BB-64 @ 75: Wisconsin at War, Part 1

Editor’s Note: As we observe the 75th anniversary of USS Wisconsin's commissioning on April 16,1944, we remember the generations of former crew members who originally brought this iconic Norfolk landmark to life and sailed into harm's way through three different wars. We begin with "plankowner;" Irwin Watson “Bill” Carpenter, who recounted his life as a quartermaster aboard the "Wisky" during World War II to David Kohnen for Nauticus' "City at Sea" Exhibit..

An illustration commemorating USS Wisconsin's first birthday in April 1945, published in The Badger, the ship's newspaper. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By Irwin Watson "Bill" Carpenter
as told to David Kohnen

Irwin Watson “Bill” Carpenter wanted to go to sea. Badly.

He joined the thousands of Americans wanting to avenge Pearl Harbor and enlisted in the Navy the day after the surprise attack. The recruiter signed him to be a naval aviator and sent him to school. Then when he was done with that school, they sent him to another school and another. The frustration was beginning to build on him.

“Finally I said, ‘I’m through with this, I’m going to go in the Navy so I can get to sea.’”

While at the Naval training center in Bainbridge, MD, the Navy said Carpenter could become an officer through the V12 program. Carpenter refused. Finally, somebody told him one way he could guarantee a sea billet was to become a quartermaster. He eagerly accepted.

Graduating at the top of his class, the Navy tapped him for the first ship’s company on board the Navy’s newest battleship under construction in Philadelphia. Though he now had a ship, Carpenter was still no closer to getting to sea. He had to wait three more months at Newport, RI while the Navy assembled all of the new recruits for Wisconsin.

Finally, he got his ship. As quartermaster, Carpenter’s main job was navigation. It is a time-honored rate in the Navy as every ship, sail or steam-powered, needs a skilled person at the wheel. The fact that his first assignment was an 887-foot battleship made him that much more important.

A map marking significant places and events in USS Wisconsin's World War II record published in The Badger, the ship's newspaper, October 27, 1945. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

As Carpenter was at the ship’s wheel in the battleship’s “citadel,” it was very common for him to have dealings with Wisconsin’s two World War II captains: Earl Stone and John Roper. While Stone was an extremely intelligent officer, Carpenter got the feeling that his first captain had not been to sea a lot. Though, Carpenter had to admit that everyone, including himself, was still trying to get a feel for this new warship. This is also not to say that Carpenter did not think the world of his commanding officer.

“I don’t think he’d ever conned a battleship, well, he didn’t know a lot about what we were doing. He was a very polite, gentlemanly-type man, but didn’t put up with mistakes much of course. I didn’t make very many.”

Carpenter became so good and made so few mistakes, that he was made what the Navy calls a “Special Sea Detail Helmsman,” a title given to only the best quartermasters.

As a result of this title, Carpenter was responsible for navigating the ship in tight situations like coming in and out of ports, squeezing Wisconsin through the Panama Canal, and during General Quarters.

“Captain Stone gave the orders and I had been taught how to do it, but I’d never done it on a real ship of any size. When we left the Philadelphia Naval Yard going down the river and by the time we got in the ocean, I was pretty proficient and I got better and better as time went on.”

A Maneuvering Board from USS Wisconsin (BB 64) showing plotting tracks from February 21, 1945. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

During combat situations, Carpenter did not get to see a lot of what was going on as he was locked inside the armored fortress that protected the bridge.

“The kamikaze didn’t really bother battleship guys much. For two reasons: they weren’t trying to hit the battleships and if they did, they just hurt somebody. It’s not going to get the whole crew.”

While the Imperial Navy’s planes did not bother him so much, he had to admit that the battleship Wisconsin and her sisters were designed to fight, the giant Yamato, did. He was called to the bridge when the Yamato was sighted in what was to be her last run.

“I was a little uneasy when we did what they call ‘Bull’s Run.’ We started steaming just as hard as we could go to try to get into a shooting war with the Japanese Imperial Fleet. They had battleships. One was bigger than us and had bigger guns. I thought ‘you know, I don’t think they’re very good, but they might just get a lucky hit with one of those 18-inchers.”

These kind of incidents made one long for home. Coming back home was quite dangerous in itself, but for different reasons.

The battleship Wisconsin (BB 64) enters the Golden Gate into San Francisco Bay in September 1945. (Naval History and heritage Command image)  

“When we went under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, we had to get our helmets on, because these girls were throwing compacts, lipsticks, and everything. They had their name and address on it. The stuff just kept falling down.”

Now that the war was over, Quartermaster Second Class Carpenter was happy to go to school. This time, he used his GI Bill money to get a degree from Purdue University. 

In addition to his contributions to award-winning exhibits on USS Wisconsin in Norfolk and the former U-505 in Chicago, Dr. David Kohnen is the author of numerous articles and books on naval history including 21st Century Knox: Influence, Sea Power, and History for the Modern Era (Naval Institute Press, 2016). He currently serves as the director of the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.