Silverdale Navy veteran among first to see aftermath of atomic bomb at Nagasaki

SILVERDALE — After years of living on a farm south of Spokane during the Great Depression, 17-year-old Ray Tee decided to drop out of high school and enlist in the Navy in 1944. 

At the time, he decided to join up because "everybody else was," the 91-year-old Tee said with a chuckle from his home in Silverdale this week.

That decision gave Tee a front-row seat to several key events in the Pacific during World War II, including the Battle of Okinawa and going ashore to Nagasaki two weeks after the atomic bomb was dropped. He documented the aftermath with an illicit camera stashed in his seabag.

Even with those experiences, Tee said he's not a hero and he doesn't want to be perceived that way. 

"There's a story to be told here, and I know I'm a part of the story, but I'm only a small part of it," Tee said. "I was lucky to come back, lucky to meet a wonderful woman and have wonderful children."

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The 'powder stuffer'

After enlisting in 1944, Tee went to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho "right off the farm."

After completing his training, Tee headed off to California for his first ship assignment on the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Ammen, which was fresh from battle in the Pacific. 

When he arrived, he quickly discovered the destroyer wasn't in fighting shape. 

"Five of us were on the bus to Mare Island, and we pulled up there, and it was rainy, it was about 11 o'clock at night and the bus driver says 'Well boys, here's your ship. Or what's left of it.'"

The Ammen had been undergoing repair at Mare Island Naval Shipyard since December after the destroyer was hit by a kamikaze plane while on patrol duty in the Philippine Sea following the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

On the morning of Nov. 1, 1944, a burning Japanese twin-engine bomber crashed in between the Ammen's stacks and rebounded off the destroyer into the sea. The crash injured 21 sailors and killed five others.

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Despite the considerable topside damage caused by the impact, the Ammen continued patrol duties for another two weeks before getting underway to California for repair.

In the meantime, Tee decided to take a short trip to Vallejo, California, where he decided to visit a tattoo parlor.

"Everyone told me, 'Boy, you're not coming back,' so I said, 'I might as well get a tattoo," Tee said.

More than 70 years later, those tattoos — a rose with a dagger through it on his left arm and an anchor wrapped with a ribbon that says "USN" on it on his right arm — are in "amazing"  condition, Tee admits.

"Most tattoos you see that are that old are just a blob."

Once the Ammen's repairs were finished in February 1945, the destroyer got underway for the South Pacific once again in preparation for the Battle of Okinawa. 

While at sea, Tee worked as a "powder stuffer" in the bowels of the ship. 

"Between the shell department and the powder magazine there was a hatch with an 8-inch hole in it, and my job was to take a can of powder and hold it in that hole," he said. "Someone on the other side would grab the can and pull it out of my hands and put it into the elevator to send to the 5-inch guns."

And during combat, that was a nerve-wracking place to be, Tee said. 

"So you can imagine, when you're in combat, and then guns are going 'bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, boom, boom, boom,' and you're just standing there with a can of powder in your hand, waiting for someone on the other side to take it," Tee said. "Maybe you just grab one after another and keep pushing it out that hole, and sometimes you could stand there holding it for 15 or 20 minutes."

During the three-month Battle of Okinawa — fought from April 1 to June 22, 1945 — Tee moved those powder canisters, supporting firepower for the amphibious assault on the island. 

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When all was said and done, the struggle for the island turned out to be one of the bloodiest battles fought during the war in terms of loss of life on both sides.

"You really figured you weren’t going to make it," Tee said. "You thought your days were numbered. The ships risked being hit daily. We were picking survivors up out of the water."

During that battle, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet lost 36 vessels, many of which were destroyers like the Ammen. 

"You always had that in your mind. Yesterday we lost a sister ship, today we get another new ship and then that one is hit, and it went on like that for three months," Tee said. "It was the longest three months I ever spent in my life."

Such odds weighed heavy on Tee's mind, as it did the many other sailors he knew. 

"You think it's a noble cause. You're going there to fight for my country, and to do my duty, and then, you wonder what am I doing here, and why?" Tee said. "Am I giving up my life for this cause?"

Control over Okinawa was of key strategic importance for both sides — for the Japanese, the island was the final barrier to prevent an Allied invasion of the homeland and for the Allied Forces, taking the island was the final ground needed before preparing for such an invasion.

After months of fighting, the Allies were able to secure control of the island on June 22 following the ritual suicide of Japanese Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima and his Chief of Staff, Gen. Isamu Cho, which ultimately resulted in the end of the fighting for Okinawa. 

Bearing witness

Once Allied forces had secured Okinawa, the Ammen and a number of other destroyers traveled north of the island to begin radar picket duty where crews were tasked with monitoring the skies for incoming enemy planes.

"Our object was to pick up incoming kamikazes, and they all had just enough gas for a one-way trip with a 500-pound bomb strapped to their belly," Tee said. "No armor, or nothing, just bare bones. As they came out of the factory, they put a pilot in them and they said 'go hit that ship.'"

If such a plane was spotted on ship radar, the Ammen would notify patrolling aircraft in the skies that would go intercept the potential threat. 

At the time, it was thought the ships would soon be making their way further north, all the way to Japan in preparation for an invasion that would bring about the end of the war. 

"But then, of course, they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said. 

When he heard the news about the bombs, Tee said he knew the war was over.

Days after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, the Japanese unconditionally surrendered to the Allies on Aug. 15. 

Although the war was officially over, the Ammen was still due to make its way to Japan. Two weeks after the second atomic bomb was dropped, the destroyer was the first ship into Nagasaki. 

"When we went through there, there was nothing but dust," Tee said. "It was a sad thing because 100,000 people were cremated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

The once bustling commercial hub was eerily quiet.

"There were no birds. No automobiles. No people," Tee said. 

Going ashore in Nagasaki so soon after the atomic bomb was dropped exposed Tee and other Ammen sailors to a number of environmental hazards, including radiation and asbestos. 

"We were out there on shore patrol, and walking around without any respirators or anything," Tee said. 

All the while, a number of prisoners of war from camps on the outskirts of Nagasaki were trying to make their way to the Allied Forces after the bombing. 

"These POWs were coming in any way they could. On a stretcher, or walking, one guy even commandeered a motor scooter and came in on that," Tee said. "We were trying to take care of these POWs, but we didn’t have the facilities for it so they called in a hospital ship for it. They took good care of them there."

When that hospital ship arrived in Nagasaki, it brought a number of trucks with it, and that's how Tee wound up taking a big risk — while riding around on those trucks, he took photos of the bomb's aftermath with a Kodak Brownie 127 compact camera he had stashed in his seabag. 

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"It was illegal to have a camera during wartime, but I had one," Tee said. "It was a mistake really, and I had the camera aboard before I knew what the rules were. What was I to do? Throw it overboard?"

Tee said he knew he wasn't supposed to snap any pictures in Nagasaki, but decades later, he's glad he did it. 

"I knew history was being made," Tee said.

He kept those photos stashed away in a little tin box for decades until he decided to donate them to National Museum of the War in the Pacific in Fredericksburg, Texas. 

After the war, Tee was on the crew that decommissioned the Ammen before he went into the reserves and returned to Washington state, where he started building a life with his wife, Holly.

Today, the couple has been married for 70 years and they have two children, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

He was recalled back into the Navy for a few years during the Korean War. Afterward, he settled into a 20-year career with the Alaska State Ferry system, during which time he was the chief engineer for the M/V Columbia, which is still the flagship vessel of the state's ferry service. 

Decades after the war, it's still difficult for Tee to think about his experiences in the Navy at such momentous points during the war. 

"I'm not a hero by any point," he said. "I was just a powder pusher really."