You Don't Get a Good Conduct Ribbon for being an Angel

I had still not lost my dream of getting into the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  I did not confide in anyone, however—even my brother—because the average enlisted man in the Navy would deride anyone with ambitions to be a “gold braid”.  It would be a kiss of death with many of my new shipmates.

I went to the VP-23 squadron educational officer, a young reserve ensign named Rodney Foss, fresh out of the Naval cadet program, ostensibly for the purpose of getting some reference books to study for my third class petty officer’s examination.  I waited until Ensign Foss was alone in the office then, after swearing him to secrecy, told him what I wanted.  The young officer checked my personnel folder for my high school record and was delighted.  He felt that I had a chance to take the examination for the Annapolis preparatory school.  I was near the age limit (twenty) but Foss thought there would be time.

When I impressed upon ensign Foss the reasons that I wanted my application to be a secret, he promised that he would file the application himself and keep all the records locked in his desk.  If he entrusted it to a yeoman in would no doubt become an item of scuttlebutt and I would be subjected to much derision.  I told Foss that if that happened I would request a transfer and I did not want to do that.

The friendly young ensign swore on his honor as an officer that he would say nothing to anyone.  If my application was turned down, he would destroy all records and that would be the end of it.  He also promised to quietly check into the requirements for the examination and promised to provide me with a list of reference books that I could study.

It would be less than honest if I painted myself in those days as lily white.  As I mentioned before, I did my share of carousing in those early days in Hawaii and I did not always stay out of trouble.  I did receive a Good Conduct ribbon after four years in the Navy, but the reason was that I managed to avoid getting caught.  My troubles were usually personal and resulted from a combination of too much booze and the quick temper that seemed to come with my reddish blond hair.

One such incident occurred one night when I had gone on liberty with a good shipmate, Oscar Hook.  We decided we wanted to go dancing and see if we could pick up some girls.  Hook stated that he knew a coke joint that had live music and a dance floor out in Waikiki near the original Trader Vic’s (I forget the name of the place so I will call it “Jack’s” since that might well have been it).

There had been some problems at Jack’s with some inter-service fights between either sailors and marines or sailors and marines together against Army riff-raff.  Jack had banned booze from the premises.

We, of course, wanted something to spike the cokes (we figured the old saying “candy is dancy, but liquor is quicker” was true).  Hook had an answer as to how to smuggle in some bourbon.  He stopped at a drugstore and bought a douche bag and a bottle of bourbon.  In a filling station head, we cut the nozzle off the douche bag tube and poured the bourbon in the bag.  I was too skinny, but Hook weighed around two hundred pounds with a generous belly and he was wearing a loose regulation jumper.  He tucked the douche bag inside his waistband and it hardly showed.

At Jack’s, Hook remained seated at a table and I carried the cokes and ice from the bar.  Hook would then slip a drink under the red-checkered tablecloth and squirt a shot of bourbon into the coke.

We had gotten a pleasant glow on when two hapa-haole wahines that Hook knew came in and sat with us.  Both were terrific looking.  One was Kay with short black hair, quick happy smile, and laughing eyes.  The other was Lani (short for Leilani, meaning “heavenly flower”).  Lani had black hair down to her waist, the face and body of a beautiful young Polynesian wahine, and a very quiet voice and smile.  Both girls worked as models at a souvenir photo shop in Waikiki.  Lani was, indeed a heavenly flower in my eyes and we were soon on the dance floor.

The trouble began when a very drunken Army private tried to cut in on us and dance with Lani.  She did not want that and resisted.  When the private kept pestering us, my temper flared and I shoved him hard enough that he fell backward.  He came up off the floor sucking and swung a wild roundhouse punch at me.  I retaliated and almost instantly the place was bedlam with sailors and marines coming to my aid and soldiers fighting back.  The girls present were cowering along the palm frond walls.

I had just decked the drunk private when Oscar appeared on one side of the me and a green-clad marine on the other.  The marine yelled over the noise, “Back toward the window.  The shore patrol will be here and we’ll have to bail out!”

Sure enough, in a couple of minutes over the sounds of battle and breaking furniture there were shrill whistles of the shore patrol outside the door.  The marine shoved Nook and me through a side window and dive headfirst after us into the thick shrubbery.  The marine vanished into the darkness in one direction and Hook and I took off in another.  As we went I heard someone yell, “Watch the back!” and a white-clad shore patrol came around the building.

The SP spotted us and gave chase.  We cut over to the next street and ran for our lives with his pounding footsteps a half block behind.  He pursued us down Kalakaua and, as we came to the Wagon Wheel restaurant there were two SP’s coming up the street from the other direction.  Hook yelled, “In here!” and shoved me into the restaurant.

The Wagon Wheel had an open dining patio in the left of the front door.  We cut through there, causing no end of consternation among the diners.  The rear wall of the patio on the alley appeared to be made of woven palm fronds.  Hook, with his two hundred pounds charged the wall like a football guard and hit it with his shoulder.  It was not just palm fronds—behind them was a steel mesh fence!

Oscar bounced back with a curse.  I could hear the SPs approaching the restaurant door.  Using a vacant table by the fence, I boosted Hook over and swung after him.  We sprinted down the alley to the next street then swung off into the tree-lined streets of a quiet residential area.  Two blocks along and getting short of breath, we cut through an alley and discovered a detached garage with the door ajar.  The SPs were not within earshot as we slipped inside the garage.

The garage contained an ancient Model A Ford sedan.  We sat down on the running board to catch our breath, listening for sounds of pursuit that did not come.  When we were breathing normally and still heard no sounds, Hook produced the tube of the douche bag still in his waistband and we each had a shot.  I realized then that we were bareheaded.  I produced my white hat which had been folded and tucked into the back of my waistband.  Oscar felt around, then cursed, “Dang it, I must of left my white hat on the table!  I can’t get back to the base out of uniform—they’ll pick me up for sure!”

We each had another pull at the douche bag bourbon, (it had developed a slight taste of rubber but we were far enough along to ignore that) and solemnly considered the problem.  I had another shot and the little light bulb came on over my head.  “Tell you what, old buddy,” I pronounced owlishly, “I’ll go get you a white hat.”

“Where an’ how you gonna do that?”

“By now there’ll be a bunch of drunken sailors over at the Waikiki Tavern.  I’ll jist borry you one.”

“Hate to swipe an’ ol’ shipmate’s hat.”

“Aw, I’ll pick me a fireman off a ship.  You sit right here an’ save me a belt and I”ll be back before you know it.  Now don’t you try to go ennywhere—the SPs may still be out there looking for us.”

I straightened my rumpled whites, squared my white hat, listened at the door, then slipped out into the warm darkness walking as steadily as I could.

It went as planned.  I passed a couple of SPs with a careless wave of a hand, made it to the Waikiki Tavern, and as I reckoned the bar was in full swing.  I strolled through the din to the head where I was washing my hands when a very drunk sailor stumbled in headed for a booth.  His white hat was tipped on the back of his head and he never felt it when I lifted the hat as he staggered by.  I flipped it flat and tucked it in my waistband under my blouse as retching sounds came from the booth.

When I arrived back at the garage, I was dismayed to find the running board empty.  Hook had disappeared.  I called his name softly and was answered by a snore form the car.  Oscar was happily asleep in the back seat.  I felt the douche bag—it was flat and empty.

I finally got Oscar out of the car and unsteadily on his feet, straightened his uniform, and clapped the filched white hat on his head.  Hook was a big man and the hat was too small.  It perched precariously atop his mop of unruly black hair.

I considered our options.  There was no way I could get him on the bus to downtown Honolulu, onto the bus for the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, and into the Ford Island boat without getting picked up.  Even as I thought it over, Hook slowly slid down to a sitting position on the running board.

I investigated my wallet, then checked out Hook’s.  Between the two of us we had enough cash for a taxi to the Navy Yard.  My problem was to find one and get him into it.  Finally I got him on his feet and we unsteadily made it out of the alley and to a corner under a streetlight where I propped the big man against the pole and told him to hang on.

My heart sank when the second car past was a Honolulu police car.  It slowed and backed up to us.  The officer in the passenger seat said, “Got a problem, boys?”

I was now sober enough that my words did not slur.  “No sir.  My buddy here just doesn’t feel so good.  I need a taxi to get back to the base.”

The policeman looked us over carefully, apparently decided we were harmless, and said, “Stay right there.  We’ll send a cab.”  The police car slowly pulled away.

It worked.  In a few minutes, during which Hook slid down to sit on the curb and snored leaning against the pole, a taxi pulled up.  He deposited us at the Navy Yard gate and we had no problem.  The liberty boat coxswain was used to such sights.

During another liberty after we had moved to Kaneohe and I was on mess cooking duty, I was on the other end of such a problem.  I was on Saturday evening liberty with a shipmate—Pickett, I believe it was—and we went into the Honolulu Café on Beretania Street for some supper.  There we ran into two of my Vancouver High School 1939 classmates, George Stonehouse and Frankie Enz.

Turned out that Stonehouse and Enz had gone through boot camp together and both ahd been assigned to the heavy cruiser INDIANAPOLIS.  The “INDY” had just moored at Pearl and they were on their first Honolulu liberty.  We had some drinks after supper, then took them for a tour of the joints in the “tenderloin”.

After considerably more drinks than we needed (I recall the tip of my nose got numb which was the signal I had had enough, but I ignored it and was having a great time) we wound up in a place down on Nuuana Canal.  Later I vaguely recalled that there was a crap game in a corner and I got into a beef with a drunk Marine corporal.  When we started to come to blows the madam ordered us to take it to the alley outside, which we did.

It was a dandy scrap and we each decked the other a couple of times when an SPs’ whistle shrilled down the street.  Pickett hustled me off down the alley, got me back up to Beretania, and we boarded the “Red Peril”.  I slept in the back seat all the way to Kaneohe.  I do not know what happened to Stonehouse and Enz as they were otherwise occupied at the time of the fight and I never saw them again.  (Late in WWII the INDIANAPOLIS was torpedoed, blew up, and sank in minutes with few survivors.)

The next morning when we mess cooks were turned out at 0400, I was on my bunk still in my whites and I was a mess.  I stank of gin, was sick as a dog with a hangover, and there was blood on the front of my blouse.  Checking myself over, I could find no damage to account for it.  I asked Pickett later about it and he just laughed, “Hell, Frieze, you beat up on that Marine.  It was his blood after you broke his nose!”

Like I may have said earlier, you don’t get a Good Conduct ribbon for being an angel—you get it for not getting caught!

You Don't Get a Good Conduct Ribbon for being an Angel

I had still not lost my dream of getting into the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  I did not confide in anyone, however—even my brother—because the average enlisted man in the Navy would deride anyone with ambitions to be a “gold braid”.  It would be a kiss of death with many of my new shipmates.

I went to the VP-23 squadron educational officer, a young reserve ensign named Rodney Foss, fresh out of the Naval cadet program, ostensibly for the purpose of getting some reference books to study for my third class petty officer’s examination.  I waited until Ensign Foss was alone in the office then, after swearing him to secrecy, told him what I wanted.  The young officer checked my personnel folder for my high school record and was delighted.  He felt that I had a chance to take the examination for the Annapolis preparatory school.  I was near the age limit (twenty) but Foss thought there would be time.

When I impressed upon ensign Foss the reasons that I wanted my application to be a secret, he promised that he would file the application himself and keep all the records locked in his desk.  If he entrusted it to a yeoman in would no doubt become an item of scuttlebutt and I would be subjected to much derision.  I told Foss that if that happened I would request a transfer and I did not want to do that.

The friendly young ensign swore on his honor as an officer that he would say nothing to anyone.  If my application was turned down, he would destroy all records and that would be the end of it.  He also promised to quietly check into the requirements for the examination and promised to provide me with a list of reference books that I could study.

It would be less than honest if I painted myself in those days as lily white.  As I mentioned before, I did my share of carousing in those early days in Hawaii and I did not always stay out of trouble.  I did receive a Good Conduct ribbon after four years in the Navy, but the reason was that I managed to avoid getting caught.  My troubles were usually personal and resulted from a combination of too much booze and the quick temper that seemed to come with my reddish blond hair.

One such incident occurred one night when I had gone on liberty with a good shipmate, Oscar Hook.  We decided we wanted to go dancing and see if we could pick up some girls.  Hook stated that he knew a coke joint that had live music and a dance floor out in Waikiki near the original Trader Vic’s (I forget the name of the place so I will call it “Jack’s” since that might well have been it).

There had been some problems at Jack’s with some inter-service fights between either sailors and marines or sailors and marines together against Army riff-raff.  Jack had banned booze from the premises.

We, of course, wanted something to spike the cokes (we figured the old saying “candy is dancy, but liquor is quicker” was true).  Hook had an answer as to how to smuggle in some bourbon.  He stopped at a drugstore and bought a douche bag and a bottle of bourbon.  In a filling station head, we cut the nozzle off the douche bag tube and poured the bourbon in the bag.  I was too skinny, but Hook weighed around two hundred pounds with a generous belly and he was wearing a loose regulation jumper.  He tucked the douche bag inside his waistband and it hardly showed.

At Jack’s, Hook remained seated at a table and I carried the cokes and ice from the bar.  Hook would then slip a drink under the red-checkered tablecloth and squirt a shot of bourbon into the coke.

We had gotten a pleasant glow on when two hapa-haole wahines that Hook knew came in and sat with us.  Both were terrific looking.  One was Kay with short black hair, quick happy smile, and laughing eyes.  The other was Lani (short for Leilani, meaning “heavenly flower”).  Lani had black hair down to her waist, the face and body of a beautiful young Polynesian wahine, and a very quiet voice and smile.  Both girls worked as models at a souvenir photo shop in Waikiki.  Lani was, indeed a heavenly flower in my eyes and we were soon on the dance floor.

The trouble began when a very drunken Army private tried to cut in on us and dance with Lani.  She did not want that and resisted.  When the private kept pestering us, my temper flared and I shoved him hard enough that he fell backward.  He came up off the floor sucking and swung a wild roundhouse punch at me.  I retaliated and almost instantly the place was bedlam with sailors and marines coming to my aid and soldiers fighting back.  The girls present were cowering along the palm frond walls.

I had just decked the drunk private when Oscar appeared on one side of the me and a green-clad marine on the other.  The marine yelled over the noise, “Back toward the window.  The shore patrol will be here and we’ll have to bail out!”

Sure enough, in a couple of minutes over the sounds of battle and breaking furniture there were shrill whistles of the shore patrol outside the door.  The marine shoved Nook and me through a side window and dive headfirst after us into the thick shrubbery.  The marine vanished into the darkness in one direction and Hook and I took off in another.  As we went I heard someone yell, “Watch the back!” and a white-clad shore patrol came around the building.

The SP spotted us and gave chase.  We cut over to the next street and ran for our lives with his pounding footsteps a half block behind.  He pursued us down Kalakaua and, as we came to the Wagon Wheel restaurant there were two SP’s coming up the street from the other direction.  Hook yelled, “In here!” and shoved me into the restaurant.

The Wagon Wheel had an open dining patio in the left of the front door.  We cut through there, causing no end of consternation among the diners.  The rear wall of the patio on the alley appeared to be made of woven palm fronds.  Hook, with his two hundred pounds charged the wall like a football guard and hit it with his shoulder.  It was not just palm fronds—behind them was a steel mesh fence!

Oscar bounced back with a curse.  I could hear the SPs approaching the restaurant door.  Using a vacant table by the fence, I boosted Hook over and swung after him.  We sprinted down the alley to the next street then swung off into the tree-lined streets of a quiet residential area.  Two blocks along and getting short of breath, we cut through an alley and discovered a detached garage with the door ajar.  The SPs were not within earshot as we slipped inside the garage.

The garage contained an ancient Model A Ford sedan.  We sat down on the running board to catch our breath, listening for sounds of pursuit that did not come.  When we were breathing normally and still heard no sounds, Hook produced the tube of the douche bag still in his waistband and we each had a shot.  I realized then that we were bareheaded.  I produced my white hat which had been folded and tucked into the back of my waistband.  Oscar felt around, then cursed, “Dang it, I must of left my white hat on the table!  I can’t get back to the base out of uniform—they’ll pick me up for sure!”

We each had another pull at the douche bag bourbon, (it had developed a slight taste of rubber but we were far enough along to ignore that) and solemnly considered the problem.  I had another shot and the little light bulb came on over my head.  “Tell you what, old buddy,” I pronounced owlishly, “I’ll go get you a white hat.”

“Where an’ how you gonna do that?”

“By now there’ll be a bunch of drunken sailors over at the Waikiki Tavern.  I’ll jist borry you one.”

“Hate to swipe an’ ol’ shipmate’s hat.”

“Aw, I’ll pick me a fireman off a ship.  You sit right here an’ save me a belt and I”ll be back before you know it.  Now don’t you try to go ennywhere—the SPs may still be out there looking for us.”

I straightened my rumpled whites, squared my white hat, listened at the door, then slipped out into the warm darkness walking as steadily as I could.

It went as planned.  I passed a couple of SPs with a careless wave of a hand, made it to the Waikiki Tavern, and as I reckoned the bar was in full swing.  I strolled through the din to the head where I was washing my hands when a very drunk sailor stumbled in headed for a booth.  His white hat was tipped on the back of his head and he never felt it when I lifted the hat as he staggered by.  I flipped it flat and tucked it in my waistband under my blouse as retching sounds came from the booth.

When I arrived back at the garage, I was dismayed to find the running board empty.  Hook had disappeared.  I called his name softly and was answered by a snore form the car.  Oscar was happily asleep in the back seat.  I felt the douche bag—it was flat and empty.

I finally got Oscar out of the car and unsteadily on his feet, straightened his uniform, and clapped the filched white hat on his head.  Hook was a big man and the hat was too small.  It perched precariously atop his mop of unruly black hair.

I considered our options.  There was no way I could get him on the bus to downtown Honolulu, onto the bus for the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, and into the Ford Island boat without getting picked up.  Even as I thought it over, Hook slowly slid down to a sitting position on the running board.

I investigated my wallet, then checked out Hook’s.  Between the two of us we had enough cash for a taxi to the Navy Yard.  My problem was to find one and get him into it.  Finally I got him on his feet and we unsteadily made it out of the alley and to a corner under a streetlight where I propped the big man against the pole and told him to hang on.

My heart sank when the second car past was a Honolulu police car.  It slowed and backed up to us.  The officer in the passenger seat said, “Got a problem, boys?”

I was now sober enough that my words did not slur.  “No sir.  My buddy here just doesn’t feel so good.  I need a taxi to get back to the base.”

The policeman looked us over carefully, apparently decided we were harmless, and said, “Stay right there.  We’ll send a cab.”  The police car slowly pulled away.

It worked.  In a few minutes, during which Hook slid down to sit on the curb and snored leaning against the pole, a taxi pulled up.  He deposited us at the Navy Yard gate and we had no problem.  The liberty boat coxswain was used to such sights.

During another liberty after we had moved to Kaneohe and I was on mess cooking duty, I was on the other end of such a problem.  I was on Saturday evening liberty with a shipmate—Pickett, I believe it was—and we went into the Honolulu Café on Beretania Street for some supper.  There we ran into two of my Vancouver High School 1939 classmates, George Stonehouse and Frankie Enz.

Turned out that Stonehouse and Enz had gone through boot camp together and both ahd been assigned to the heavy cruiser INDIANAPOLIS.  The “INDY” had just moored at Pearl and they were on their first Honolulu liberty.  We had some drinks after supper, then took them for a tour of the joints in the “tenderloin”.

After considerably more drinks than we needed (I recall the tip of my nose got numb which was the signal I had had enough, but I ignored it and was having a great time) we wound up in a place down on Nuuana Canal.  Later I vaguely recalled that there was a crap game in a corner and I got into a beef with a drunk Marine corporal.  When we started to come to blows the madam ordered us to take it to the alley outside, which we did.

It was a dandy scrap and we each decked the other a couple of times when an SPs’ whistle shrilled down the street.  Pickett hustled me off down the alley, got me back up to Beretania, and we boarded the “Red Peril”.  I slept in the back seat all the way to Kaneohe.  I do not know what happened to Stonehouse and Enz as they were otherwise occupied at the time of the fight and I never saw them again.  (Late in WWII the INDIANAPOLIS was torpedoed, blew up, and sank in minutes with few survivors.)

The next morning when we mess cooks were turned out at 0400, I was on my bunk still in my whites and I was a mess.  I stank of gin, was sick as a dog with a hangover, and there was blood on the front of my blouse.  Checking myself over, I could find no damage to account for it.  I asked Pickett later about it and he just laughed, “Hell, Frieze, you beat up on that Marine.  It was his blood after you broke his nose!”

Like I may have said earlier, you don’t get a Good Conduct ribbon for being an angel—you get it for not getting caught!

Getting to know the PBY and a Move to Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station

Consolidated Aircraft PBY-1

The next morning, when I reported for muster on the seaplane ramp in front of the VP-21 hangar, I arrived early to inspect my strange new world.  Each squadron had thirteen big Consolidated Aircraft PBY-1 flying boats.  A total of 52 of the twin-engine airplanes were parked in rows on the broad expanse of the concrete ramp.  Silver fuselages and broad high-mounted wings gleam in the morning sunlight.  Different stripes on the high rounded rudders identified each squadron’ airplane.

Being a lowly seaman second class recruit, I was immediately assigned to the beaching crew.  The PBYs were supported on land by large dual-wheel main gear that locked onto each side of the fuselage and a tripod mounted tail wheel with a steering bar for use when the airplane was towed by a tractor.  To fly, the airplanes were lowered down a launching ramp into the water by a tractor.  The beach crew then removed the wheels and dragged them back up the ramp.

When the airplanes returned from a flight, they taxied to the launching ramp and the beaching gear was re-installed by the beach crew.  It was onerous duty but we did have the advantage the this was Hawaii and we were required to go swimming several times a day.  Our uniform on the beach crew was Navy blue swim trunks and a pair of hob-nailed shoes for good footing on the wet ramp.  The water was eternally warm and we had plenty of time for recreational swimming unless the beach crew chief had us policing the ramp and hangar area while we waited for airplanes to get ready to launch or returned from a flight.

Pre-war duty in Hawaii was a delight because Navy shore installations observed “tropical working hours”.  Our hours were from muster at oh seven hundred (7AM) to fourteen hundred hours (2:00 PM).  The crew was divided into port and starboard watch sections between which the duty was divided so that during off hours, evenings and weekends, half the squadron was on duty—the other half could have liberty and the married men who had families in Hawaii could go home.  The off-duty section could have liberty on the weekends from 1400 on Friday until O700 Monday morning—one of the many reasons that duty in Hawaii was so sought after.

A problem for us recruits was that the $36 per month paid a seaman second was not enough to really take advantage of all that free time.  It did, however, give us plenty of time to study our practical factors manuals for the examinations for our next promotion.  Some of us, particularly we aviation machinist mate (mechanics) strikers, spent some of that free time poring over PBY maintenance manuals and going over the details of the airplanes.  Before I was even eligible for promotion to seaman first class, I was familiar with every system on the airplanes—particularly the big engines.  L also spent time with the ordinance gang helping to bore sight the machine guns and learning to field strip and re-adjust the mechanism.  I was determined to be ready when the time came that I could be assigned to a flight crew.

I did not get well acquainted with VP-21 shipmates.  Instead, I applied for transfer to my brother’s squadron and it came through in less than two weeks.  On 14 March I was transferred to VP-23, soon to become VP-11.

My duties did not change.  In VP-23 I was also assigned to the beaching crew.  I was envious of brother Dick because, being more than four months ahead of me, he had just made AMM third class and had already wangled assignment to a flight crew.  (Flight crew assignments were doubly coveted because flight pay—known as “flight skins”—added fifty percent to base pay.  A third class made $72 per month.  With flight skins it totaled $108—a small fortune to us then.)  Of course it meant that Dick continued to lord it over me just as he had done all our lives.  I did not mind—I was used to it and knew that, sooner or later, I would overtake him.

Dick’s assignment to a flight crew had one advantage for me—it got me my first ride in a PBY.  One day he talked his plane captain into listing me supernumerary on his crew for a local training flight.  The beach crew chief, Tex Foret, gave me permission and I happily drew a flight jacket, helmet, and goggles from the equipment room.

The big fuselage of the PBY had a bombardier’s compartment in the nose that included a manually operated gun turret for a thirty caliber machine gun behind which was the pilots compartment with its raised seats.  Aft of that was the radio/navigation compartment then a compartment with the small auxiliary “put-put” and a rudimentary galley on one side and two crew bunks on the other.  Above that compartment was the mechanic’s station in the tower that supported the big wing and engines above the fuselage.  It had windows on each side, an instrument panel, and all the engine controls except the throttles which were on the overhead of the pilot’s compartment.

Aft of the mechanic’s compartment was a bunk compartment that was also used to stow tool and ammunition boxes.  Immediately behind was the “waist compartment” having the sliding hatches and a 50-caliber machine gun stowed on each side.  There was also a tail compartment that had a hatch that could be opened to fire down and aft with a thirty caliber machine gun.

We had hardly reached our cruising altitude of seven hundred fifty feet and the engines had settle down to their synchronized drone when I knew that I had found my milieu.  I was ecstatic.  Glover was the second mech on the crew and was on duty in the tower.  He waved me to stick my head up and showed me all the gages on the panel, the fuel quantity gages, the wingtip float control, and the engine fuel mixture and carburetor temperature controls.

The fuselage windows were tiny and I could not see much until Dick took me to the waist compartment and opened one of the hatches.  Standing in the gunner’s position half out of the airplane on the port side, I had a panoramic view of the island as we flew around Koko Head, past Bird Island off Kailua, and circled in over Kaneohe Bay.

Richard gestured for me to put on the port gunner’s interphone because the pilot was speaking to the crew.  As I recall his words were something like, “Take a good look down there on the peninsula at those new buildings, fellows.  That is the brand new Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station that will be commissioned this summer and will be our new home.  They are transferring us to Patrol Wing One and we will become VP-11 and move in there in two or three months.

The Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station was on the seaward peninsula of the bay directly across from the village of Kaneohe.  I could see a long seaplane ramp with two or three launching ramps, one big hangar completed and another under construction, and a complex of new buildings of a major air station.  At the north end of the peninsula a small runway for land planes was under construction.  Kaneohe would obviously be a vast improvement over the crowded conditions of Ford Island.

Getting the Lay of the Land

Chapter 22

Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Spring 1941

Hawaii was bewitching to an old Midwest country boy even before I set foot on the island of Oahu.  I went to the signal bridge on the boat deck of Tippecanoe and borrowed a pair of binoculars from one of the signalmen.  With them I scanned the shoreline as we rounded Diamond Head and proceeded west northwest toward Pearl Harbor.

It was an enchanting view.  There were no high-rises in either Waikiki or downtown Honolulu.  Beyond the lacy white froth of low breakers and the sand beaches, there was a lush green carpet of coconut palm trees and other tropical shrubs reaching from the beach to the Kaimuki area.  At Waikiki the foliage was broken only by the white block of the Moana Hotel with its Banyan Court and the massive pink pile of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  The low-lying bungalows of the Halekalani were not visible from the ocean.

Downtown Honolulu boasted only the Aloha Tower at the waterfront and, beyond, the seven-story Alexander Hotel was the tallest building in town.  One thing struck me about the peacefully sprawling city—there were no chimneys on any of the houses since the temperature never fell below the mid-seventies except up in the hills such as the plush houses in Pacific Heights.

West of Honolulu the one outstanding landmark was the pine-apple-shaped Dole water tank.  Otherwise, there was only stretches of kiave trees and red earth reaching to Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor.  West of Pearl there were vast light green fields of sugar cane out past Eva.  Beyond Pearl Harbor, to the north toward Wahiava, were dark green fields of pineapples.  Behind was the backdrop of the green and brown slopes of the Koolau Mountains topped by the sever-present towering white cumulus clouds and the blue tropical sky.

The sea was flat calm and as blue as the sky when we passed the towed barge to the waiting tug and steamed through the anti-submarine net into Pearl Harbor.  Along the shore there were coconut palms and gardened lawns at the Hickham Officers’ Club and the Naval Hospital.  We were awed by the warships moored in Pearl Harbor.  A double row of grey leviathans in Battleship Row near Ford Island dominated the scene.

Tippecanoe came right into the East Loch and moored at a Naval Base fuel dock.  We airdales had our gear packed, lashed, and on deck.  As soon as the mooring was complete, Sullivan launched the motor whaleboat to take us across the harbor to Landing A on Ford Island where the PBY squadrons were based.

Little Ford Island was crowded in those days.  In addition to four twelve-plane PBY squadrons based in large hangars at the west end of the island where the seaplane ramps were located, most of the island was taken up by a landing field for the fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes of the aircraft carriers.  The remaining perimeter space was taken up by officers’ quarters, chief petty officer housing for those who had their families with them, an officers’ club, and a chiefs’ club.  There was no enlisted mans’ club, but beyond the massive main barracks building, there was an open beer garden.

Since the Pacific Fleet home base had been moved to Pearl Harbor more and more naval units and men kept pouring onto Oahu.  We were to find that all military facilities were strained to the limit and when we went into Honolulu on liberty on weekends the streets were thronged by more white Navy uniform, Marine green, and army khaki than by civilians.

We arriving boots stacked our gear in front of the Ford Island Administration Building near Landing A, delivered our orders to the OODs office, then sat on the lashed seabags and waited.  After an hour the Assistant Officer of the Day, a Chief Yeoman, came with our individual assignments.  I was disappointed that, instead of Richard’s squadron, VP-23, both Langford and I were assigned to VP-21.  The seaman that was the duty OOD messenger conducted us, with our gear, to the second deck barracks wing that housed VP-21.

It was mid-afternoon by then and as soon as we had been assigned bunks and lockers and had stowed our gear, I went in search of my brother.  I found the VP-23 barracks area and inquire.  A friendly A friendly AMM3c who said his name was Glover said, “Hey, are you that brother Frieze has been telling us about?”

Five or six other men gathered to meet me and welcome me aboard.  After I explained about being assigned to VP-21 Glover commented, “Hell, don’t sweat it.  All you got to do is request a transfer.  They’ll go along with it and you can move in with us.  We are due for a couple more recruits.  Your brother is over at the parachute loft, I expect.  He has been fooling around over there with our parachute packer, Weaver, after working hours.  Making something, I think.  Just go toward the PBY hangars and watch for the one with the tower for airing parachutes—can’t miss it.”

Dick was, indeed, at the parachute loft and seemed genuinely pleased that I had arrived.  After our greetings and he had introduced me to Weaver, he dug into a bin and produced a paper sack.  “Here—Happy Birthday.  Bet you thought I wouldn’t remember!”

I was inordinately pleased because I had not thought he would remember.  Using the parachute loft heavy sewing machine, Richard had made for me a pair of leather thongs “go-ahead” slippers.  (They were made of top grain cowhide and I used them for nearly twenty years.)  He had also made an over-sized  seabag of good canvas and explained as he gave it to me, “Forget about regulation lashing your hammock and mattress around your seabag.  Just roll it up and stow it in here.  Nobody is hard-nosed aobut baggage in Naval Aviation.”

We went back to the barracks to get ready for evening chow and I met more of the men who were to become my shipmates.  Some of them would be life-long friends.  Besides Glover, there was Joe Brooks who had gone through boot camp with Dick.  Joe was an aviation ordnanceman.  Some of the others were skinny little Dave Davenport, John Hoke, a tall thin individual named McFall, a sandy haired freckled face slow-moving one who was introduced as “Rigor Mortis” Ballou and offered only a grind when he was called the laziest man in the U.S. Navy, and many others.  Counting about 40 officer pilots, sevreral enlisted pilots (NAPs), CPOs, aviation machinist mates, radiomen, ordnance men, and yeomen there were approximately 250 men in each PBY squadron.

A Storm and a Disappearnce

The trip was not all monotony.  Three days out of San Francisco we ran into a gale that we later found was one of the worst in that area in three or four years.  That was when I learned to like coffee.

The third evening out the sky was leaden at sunset and the ocean was dark grey with a froth of whitecaps and spume fro a wind that came off the port bow.  The horizon was indistinct.  The dark grey of the clouds simply merged somewhere into the darker grey of the angry ocean.  Neither was there a sunset glow to fit the old saying, “Red sky at night—sailor’s delight—red sky at moring—sailor take warning”.  There must have been a blazing red sky that mornig as the wind was rising rapidly to gale force.  Even with the stabilizing influence of the tow, the ship was rolling and pitching so that we had to sleep with a grip on the bunk rails and our toes hooked on the bottom rail.

I had barely gotten to sleep when the watch petty officer woke me—I had the twelve to two watch on the port wing of the bridge.  The watch PO warned me to wear my peacoat and watch cap as it was cold and wet up there.

When I emerged from the foc’sul hatch I found the watch petty officer was right.  It was raining and the wind buffeted me as I struggled through the blackness along the catwalk above the main deck over which green water was breaking.  Rain drops and salt spray stung my face in the fifty=knot wind.  The whitecaps towered well above my head from the catwalk level as the heavily laden Tippecanoe slugged her way through the mountainous waves.

I reached the bridge at twenty-three-fifty, ten minutes before eight bells when the watch would change so I ducked into the dimly-lit bridge before relieving my man on the exposed port bridge wing.  I looked at the chart spread on the navigator’s table at the rear of the bridge and was impressed by the ferocity of the wind—the line of our course made good was actually going backward.  With the drag of the towed barge, we lost ground for six or eight hours.

I reported to the watch officer who was a grey-haired and spectacled elderly “re-tread” reserve lieutenant from the World War.  He was a mild-mannered little man and was the ship’s executive officer.  (I do not recall that I ever saw the captain of the Tippecanoe.)

The two hours of my watch were interminable and miserable.  In the wind-whipped blackness I was pelted by rain and spray from the waves that broke level with the bridge—and the bridge was forty feet above the waterline.  Other than the red running light, I could see nothing but blackness abeam and could barely make out the bow of the ship.  Every thirty minutes, as required by regulations and custom, I reported to the watch officer, “Nothing in sight—port running light burning bright, sir.”

Sometime during the first hour of my watch I was a dim figure moving along the catwalk.  The individual was wearing the hat of a CPO with the visor strap under his chin against the wind.  It was apparently Larzenarski on a round of inspection of the decks but he did not come to the bridge and I could not be sure.  The figure went out of sight in the darkness toward the stern.  I thought for a minute that I saw someone else move back there, but in the rain and spray it could well have been an illusion.

By the time I was relieved at 0200 hours I was wet and chilled to the bone.  I needed something hot to drink and knew that the cooks left an urn of coffee in the gangway outside the galley each night for watch standers.  With difficulty and clinging to the lifelines, I made my way aft.

I had tried coffee at home prepared just the way my father did with cream and sugar, but I never liked the taste of the stuff.  This night I was desperate and cold enough to try it again.  There was hot coffee in the urn; however, I found that the condensed milk can left out was empty and so was the sugar bowl.  Shrugging, I tried it black and, to my delight, found that it tasted delicious.  I sat at the mess table and enjoyed a warming cup before I braved the blow back to the forecastle.

The next morning the weather had cleared a bit, but the wind was still at gale force.  Green water was still breaking over the main deck and, periodically, over the fantail that was held down by the tow hawser to the heavy barge.  The deck division was told to stand by for muster in the mess compartment instead of on deck.

Chief Larzenarski did not show for muster.  It was held by Sullivan.  Afterward, scuttlebutt (rumor) was that Larzenarski was missing.  A search of the entire pitching and rolling ship was made and no trace of the abrasive CPO was found.  I found myself remembering the figure in a chief’s hat that I had seen on the catwalk during my watch and presumed that he had gone down to the fantail to check the tow cable and was swept overboard.

I was still wondering if I should report what I had seen when our stern and very disliked division officer Lt. Williams, appeared in the mess compartment.  We came to attention and, after he had told us to stand easy, he said, “Men, the tow cable is chafing and needs to be lengthened.  I need four volunteers to go to the fantail with me and do the job.”

There was a prolonged silence.  The men of the regular ship’s company simply looked down at their hands.  I noted that the officer was wearing dungarees and he had said “go down to the fantail with me”.  Even though the word always was, ”never volunteer for anything”, I suddenly blurted out, “I’ll go, sir.”

Langford then volunteered and, apparently not to be outdone by Airedales, two of the ship’s company rose.  I was surprised that one of them was Sullivan.  I kicked off my shoes and stripped of my socks because I felt that I would have better traction barefoot.  The lieutenant led us out onto the wave-washed fantail.

The fantail was clear except that every fifth or sixth wave was large enough to crash green water over the deck.  When the big waves came all we could do was hang on with both hands until the water subsided.  I found myself next to the officer was we struggled with the heavy wire cable.

The lieutenant loosened the stoppers on the tow cable and we inched out several yards.  He had just re-secured the stopper when the great-granddaddy of the waves buried us under solid green water.  I barely had time to get an arm securely around the tow cable.

When the water subsided I realized that the lieutenant was no longer beside me.  He had lost his hold on the cable and was haing half over the scuppers holding the bottom chain of the lifelines with one hand.  It was apparent that another wave could take him over the side.  I let go of the tow cable and liunged for the lifelines.  I caught the upper cable with my left hand and held out my right to the officer.  He seized it with his free hand and, as the ship rolled back to port, dragged himself back aboard.

Without a word the lieutenant checked that the able stopper was secure and led us back to the shelter of the mess compartment.  There he said, “Well done, men.”  Then turning to me he said, “Get some dry clothes, Frieze, and see me in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.”

When Lt. Williams had gone, Sullivan said to me in a low voice, “Goddamn Airedale, whyn’t you let that bastard go—we’d have been rid of him and Larzenarski both!”

Officers’ country was strange to me so I rather timorously made my way to the wardroom amidships after getting some dry dungarees and a clean white hat.  The wardroom was not plush but had a sliver coffee service, curtains at the portholes, and mess tables with green baize overings and chairs instead of benches.  The lieutenant, hair still wet and a towel about his neck, was sitting alone at one of the tables.

The officer said, “Help yourself to a cup of coffee, sailor.  You earned it.  And sit down a minute.”

It sounded more like an order than an offer.  I drew coffee into a china cup with a blue Navy emblem and sat on the edge of the chair opposite the lieutenant.  He eyed me for a minute.

“Just wanted to say thank you, Frieze.  There are probably men on this ship that would not have offered me a hand.  I am fully aware that many of the men think I am a mean s.o.b.”

I was embarrassed and could feel my ears and face getting red.  “Wasn’t anything, sir.  I reckon you could have made it by yourself.”

“Probably so, but you did offer me a hand without waiting to see.”

I recall being totally at a loss.  I believe I may have stammered, “Well—uh—I didn’t know how soon the next big wave might come along.  Ain’t as if I saved your life or something.”

“Right,” he said briskly, “and you’re not going to get a medal or anything, but I will see that there is a note of commendation in your service record.”

He looked down at a paper on the table that was the watch list from the previous night and changed the subject, “You had the twelve to two on the wing of the bridge last night.”

“Yessir.”

“You know that Chief Larzenarski is missing, apparently overboard during the storm.  Did you see anything on deck during your watch?”

A short montage flashed into my mind—the dim figure in a chief’s hat on the catwalk going aft, what could have been the shadow of another man back there, and the gleam in Sullivan’s eyes when he told us at muster that the hated CPO was missing.  I also recalled THE WAY Sullivan had cursed the CPO the first day we were aboard.  I knew, however, that I should not attest to anything of which I was not totally sure.

“Well, sir, yes.  Sometime around oh one hundred or thereabouts, I saw someone, who I thin was wearing a chief’s hat, going along the catwalk from the bridge aft toward the stern.  That’s all I saw.  It was dang dark out there.  I figured it was the chief checking the decks.”

“No one else?”

“Not that I could swear to—too dark and too many shadows.  Couldn’t see good through the rain and spray.”

The lieutenant dismissed me then and the ship’s log recorded that chief Boatswain’s Mate Larzenarski was apparently lost overboard while carrying out his duties on the ship.  For fifty years I have wondered about Coxswain Sullivan and his knife.  After Larzenarski’s disappearance, Sullivan’s first class rate was restored and, being the ranking petty officer in the deck division, he was made acting CPO for the balance of the voyage.

Scraping, painting, and holystoning seemed to go on interminably; however, his temporary promotion made Sullivan much more human and he did not make our lives as miserable as the Polish CPO had done.  Two or three days after the storm we sailed into calm waters and within the week were under blue skies and a tropical sun.

Before sunset on March 2^nd, we sighted the island of Molokai on the far horizon.  By muster at 0700 the next morning we were sailing past Diamond Head and Waikiki on Oahu.  A grey Navy tug met us when we had downtown Honolulu broad on the starboard beam and relieved us of the barge we had towed.  Just after noon chow Tippecanoe steamed through the anti-submarine net and up the entrance to Pearl Harbor.  We arrived in the Territory of Hawaii on my 19^th birthday, 3 March 1941.

[My father had sailed into his second paradise, Washington State being the first.]

Admiral's Inspection and Anchors Aweigh

When we mustered with the deck division the next morning, we found that it would be nearly two weeks before we sailed.  Before then the ship would be subjected to an admiral’s inspection.  To make the old ship ready, both Lt. Williams and Chief Larzenarski drove us unmercifully.  Paint parties went over the side to scrape the worst rust spots, coat them with red-lead, then apply a fresh coat of Navy grey.  The rest of us got very familiar with iron paint scrapers turned out by the ship’s machine shop and paint brushes.

The joking rule was, “If it moves—salute it.  If it doesn’t move—paint it!”  The rule did not apply to brass, which in peacetime was kept shined.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of brass—cofferdam ID plates, porthole rims, compartment identification plates, and many fittings.  The ship’s stores included dozens of cans of pink brass polish and we used up a lot of elbow grease and rags.

When the Friday of the admiral’s inspection came, I was amazed at the transformation of the rusty old ship.  All fuel oil hoses and hawsers had been neatly stowed.  The decks, bulkheads, and side plates were resplendent in fresh grey paint.  Every bit of brass gleamed in the sunlight.  Our quarters and all other below decks spaces had been scrubbed and painted.  The ancient brass washbasins in the head gleamed like gold.  When the inspection party was piped aboard, the entire crew had been mustered in immaculate white uniforms and shined dress shoes.  At that moment I was proud of the old Tippecanoe and did not regret the sweating hours of drudgery that had made her look like a part of Uncle Sam’s Navy.

Two days after the inspection, Tippecanoe’s engines rumbled into life and the P.A. system blared, “Now hear this—all hand, man your special sea details!”  I had been assigned to the first crow’s nest watch on the high foremast so I scrambled up the seventy feet of steel rungs welded to the foremast to the small, waist-high metal can that was the foremast lookout.

Below me the ship’s crew not assigned to sea details manned the rails in undress whites.  The mooring hawsers splashed into the water and with a “Whoop—whoop” of the ship’s horn and a blast from the siren, Tippecanoe backed away from the pier where a small contingent of wives and children waved and headed out to sea.

We did not sail directly to Hawaii.  On February 13^th we put in at Long Beach to take aboard a full load of fuel oil.  The next day we sailed for San Francisco.  Our normal cruising speed fully loaded was twelve knots so it was three days before we sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and anchored in San Francisco Bay off Treasure Island.  We got no liberty in San Francisco and had to be content with looking at the lights of the Barbary Coast and wondering why the ship had put in there.

We weighed anchor the next morning and headed back out beneath the Golden Gate.  Once more I had the first watch in the foremast crow’s nest.  I gaped upward as the Tippecanoe slipped beneath the main span of the soaring bridge.  High over my head two men were working on a scaffolding at the endless job of keeping the big bridge painted.  As the ship slid beneath them, the painters looked down and answered my wave from the crow’s nest.

I was neglecting my lookout duties.  The voice tube to the bridge suddenly whistled.  When I answered a mild voice said, “Keep alert, sailor—we have traffic ahead.”

Abashed, I jerked my eyes to the fore.  About a mile ahead of us as we cleared the narrows there was a tug towing a large barge.  Actually, the tug and barge were laid to waiting for us.  We came to a stop and the tug transferred the tow lines of the barge to Tippecanoe.  We were to tow it to Hawaii.

The drag of the barge plus our full load of oil reduced the sedate pace of the Tippecanoe to less than ten knots at turns of the single screw for standard speed.  In fact, on a calm day the captain decided to turn up full speed ahead for a test run.  Tippecanoe refused to get above twelve knots.  It was to be a long slow passage to Hawaii.  We continued to scrape and paint deck plates and, in bare feet and rolled-up dungarees, with holystones and sand we scoured the wood of the fantail and boat decks just as sailors had done for a century.

The USS Tippecannoe and Partrol Wing One

Chapter 21

USS Tippecanoe

[For Patrol Wing One the 1941 voyage from San Diego to Pearl Harbor was peculiar from start to finish.]

She lay at a pier so far out on Point Loma that it would be more than a thirty-minute bus ride into downtown San Diego.  Tippecanoe was an oil tanker but she was surely the dowdiest old frump in the Navy fleets of auxiliary and support ships.

The old girl was an oiler of World War I vintage.  She had a tall single stack that towered above a large after deck house and fantail, a deckhouse structure just forward of amidships topped by the bridge, and a raised foc’sul deck—all connected by an elevated walkway that spanned the main deck clutter of cofferdams, oil transfer houses, and faked-down manila hawsers.

The bow hook in the whaleboat had been right—she was a rusty old bucket.  Ocher streaks soiled the Navy grey of her side plates although there were sailors working with paint scrapers and paint buckets on scaffolds and boson’s chairs over her sides.  The upper works appeared to be fairly recently painted; however, the first impression was “she don’t much give a damn”.

The Tippecanoe was empty of cargo and riding high in the water.  The Coxswain did not take us to the pier but laid the whaleboat alongside the platform at the foot of the steep sea accommodation ladder.  It was difficult to negotiate the ladder carrying our heavy seabags with the hammocks lashed around them.  No one offered to lend a hand except that the how hook and motor mac heaved the seabags onto the platform as each man disembarked.  After the snide remarked about “Airedales” of the coxswain we were determined to make it on our own—and somehow we did.

Once we had achieved the main deck and had properly saluted the colors aft and the officer of the deck, a burly CPO identified himself as the boson, Larzenarski, and took our orders.  He left us sitting on the cofferdams in the hot sun for more than thirty minutes before a seaman appeared and let us to our quarters.

The ship’s crew was berthed aft below the after deck house which contained the mess deck and galley; however, the berths for temporary ship’s company aboard for transportation were in a compartment in the forecastle just aft of the anchor chain locker.  It was strictly primitive and bare bones.  There were three-high steel bunks welded to stanchions where hammocks had once been slung at night.  In a clear area at the foot of the entry ladder there was a single mess-type table with a bench on each side.  Beside it was a trash can.  This would be our home for the next four weeks.

Across the compartment from the entry ladder, an open door led to the head, such as it was.  It was a narrow compartment lined on one side with eight brass wash basins each having a small mirror.  Along the other bulkhead, the sanitary provisions consisted of a mental trough at sitting height through which sea water was circulated.  Cut out seat boards for eight had been installed over the trough as a gesture at comfort.

We selected our bunks and unlashed our gear.  Just as we were laying out our hammocks and horsehair mattresses on the steel bunk frames, Chief Larzenarski came down the steep entry ladder.  (Note:  In Navy terminology, stairways are “ladders”, floors are “decks”, ceiling are “overhead”, walls are “bulkheads”, and upstairs is known as “topside”.)

Larzenarski’s weathered round Polish face was set in a perpetual scowl.  He growled, “Listen up, you people.  You goddam Airedales (a derogatory cognomen applied by men of the surface fleet to anyone in Naval Aviation) ain’t in for no pleasure cruise to Hay-wa-yee!  You are temporary ship’s company of Tipsoo assigned to the deck division of which I happen to be the chief.

“Your division office is Lieutenant Williams who is one mean s.o.b. that goes strictly by the book.  Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill is posted on the bulletin board aft by the mess compartment.  Check it out.

“Uniform of the day is dungarees unless otherwise posted so get out of them whites before evening chow.  As long as you are aboard, you are in the working Navy!”

Langford and I looked at each other and shrugged as the CPO disappeared up the ladder without further comment.  As we were changing to our dungarees, the P.A. system came alive with the whistle of a boson’s pipe and a voice boomed in a bored chant, “Now hear this!  Sweepers starcher brooms—clean sweep-down fore and aft!”

It was sixteen hundred hours, the end of the work day.  We finished setting our gear and stowed our seabags in a rack along the bulkhead (no lockers were provided in our austere compartment) then, not knowing what we were expected to do, went topside to check out the ship.

The late afternoon was beautiful, the wide bay calm beneath a blue sky studded with white cumulus clouds.  Gulls circled overhead and flights of pelicans winged ponderously past.  We made our way aft along the raised catwalk above the cluttered main deck, noting as passed around the bridge structure that a brass plate above a watertight entry door read “Officers Country”.

At the stern we found the mess compartment and the bulletin board the CPO had mentioned.  Beyond that was a wide wood fantail deck scored clean by holystoning and above which a white canvas sunshade was stretched.  Some of the ship’s crew were lounging there.

I saw the dour coxswain of the motor whaleboat sitting against a bulkhead stropping his wicked looking belt knife on the leather of his shoe.  The name stenciled on his blue dungaree shirt was “Sullivan” and there was the badge of a second class petty officer in stencil on his left sleeve.  I dropped down beside him.

“Hi, Sullivan—some ship.”

He eyed me sharply but some of the antagonism went out of his sour face.  “Yea—some ship!  This here old bucket just been reactivated from the reserve fleet—Standard Oil had her.   She’s a pile of junk and you’ll find out most of the crew are either the dregs of the Navy or are reserves.  Only thing worse than an Airedale is a reserve!”

“Chief Larzenarski doesn’t seem very friendly,” I said.

Sullivan snorted bitterly, “Friendly?!  Bastard is the meanest sonabitch on the ship.  Wasn’t for him, I could make chief and be the boson’s mate myself.  I was first class and he got me busted!  Ten year I got in his canoe club and he gets me busted for bringing a little booze aboard.  I’d like tosee the sonabitch go over the side some dark night!”

Sullivan tested the keen edge of the knife by shaving some hairs from his forearm while I said, “Larzenarski says Lt. Williams is a mean s.o.b.—how about that?”

The coxswain sheathed the knife.  “He is and he ain’t. Regular Navy ring pounder out of Annapolis, but he must have fouled up somewhere or he wouldn’t be on this old scow.  Yeoman says he been passed over once for promotion to lieutenant commander.  Hard man and Navy regs is his bible, but he don’t seem to have many friends.  He’s the ship’s first lieutenant and division officer of the deck gang.  He’ll ride the hell out of you just like Larzenarski and you won’t like him, but you gotta respect him.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the ubiquitous P.A. system.  The boson’s pipe shrilled and the bored voice said, “Now hear this—chow down.”  Sullivan stretched, and walked off toward the mess compartment.

The food was surprisingly good on Tippecanoe and was plentiful.  After supper, not wanting to go back to our dismal quarters right away, we once more lounged on the fantail.  It was a languorous evening—the sunset was fading beyond the point and a nearly full moon was in the east.  In anticipation of our destination, Hawaiian music was coming over the P.A. system.

I lay back on the scoured wood with my hands behind my head and looked up at the canvas gleaming white in the soft moonlight while I listened to the strains of “Lovely Hula Hands”.  That music was known as “shipping over music”.  It was totally peaceful and I was content.  A whole new life of adventure awaited me out there somewhere.  The rusty barbed wire fences and dusty little country roads of the hot Ozark hills seemed a million miles away—a distant past.