Ol'Harry

WORLD WAR II SAILOR STILL MAKING FRIENDS

A rehabbing friend said I had to meet his new friend, Carl Adams, his rehab room-mate.  I went, and even though both room-mates were taking extended lunch hours off campus, I waited them out.  Adams’ daughter and niece were waiting too -- they made the wait enjoyable, sharing how much they loved their father and uncle.

When 90-year old Julian Carl Adams Jr. rounded the corner in his wheel chair, his World War II cap and huge smile made me pleased that I waited.

Adams could have just as well worn his USS Core or USS Lake Champlain caps.  He served on the Core 1943-1945, when he left to become a plank-owner on the newly commissioned Lake Champlain – both are U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.t 

“I was on the Core fueling detail.  We had to fuel the aircraft as they came and went.  At least one of us had to wear an asbestos suit during fueling operations – fires broke out quite frequently and had to be snuffed out quickly.”

The Core operated as a hunter-killer carrier and its aircraft were credited with sinking several German submarines in the North Atlantic.  “When we weren’t on patrol for enemy submarines -- we escorted convoys across the Atlantic and ferried aircraft to the war zone.  We delivered 56 P-51s to Liverpool on one occasion and 85 new aircraft to Glasgow another time.” 

CARL ADAMS JOINED THE NAVY AT 17,
"I THINK MY DADDY WAS GLAD TO GET RID OF ME!"

Adams was taken off the Core at Newport, RI and assigned to Marine Corps Air Station in Edenton, NC where the crew for the USS Lake Champlain was forming.  “We traveled by troop train.  I will always remember stopping in Richmond where they gave us box lunches.  Army Private Red Skelton was at the railroad station, dressed in a long Army coat – he looked pretty funny.” 

Adam wasn’t on the Lake Champlain very long before another Hollywood personality came on board, Harvard alumni John Uhler Lemmons III.  His shipmates knew him as Ensign Jack Lemmon.  He would become better known as Ensign Pulver.  

Hollywood dignitaries aside, Adams was more impressed with his commanding officer aboard the Lake Champlain, Captain Logan C. Ramsey.  “Our skipper, a commander at the time, was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  He was the one who ordered the radio transmission heard around the world, “AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL!” 

The USS Lake Champlain was commissioned June 3, 1945 and saw no World War II action.  “However, you can bet your boots that we brought a lot of GIs home who had been in combat,” says Adams.

The carrier’s aircraft and flight crews were removed and 4000 bunks installed on the hanger deck, as part of the Navy’s, “Magic Carpet” emphasis.  She was the first aircraft carrier converted for troop use and brought troops home from Southampton, England and Naples, Italy, sometimes carrying more than 5000 troops.

Per Adams, “Not only did we bring the troops home in relative comfort and style, we brought them home faster than any other ship!  No one touched our four-day, eight-hour, and 51-minute crossing record from Gibraltar to Norfolk.  We averaged 32.048 knots per hour. 

I had enough points to get out when the war ended, but they froze me due to our Magic Carpet operations.”

1946 was a good year for Adams.  He was discharged from the Navy and married Margaret Neureiter, a New York City donut shop waitress.  He was 19, she was 17.  “We caught a train to Fayetteville, my dad picked us up there.” 

Adams was employed by Roadway Express for 36 years.  He and his wife had two children, Judy Adams Jordan of High Point, and Julian Carl Adams III, who served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam.  Margaret Adams died in 1990, Carl III died in 1998.

Just as Adams became friends with his rehab room-mate, he made friends in the Navy too.  It is easier to list the USS Core reunions he recalls missing (Atlantic City, NJ) versus those he recalls attending (Hot Springs, AR; Lancaster, PA; Des Moines, IA; Islip, NY; Green Bay, WI; Minneapolis, MN, etc.).

We shouldn’t leave out the 1990 USS CORE reunion he brought to his home town of High Point.

Adams chairs the High Point Elks Club veterans committee and is a member of their ballroom dance group.  He is an American Legionnaire, life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a Shriner for 48 years.  He is quick to add, “I’m just two years away from my Masonic Lodge 60-year pin.”

A WIDOWER FOR 26 YEARS, CARL ADAMS HAD ATTENDED
MANY USS CORE REUNIONS AND HOSTED ONE IN HIS HOME TOWN OF HIGH POINT, NC

He became a Christian as an adult and is a deacon in First Presbyterian Church in High Point.

Adams’ two younger brothers followed him into the Navy – both served during the Korean War.