Robert “Dick” Fritz
U.S. Navy Armed Guard– Gunners Mate
The Liberty Ship SS George Weems
Europe, Russia, Iran, South America, Saipan
March ‘43-January ‘46
U.S. Navy Armed Guard– Gunners Mate
The Liberty Ship SS George Weems
Europe, Russia, Iran, South America, Saipan
March ‘43-January ‘46
Robert “Dick” Fritz was born on March 4th, 1925 in Southbridge, MA. Dick was the youngest of four with a brother and two sisters. When Dick was born, and his mother brought him home she told his sister Jane she had a new brother named Robert. Jane objected. She told her mother she wanted to call him Dick so they could be Dick and Jane. These were characters in the books used at that time in grammar school to teach reading. Dick became his nickname.
His dad was a power plant engineer, and his mother was a teacher. The family moved several times when Dick was young but settled in Bristol in 1933 when he was 8. Dick grew up a neighborhood with families of all nationalities. “We had Russian, French, Polish, Italian. The whole neighborhood up there was all different nationalities. We all got along. We were all happy. It was good. Coming up was healthy.” Dick recalled attending Fall Mountain School, a two-room schoolhouse. “First, second, third and fourth in one room. Fifth sixth, seventh and eighth in the other room”.
When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression followed, there was little engineering work for Dick’s father. He found work at a local business, the Barnes Company, sweeping floors. When Fuller Barnes, the owner, found out Dick’s father knew about the operation and maintenance of the boilers and other equipment he promoted Dick’s father to an office job. “People were really hurting back in those years. My dad had a lot of land, and he made a lot of gardens.” His mother, who lived to be 106, was no longer working with the kids at home so she would do a lot of canning.
On December 7th, 1941 Dick was reading the funny papers in the family living room and listening to the radio. The regularly scheduled programing was interrupted to report that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. “Everybody was pissed off at the Japs.” Dick wasn’t a great student, so he quit school to join the Navy at the age of 17. After nine weeks of boot camp Dick and 200 other men boarded a train headed to New York City. They were told they would all become part of the Armed Guard. The men had never heard of such a group, and many thought they were headed for the National Guard. They learned that as part of the Armed Guard they would be Navy gunners on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. There were 10 guns on each ship. Dick said several were “heavy duty guns.”
“I was on 4 different ships. Three Liberties and one Hog Islander” from World War I.
Dick boarded the Hog Islander in Philadelphia. On the way out of port the ship ran aground. The crew and the cargo were transferred to the SS George Weems. The Weems was a newly constructed Liberty Ship. The Liberty Ships were a class of cargo ships outfitted with multiple guns manned by members of the Navy Armed Guard. By outfitting these cargo ships to fight back against enemy attacks, the U.S. hoped to keep goods and military equipment, such as trucks, planes and tanks flowing to England and other European Allies. “We learned those guns inside and out!”
Dick said a typical Liberty ship would have 30 gunners and 50 to 55 seaman. The first crew Dick served on was predominantly from “south of the Mason-Dixon line.” Dick and one other gunner were from the northern states and “we raised hell with those guys. We told them we beat you guys in the Civil War. We had a lot of fun. You’d give your life for those guys.”
Dick recalled endless training on the various guns “and it’s a good thing we did”. The first convoy, which consisted of 120 ships, “went right up off the coast and up by Greenland and Iceland and hooked around back down to England. When we got down to north of England the convoy broke up and the Weems went all the way down the English Channel and at flood tide we went up the Thames River all the way up to South London and they pushed us into the Royal Albert Locks”. Dick recalled spending 7 or 8 days in London during the Nazi bombing of London. They unloaded their cargo, reformed the convoy and headed back to the states which took 15 days. The Weems would load its cargo in ports such as New York, Baltimore, Charleston and Philadelphia.
In December of 1943 the Weems was loaded up with big boxes for the U.S. Navy marked Artic Gear. Dick thought, “Where the hell are we going?” They were headed for the Artic Circle to deliver supplies to Murmansk, Russia. These ships were delivering essential equipment and supplies under the U.S Lend Lease Program. The Murmansk run was known as the deadliest water route in World War II. The route was guarded by a Nazi battleship, the Scharnhorst, that inflicted a deadly toll on the Allied ships. “Two days before we were supposed to leave a priest, and a minister came out and gave us last rights.”
On the trip to Russia the convoy hit a terrible storm with extremely rough seas. “The waves were running 50 to 60 feet. When the wave breaks it curls and it hits your ship. Oh Christ, I thought I was never gonna get home again.” The rough conditions lasted 24 hours but the good news was the Scharnhorst could not leave its dock, and the Weems and its crew delivered its cargo to Murmansk. While docked in Murmansk for two months, Dick recalled being repeatedly bombed while they were in the harbor. Ultimately the Scharnhorst was sunk by the Royal British Navy on December 26th, 1943. In May of 1993 the President of the then Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, sent Dick and the crew a letter and a commemorative medal in celebration of “the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War (WWII)” for his “courage and contribution to Allied support of my country which fought for freedom against Nazi Germany.” Vladamir Putin didn’t send any recognition for the 50th anniversary.
Dick made 11 trips across the Atlantic including a trip to Algiers where they were strafed going through the Suez Canal. “Those planes would come in so fast. You pick ‘em up as fast as you can.” Dick recalled shooting down two Nazi planes. Nazi Swastikas were stenciled on their smokestack to record the kills. Dick also recalled being hit by a Nazi torpedo but fortunately “it was a dud” and left only a dent. “Those German submarine guys were real sharp. They would let the convoy go by…….then boom, boom, boom for about an hour.” Dick also talked about the icebergs and how the German submarines would hide under the ledges created by the icebergs.
Dick’s last trip to Naples was when the war in Europe was winding down. They were unloading ten thousand tons of 1,000-pound bombs at the port in Naples. “The ship was in Naples Italy, and we had to go up to Rome with the old man (the ship Captain). While he was busy in meetings, we were out seeing Rome.” Dick and his buddies were able to get into the Vatican and meet Pope Pius. They also used their leave to visit Egypt and see the pyramids. On one of his trips to London Dick and his buddies got a pass to the house of Parliament and saw Winston Churchill make a speech. “We also saw Big Ben, but it wasn’t running. They shut it down during the war.” Dick remembered making trips through the Panama Canal to Venezuela and Chile, trips across the Atlantic to Scotland, Ireland and Sicily, through the Mediterranean to Iran, and across the Pacific Ocean to New Guinea, Saipan and Australia. While Dick was on Saipan they received the news that Japan surrendered ending World War II.
Dick recalled how the Germans planes would drop mines into the English Channel at night. The Liberty Ships had to avoid them on their trips through the channel.
I asked Dick if he was ever scared. “Oh yeah. When I went to Russia and saw the size of those waves……”
After VJ Day Dick and his buddies left Saipan and returned to San Francisco. Dick was discharged from the Navy at Lido Beach on Long Island in January of 1946. He returned to Bristol, Connecticut and blew off steam for a while. Uncle Sam funded Dick’s hijinks with $20 each week for 52 weeks (the 52/20 Club) and Dick made sure to spend every penny. “Bought a car, chased the girls, went dancing all the time”. Dick attended trade school for a while, but the money ran out.
Out of money, Dick found a job with E. Ingram in Bristol. Dick was in the machining department where they manufactured parts for wrist watches. He was laid off but found a job at Superior Electric where he could walk to work and he advanced through the ranks to foreman. “Being a foreman was no piece of cake especially when you have women. God Bless them.”
In 1951 Dick decided to settle down with the love of his life, Carol Jean Granger. Dick originally met Carol when he moved to Bristol when he was eight years old and she was six years old. “Every summer she would get a little bigger and I got a little bigger. In 1951 I am lookin’ at her different than I did when I was six. So, I said will you and she said I will and we did and we had two wonderful kids.” In 1971 Dick and Carol bought their home in Bristol, CT for $11,000.
Carol was the head clerk in the Comptroller’s office in the Bristol. “So, don’t you think she knew how to run a house? Oh, dear God. She had books! If you don’t live by a budget, you’ll never have any money.” Dick and Carol were married for 71 years and had two children, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Carol passed away in 2021. ”I been through…..strafing’s and bombings …to lose her was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
“I was just an average kid and in the war I did the same thing that 10,000 other 17 and 18 year old kids did in ‘42,’43,’44,’45.”
“Every day I live I say thank you God for my life on earth because so many times I guess it could have gotten snuffed out.”
Dick, thank you for logging all of the miles across the world’s oceans to keep the Allies supplied so they could defeat the true evil threatening the world.
His dad was a power plant engineer, and his mother was a teacher. The family moved several times when Dick was young but settled in Bristol in 1933 when he was 8. Dick grew up a neighborhood with families of all nationalities. “We had Russian, French, Polish, Italian. The whole neighborhood up there was all different nationalities. We all got along. We were all happy. It was good. Coming up was healthy.” Dick recalled attending Fall Mountain School, a two-room schoolhouse. “First, second, third and fourth in one room. Fifth sixth, seventh and eighth in the other room”.
When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression followed, there was little engineering work for Dick’s father. He found work at a local business, the Barnes Company, sweeping floors. When Fuller Barnes, the owner, found out Dick’s father knew about the operation and maintenance of the boilers and other equipment he promoted Dick’s father to an office job. “People were really hurting back in those years. My dad had a lot of land, and he made a lot of gardens.” His mother, who lived to be 106, was no longer working with the kids at home so she would do a lot of canning.
On December 7th, 1941 Dick was reading the funny papers in the family living room and listening to the radio. The regularly scheduled programing was interrupted to report that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. “Everybody was pissed off at the Japs.” Dick wasn’t a great student, so he quit school to join the Navy at the age of 17. After nine weeks of boot camp Dick and 200 other men boarded a train headed to New York City. They were told they would all become part of the Armed Guard. The men had never heard of such a group, and many thought they were headed for the National Guard. They learned that as part of the Armed Guard they would be Navy gunners on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. There were 10 guns on each ship. Dick said several were “heavy duty guns.”
“I was on 4 different ships. Three Liberties and one Hog Islander” from World War I.
Dick boarded the Hog Islander in Philadelphia. On the way out of port the ship ran aground. The crew and the cargo were transferred to the SS George Weems. The Weems was a newly constructed Liberty Ship. The Liberty Ships were a class of cargo ships outfitted with multiple guns manned by members of the Navy Armed Guard. By outfitting these cargo ships to fight back against enemy attacks, the U.S. hoped to keep goods and military equipment, such as trucks, planes and tanks flowing to England and other European Allies. “We learned those guns inside and out!”
Dick said a typical Liberty ship would have 30 gunners and 50 to 55 seaman. The first crew Dick served on was predominantly from “south of the Mason-Dixon line.” Dick and one other gunner were from the northern states and “we raised hell with those guys. We told them we beat you guys in the Civil War. We had a lot of fun. You’d give your life for those guys.”
Dick recalled endless training on the various guns “and it’s a good thing we did”. The first convoy, which consisted of 120 ships, “went right up off the coast and up by Greenland and Iceland and hooked around back down to England. When we got down to north of England the convoy broke up and the Weems went all the way down the English Channel and at flood tide we went up the Thames River all the way up to South London and they pushed us into the Royal Albert Locks”. Dick recalled spending 7 or 8 days in London during the Nazi bombing of London. They unloaded their cargo, reformed the convoy and headed back to the states which took 15 days. The Weems would load its cargo in ports such as New York, Baltimore, Charleston and Philadelphia.
In December of 1943 the Weems was loaded up with big boxes for the U.S. Navy marked Artic Gear. Dick thought, “Where the hell are we going?” They were headed for the Artic Circle to deliver supplies to Murmansk, Russia. These ships were delivering essential equipment and supplies under the U.S Lend Lease Program. The Murmansk run was known as the deadliest water route in World War II. The route was guarded by a Nazi battleship, the Scharnhorst, that inflicted a deadly toll on the Allied ships. “Two days before we were supposed to leave a priest, and a minister came out and gave us last rights.”
On the trip to Russia the convoy hit a terrible storm with extremely rough seas. “The waves were running 50 to 60 feet. When the wave breaks it curls and it hits your ship. Oh Christ, I thought I was never gonna get home again.” The rough conditions lasted 24 hours but the good news was the Scharnhorst could not leave its dock, and the Weems and its crew delivered its cargo to Murmansk. While docked in Murmansk for two months, Dick recalled being repeatedly bombed while they were in the harbor. Ultimately the Scharnhorst was sunk by the Royal British Navy on December 26th, 1943. In May of 1993 the President of the then Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, sent Dick and the crew a letter and a commemorative medal in celebration of “the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War (WWII)” for his “courage and contribution to Allied support of my country which fought for freedom against Nazi Germany.” Vladamir Putin didn’t send any recognition for the 50th anniversary.
Dick made 11 trips across the Atlantic including a trip to Algiers where they were strafed going through the Suez Canal. “Those planes would come in so fast. You pick ‘em up as fast as you can.” Dick recalled shooting down two Nazi planes. Nazi Swastikas were stenciled on their smokestack to record the kills. Dick also recalled being hit by a Nazi torpedo but fortunately “it was a dud” and left only a dent. “Those German submarine guys were real sharp. They would let the convoy go by…….then boom, boom, boom for about an hour.” Dick also talked about the icebergs and how the German submarines would hide under the ledges created by the icebergs.
Dick’s last trip to Naples was when the war in Europe was winding down. They were unloading ten thousand tons of 1,000-pound bombs at the port in Naples. “The ship was in Naples Italy, and we had to go up to Rome with the old man (the ship Captain). While he was busy in meetings, we were out seeing Rome.” Dick and his buddies were able to get into the Vatican and meet Pope Pius. They also used their leave to visit Egypt and see the pyramids. On one of his trips to London Dick and his buddies got a pass to the house of Parliament and saw Winston Churchill make a speech. “We also saw Big Ben, but it wasn’t running. They shut it down during the war.” Dick remembered making trips through the Panama Canal to Venezuela and Chile, trips across the Atlantic to Scotland, Ireland and Sicily, through the Mediterranean to Iran, and across the Pacific Ocean to New Guinea, Saipan and Australia. While Dick was on Saipan they received the news that Japan surrendered ending World War II.
Dick recalled how the Germans planes would drop mines into the English Channel at night. The Liberty Ships had to avoid them on their trips through the channel.
I asked Dick if he was ever scared. “Oh yeah. When I went to Russia and saw the size of those waves……”
After VJ Day Dick and his buddies left Saipan and returned to San Francisco. Dick was discharged from the Navy at Lido Beach on Long Island in January of 1946. He returned to Bristol, Connecticut and blew off steam for a while. Uncle Sam funded Dick’s hijinks with $20 each week for 52 weeks (the 52/20 Club) and Dick made sure to spend every penny. “Bought a car, chased the girls, went dancing all the time”. Dick attended trade school for a while, but the money ran out.
Out of money, Dick found a job with E. Ingram in Bristol. Dick was in the machining department where they manufactured parts for wrist watches. He was laid off but found a job at Superior Electric where he could walk to work and he advanced through the ranks to foreman. “Being a foreman was no piece of cake especially when you have women. God Bless them.”
In 1951 Dick decided to settle down with the love of his life, Carol Jean Granger. Dick originally met Carol when he moved to Bristol when he was eight years old and she was six years old. “Every summer she would get a little bigger and I got a little bigger. In 1951 I am lookin’ at her different than I did when I was six. So, I said will you and she said I will and we did and we had two wonderful kids.” In 1971 Dick and Carol bought their home in Bristol, CT for $11,000.
Carol was the head clerk in the Comptroller’s office in the Bristol. “So, don’t you think she knew how to run a house? Oh, dear God. She had books! If you don’t live by a budget, you’ll never have any money.” Dick and Carol were married for 71 years and had two children, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Carol passed away in 2021. ”I been through…..strafing’s and bombings …to lose her was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
“I was just an average kid and in the war I did the same thing that 10,000 other 17 and 18 year old kids did in ‘42,’43,’44,’45.”
“Every day I live I say thank you God for my life on earth because so many times I guess it could have gotten snuffed out.”
Dick, thank you for logging all of the miles across the world’s oceans to keep the Allies supplied so they could defeat the true evil threatening the world.