Chapter 30
Summer 1942 & USS COPAHEE
"Moonlight Serenade will still remind me of those lazy, idyllic evenings."
"Moonlight Serenade will still remind me of those lazy, idyllic evenings."
My
week at the Royal Hawaiian was up on June 28th and I reported back
to Kaneohe expecting to go back on a flight crew. That did not happen. I was far over the average number of flight
hours per month deemed maximum and was assigned to a month of ground duty. Even though I was an aviation machinist mate
second class, I found myself driving a gasoline tanker truck for a month. That injured my pride but there was nothing I
could do about it.
The
truck was a 2,000-gallon tanker used to shuttle aviation gasoline from the tank
farm to the PBYs on the ramp and to the fighter strip on the north side of the bae
were carrier squadrons of F4F “Wildcat” fighters and Douglas SBD dive bombers
were based while their carriers were in Pearl Harbor. I had never driven a large truck (Grandpa
Stanley’s little 1929 Chev truck hardly counted) but before long I was wheeling
the big grey ten-wheeler around the base and through the parked airplanes like
a veteran.
It
was not long before brother Dick came up with one of his schemes. Gasoline rationing for civilian and personal
vehicle use had become very strict.
Extra ration coupons on the black market were expensive and hard to come
by. The big baby blue LaSalle with its
gas-guzzling straight-eight engine was spending more time in the barracks
parking lot than on liberty.
Dick
had noted that the gasoline tanker carried two five-gallon cans of avgas in
lower compartments on each side of the truck.
I do not recall what they were for, but old Richard figured out a use for
them and came to me with a proposition. He
figured that the LaSalle would run fine, at least for a time, on 100-octane and
might even have more pep than using ordinary 80-octane from a filling station
pump.
Richard’s
quick keen blue eyes had also noted that when I made a delivery to the fighter
strip, I often used the base perimeter road past Hawaiiloa Hill and behind a
large revetment. For several second the
fuel truck was not visible from the control tower or the base administration
building.
In
the past, Dick had been very penurious about allowing me to take the LaSalle on
liberty my myself. In fact, he simply
would not lend it to me. Now he tempted
me by offering to let me use it one day a week if I would help him pirate a
little gasoline. When I demurred he
said, “Hell, brother, you probably spill more than ten gallons every day! No one is going to miss a cople of jerry cans
full one in a while.”
Richard
had been so confident in his plan that he had already scrounged two of the red five-gallon
jerry cans and had them in the trunk of the LaSalle. Through a bit of coordinated “sleight of hand”
behind the revetment we had a few extra gallons of fuel and I did get to use
the LaSalle once in a while when Dick had the duty.
The
arrangement did not last very long because soon after we wrecked the
LaSalle. Dick, Glover, and I had been on
liberty together and were coming back to Kaneohe at dawn so we could make
muster. Dick was driving, Glover was
snoozing in the front seat beside Dick, and I was asleep in the back seat as we
passed the Kailua junction and headed up a straight stretch of road toward the
Kaneohe NAS main gate.
It
was about a mile of perfectly straight road bordered by very shallow
ditches. We oculd have run off the road
safely anywhere except one spot where a large kiave tree grew out of a low
embankment. It had a mass of gnarled
roots at its base. Just short of the
tree, Dick fell asleep at the wheel and the car drifted off the road. The right front end hit the roots and folded
the wheel back under the engine. Dick
was not speeding but the impact threw Glover against the dash and my shoulder
slammed into the back of the front seat.
Richard
had not bothered to buy insurance on the LaSalle. He knew that it would cost more to repair
than he had invested in it so he simply allowed the Kaiua police to tow it
away, then called the bank where he had gotten the loan for it and told them
they could have it. (We did see a Marine driving the LaSalle a few
weeks later and the frame was so sprung that it went down the street somewhat
crabwise!)
We
were not without wheels for long. Dick
made some money in a couple of poker games and I got lucky in a crap game. He borrowed a hundred fifty dollars from me
one weekend and came back from liberty driving a brown Dodge coupe. It was registered in his name but since I had
provided half the down payment it was mine to use on occasion. To my later regret, I neglected to get a Hawaiian
driver’s license.
During
the month I spent driving that gasoline truck, the build-up at Kaneohe Bay
Naval Air Station accelerated. The
contractor completed the Number Two hangar and started refurbishing Hangar
One. Five new barracks buildings went up
south of the mess hall to accommodate the influx of new men and new
squadrons. More airplanes arrived and
soon VP-11 was up to full strength. Scuttlebutt
had it that a big campaign was developing on the Solomon Islands and it was
rumored that we would be one of the first squadrons transferred to the South
Pacific to operate off aircraft tenders.
With
the fighting confined to the far reaches of the Pacific and the Japanese Navy
no longer an immediate threat to Hawaii, our life was peacefully “normal”. Dick and Diane rented a small house out in
the Kaimuki district of Honolulu. It was
in a cul-de-sac off the Kam Highway just beyond the old Kaimuki theater. I still have the address on a special liberty
pass—1256-A Ekaha Street.
The
raucous ambiance of the bars and cat houses of the Honolulu tenderloin held no
fascination for me. We who were
shore-based preferred to do our partying and celebrating with shipmates in the
quieter atmosphere of Waikiki. When
nothing special was going on and there was not a movie I wanted to see, I
occasionally spent quiet liberty evenings with Dick and Diane at the Ekaha Street
house. Diane would prepare supper (I had
my first encounter with Korean kim chee there) and we would spend the evening
lounging around listening to Glenn Miller records. Diane’s favorite was “Moonlight Serenade”. Moonlight Serenade will still remind me of those lazy, idyllic evenings.
The
kim chee was another matter. Diane loved
it and Dick professed to like it, but that rotten cabbage never made a hit with
me! The evening Diane put it in front of
me, it was fortunate that I had just opened a new quart of beer. I had no aversion to cooked cabbage so I
scooped up a forkful. I don’t know what
they put in kim chee for seasoning before they bury it, but it was as if I had
a mouthful of angry hornets! It took
most of the beer to quiet it down.
The
other problem with eating authentic kim chee is the “afterglow” on the
breath. For t least a day, a kim chee
eater’s breath smells just like that fish in Hilo Harbor tasted—like a country
outhouse on a hot day! Beside it, the
odor of garlic is mild.
It
was during that “peaceful” summer of 1942 after the Battle of Midway that I had
to come to grips with the grim realities of war. Many images were often in my mind and in my
dreams—that row of bloody bodies beneath the wing of that PBY on December 7th,
the noise strafing Zeros coming at us, exploding bombs, the grinning face of
the enemy pilot who had circled us, the forlorn figure in that lifeboat and my
near overwhelming desire to pull the trigger of the big machine gun.
What
we were being subjected to and called upon to do was in no way consistent with
my Christian upbringing. I attended our
Navy non-denominational church service but found no answers—only a reminder of
the commandment “Thou shall not kill.” We
knew, however, that in war it is a matter of kill or be killed.
I
finally found some solace in an unlikely place—the prologue of a play by
William Saroyan, “The Time of Our Lives”, I believe. It impressed me sufficiently and helped me to
the extent that I still have a copy of the text:
“In the time of your life, live—so that in
that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life
your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere
and, when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and
unashamed.
“Place in matter and in flesh the least of
the values for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and
is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue
in whatever heart it may have been driven into hiding by the shame and terror
of the world. Ignore the obvious for it
is unworthy of a clear eye and a kind heart.
Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of
yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours
nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart.
“Despise evil and ungodliness but not men of
evil and ungodliness—these understand.
Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if, in the time of your
life, the time comes to kill—kill and have no regret.
“In the time of your life, live—so that in
that wondrous time you shall add no misery and sorrow to the world but shall
smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
I
carried that with me throughout the remainder of World War II.