MikeBo’s Blog!
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Fatherhood is great because you
can ruin someone from scratch! Jon
Stewart
Father’s Day,
1944 also fell on Sunday June 18th. And, while I had to look up the
date, I can assure one and all that a new necktie or a pair of argyle socks or
new golf clubs was the farthest thing
 |
| Lt. Charles Botula, Jr. 1945 |
from my dad’s mind back in 1944. Charlie
Botula had already been outfitted with a new wardrobe by Uncle Sam, the crisp
white uniform of an officer in the United States Navy, and he spent that
Father’s Day on the bridge of his brand-new ship, LST 920, as it embarked on
its shakedown cruise following its commissioning the day before. I remember the
day vividly although I had not yet reached my fourth birthday. It’s one of my
earliest childhood memories. It was also the last time I would see my father
for almost two years. It’s another vivid childhood memory that many of my
contemporaries did not share, because their fathers did not return from the
war.
While he was
away, it fell to my mother to be both mom and dad to her only child. (My
brother Packy would not join us until late the following year). While dad was
in the navy, Mary Botula moved back to Jamestown, New York to be near her
parents and siblings who lived in western New York State. It was a life faced by millions of other
American families. Dad was away in the service. Not until he came
home and he was able to show us the photographs from his ship’s clandestine dark
room did we get to see where he had been and really share his experiences.
 |
Dad, Mom and Me - June 17, 1944
LST 920 Commissioning |
Dad was in the service and mom was back at home working
to keep the family ties together. Everywhere he sailed, my father kept a small
leather folder with photos of his family. My mother had my dad’s pictures in
frames all around our second-floor apartment. We made regular trips to the
photographer’s studio, so my father would have pictures of his family back home
to go along with the frequent letters that Mary would send him. While her
letters were full of news about the family and frequently accompanied by family
snapshots, dad’s letters home showed the impact of wartime censorship.
Geographic locations were vague:
somewhere in England, somewhere in France, somewhere in the Pacific.
Now, I could
bore you to tears with stories about my dad’s influence on my life. He guided
my brother and I as we grew up and influenced us as we reached adulthood. He
led the way with compassion and honesty and a firm hand. And, while I have many
warm memories of both my parents, it wasn’t to be for many years after his
death that I really began to get to know him, and concluded that he and I could
have become best friends. Retracing his steps through the two years that he was
absent from my life, sparked a journey of my own.
Every
journalist takes on the task of getting to know the person whose story they are
telling. It’s a key part of the job. When my father, died in 1965, I became
heir to boxes of his personal papers books, photographs and other documents. I kept them in storage for many years until my own retirement. My brother and I had grown up listening to our father’s stories about his Navy service in World War 2. One evening as I visited an internet site devoted to World War 2 history, I left a note in the site’s comments section. My father Lieutenant (jg) Charles Botula Jr., served as Executive
Officer aboard LST 920. I would like to contact any former officers or crew
members who served with him. It was done impulsively, without any
expectation of a reply. To my
surprise, I received a reply a few days later. Mike, I was with your father on the commissioning crew of LST 920,
served with him during all his time on the ship in Europe and the Pacific, and
took his place as Exec when he left. Let me know how to get in touch! Don Reed. That
exchange of messages started me on a journey that lasted well over a decade and
came into fruition when my book LST 920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target!
was published by Amazon Books, last
August.
 |
LST 920: Charlie Botula's
Long, Slow Target! 1944 |
Don Reed was
the LST 920’s Communications Officer, serving from its commissioning on June 17,
1944 at Hingham, Massachusetts until July 8, 1946 when the ship was
decommissioned in San Francisco Bay. Mr. Reed was the LST 920’s last commanding
officer. He became my guide and mentor as I retraced my father’s footsteps
through that part of our lives. Except for distant, fleeting memories, my
father was just a black and white image looking out at me from a picture frame
on the mantel during that time of my life. But, to the men who served with him
aboard ship, he was a daily presence.
Charlie
and I got to be pretty good friends, former Ensign Jerry Gerard told me.
Gerard was the ship’s engineering officer and an aspiring artist before the
war. Among my dad’s papers was a pencil sketch that Gerard had done of him,
dated 1944.
We used to talk
 |
| Gerard's Sketch of Dad |
a lot about
our families while we were at sea, he told me.
I still had career aspirations to become an artist after the war, and I
asked if I could practice on him. He agreed and when I was done with the
sketch, I gave it to him as a souvenir. I’m flattered that he kept it all those
years. Jerry Gerard is gone now, but, I still have the sketch he did of my
dad, and I plan on passing it along to my own son.
Because he was
on board the entire time that dad served, Reed was the officer who knew him
best. In a letter to me in 2003 Reed said, His
age must have been around thirty when we formed up our crew, and our Captain
was around the same age, which made them the two real ‘old men of the crew,
and the only married officers. As
Executive Officer, he was not required to stand watches, but he volunteered
into it. So, I spent a lot of watches with him, including night watches in
fierce Atlantic weather. I
remember your dad as being calm and stable, even-tempered, a kind man,
Ensign Reed said. Part of his job was to support the Commanding Officer and see that the
crew carried out the captain’s orders.
With your dad’s temperament, he was a good buffer between the captain and the
crew. As Executive Officer, he was Captain Schultz’ right hand man and enforcer
of the Captain’s leadership, Reed said.
So, the junior officers started to good-naturedly call him ‘the Sheriff’
and he good naturedly did not object. I’m sure that Reed had added the good -naturedly to his description, only
because he was telling the story to the son who had grown into adulthood under
the tutelage of The Sheriff! As the
son of a man who could be a very strict father, Reed’s comments made me smile.
One of dad’s
war stories was his account of a Nazi U-boat attack on his convoy and the
sinking of
 |
Michael and Mary Botula
1945 |
the LST 920’s sister ship. One torpedo had broken the back of the
LST 921 and sent the aft section to the bottom of the Dover Channel along with half
of its crew. Another torpedo blew a British escort vessel out of the water as
it steamed between the U-boat and dad’s ship, as he watched from the bridge. As I read the other eyewitness accounts and talked to survivors
of the attack, I became aware for the first time of the depth of courage that
he possessed. That courage was displayed in smaller ways as well.
I came down with Yellow Jaundice in the
middle of the Pacific, ex-Seaman Larry Biggio told me in a telephone
conversation. I was sick as hell. Could’a
died for that matter! But, the Jaundice was extremely contagious and none of
the other guys would come near me. Your old man was the only person I saw
between the time I got sick enough to be confined to quarters, until I was
evacuated to the hospital on shore. The exec checked on me several times a day
and made sure I had what I needed. Seaman Biggio was evacuated from the
ship and spent several months in the hospital before being sent back to the
states. I never saw your dad again after
I left the ship, Biggio said, but, I think
about what he did to help me to this day. I owe him a lot. I owe him my life!
One of the
great tragedies of the war, is the fact that so many returning veterans, declined
to share their experiences with their families. Those that survived the long road
through Hell, simply put their experiences behind them and tried to resume
their normal lives. My brother and I are fortunate in the fact that our father
freely shared his wartime experiences with us, and they were blended in with
the other life experiences that our mother and father drew upon as they raised
us. As a journalist, I understood that my father had played a part in
one of the greatest historical events of the 20th Century. But, even
as those experiences unfolded, he had no way of knowing the true impact of his
small part in that drama. He was a great story teller, and, his memory inspired
me to put my skills to work to tell his story. Charlie Botula had no way of
knowing what happened to the survivors of that U-boat attack, or what happened
to the survivors of the LST 921 that were rescued from the chilly waters of the
Dover Channel by his crew. It was up to me to retrace his steps and reach out
to the people and events along his path, and eventually tell his story.
One of the
people he met along the way was former Ensign Don Joost, the Engineering
Officer of the ill-fated sister ship, LST 921. I spent an afternoon with Don
and his wife at their home in Walnut Creek, California, talking about the
U-boat attack on his ship and the rescue of his shipmates by the crew of their sister-ship, LST 920. The captain of
your dad’s ship, Harry Schultz, disobeyed a standing order to come back and get
us, Joost recounted. That took a lot
of guts on his part, and he was court-martialed for it! In fact, the whole crew
showed a lot of courage, because after the torpedo attack, that U-boat stayed
in the area looking for another kill. Badly injured in the attack, Ensign
Joost was evacuated to a hospital in England where he recovered from his
injuries, and was decorated for bravery for rescuing many of his shipmates from the
sinking LST 921. Eventually, he was assigned to another ship.
After the war, Joost transferred to a submarine and saw service during the
Korean War. I asked him if he knew my father.
 |
LST 921 Survivor
Ensign Don Joost 1944 |
Oh yes, he replied. We both served on sister-ships. The ships themselves were built in the
same shipyard at Hingham, Massachusetts, and we were both commissioned in the
same week. The crews trained together at Camp Bradford, Virginia. There was a
very tight bond between the crews of the two ships. Yes, I knew your dad, Mike.
There was a slight pause in the conversation, and then Joost said, And you certainly favor your dad! It was
a very proud moment.
After its duties in Europe, the LST 920 sailed
back across the Atlantic and, after refitting, went on to the Pacific. My father came home in
December 1945 and together my parents lived a full life until cancer took her from us
in 1961. After that he was a ship without a rudder and he followed his
“Skipper,” as he affectionately called his wife Mary, in 1965.
Now, half a
century after his death, I still rely on his example to set to set my own
course through life. One of my favorite teachers told me time and time again, By example, you teach! I certainly had a
great role model. Happy Father’s Day,
Charlie Botula!
Grazie mille, papà!
Ciao,
MikeBo
© Mike
Botula 2017
