Reflection and Return

USS PYRO - American ammunition ship

"I contemplated the events of the past two years and how they surely must have changed me as I passed from youth to manhood."

Now the long part of our voyage on SEA VITCH began.  It would take us twelve days to cover the vast expanse of the pacific between Bora Bora and the Golden Gate.  After a little more than a week we were getting out of the tropical latitudes and the nights became cool to those of us who had been two years in the warmth of Hawaii and the South Pacific.  Our deep tans began to show goosebumps.  We dug into our sea bags for navy blue wool jerseys and peacoats that had rolled and stowed for two years.  We also dug out, brushed and ironed our dress blue uniforms and flat-hats in anticipation of liberty in San Francisco.

As the prospect of being back in the states neared, I often thought of all that had happened in the past two short years.  On my birthday on 3 March 1943 when I turned 21, I sat alone on the fantail as darkness fell and watched the ships wake that led off toward the last vestiges of sunset.  I contemplated the events of the past two years and how they surely must have changed me as I passed from youth to manhood.

All of a sudden, so it seemed, I was a Navy petty officer first class and a “blooded veteran” to whom laughter still came, but without the abandon of before.  I was an “old salt” and had been informed at Ile Nou that I rated three campaign bars—the American Defense ribbon with a gold star for having been in Hawaii on December 7^th, the Asiatic ribbon with battle stars for Midway and the Solomons, and the American theater ribbon.

Now, I thought, I am almost phlegmatic—I seem to take things as they come and almost as a matter of course.  I wondered again just what is was that seemed to have died during that bloody hour on December 7^th, 1941.  Oddly, it crossed my mind that perhaps I had lost the capacity to love.  My physical needs were still there, but there was something in my emotions that seemed to be lacking.  The thought of sailing into San Francisco in the next few days did not increase my pulse.

I still had occasional nightmare about that bloody hour when the Japanese attack came out of nowhere.  Even awake the images of the row of bloody bodies under the wing of the shot-up PBY, the grinning face of that Japanese pilot who had circled overhead looking down ast the fires of burning airplanes, the head-on view of enemy Zeros diving at us with wing guns winking fire and streams of bullets walking across the concrete ramp toward us were all too clear in my memory.  It would be a long time before the snarl of diving enemy airplanes, the chattering of machine guns, and the dull “WHUMP!” of exploding bomb could almost be heard.

Then, unbidden, the rather corny words my father had said to me at the bus depot when I left for the Navy came back to me—“A man goes where the hand of the lord leads him,” Dad had said, “and he does what he has to be done when he get there.”  I suddenly felt very proud of my brother Dick and myself.  When the chips had gone down, we had not hesitated.  We did not run for cover and hide as a few had done.  We got a gun and fought back as best we could.

It was not bravery.  We were just a couple of mad old country boys that were dumb enough to get into that airplane that the Japs would be strafing trying to set it on fire.  The Lord had led us there, we did what had to be done, and He looked after us as the enemy shot that airplane to pieces around us and left us unscathed.  Fear?  Yes, we felt fear for our lives, but we knew what had to be done.  It was after the battle was over that the reaction had set in and we went weak in the knees.

I was saddened by a sense of loss that I was no longer a part of, and probably would not be gain, Patrol Squadron Eleven.  The spirit of VP-11 is difficult to explain.  It went far beyond the normal camaraderie of shipmates.  In fact, it was almost as if we were a “family” and were all brothers.  That bloody Sunday had a large part in drawing us together, I suppose, but somehow it went beyond just that.  I longed to be back there with them once more on a combat flight crew; however, that was not to happen.  I sighed and flipped my glowing cigarette butt into the wake of SEA WITCH.

(The spirit and sense of family of VP-11 did not die in the war.  Today, fifty years later, we have regular reunions of those old VP-11 shipmates and many always attend.  We retell the old sea stories and often there are new ones—sometimes confessions of long ago midsdeeds or mistakes that once were idle scuttlebutt.)

It was full dark and the stars were bright overhead with the glory of the Southern Cross having slipped for the last time below the horizon when Hook touched me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, sober-sides, let’s go get a cup of coffee and hit the sack.  It’s getting pretty cool.

The most noteworthy event of our voyage on the SEA WITCH occurred on the morning of the day 8 March 1943, still an hour or more out, somewhere west of Seal Rocks we were in a solid fog bank.  The fog was so thick that it was not possible to see form the bow of the ship to the stern.  Unfortunately, the SEA WITCH did not have radar and we were traveling alone.

Since it was chilly and damp in the fog on deck and our mess cooking duties were over for the lat time, Hook and I were at a table in the mess compartment playing a few hands of cards.  I was just dealing when there was a sudden violent jar in the ship and what sounded like a dull boom forward.  An alarm started going on the loudspeakers.

Our first thought was “Torpedo!”  The cards went flying as we came up from the table.  My lifejacket was on my bunk tow compartments away on the mess deck.  I shot through the hatches, snatched up my life preserver, went up to ladders and out onto the main deck in a matter of seconds—probably the fasted I had moved in my entire life.

We had not been torpedoed.  SEA WITCH had collided with another ship in the fog.  I moved fast enough that I got a glimpse of the stern of the ship we had hit just disappearing into the fog off our starboard bow.  I saw the name of the ship in black letters on the stern as it vanished.  Of all the ships in the United States Navy the one we had to hit was the USS PYRO, at that time the largest ammunition ship in commission!

We found later that PYRO was loaded to the Plimsol marks with every high explosive in use.  If the collision had set it off, there would have been bare fragment of the two ships and all souls on board drifting to the bottom of the ocean.  Such an explosion would have wiped out a good share of that convoy.

The bow of SEA WITCH had hit PYRO just at the port five-inch gun platform aft.  The big gun had been ripped loose and two men died on PYRO.  Inspection of SEA WITCH revealed a hole in the starboard bow about six feet vertically and fifteen feet long; however, it was well above the waterline so we were in no immediate danger of sinking.  SEA WITCH lay dead in the water until the foghorns of the convoy receded then we proceeded at a reduced speed.  The fog started to lift as we passed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.  Two painters on a scaffolding beneath the great span waved welcome.

USS SAN FRANCISCO passing under the Golden Gate

We docked in San Francisco bay in the early evening of March 8^th.  All of we Navy passengers were on deck in our dress blues and with our baggage as the ship eased alongside the pier.  There was no brass band to greet the rusty freighter; however, there was a USO coffee stand on the pier tended by American girls—the first we had seen in two years.  I recall that Hook said to me, “Migawd—look at those wahines!  They are all as white and pale as if they just got out of the hospital or something!”  In comparison to the brown girls of the South Pacific to which we had become accustomed they did, indeed look a bit sickly, however, it did not take long for us to adjust to that!”

We did not get to talk to the USO girls.  A boat laid alongside SEA WITCH and we Naval personnel were transferred to the Navy Receiving Station on Treasure Island.  It was after dark by then and everything on the base was secured; however, as soon as we had been shown to a barracks, Hook and I dropped our seabags and headed for the ODD’s office.  It took some talking to the officer, but soon, armed with special liberty passes, we were headed for the Oakland Bay Bridge to catch a trolley into Oakland (it was a bit nearer than San Francisco).

As I recall, it was by then around ten o’clock.  We simply headed for the first bar we saw to celebrate our return.  By the midnight closing time, both Hook and I were gloriously drunk.  We weaved our way out to the street, singing bawdy songs.  Hook insisted on treating us to a taxi back to Treasure Island.  We decided that the next night would be our real return celebration.  We would go into ‘Frisco, get a hotel room, and really live it up.

Becoming AMM Third Class

"Since Hawaii was not on war alert, those final peaceful days of 1941 were devoted to getting the squadron fully operational"

Four days after our arrival at Kaneohe Bay, I took the examination for aviation machinist mate third class and scored a 4.0 (one hundred percent).  My petty officer rate would become effective in two months and I could qualify for a flight crew.  In the meantime, I continued as a member of the beach crew, swimming in the clear water of the bay every day.  With my fair complexion, I sunburn very easily; however, with liberal application of cocoa butter (the only thing available in the way of sun bloc) my freckles gradually merged until I was sufficiently brown to stay out in the sun for extended periods during working hours.

During the last week in June, my blithe existence as a seaman on the beach crew came to an end.  I was ordered on temporary duty in the mess hall as a mess cook.  (Other than being assigned “captain of the head” or scraping paint, mess cooking was the bane of every seaman’s life.  Each unilt was obligated to furnish two or three mess attendants to serve food on the steam tables and do the swamping up in the mess hall.  My turn had come.)

I moved into the mess cook’s barracks at the mess hall building (where we could be rousted out at five AM to set up for morning chow) and suffered the indignity through the month of July.  I chafed with impatience the full time to get back to the airplanes.

It was a miserable period in my Navy career.  When I was notified by the squadron yeoman on the first day of August that my rate had come through, I was ecstatic.  My base pay would now be $72 a month and, as soon as I could get on a flight crew and draw flight skins, it would be a total of $108—a small fortune to an old Ozark boy right out of the Depression.  On our next liberty after payday, out two or three of us who had sewed the third class “crow” of an aviation machinist made on our left sleeves, caught the Red Peril over the Pali and had several zombies at Trader Vics—a traditional celebration.  (I served scrambled eggs the next morning with a vicious hangover and none of us could remember getting back to the base!)

The day after that I lurked in the mess hall after morning chow until our leading chief, CPO “Duke” Byron, was having a last cup of coffee before muster.  As I recall, the conversation went something like this:

“Scuse me, chief, they still got me on mess cookin’ here and I just made third class mech.”

“That so?”

“Yessir—and I sure would like to get on a plane crew.  I got a four point oh on my exam and I been studying everything about those PBYs since I came to the squadron.  I’m good on machine guns, too.”

“That right?”

“Sure is chief—figger I can third mech with the best of them!”

He got out his seat.  “Gotta go to muster.  I’ll think about it.  By the way what’s your name, mac?”

“Frieze, Chief.  Dick Frieze is my brother—he’s already third mech.”

CPO turned to walk out with a noncommittal, “I’ll let you know.”  Two days later I was ordered to report back to the squadron.  On the “Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill” I was listed as third mechanic on the crew of PBY 11-P-11.  As far as I was concerned, I was about as close to heaven as I was liabel to get for quite a while.

The structure of a PBY flight crew was a senior pilot who was the PPC (patrol plan commander), a co-pilot, an enlisted pilot, a leading petty officer who was the “plane captain”, a second mech, third mech, a first radioman, and a second radioman.  (After the war started a bombardier who was an enlisted ordnanceman would be added to combat crews.)

I do not remember all the names on our flight crew of 11-P-11.  The PPC was Ens. Charles “Dopey” Clar, the co-pilot was Ens. Charley “Whiskey” Willis, and the plane captain was AMM1/c “Tex” Foret.  The second mech was Dave Davenport.  I do not recall the radiomen or the AP.

Since Hawaii was not on war alert, those final peaceful days of 1941 were devoted to getting the squadron fully operational at Kaneohe, sporadic and relatively short training flight, and maintaining the airplanes.  The PBY-1s of VP-11 were more than five years old.  They had been first thirteen PBYs off the assembly line at Consolidated and were the airplanes that had made the first mass flight from the mainland to Hawaii in 1936.  It was my understanding that our 11-P-16 airplane was the original XPBY-1.

The old airplanes took a lot of maintenance which rapidly improved our skills as mechanics.  Our plane captain, Foret, had been in the Navy for more than twelve years and he taught us well, driving us unmercifully during working hours.

Working hours were still short.  We remained on “tropical working hours”—muster at 0700, an hour for noon chow, and secure at 1400 (2:00 PM).  Except when we had the duty, liberty cards were available evenings and weekends from 1400 on Friday to 0700 Monday.  Only our funds limited the time we could spend “ashore”.

There were always activities going on at the base during off hours—some that were contrary to Naval Regulations.  Regulations forbade gambling and hard liquor on the base but there was the station beer garden and, almost any evening, poker games here and there and crap games either in the barracks head or the hangar washroom.  We quickly became relatively expert at five card stud or draw, blackjack, and side bets in a crap game.

Temporary Assignment to Midway and a Brush with History

My promotion to seaman first class became effective on May 1^st of 1941 and my pay jumped to the princely sum of $54 per month.  I happily had the third seaman’s stripe added to the cuffs of my dress blues and I got all of my loose white jumpers tailored to fit my lean frame.  I also concentrated on my practical factors studies for the petty officer rate of AMM3c because I would be eligible in just three months.

Beyond third class, promotions could come slowly in the peacetime Navy because quotas in each rate were limited.  I recall one evening that Dick, Glover, and I were sitting in the Ford Island beer garden killing time until the evening movie started.  We were discussing what our future plans might be beyond our current six-year enlistments.  We wound up agreeing that if we should be fortunate enough to make first class petty officer in that six years it would be smart to stay in the Navy for an entire career.

(We had no inkling, of course, of how a war could and would change everything.  If anyone had told us that at the end of six years Dick and Glover would be chief petty officers and that I would be a commissioned officer, we would have all gotten hernias from laughing!)

Preparations were going forward for the move of VP-23 from Ford Island to the new Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay.  The base was to be commissioned on 4 June 1941.  We would be the first squadron in and would become VP-11 of Patrol Wing One.  We would be followed by VP-12 and VP-14 (At our enlisted level we also had no inkling that Patrol Wing Two was permanently assigned to Pearl Harbor and that Patrol Wing One was destined to go to the front lines in the deep South Pacific when the war started.  We never worried about strategic planning.  We simply did the jobs we were trained for and, in our spare time, went ashore to have a little fun.)

It was decided that, during the transition and to make the move to Kaneohe easier, several of our VP-23 airplanes would go to Midway Island for two weeks of advance base operations.  They would then return directly to the new base at Kaneohe.

The Midway operations would require the support of ground crews. Both Glover and I were assigned to the Midway support group and Dick remained behind with the balance of the squadron that would affect the move of all equipment across the island.  On May 10^th the ground crew contingent boarded the aircraft tender USS WRIGHT for the voyage to Midway Island.

USS WRIGHT

The WRIGHT, my second temporary sea duty in the Navy, was not much of an improvement over the old TIPPICANOE.  The WRIGHT had been converted from a WWI barrage balloon ship used in convoys and had similar ungainly lines to those of the old tanker.  She was another rusty old bucket and the original balloon well still existed amidships.  I do not recall who the captain was; hoever, the executive officer was Lt. Commander Dixie Kiefer who would gain some measure of renown in Naval Aviation during WWII.

The voyage to Midway lasted five days.  We were aboard as passengers, not as temporary ship’s company, and therefore had no watch standing duties.  We could lounge about the deck and watch schools of flying fish and pods of grey whales that crossed our course.  After evening chow we would gather on the fantail and marvel at the luminous phosphorescence in the ship’s wake.

NAS Midway being built in 1941

Midway is barely a speck in the vast Pacific Ocean.  It consists of a large lagoon bordered by reefs and two low-lying islands, Midway and Eastern Island.  Eastern Island consisted mostly of a new runway for lane planes.  Midway itself is perhaps a mile long and a quarter mile wide at he widest point.  Installations consisted of one hangar on a seaplane ramp, a large fuel storage tank, a water tower, and a few small buildings housing the other facilities of a very small base.

East of the naval seaplane installation there was a very small transient hotel used by Pan American Airways for the overnight stop of the big Boeing clippers that flew between the West Coast and the Orient.  The clippers were big four-engine flying boats that landed in the lagoon and used the one Midway dock to tie up and refuel.

The center of Midway rises only a few feet above sea level.  The low hill was sparsely covered by scrub brush and small trees.  A hike around the circumference of the little island (which we did every day or so out of boredom) took barely an hour at a leisurely pace.

One outstanding feature of Midway was its population of gooney birds.  A “gooney bird” is an albatross on land.  In its incomparable soaring flight on seven-foot slender tapering wings, sometimes many miles from land, an albatross is a graceful, beautiful bird.  On land, however, it is an awkward, waddling fowl about the size of a big domestic goose.

Gooneys are reputed to have a brain about the size of a pea and their actions would tend to bear that out.  They had no fear of man and could be petted.  That, however, was a mistake.  If you petted a gooney bird, you became his bosom pal and he would follow at hour heels wherever you went like a faithful dog.  The big birds would even attempt to follow sailors up the gangplank of the WRIGHT moored at the dock and were difficult to discourage.

The gooney bird (or albatross) cannot make a takeoff from a standing start.  They are too heavy and must make a running takeoff like an airplane.  They used the beach for a runway and we discovered that it was necessary for them to make their run into the wind just as an airplane would do.  Young ones would occasionally attempt a downwind takeoff and, upon retracting their legs, would tumble tail over teakettle until they finally figured out they had to run the other way.

Our advance base operations of the PBYs at Midway was good training for handling the airplanes under field conditions.  We were not yet under alert conditions in the Hawaiian area; therefore, we simply conducted training flights and did routine maintenance checks on the airplanes and engines.

We followed the progress of the war in Europe but it was far away and, on our happy-go-lucky enlisted level, we never gave much thought to relations of the U.S. with the Empire of Japan.  The Japanese were “the bad guys” because of their conquest in China, but otherwise we mostly ignored the “slanteyes” and dismissed them as a real threat.  We preferred spending our of hours playing poker or shooting craps under the guise of playing ace-deucy.

Boeing Clipper

One afternoon I was headed back to the WRIGHT at the dock at the end of working hours (we were living aboard the tender) when one of the Pan American clippers came in and landed in the lagoon.  I lingered at the bead of the dock to watch the big graceful Boeing touch down on the water taxi to the dock.  With its massive boat hull and long tapering wing, I thought it the most beautiful airplane in the world.  Our PBYs truly looked like ugly duckling by comparison.

I was standing at the head of the dock wen the Am flight crew and about a dozen passengers passed on their way to the Pan Am hotel.  I paid little attention except to look at them with envy, but noticed that one passenger was a very short, stocky Japanese in a dark suit totally unsuitable for the climate.  He had a serious expression on his round brown face, but he smiles when our eyes met momentarily and his head bobbed in a half bow in silent greeting.  I waved a hand casually and went on to the WRIGHT for a shower.

Special Envoy Sabruro Kurusu

I gave no more thought to the little Japanese until about eight months later when I saw his photograph in a Life magazine article about the beginning of the war in the Pacific.  The man I saw that sunny afternoon on Midway was Sabruro Kurusu, special envoy to Washington on his way to join the Japanese ambassador, Nomura, for the final negotiations with President Roosevelt.

We launched our VP-23 PBYs for their flight back to Hawaii on the morning of May 31^st.  That afternoon, after waiting to take aboard the body of a Marine private that had just been killed on the island when a construction crane fell over, the USS WRIGHT sailed for Pearl Harbor.

Our arrival at Pearl Harbor on the morning of June 4^th caused a bit of a stir.  The executive officer, CDR Kiefer, had become upset with we airdales for some reason and had ordered the first lieutenant to put us to work as temporary ship’s company.  We scraped and painted the rusty plates of the WRIGHT all the way back.

When we arrived off the entrance to Pearl Harbor, the captain found that there was a problem with the tug that operated the anti-submarine net and we had to lay to for three or four hours before entering the harbor.  It was a windless, flat calm day so the first lieutenant decided that two of the paint party should go over the side in bosons’ chairs to finish some painting of rust streaks on the stern of the ship.  They worked just below the black lettering that read USS WRIGHT.

We steamed into the harbor in the early afternoon and up the channel past the Pacific Fleet flagship, the USS PENNSYLVANIA.  Just after we passed the big battleship, the TBS (Talk Between Ships) radio came to life.  It was the Pacific Fleet commanding admiral addressing the captain of the WRIGHT.  His soft, but firm voice said, “Captain, there are two names on the stern of your ship.  I want one of them removed immediately—and I do not care which one!”

As soon as the gangplank hit the dock, the captain of the WRIGHT and Commander Kiefer scrambled down from the bridge and went to inspect the stern.  There, in big letters painted with red-lead, immediately beneath the name of the ship was “USS MADHOUSE”.  Someone in the paint party ahd gotten even for the extra duty we had put in.

Fortunately, all we airdales had our gear on deck and there was a truck waiting on the dock to take us to our new base at Kaneohe Bay.  We quickly loaded aboard and were on our way while the CPO that had been in charge of the paint party was still trying to remember who he had put over the side with the red-lead.  (The chief’s memory was not all that bad.  We all chipped in on the fifth of good scotch that found its way to that chief.)

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.

Finishing up AMM School and Falling in Love with the PBY

Hall PH flying boat

The second half of the four months at AMM school in 1940 was the best part.  Early in November, after the written tests on the basic subjects, we had come out of the classroom onto the flight line and gunnery range.  We literally tore down and rebuilt the old Hall PH flying boats—rigging, control surfaces, instruments—and we removed the radial engines mounted in nacelles up between the wings, tore them down to the crankshafts, rebuilt and re-installed them and got them running and tuned up.

I came to love those big old radial aircraft engines and soon found that I had a knack of diagnosing a problem by listening to an engine run.  Those old piston engines did not scream as the jets in later years would do, telling the mechanic nothing.  At idle or low power settings, the radial engines would “talk” and at the higher power settings for takeoff and cruise they would sing.  It was possible to detect a grumbling complaint or sour note from an ailing engine and know what was wrong with reasonable accuracy.  The chiefs and first class petty officers who were our instructors taught us to recognize when a spark plug was misfiring, magneto points needed adjustment, or a carburetor was not functioning right.  An airplane engine, and indeed the airplane, became a living thing to me.

My second love, sparked by my desire to become a PBY mechanic and machine gunner, was the big fifty-caliber machine guns.  We trained on both those and on the lighter 30-caliber guns that were standard in the nose and tail of a patrol bomber was well as the rear cockpits of dive bombers and torpedo planes.  The big 50-caliber guns were installed in the waist hatches of the big patrol bombers.  The 30-caliber guns, firing a cartridge similar to a 30.06 Springfield rifle, fired at a rate of 1200 rounds per minute with a rapid chatter.  The fifties, however, fired a cartridge more than twice as large at a rate of 870 rounds per minute.  It fired with a very authoritative and satisfying thudding.

I could more than hold my own on the firing range with a Springfield rifle or either of the machine guns.  I never did mast the 45-caliber automatic pistols that were standard Navy sidearms.  No matter how I aimed or corrected, my clip of shots on the pistol range would usually go off down and to the right.

Brother Richard had been assigned to a PBY patrol squadron stationed in Hawaii, VP-23.  Peacetime Navy policy was that brothers could serve in the same ships or units if they so desire.  After the first of the year in 1941, I applied for patrol aviation in Hawaii.  With my grades in the upper percentile of the class, I got my choice.  On 15 January I was notified that upon graduation I would be assigned to Patrol Wing One based on Ford Island at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Langford scratched his head when he read the orders posted on the bulletin board.  “Whut in the hell,” he drawled, “is a tippy canoe?!”

None of knew what kind of ship it was.  Destroyers were named after famous people, cruisers after cities, and battleships after states.  We knew the name of all the aircraft carriers—Lexington, Saratoga, Yorktown, Enterprise, Hornet, Wasp, Ranger, and the old Langley.  We concluded that it must be a transport of some sort, but if so, why were we designated as “temporary ship’s company” instead of passengers?  We were to find that it was because we would work our way to Hawaii scraping and painting in the deck division.

We got our first clue as to the nature of the Tippecanoe when her number one motor whaleboat came alongside the Naval Air Station dock to transport us and our gear to the ship.  The grey paint of the boat was flaked in spots and the coxswain’s brass tiller and his bell for the motor mac needed shining.  The coxswain, a boson’s pipe on a braided thong about his neck and a sheath knife on this belt, was wearing oily dungarees and a grease-stained white hat neither of which appeared to have been near a laundry for a spell.  The motor mac and the bow hook were not much cleaner.

When the boat laid alongside, the unsmiling coxswain barked out, “Tippecanoe—get your gear and your butts aboard!”

Our spanking clean dress white uniforms were quite a contrast to the boat crew in their soiled dungarees.  They largely ignored us as the boat swung away from the dock and headed for Point Loma to the north except that, in response to a friendly greeting from Langford, the surly coxswain snarled, “Airedales—shee-it!”  and spat over the side of the whaleboat.

I made one more attempt with the Tippecanoe seaman who was sitting beside me in the bow of the boat, “What kind of ship is the Tippecanoe?”

He curled his lip wryly.  “You’ll find out soon enough, Mac. She’s a rusty old bucket and the crew is a bunch of goof-off!  I think they moored her out on Point Loma so she don’t clutter up their nice clean harbor!”

Christmas Leave 1940, but You Can't Go Home Again

My ten-day Christmas leave began on the 20^th of December.  I still had not saved enough money for either a bus or train ticket so I elected to hitch-hike home to Vancouver.  To get out of the San Diego and Los Angeles areas, I did buy a bus ticket to Bakersfield, California, then hitchhiked up Highway 99. Men in uniform had very good luck hitch-hiking in those days and I had the good fortune of decent weather in the Siskiyou mountains.  I arrived in Portland, Oregon, the morning of the 22^nd and caught the interurban bus to Vancouver.

My first leave in uniform was not the triumphant return I had envisioned and, in the end, it emphasized the point that already my life and my interests had diverged from those of my family and my old friends.  It began with the fact that the family had moved du9ring my absence of six months.  Instead of the familiar yellow house I had left in July, they now lived in a small shingled house on the eastern outskirts of town.  It was somehow not like “coming home”.

They were all glad to see me, of course, and admired my tailored uniform (Richard had come on boot leave in a regulation baggy blouse).  It was nice to be there for Christmas, but somehow there was a feeling that I no longer really belonged.

The same was true of the close friends I had left behind.  Dad still had the old Chevrolet and the first evening home I drove it down to Gearhart’s.  The only ones I saw were David Schaeffer and Ariel.  We had a Coca Cola and they asked me the usual polite questions about life in the Navy, but it quicky became obvious that they were not really all that interested.  I had been away and was not up to date on local happenings.  Our acquaintance had become casual.

I spent some time on evening with Shirley Mills and her family, but did not take her out on a date. She had started to Oregon State College and was only home for the Christmas holiday.  Again, I answered the usual questions about life in the Navy.  Shirley and her sister Mary admired my uniform, my suntan, and my muscles that had been hardened by daily calisthenics.  Mr. & Mrs. Mills asked polite questions also, but then they would suddenly be discussing local events or happening at OSC whih left me feeling very much the interloper.  Before long I excused myself on the basis that I had to get back to my family, but instead, I drove down to 13^th and Kaufman to see Patty Cross.

That was one fo two gratifying instances during my leave.  Pat wanted to hear everything I had been doing and, unless she was an accomplished actress at the age of fifteen, was truly interested.  Her mother welcomed me like a returning son and I spent a comfortable evening with them.

The other gratification was a movie date with dear Elaine.  She had enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle and was home for the holiday.  I recall that she wore a simple black dress for our date and the scattershot high school girl was becoming a poised young lady.  She, too, was truly interested in what I have been doing and, with her rapid fire delivery, wanted to tell me all about the university.  She was a dear, sweet friend, but I did not have the feeling that a serious relationship could develop for us—I had too far to go out there in the world.

My leave was to be up on December 30^th.  I decided to leave Vancouver on the morning of the 27^th to allow time for hitch-hiking in case rides were slow or scarce.  The weather had turned rainy in Oregon with possible snow in the Siskiyou Mountains so, although he could not afford a ticket to San Diego and it was my responsibility, Dad insisted on buying me a cut-rate ticket on a small wildcat bus line in Portland that would get me into Northern California.  The crowded little bus deposited me in Redding and from there, with less than five dollars in my pocket, I was on my thumb.

I had good luck with rides down the long valley through Sacramento and by dawn on the 28^th had been left near a truck stop café in Lodi.  There my luck seemed to have run out.  After an hour or more with very few cars and trucks passing, I went to the café for a glass of milk and a doughnut (I still had not developed a taste for coffee).  The driver of an automobile transport truck loaded with wrecked and used cars was next to me at the café counter.

When the truck driver heard that I was headed for San Diego, he made me an offer.  He said that he could ick up the wreck of a Cadillac convertible in Modesto but that he had a full load of cars.  The rear car on his truck, however, was a driveable Chevrolet sedan and would I drive it for him to Los Angeles?

I jumped at the chance.  When he had finished his breakfast we drove to Modesto, unloaded the black Chev sedan, and loaded the wrecked Cadillac in its place.  He instructed me to simply stay on his tail and to flash my headlights when I needed to pull off for gas.

The drive was uneventful until we reached the top of that section of old Highway 99 past Bakersfield that was known as “The Grapevine”.  It was sunset when we pulled off at a café for some supper and was dark when we took to the road again.

That truck driver took the twisting curves of that steep mountain grade considerably faster than we comfortable for an inexperienced driver like me.  I had to keep his taillights in sight, however, because I did not have the address of the wrecking yard in L.A. that was his destination.  He had just said, “Aw, you won’t have any trouble keeping me in sight.  If I lose sight of you in my mirror, I’ll just pull over until you catch up,” so, with sweating palms on the steering wheel, I stayed glued to his tail.

The worst part was when we got into Los Angeles and its traffic and stop lights.  It seemed to me that at every stop light it would turn red while the truck was pulling through the intersection.  I was afraid that if I lost him he might make a turn before I caught up so I got the front bumper of the car as close to the truck as I dared and simply shot though the red lights.  It was fortunate that we did not encounter a police car as I left exasperated motorists honking at fifteen or twenty intersections, or so it seemed.

We finally found the wrecking yard on the south side of L.A. and I heaved a sigh of relief when I parked at the yard and, since he lived in Long Beach, I had hi drop me at the bus station there.  He had paid for my supper andI had just enough money left to buy a ticket on the late bus to San Diego.  IT had only a few passengers so I stretched out on the long rear seat and slept.

From the downtown San Diego bus station, it was but a short walk down to the Broadway Landing where I caught the “nickel snatcher” foot passenger ferry out to North Island.  I arrived on the Naval Air Station dock just at morning colors and, as I walked to the barracks past the tall flag pole with the stars and stripes waving against the blue sky in the warm breeze, I had the feeling that I had truly come “home”.  I belonged there.  I loved my close knit family dearly and would always be concerned for them; however, never once again would I feel any real pangs of homesickness.  For a long time to come the Navy would be my real home and my squadron would be my “family”.

[I would argue that the Navy remained what defined my father for his entire life.  Although only a relative short part of his life in actuality he thought of himself as “an old Navy man” until the day he died.]