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Spotting Subs in the South Atlantic: Navy took sailor after ship was torpedoed and turned him into a pilot to fly Catalinas
Journal Photo by Amanda Muschlitz
WWII veteran H.C. Woodall talks about his experiences in the war. Woodall was the pilot of a Navy search plane and flew 75 combat missions.
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Published: June 29, 2009
H.C. "Woody" Woodall was on watch the night a German submarine fired a torpedo at the USS Electra.
"I stood on deck and watched the torpedo hit," he said.
It was Nov. 15, 1942. The United States had entered World War II not quite a year earlier, and the Electra was carrying supplies to build an airfield in North Africa.
After the Electra was hit, the crew beached it near Casablanca. The Navy decided to raise it, and Woodall spent the next three months helping to make that happen.
"We raised that ship and brought it back to the States," he said.
Then, to his surprise, the Navy decided to turn him into a pilot.
"To my knowledge, I had never requested any such thing," he said. "I took that physical, passed it, and, the next thing I know, I'm on my way to Dallas, Texas, for flight training."
Of the 36 men who started Woodall's pilot-training class, 11 made it through. All 11 were Eagle Scouts, something that Woodall thinks is more than a coincidence.
Woodall was sent to the South Atlantic and spent the rest of the war flying Catalinas on submarine-spotting duty.
"There was a war in the South Atlantic that very few people have knowledge of," he said.
Woodall was based in Recefi, Brazil, which made the news earlier this month after an Air France plane crashed into the ocean nearby.
He flew as part of Patrol Squadron VP-45. Sometimes, he and his crew escorted convoys. Other times, they would head out over open ocean looking for submarines. On such missions, he might take off about 3 a.m. and cover 1,800 miles before returning at 2 p.m.
"It was a tough schedule," he said.
The submarines that Woodall and his crew spotted that way were often traveling on the surface because they could travel faster than underwater and because it enabled them to charge their batteries. When Woodall and his crew spotted a sub, they would call for a destroyer to come after the sub.
Now 90, Woodall lives in the Arbor Acres retirement community with his wife, Frances "Jeff" Jefferson Woodall.
Woodall's civilian career was in textiles. Before joining the Navy, he received a degree in textile engineering at N.C. State University, and his post-war career including helping to develop fiberglass casts as a lighter-weight alternative to plaster of Paris casts.
Woodall started life in Smithfield. After graduating from N.C. State in 1940, he went to work for what is now Burlington Industries.
"Shortly after I arrived, nylon came into the world of textiles," he said. "I immediately began working with nylon for parachutes."
He was working on a project in Virginia when he met his future wife, a teacher who frequented the same local restaurant he did.
"She was friendly, easy to get along with," he said.
Although the United States hadn't entered World War II when Woodall enlisted in 1941, he could see war coming and he thought that enlisting would give better options than being drafted.
The Woodalls married when he was on leave before shipping out. During the war, they kept up through letters.
"You're concerned all the time," Jeff Woodall said. "We survived. You do what you have to do when you need to."
They have now been married for 67 years.
After the war, Woodall's work in textiles took him a number of places. Housing was hard to come by in the days after the war, and they sometimes built a house because there was no housing available.
"We've built eight houses since we've been married," he said. "We built one house and lived in it three weeks."
Here in Winston-Salem, he became president of Carolina Narrow Fabric Co. The company's work on Apollo spacecraft led it to develop fiberglass casts.
Nearly 50 years after Woodall completed his Navy pilot training, he and the others tracked each other down. They found that all 11 survived the war and got together for a reunion. In the years since, the rest have died.
"I'm the only one left," he said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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