was sure scared and so was the rest of the crew but behaved very good under enemy fire," he wrote in the diary's April 12 entry. The following day the crew was back to "normal day routine ... (dull)." Mr. Hmay, a Southbridge native, said he joined the Navy in December 1944 when he was 17. He said he had altered his birth certificate and tried to join earlier that year, but the alteration was noticed and he was sent home. "Then when I turned 17 I tried to join right after Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor, land-locked harbor, on the southern coast of Oahu island, Hawaii, W of Honolulu; one of the largest and best natural harbors in the E Pacific Ocean. In the vicinity are many U.S. military installations, including the chief U.S. , but there were thousands of guys waiting to go so they sent us home and told us to come back after Christmas. I did." ART: PHOTOS PHOTOG pho·tog n. Informal A person who takes photographs, especially as a profession; a photographer. : (1 AND 4) T&G Staff Photo/DAN GOULD CUTLINE: (1) Frank A. Hmay. (2) World War II veteran Frank A. Hmay. left, in New Orleans New Orleans (ôr`lēənz –lənz, ôrlēnz`), city (2006 pop. 187,525), coextensive with Orleans parish, SE La., between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, 107 mi (172 km) by water from the river mouth; founded on leave during his service time. (3) Mr. Hmay, left, and his brother, Charlie Hmay, in 1942. (4) An entry in Mr. Hmay's diary describing the attack on his ship off the coast of North Africa on April 12, 1944. |
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