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Iven Carter By: Olivia Smith & Christian McCowan
Iven Carter
By: Olivia Smith & Christian McCowan
Iven Carter was born in the small town of Belleville, Kansas on November 19,
1924. He was raised in Burlington, Colorado along with ten brothers and sisters. During
the era of Prohibition, his father was a secret moonshiner making fifty cents off of each
bottle he sold. He recalls hearing his brother say that the forbidden beverage was made
somewhere out in the countryside in a hole in the ground with a feed stack atop it. In his
later teenage years, Iven had fun going dancing and shooting pool with his friends.
Besides his leisure, he had gotten a job as a bus driver at the age of sixteen for a year
and a half before his enlistment into the Navy. However, that job had came to an end
after one incident where a coyote had come onto the road and in trying to steer clear of
the animal, a little girl who was a passenger of the bus mistook Iven’s actions for
chasing the coyote and told this to her mother. Iven was then told that he was not to
drive the bus during an investigation but after it was realized that he was innocent, he
received a letter saying he could come back to drive. “ I said ‘too late, I enlisted in the
navy,’ ” he states while remembering the moment. Within this time before his service,
Iven had also joined a traveling carnival that had come to his hometown however his
days as a carny were short lived once his mother caught wind of it. She demanded he
come home after giving the circus owner an earful. She didn't want her son going off but
this didn’t stop young Iven from enlisting soon afterwards. “I wanted to join something
so I joined the Navy.” says Carter. At seventeen, Iven enlisted though it wasn’t until he
was 18 that he took his first steps onto the USS Ramsay.
Iven began his boot camp training on June 17, 1943 in Farragut, Idaho. This
specific training center was infamous for valley fever, in which many people
unfortunately caught. He recalls what he learned in boot camp was how to swim and
how to take orders. On the last day of his boot camp he noticed his ankles were
completely swollen. Sadly, Iven was diagnosed with Rheumatic fever and spent seven
months battling the sickness in the hospital. Luckily, he made a full recovery. While in
the hospital Iven was sentenced to thirty days in the “brig” for a misunderstanding over
recovering his lost uniform and luggage. “The hospital brig is not like a ship brig” Iven
remembers.
The USS Ramsey was assigned to Iven on December 24, 1944 in San
Francisco. The Ramsey was a smaller ship that sailed in a previous war after its
commission in 1917. The ship circled the bigger ship in order to protect the ship from
possible mines or submarines. The bigger ships consisted of over 1500 sailors, while
the his consisted of approximately 100 sailors. Basically, they were okay to lose 100
sailors over 1500 sailors, so they were willing to sacrifice to defend the battle ships that
could eventually help win the war. Because the larger ships were newer; they were
more technologically advanced. Iven envied the great ships because of it having more
to do, but he was thankful for his close relationship with his fellow sailors. When Iven
was not working, he was looking out at the mesmerizing ocean and telling stories with
his friends.
Along with the restricted options for entertainment, there was a set of rules on
the ship. Among those rules were no fighting and no drinking. With fighting, Iven says
he was never one to engage in breaking that one but he does remember one
particularly brutal fight in which a couple of his shipmates got into an argument that
quickly escalated to fists flying for about an hour straight. Though they could've very
well been punished, Iven says they weren't. As for the drinking, Iven does remember the
somewhat sneaky task of getting his fix with his friends aboard the ship. "We called it
Raisin Jack." Taking the raisins, yeast, sugar (all given to the men by the cooks), and
setting the mixture behind the warm boilers would give the men a drink that could fill
their cravings. So long as you didn't get drunk, you weren't caught by the skipper though
the skipper clearly already knew what was going on.
Iven's duty was to work as a fireman. He worked long hours in the ship to
essentially keep it moving. Although, Iven saw his job as small and minimal, he was a
vital key in running the ship and without him the ship wouldn't run or be maintained the
same. People like Iven Carter who worked hard behind the scenes during the war; are
the reason we were victorious.
The USS Ramsey, the ship Iven spent much of his wartime on, was a ship meant
for protection. Because it appeared better to let the smaller ships take the fall rather
than a battleship full of fighting sailors, if a submarine or mine was supposedly detected
by radar, the sailors of the Ramsey would drop a depth charge. A depth charge, as Iven
describes it, is basically a big barrel full ammunition and when it gets to a certain point it
explodes. When the depth charge would go off, " the whole ship would shake and light
bulbs would fall out," he says while remembering the earthquakelike conditions of the
undersea explosions. This defense mechanism was only used five times, as Iven
recalls, and all five were false alarms. Thankfully, Iven explains the closest thing they
got to a real threat was a harmless school of innocent fish.
To keep in touch with his mother, Iven often sent and received letters. Letters
cost three cents and were read and censored if necessary. Although, Ivens letters were
never censored because they never needed to be. "Most guys knew what they could
and couldn't say," he says but they were censored if “too much” was said and a spy
could get a hold of them.
Iven Carter experienced combat a half mile outside the battleship in the Marshall
Islands. He recalls the epic fight to look like fireworks. The once green and wooded
island was now flat and desolate. Iven saw firsthand Kamikaze airplanes nosediving in
order to use their plane and, oddly enough, themselves as a weapon. It was unlike
anything he had ever seen before. Before the battle and the morning after looked like
completely different places. Iven also observed battle in Okinawa, but this was 2 years
after Pearl Harbor. After receiving news about the bombing in Pearl Harbor, he
expressed relief that he wasn't there yet sorrow at the same time for the loss of
American lives. The atomic bombings in Japan also struck sorrow in Iven’s heart. "War
is hell; it's terrible no matter how you look at it.” He explains that it was horrible news
because of the loss of life, in general, of innocent people. Men, women, and children of
Japan were killed to save American lives. Either way, many faultless victims lost their
lives. Within the U.S., Iven recalls the way that innocent families of Japanese Americans
were torn from their daily lives and put in internment camps for the socalled safety of
America. "It was bad that good people were taken up," he states.
After Iven’s time on the Ramsey, he got a job as a cook near where the ship
would be sailed. Iven waited six months to board the brandnew US Kenttt Island AG78,
which was built in New York.
According to Iven’s belief, as well as many sailors' belief; “You have to get a
tattoo to become a real sailor.” His first was his Naval serial number which cost eight
dollars in Honolulu. By having it on him, he wouldn't have to worry about remembering
his serial number if it was ever asked of him by the shore patrol because he wasn't
"looking right." As a fan of wearing his hat cocked to the side and also a fan at the time
of alcohol, it wasn't really rare for him to be stopped every so often. Getting Iven’s
second tattoo on his opposite forearm was the first thing he did when he stopped in
Pearl Harbor. The artwork is a portrait of a cowgirl sitting atop a fence, which
symbolized his home town.
Iven’s time in the war ended on March 8, 1946. He considered rejoined the navy,
because he only enlisted for the duration of the war. However, Iven decided differently
because he was going to marry the women he fell in love with. After his service, Iven
became head chef at numerous restaurant establishments, specializing in American
cuisine. Later in his life he remarried, and had one adopted child and four stepchildren
which he all claimed as his own. Overall, Iven believes that his military experience was
the best thing he decided to do. “The Navy is a great place.”
