Vet remembers his stints on subs

Frederick Ensslin, 86, will ride a bus with buddies Thursday to attend a Veterans Day program at the Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent.

He and other World War II veterans will meet first at the Fleet Reserve Association in Mountlake Terrace.

“At this stage of the game, we keep pretty busy going to funerals,” Ensslin said. “We are lucky we lasted this long.”

Ensslin saw World War II action from beneath the sea. He served on several submarines in and around the Pacific Ocean.

In 1941, the 17 year old from New York found high school wasn’t his bailiwick.

“I wasn’t doing too good,” Ensslin said from his Alderwood Manor home. “I always wanted to do the Navy.”

His parents signed him over and he aimed for submarine service. He underwent rigorous training in Connecticut before climbing down the hatch.

“We saw five psychiatrists,” he said, before sailors were allowed to serve on a sub. “They try to make you lose your temper.”

Ensslin said he never had claustrophobia. During one test he sat in something like a drum that held 12 trainees. The air pressure was increased and some of the men got silly.

It wasn’t good to get silly.

They learned to use the Munson Lung, a bag with a mouthpiece attached, filled with oxygen to be breathed while ascending from the submarine to the surface.

The theory was that if a submarine sank in 300 feet of water or less, a guide rope would be floated to the surface and a crewman, breathing with a Munson Lung, could make it to the top.

Ensslin said the men were brought to the base of a cylindrical tower 100 feet high and about 12-feet wide. A compartment was attached to the side.

Trainees entered the compartment where a valve was opened to fill it with water. Using the Munson Lung, slowly slowly, up they went.

Success meant Seaman First Class Ensslin was stationed on the USS Greenling.

He started peeling potatoes, lots and lots of potatoes.

And he served a stint as a captain of the head.

That meant he was in charge of the bathrooms.

Routine chores aside, on his first battle patrol off the Truk Islands, his sub sunk a Japanese ship.

“It sank pretty fast,” Ensslin said. “The captain wanted a prisoner.”

They surfaced and Ensslin saw Japanese crew members jammed in a lifeboat, one of top of the other.

One man climbed aboard the sub, threw up his hands, and said he was a Korean horticulturist. The man said he was doing research on the Japanese ship.

“He was kept in the forward torpedo room,” Ensslin said. “He was handcuffed to a bunk at night.”

U.S. Marines took the prisoner off the submarine at Midway Island.

While stationed on the USS Greenling, Ensslin cruised into Pearl Harbor after the Japanese attack.

“You could see the wreckage. It smelled bad. There was oil in the water.”

Transferred again, he served on the USS Snook, USS Sawfish, and USS Cabezon.

Ships he served on were attacked with depth charges. He was onboard when a submarine nearly ran out of air and food.

Sick with malaria, he departed ship in the Philippines and returned home after the war.

But he didn’t become a landlubber. Ensslin joined the U.S. Merchant Marines where he shuttled ammunition during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

He met his wife of 53 years, Josie, in California when they lived in the same apartment building.

“It was love at first sight for me,” Josie Ensslin said.

They raised four children in Alderwood Manor. Frederick Ensslin worked for Foss Tug. He is the Washington State commander of U.S. Submarine Veterans of WWII.

Erwin Schmidt is a member of the group.

Schmidt was a seaman first class on the battleship USS California when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The California partly sank, but the Navy was able to keep it above the surface with the help of tugboats and other ships.

At the conclusion of the battle, Schmidt and a shipmate fired off what was left of the ship’s ammunition.

“We fired the last 11 rounds at six Japanese bombers,” Schmidt said. “That was the end of the shooting at Pearl Harbor.”

Schmidt, 94, served on submarines, too. He said submariners have a common bond.

They all flash back to their days under the sea, Schmidt said.

“It’s like you are right there,” he said. “You relive it, the exact routine, in your mind, when you are asleep and awake.”

Ensslin said that submarines comprised only 2 percent of the U.S. Navy during World War II, but managed to sink 55 percent of all Japanese ships sunk by the United States.

More than 3,600 men gave their lives on submarines during World War II.

Each month in the club newsletter, it mentions ships that were sunk during the war.

The destroyed submarines are said to be on “eternal patrol.”

On Thursday let’s thank these men and all our treasured veterans.

Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.