Libby man served on the high seas

Ralph Hildreth, a lanky 30-year-old, enjoyed a sailor’s breakfast the morning of June 7, 1944, as he traveled through the English Channel on the USS Susan B. Anthony.

Allied forces landed the day before along a 50-mile stretch of French coastline to fight Nazi Germany, and the Susan B. Anthony was scheduled to supply more troops to the assault on the beaches of Normandy.

Hildreth felt lucky to be on the ship and not in a foxhole. If he had to be in the service —  and the draft board said he did —  he would rather be someplace where his bed and plenty of food traveled with him.

It was early in the morning when the USS Susan B. Anthony hit a mine.

“I was sitting at the breakfast table waiting to go to work,” recalled 96-year-old Hildreth, a Libby resident. “When that mine hit, the lights went out and I wound up under the table.”

Hildreth spent seven years, seven months and 20 days in active service and another four years in the naval reserves. He traveled the world and, in addition to his role in the Normandy invasion, participated in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Okinawa. He and fellow sailors continued their missions in the midst of gunners firing from land and bombs raining down from the sky.

The Susan B. Anthony became paralyzed after the power went out and the rudder stuck hard to the left. The engine and fire rooms were in flames, and the ship continued to sink. Hildreth, tasked with unloading soldiers onto another ship, was one of the last men to evacuate.

He thought little of himself as he worked that day, a week short of 66 years ago.

“It had to be done,” he said. “The fact is, I was feeling sorry for the soldiers because some of them guys lost their gear and everything else and still had to go on the invasion.”

As he and the remaining crew began to climb onto the cargo net that stretched between the sinking Susan B. Anthony and the rescue ship, the net broke loose.

“It dropped me into the English Channel,” Hildreth recalled. “The water was already washing on the decks of the Susan so there was no use going back.”

Afraid of being pinned between the ships, Hildreth swam out to sea. He drifted along in his life jacket for two to three hours until an English minesweeper rescued him and seven others.

All 2,689 people aboard the Susan B. Anthony were saved and few seriously injured.

As a veteran, Hildreth recognizes the sacrifice that men and women have made for the security of the country. He is proud of his grandson, who served two terms in the Marines, and another grandson who has been in the Navy for 20 years. But like many veterans, he is humble about his own contribution.

“I feel kind of funny bragging like this,” he says as he prepares to be photographed, “because so many people have done so much more.”

Hildreth pages through his discharge papers, which were issued well over a half-century ago. His eyesight is going, but he can still make out much of the writing. A notarized card verifying the decorations he is authorized to wear —  four bronze stars, the European-African-Middle Eastern Area Ribbon, the American Area Campaign Ribbon and the Good Conduct Ribbon —  is among the odds and ends strewn out on the table at his Green Meadow Manor apartment. He partially unfolds a flag with 48 stars —  the flag he fought under.

It’s been a decade since he has seen his military documents and artifacts, which are kept locked away in a safe deposit box. He last opened it when his wife died. Upon her mention, he slides over a framed black-and-white photo.

“That’s the little girl I married,” he says. “I and her went together one week and were married. There were bets that we wouldn’t make it two weeks, but it run into 58 years, damn near 59.”

Hildreth enlisted in the Navy on a bet at age 21 when he was still single. He recalled his friends, who “didn’t have a dime between them,” talking big about how they were going to make money.

“Out of the clear blue sky, I said, I’m going to join the Navy, and they all laughed at me,” he said. “They said I wasn’t man enough to join the Navy because I only weighed 145 pounds, tall and skinny. It made me mad, so I told them, ‘I’ll show you guys.’”

Hildreth signed up the next week and was called in six months later.

“The wages was great,” he recalled, “$21 a month.”

Hildreth served four years on the USS California and then joined civilian life. A year-and-a-half later, his old ship would lose 100 of her crew.

“The California, the ship that I originally was on, got damaged at Pearl Harbor,” he said. “Some of my buddies got killed.”

Only weeks after he married, the Japanese had attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing the United States to join the war and Hildreth to be called back to the military.

He didn’t duck his duty, though he did join on his own terms.

“The draft board insisted I report down next week to go to the Army and I fooled them,” he said. “I grabbed my discharge papers and down to the Navy recruiting office I went.”

Hildreth remembers all the places the Navy took him —  his trips across the Atlantic and port stops all over the world. He’s gone just about everywhere, he said, except Alaska and Australia.

He doesn’t speak at all about hardship or even hint at ever being in danger.

“The Navy life is comparatively easy compared to a soldier’s life,” he says.