Violence and Dawn

By Terry Lee Norton

This story points to human nature. Its seeming repetitive side relative to the use of violence and bad behavior. Change appears through centuries out of reach despite the presence of good people. In this story, a solid Navy father-daughter family crime war is the path taken often.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645846260

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Violence and Dawn

Terry Lee Norton

Copyright © 2019 Terry Lee Norton

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64584-625-3 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-89157-928-6 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-64584-626-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

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Norton T L (c2010 et seq.)

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About the Author

For my daughter, Johanna L. Norton

Pacific

1

Norton T L (c2010 et seq.)

First Segment: Navigate the Narrows

Savage

Awatery expanse unmatched in both size and beauty by the other seas and oceans of the world the Pacific Ocean stood alone as the most perilous. Most seafarers Savage knew agreed. Many of its smaller islands' atolls were uncharted, yet experienced mariners who had sailed in these waters knew they were there. Several years earlier, a younger Savage sailed aboard a Destroyer some sailors nicknamed The Sword , designated officially as DD-13, as a part of a squadron of destroyers with heavy cruisers sailing from Hawaii to the South China Sea. Accompanied in the group was a single battleship. These warships passed by numerous unchartered island atolls as they moved through the water.

Wake Island was such an island atoll. Hardly big enough, Savage recalled thinking when he first saw its sand and palm trees looming on the far horizon, to house sufficient troop numbers with aircraft stationed there in support, as was the enhanced plan as he understood it to be, to hold off any determined opposing force bringing death sure to visit many, with Americans on duty. His destroyer was there only for the better part of an afternoon and evening. He remembered thinking, as they sailed away in darkness, Better to be aboard his ship than to be isolated as those fellows would be, stationed there for long periods.

In contrast to the heavy cruisers, the destroyers accompanying were not big warships. To some, the destroyer had a confining feel. As land fell away from sight, the ship seemed to shrink in size as the sailor on board watched. The ensign's locker, as it was called—where Savage, then a lieutenant (j. g.) racked—was again small. And a shower on board was always taken with an eye to water conservation. Get wet, turn water off. Soap up, turn water on. Rinse off in less than a minute's time, turn water off. His rack was high on the bunk of three racks tall as they were constructed in what some thought of as a confined space, given the number of junior naval officers assigned there. Savage wired the side open to the locker's deck so that any roll of the ship could not throw him out to the steel bottom side several feet below, but Savage liked it. He liked it above all other ship types save the aircraft carrier. The carrier was relatively new to the fleet, at least as to any deciding agreement concerning the ship's best fleet purpose. It was still thought to be, by the old guard, the battleships' second. And because this big Navy airplane-carrying ship brought water and air together, Savage was more than interested.

You fly ‘nicely,' he was told.

Flown by an uncle's friend to his grandfather's funeral at the age of fifteen in a two-seater single-engine land only aircraft, Savage decided then that he wanted to fly, to be a pilot. Not too many years later, after a government check ride with the examiner uttering those words, he earned his civilian air wings. The Navy's yet to come.

But at the time, it was enough that his destroyer was fast and maneuvered well, responding to course change orders with little decrease in speed in battle exercises. It had good firepower combat capability for both surface, ship-to-ship, improving to include updated ship-to-air, and subsurface firefights. When on the destroyer's bridge, or more particularly the wing signal bridge just outside, at night, the sound of the bow cutting through water giving off the sight of a white effervescence, the canopy of stars above, together with the shine of the moon made for an almost mystical setting as hours passed.

Give that officer a brick, the underway destroyer's captain said when Savage, for the first time as an officer, at duty station bridge, entered a warship's bridge taking his turn, stood watch.

There, outside in the open, the air with its salty feel could not have seemed fresher, at least to Savage. When off duty he could often be found there, his brick hanging by a leather strap from his neck, used not as a lookout's magnifier but rather for the sky watcher he was looking from one star to another down to the breaking waves' white caps below them. And occasionally, toward the surfacing submarine, starboard or port side, the destroyer was playing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) tag with. From there, on what now seemed a long-ago night years past, he recalled watching Wake Island disappear from sight.

It was years later. Tall waves pounded the north shore. Alone in early evening, Ethan Savage