This is a continuation of the Mid-Watch in Verse series. A Deck Log from a US Navy vessel chronicles exacting administrative detail regarding the status of the ship, its location, speed, etc. However, for a four hour period at the beginning of each year, the Officer of the Deck (OOD) is allowed to be creative by writing the Mid-Watch report (0000 – 0400) in verse if they choose to do so. This series highlights examples of this tradition and the officers who posted them. I focus on WWII era deck logs. For a more thorough history of the practice check out this article from the Naval History and Heritage Command.

 

Midwatch in Verse is now available as a book that features poems from 29 ships during WWII. See the book’s website for details.

The USS Overton (DD-239) was a Clemson-class destroyer commissioned in 1920. She was decommissioned in 1931, only to be recommissioned in 1932. Decommissioned again in 1937 and recommissioned for a second time in 1939, she was reclassified as a high speed transport (APD-23) in August of 1943. She was finally struck from the Navy’s rolls in 1945.

From commissioning until WWII, Overton traveled between the US and Europe on various diplomatic and humanitarian missions. After her recommissioning in 1939 when hostilities broke out in Europe, Overton provided antisubmarine services for convoys crossing the Atlantic. After being reclassified as a high speed transport in 1943, she sailed to the Pacific and participated in several of the major campaigns of 1944 and 1945 (including Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the liberation of the Philippines). The Navy struck Overton from the roles in late 1945 and she was sold for scrap. She earned 8 battle stars for her service.

The following deck log entry for mid-watch, January 1, 1943, was penned by then Lt. Malcolm Winfield Cagle. The entry is short and in rhyming verse. It is unusual for its lack of operational details that most Officers of the Deck (OOD) tried to incorporate into their log entries. The actual deck log can be seen here.

0 – 4 Nineteen hundred and forty two, Remembered as a thing we knew,
With many tears and lots of grief, For people with a firm belief.
Another year we start anew, With growing hate it’s all too true,
We hope this year to find relief, And give to hell on great big thief.

M Cagle

Midshipman Cagle at Annapolis

Malcolm Winfield Cagle (often referred to as “Chris”) was born on September 26, 1918, in Grand Junction, CO. He graduated from Knoxville (TN) High School and received an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1937 (Cagle’s entry in the Annapolis Lucky Bag can be seen here and here). Graduating from Annapolis in 1941, Cagle boarded the USS Overton as an ensign for his first assignment. Five days after he penned the log entry above, he transferred off the Overton to aviation training at Pensacola, FL, and in August of 1943 got his Naval Aviator designation.

By 1944, after a stint as a flight instructor, Cagle was dispatched to the USS Yorktown (CV-10) as Executive Officer of Fighting Squadron 88 (VF-88). He rose to command the squadron when on July 14, 1945, Richard Crommelin, the 88’s commanding officer collided with a friendly plane in bad weather and was never seen again (Crommelin was one of five brothers who graduated from Annapolis and served in the US Navy). Not all of Cagle’s men found him endearing. According to an article published in World War II Magazine, one of his men who revered Crommelin recalled, “Cagle ‘invited’ suggestions from veterans—but his body language made clear he wanted none. He was a bull, no questions asked.”

Cagle’s naval career blossomed over the next 20-30 years. He held many positions including the following:

• Commanding Officer (CO) Fighting Squadron 63 aboard the USS Franklin D.
  

  Vice Admiral Cagle

  Roosevelt

• CO USS Suribachi (AE-21) 9 September 1963 – 1 June 1964
• CO USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) 25 July 1964 – 27 August 1965
• Commander, Carrier Division One
• Military Aide to the Secretary of the Navy
• Chief, Naval Education & Training.