Surrounded by History

By WAYNE STEWART

History surrounds Elkhart’s Joe Chaffin.

The World War II veteran and former member of the Civilian Conservation Corps has seen much of the world and has left his imprint on a lot of it.

Growing up on a farm between Elkhart and Grapeland just before and during the Great Depression made life tough, but Chaffin was a man of faith and he took that faith with him to the CCC camps and to the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

His work with the CCC began in November 1939, where as a 16-year-old he started on a long journey.

“I was in Grapeland and I saw the district forest supervisor who told me to go to the CCC camp in Ratcliff,” Chaffin recalled.

Images of CCC camps show men literally moving mountains with little more than hand tools. Chaffin, he fondly recalls didn’t have to do any of that type of work.

“I never had to use a crosscut saw or a shovel unless I was just doing it to help,” Chaffin said. “The first job they handed me when I got to Ratcliff was driving. I drove a pickup truck and worked with the boundary crew.”

It’s been 70 years since he began his journey into manhood through the CCC, but as he recalls the names of the men he worked with all those years ago he remembers times when hard work was a natural part of life and a man’s willingness to do his job and do it well took him some place.

So, after a few months of driving the boundary crew, Chaffin started driving the gravel truck.

There were no machines to fill the trucks, Chaffin said, men used handheld scoops to fill the beds of the trucks.

“I would help them out and pick up a scoop and load part of it,” Chaffin recalled. “It was a good way to stay in shape.”

After about eight months of driving gravel trucks, Chaffin was promoted to G.I. driver.

“I was their G.I. driver until they closed the camp,” Chaffin recalled. “I would drive all over, to Lufkin, Diboll and Crockett.”

During his time at CCC Co. 1803 in Ratcliff, Chaffin said they worked on Ratcliff Lake part of the time with much of the camp’s time going toward the scaling and selling of the timber in the area.

One thing he recalled from working at the camp was how clean the equipment was.

“Our lieutenant wanted to keep all the equipment clean,” Chaffin said. “So every Saturday we washed all the equipment where the old 4-C Mill used to sit. It didn’t matter if we had just shined up the truck the day before, if it was Saturday, we had to wash it.”

As the work ran out the camp in Ratcliff came to an end, but just because the camp closed didn’t mean Chaffin was through with the CCC.

“I was the only one from that camp sent to Zion National Park in Utah,” Chaffin said. “I was sent there for boundary work and when I got there I had a good Christian commander, Capt. Green from Greenville (Texas.) That was July of 1941.”

During his time there Chaffin was promoted to 1st Sergeant after serving there for a while as G.I. driver.

A few months after arriving in Utah the world changed forever for Chaffin and the world.

“I was coming out of Cedar City, Utah when I heard about Pearl Harbor,” Chaffin remembered. “Immediately all the guys wanted to go so we knew the camp was going to be breaking up soon.

“All the men wanted to go so we would send them to Cedar City to join up. They would go there and join the Army or Navy and would never even go home.”

Because of his duties at the camp Chaffin said he had to stay until all the men were gone. He finally got to leave camp in February of 1942, at which time he joined the Navy.

While in the Navy Chaffin saw action from Guadalcanal to Nagasaki, Japan, but nothing ever tested his mettle like March 27, 1943.

Today, the battle is known as the Battle of Komandorski Island. Aboard the U.S.S. Coghlan, one of the Navy’s destroyers known as a tin can, the Coghlan along with destroyers Bailey, Dale and Monaghan were sailing in support of the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City.

The small contingent of U.S. ships were charged with destroying a Japanese supply convoy to the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. What they encountered was a Japanese contingent of warships that outnumbered their own 2-to-1. The battle raged for six hair-raising hours.

“I just knew I was going home to see Moma on that day,” Chaffin said. “I was praying for every second of that battle. I was already a Christian, but when you get in a tight like that it really brings you closer (to God.)”

Working a 5-inch gun, Chaffin and his crew were pouring 14 shells a minute onto the Japanese forces. On the Coghlan, all that was lost was the executive officer who was killed by some shrapnel that exploded near the ship.

The engagement was the last pure gunnery battle for U.S. Navy., and Chaffin said it is only through the grace of God he is here today.

“After the battle I was drinking coffee and a man who had been in the Navy for 18 years said, ‘something besides humans got us out of there today,’” Chaffin remembered. “God then gave me a chance to witness to him and I told him it was only through our Savior Jesus Christ that we made it out of there.”

Through all his memories, his faith is woven through the years like a fine tapestry; inside marriage of over 60 years to his wife Nita who recently passed away, through to his memories of war and of coming of age in the woods of East Texas.