Murphy Givens Corpus Christi History Caller-Times

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Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Corpus Christi History is published Wednesdays. Murphy Givens also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at givensm@caller.com

Wednesday, October 6, 1999

U-boats and spies in WWII

I've been looking at old news clippings from the World War II years. Corpus Christi was in the thick of wartime activity from the start. The Naval Air Station opened in March, 1941, bringing in thousands of Navy personnel, and the Allies, fighting the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific, needed petroleum. The oil business was booming and the port was humming.
   Looking in the archives, it's hard not to be shocked at the prices in those years. Three bottles of cold beer sold for 25 cents and round steak was 35 cents a pound, when you could get it. The city was divided on the issue of Meatless Tuesdays, an idea pushed to help the war effort with voluntary rationing.
   The war was brought home on Jan. 19, 1942 when Corpus Christi had its first blackout drill. Doc McGregor stood at the top of the Plaza Hotel and took two pictures, one showing a panarama of lights and the next shot, taken minutes after the sirens had sounded, showing almost total blackness. There were two pinpricks of light; two places had failed to follow the blackout instructions. Those instructions included a warning that anyone caught using the blackout to steal would be treated as a "Fifth Columnist'' in time of war.
   Louis Anderson, longtime Caller-Times sports editor, wrote that the darkness was so thick you were leery about going outside. The event made history: It was the first blackout ever ordered in the continental U.S.
   The next blackout was no drill. On Nov. 28, 1942, a U-boat was sighted in the Gulf, a blackout was ordered and all merchant ships ordered to stay in port. The U-boat was never found. According to archives, the only U-boat sunk in the western portion of the Gulf was U-166, sunk 200 miles from Corpus Christi.

   On the question in last week's column about a spy who operated as a tamale vendor, I've gotten more than 30 replies, some emphatic that the story is true.
   Van Williams lived on North Beach during the war and said he often saw the tamale vendor near the bascule bridge at a spot where no one could park to buy a tamale. "I always thought that was suspicious. We heard he was a spy.''
   Richard Bryan shined shoes on North Beach during the war and remembered the tamale vendor ("He always wore white shoes'') and he remembered that the FBI came to arrest him.
   Don Carr said his grandfather would point to a house on the bluff where, he said, spies would watch ships leaving the ship channel. "When we passed that house, my grandfather would say, 'That's where the spies lived.' "
   Mary Kraut, of Cody, Wyo., who lived on Virginia Street in Corpus Christi during the war (her name was Schwartz then) said she knew the story of the tamale spy very well. She married the grandson of the man who was accused. The charge, she said, was never proven and the family of the man always argued the story was untrue. (I know the name, but would prefer not to use it since the charges apparently were not proven.)
   Cecil Ferrell joined the merchant marine when he was a teenager. He lied about his age and went to sea when he was 15, in January, 1942. Ferrell said he knew the tamale vendor. "The rumor was that he had a radio in the tamale cart. There was no truth to it.''
   In late June, 1942, Ferrell was a mess boy on the Esso Dover tanker headed for Liverpool, England. The ship left Corpus Christi's main harbor, went to Harbor Island, and headed for Galveston. Ferrell said a PBY flew over the ship and told them to get back to Harbor Island, that a sub had just sunk a ship ahead of them.
   "Next day, we sailed out of Harbor Island and, near Port Lavaca, about four hours away, we saw a Gulf oil ship on the bottom in shallow water. Her superstructure stuck up out of the water. We saw part of a man floating in a life preserver; sharks had gotten to him.''
   He said the ship made it to Pilot Town, in the mouth of the Mississippi River, and waited with 25 other ships lying at anchor. "We came out on July 5th. We were about the seventh ship to clear the bar and they torpedoed a ship behind us. All the ships that hadn't come out yet turned back and those of us that had crossed the bar scattered. Two ships ran into a cove on the Florida coastline. We were too big and went on to Key West, where a convoy was being formed. That night, we could see the glow in the sky from ships burning on the horizon. As we pulled into the area where the convoy was forming, at Key West, we were dragging a heaving line with a beef hook tied with a white rag. That's how we used to fish on those old slow ships. We had caught a great shark, a real monster. We were standing around, talking about how big he was, and when his insides were opened up we could see a man's leg. I will never forget that sight as long as I live.''
   Ferrell said the danger wasn't over when the ship reached Liverpool. They underwent two nights' of German air raids while in port.