Albert Csiszar: Chief Electrician's Mate

I joined the Laffey on December 16, 1943, while the ship was still in the yard at Bath, Maine. I was the CEM, with a bunch of new, young electricians I had to train. I had about 20 men, and the ship had 400 to 500 electric motors. I was so busy that I slept on the workshop bench for at least three months. I couldn't get to my bunk. It was a bunch of new fellows and a new ship.

I was a few years older, and had already put in active duty in the Pacific on the Macauley, the flagship of the amphibious operations on Guadalcanal. We were sunk off Rindola Island. It took me 30 days to get home, and we had split pea soup0 every day. I still won't eat split pea soup.

While we were in the Atlantic (off Cherbourg), a 190mm shell ricocheted and went through the hull sideways. It damaged the degaussing machinery, cutting the cables in the forecastle. The degaussing coils cut down the magnetic force of the ship itself so a ship can get close to mines-up to 25 feet from a mine without setting it off.

I had to find out where the cables had been cut. I went from one end of the ship to the other. Then I opened the door to a little locker, a closet and got a bath. There was a big shell in there. Only two people could get into that space, so another fellow and I drug it out. Then we dragged it up on the main deck and threw it overboard. Somebody put canvas over the bow to block the water from coming in the hole.

I spent the next 16 to 18 hours patching the cables for the degaussing machinery. I had 180 connections to fix.

I had an infection in my foot, so bad that Doc Darnell talked about taking it off. My foot was so swollen I couldn't put my two hand around my foot. But the pharmacist's mate rigged up a steam boiler, kind of like a double boiler, that I put my foot inside. In three or four days, the treatment began to heal the infection.

About ten days before the kamikaze attack, Bob Jones (Electrician's Mate 3/c) and I were shipped back to the States to Shoemaker, California. We heard about the Laffey through the grapevine. Bob and I sent a telegram to the ship, telling them we were ready to go back whenever they asked.

I put a lot of time in on the Laffey. I got attached. A year and a half doesn't seem like a long time, but it is to be serving on one ship.