"We looked back and on the engine room was this round indentation, which had been the
head of a torpedo that had hit the engine room and it hadnt exploded. Now, if it had,
with all our gasoline it would have just fwwip like that, there would have been nothing
left." (Video Interview, 26:46)
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James Alvin Jolly |
James Jolly in uniform | World War, 1939-1945
Merchant Marine
MT Edmond J. Moran [Tugboat]
Gallups Island, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts; Alaska
Ensign
CA
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James Jolly had completed one year at the junior college of the College of the Pacific in
Stockton, California, when he was selected for a United States Maritime Service program
on Gallops Island in Boston Harbor, where he started training in September 1940. When
Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, Mr. Jollys graduation was expedited by
three months. His first assignment was as a Radio Officer aboard the tugboat Edmund J.
Moran. Mr. Jolly was aboard the tug when it was sent to be part of the invasion of Kiska
in the Aleutian Islands, where he earned the Merchant Marine Combat bar. While at sea,
Mr. Jolly had numerous close encounters with submarines, including once being hit,
while on a tugboat carrying drums of aviation fuel, by a torpedo that turned out to be a
dud.
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