1946-1953

EPILOGUE

1946 -1991

It is possible, grandchildren, that I may not have the time or energy to set down the details of my even more adventurous second quarter century; therefore, in this “epilogue” I shall simply summarize the events that led me all over the world and into a truly “golden” retirement.  Some of you might protest, “You have lots of time, Papa Con!” but I am approaching seventy years of age and much of the time left my beloved Phyllis and I intend to devote to us and to the travelling we would like to do.

My entire life has been full of adventure that I would like to record in detail later as Part III of my story.  Meanwhile, I hope that you have found the tales of my first quarter century interesting and perhaps amusing in places.  The following is but a bare summary outline of the events that led me all over the world and finally here to the peace and quiet of Sandy Point in the Pacific Northwest.

It took me two years to make the adjustment to civilian life in peacetime.  I first took a job at Meir & Frank in Portland, Oregon, selling ladies shoes.  That was not satisfying and did not last.

Conrad Frieze, graduation from OSC 1949

I then got a job in Vancouver, Washington at the courthouse as a draftsman for the county assessor.  During that two-year period, I realized one of my dreams—on the veteran’s G.I. Bill I started flying lessons and by 1948 it was time to complete my final year of college.  The University of Washington was over-crowded with returned veterans on the G.I. Bill and housing was hard to find in Seattle.  I settled on Oregon State College in Corvallis and in June of 1949 graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering with an Aeronautical Option.

My ambition was to be in the light plane industry as a designer; however, none of the light plane companies were hiring engineers.  It was a bad year in general aviation.  Then one day I spotted the new, swept-wing sleek Boeing experimental B-47 jet bomber sitting on the apron at Boeing Field.  I was entranced, applied for a job at Boeing, and was accepted as a junior engineer.

That began my lifetime career with Boeing.  It got off to a slow start.  I was put to work in the Tooling Department designing riveting jigs for the B-47.  It was not what I wanted.  Every day without fail I would stick my head into the cubbyhole office of Stan Little, the engineering representative and say, “Stan, when the hell are you going to get me a job in Flight Test?”

Wichita Flight Test

1950 – 1953

In February of 1950, my persistence paid off.  I got my job in Flight Test on the condition that I would go to Wichita, Kansas, for eighteen months to help set up the B-47 flight test program down there.  I was assigned as a flight test Operations engineer, planning test flights, obtaining and analyzing data, and writing test reports.

Except for being in the relative desolation of Kansas from the green mountains and ocean of the Pacific Northwest, it was a dream job.  In Wichita, I worked with a happy-go-lucky bunch of flight test engineers and test pilots who would become life-long friends.

I did not stay eighteen months in Wichita—I stayed three years, three months, and six days.  As the program built up I received regular promotions until I was a Flight Test Operations Engineer A and the lead engineer on the B-47 flight loads program.  Brian Wygle was the pilot, Ross Patrick the co-pilot, and I was the test engineer recording data while we flew the No. 2 B-47A to the limits of its structural design.

On February 19, 1951, I became a father.  Our little daughter Stephanie Kathryn was born.  Like most men I had hoped for a son, but Stephanie was adorable and was the apple of my eye.  I was a proud father and assumed a son (or sons) would come later.  (I was dead wrong.  It became apparent that Shirley had a great dread of getting pregnant and she instituted a strict regimen of birth control.  I accepted the situation, but I fear it laid a brick in the wall that would grow between us.)

[There is plenty that I can fault my mother for, but in her defense, I will tell you what she told me.  She told me that she had two miscarriages before having me and that after having successfully delivered me her doctor told her that further pregnancies would be a danger to her life.  My mother has a tendency to hear whatever is most dramatic and may have exaggerated her doctor’s advice.  It would not be the last time.  I spent a childhood (and my adult life) wishing I had siblings so my father wasn’t alone there and adoption seemed to be out of the question.]

First War Patrol

Chapter 26

December 1941

The thirty of us from Kaneohe were taken by truck to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base where the motor launch would take us to Landing A on Ford Island.  The boat, normall spick and span in grey paint and shined brass works, was filthy with oil and blood from picking up bodies and debris in the oil covered, wreckage strewn waters.

We stared in silent awe as the boat crossed to the island.  The tall tripod mast of the ARIZONA leaned at an angle above the sunken hull of the battleship.  The dull red bottom of the capsized OKLAHOMA was sprinkled with the blue-white flares of cutting torches in the on-going attempt to cut through to men still strapped inside the battered ships, only some of which I could identify—WEST VIRGINIA, CALIFORNIA, TENNESSEE, MARYLAND.

In the big dry-dock in East Loch, the wreckage of the destroyers CASSIN and DOWNES leaned against each other, trapping the battleship PENNYSLVANIA, flagship of the Pacific Fleet, in the damaged dry-dock.  Over beyond Ford Island was the battered bulk of the NEVEDA which had been the only battleship to get under way during the attack.  Under intense dive bombing, NEVADA had been beached on Hospital Point rather than be sunk blocking the narrow entrance to the harbor.  The waters of the bay were covered with a thick scum of oil and pieces of wreckage.  Motor whaleboats were everywhere picking up the flotsam and still occasionally pulling aboard an old covered body.

Not a word was spoken in our group until the boat desposited us at Landing A.  As we debarked onto the wide concrete landing we walked past a row of tarpaulin covered bodies that had been pulled from the bay.  From behind me I heard someone mutter bitterly, “God damn the sons-a-bitches!”

No time was wasted.  We were escorted to our living quarters that were a roped-off corner of the least badly damaged PBY hangar on the island.  Rows of folding cots had been set up.  Since the Ford Island barracks were overflowing with survivors, the corner of that hangar was where we would sleep while maintenance work on airplanes was done.  The windows of the hanglar had been painted black so that work could continue twenty-four hours a day.

As soon as we had deposited our ditty bags (I had brought only a spare suit of dungarees and one white uniform) on a chosen cot, we lined up at a desk near the VP-22 operations office for assignment.  I was assigned to 22-P-6 and was informed that the airplane was on the ramp and was scheduled for evening patrol.

22-P-6 had not come through the attack unscathed.  The fuselage, wing, and tail suraces were peppered with bullet holes.  Those below the waterline had been patched properly by the metalsmiths but those on the upper surfaces simply had fabric patches doped over the holes.

The plane captain on 22-P-6 was a harried second class AMM named Gibson.  His face was grim and there were dark circles under his eyes.  He greeted me warmly because both the original plane captain, a first class, and the third mech had been wounded in the attack and were in the hospital.  He had been promoted to plane captain, I would be second mech, and our third mech was a seaman striker for AMM.

When I commented that Gibson looked bushed, he sighed and said, “Don’t rightly remember when I had some sack time—we worked all day yesterday and last night to get this old bird flyable.”

The pilots came aboard while Gibson and I were finishing our pre-flight checks of the equipment.  All guns were loaded and we were carrying two five hundred pound bombs and two depth charges on the wing racks.  When he found that I had more than fifty hours of flight time, Gibson put me in the mechanics tower for takeoff and the first watch.  He would try to get some sleep when we were airborne.

When I scrambled into the tower, I saw that there were two bullet holes in the instrument panel.  I called them to Gibson’s attention.  “I know,” he said tiredly.  “I checked all the lines behind the panel and they look okay.  Slapped some tape on the holes outside.  Just get “em started!”  He fired up the putt-putt and the instrument panel came alive.

When we taxied out on the oily water of Pearl Harbor, motor whaleboats were still busily clearing debris from the takeoff sea lane on the east side of Ford Island past Battleship Row.  When we were in position, a green flag was waved from the nearest boat and we started our takeoff run.  Just as the airplane came up onto the step I heard a loud thud from somewhere below.  In response to the annunciator light on the panel, I moved the mixture controls from Full Rich to Automatic Rich for climb and maneuver then slid down out of the tower.

In the galley compartment directly below the tower Gibson was standing staring mournfully at a hole in the bottom of the airplane.  We had hit a piece of debris that curled the aluminum skin inward leaving a hole about six inches wide and over a foot long between hull frames.  Through the hole we could see the Naval Hospital passing below as the airplane banked out to sea.

While we were contemplating the damage, the PPC turned the airplane over to the co-pilot and came aft.  He whistled and groaned, “What a hell of a way to start a war—shot up airplane and we knock a hole in the bottom!!”  Will it sink us when we land, Gib?” Gibson sighed and shook his head dolefully.  “Dunno, sir.  Maybe—maybe not if you can land close to the ramp and they get us out of the water in a hurry.  I’ll bend that tin back, dope a bunch of fabric patches on it, and pile on some mattresses for collision mats.”  He sighed again and reached for his tool box as I climbed back into the tower.

That first war patrol was an anti-submarine sweep down between Molokai and Maui where there had been reports of a submarine in the vicinity of Lahaina Roads, the old Navy anchorage off Maui that was used before Pearl Harbor became operational a few years before.  We had also been alerted that all fishing boats and sampans had been ordered to stay in port.  We were to check out any vessel we encountered.  It was rumored that such boats were being used to re-supply enemy submarines.

Gibson finished his makeshift patch of the bottom, caught an hour of sleep in the forward bunk, then came to relieve me in the tower.  I went aft to take position on one of the waist machine guns.  Just as I started aft, the pilots spotted a large fishing boat underway ahead.  Jus as I stepped into the waist compartment and reached for the interphone headphones, the pilot made a low pass past the fishing boat.  Without orders to pen fire, the third mech opened up with the port 50-cal machine gun and raked the vessel from stem to stern.

There had been two men visible on the boat—one on deck and one standing in the cabin hatch.  As fountains of water and splinters from the boat sprayed into the air, the man on the deck went over the side.  The other man ducked back into the cabin.  I grabbed the gunner by the arm and yanked him away from the gun.  The pilot was yelling, “Cease Fire!  CEASE FIRE!” on the interphone.

We circled and came back, our co-pilot calling on the radio for a ship to come out and investigate the fishing boat.  The boat did not seem to be badly damaged.  It had laid to and the man from the cabin pulled his deck hand from the water.  They both stood up and did not appear to be injured.  When we were informed there was a ship on the way we continued our patrol—after the pilot had some very harsh words with the trigger-happy seaman striker.

It was after dark when we approached Pearl Harbor to land.  Gibson and I had placed three bunk mattresses over the makeshift patch, piled on two cases of fifty caliber ammunition for weight and I agreed to sit on top of those when we touched down to try to hold the mattresses in place against the force of the water when the airplane settled down.

I do not recall that pilot’s name but he made a great feather light power landing headed straight for the launching ramp on Ford Island.  Alerted by radio, the beach crew was ready with the big side mounts already in the water.  As the airplane slowed and settled, water poured in all around the mattresses.  Our timing was good—I heard the tail hook clank into place, the tractor on the beach wheeled us around, and the side mounts banged into their sockets.  Our first war patrol was safely over.

First War Patrol

Chapter 26

December 1941

The thirty of us from Kaneohe were taken by truck to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base where the motor launch would take us to Landing A on Ford Island.  The boat, normall spick and span in grey paint and shined brass works, was filthy with oil and blood from picking up bodies and debris in the oil covered, wreckage strewn waters.

We stared in silent awe as the boat crossed to the island.  The tall tripod mast of the ARIZONA leaned at an angle above the sunken hull of the battleship.  The dull red bottom of the capsized OKLAHOMA was sprinkled with the blue-white flares of cutting torches in the on-going attempt to cut through to men still strapped inside the battered ships, only some of which I could identify—WEST VIRGINIA, CALIFORNIA, TENNESSEE, MARYLAND.

In the big dry-dock in East Loch, the wreckage of the destroyers CASSIN and DOWNES leaned against each other, trapping the battleship PENNYSLVANIA, flagship of the Pacific Fleet, in the damaged dry-dock.  Over beyond Ford Island was the battered bulk of the NEVEDA which had been the only battleship to get under way during the attack.  Under intense dive bombing, NEVADA had been beached on Hospital Point rather than be sunk blocking the narrow entrance to the harbor.  The waters of the bay were covered with a thick scum of oil and pieces of wreckage.  Motor whaleboats were everywhere picking up the flotsam and still occasionally pulling aboard an old covered body.

Not a word was spoken in our group until the boat desposited us at Landing A.  As we debarked onto the wide concrete landing we walked past a row of tarpaulin covered bodies that had been pulled from the bay.  From behind me I heard someone mutter bitterly, “God damn the sons-a-bitches!”

No time was wasted.  We were escorted to our living quarters that were a roped-off corner of the least badly damaged PBY hangar on the island.  Rows of folding cots had been set up.  Since the Ford Island barracks were overflowing with survivors, the corner of that hangar was where we would sleep while maintenance work on airplanes was done.  The windows of the hanglar had been painted black so that work could continue twenty-four hours a day.

As soon as we had deposited our ditty bags (I had brought only a spare suit of dungarees and one white uniform) on a chosen cot, we lined up at a desk near the VP-22 operations office for assignment.  I was assigned to 22-P-6 and was informed that the airplane was on the ramp and was scheduled for evening patrol.

22-P-6 had not come through the attack unscathed.  The fuselage, wing, and tail suraces were peppered with bullet holes.  Those below the waterline had been patched properly by the metalsmiths but those on the upper surfaces simply had fabric patches doped over the holes.

The plane captain on 22-P-6 was a harried second class AMM named Gibson.  His face was grim and there were dark circles under his eyes.  He greeted me warmly because both the original plane captain, a first class, and the third mech had been wounded in the attack and were in the hospital.  He had been promoted to plane captain, I would be second mech, and our third mech was a seaman striker for AMM.

When I commented that Gibson looked bushed, he sighed and said, “Don’t rightly remember when I had some sack time—we worked all day yesterday and last night to get this old bird flyable.”

The pilots came aboard while Gibson and I were finishing our pre-flight checks of the equipment.  All guns were loaded and we were carrying two five hundred pound bombs and two depth charges on the wing racks.  When he found that I had more than fifty hours of flight time, Gibson put me in the mechanics tower for takeoff and the first watch.  He would try to get some sleep when we were airborne.

When I scrambled into the tower, I saw that there were two bullet holes in the instrument panel.  I called them to Gibson’s attention.  “I know,” he said tiredly.  “I checked all the lines behind the panel and they look okay.  Slapped some tape on the holes outside.  Just get “em started!”  He fired up the putt-putt and the instrument panel came alive.

When we taxied out on the oily water of Pearl Harbor, motor whaleboats were still busily clearing debris from the takeoff sea lane on the east side of Ford Island past Battleship Row.  When we were in position, a green flag was waved from the nearest boat and we started our takeoff run.  Just as the airplane came up onto the step I heard a loud thud from somewhere below.  In response to the annunciator light on the panel, I moved the mixture controls from Full Rich to Automatic Rich for climb and maneuver then slid down out of the tower.

In the galley compartment directly below the tower Gibson was standing staring mournfully at a hole in the bottom of the airplane.  We had hit a piece of debris that curled the aluminum skin inward leaving a hole about six inches wide and over a foot long between hull frames.  Through the hole we could see the Naval Hospital passing below as the airplane banked out to sea.

While we were contemplating the damage, the PPC turned the airplane over to the co-pilot and came aft.  He whistled and groaned, “What a hell of a way to start a war—shot up airplane and we knock a hole in the bottom!!”  Will it sink us when we land, Gib?” Gibson sighed and shook his head dolefully.  “Dunno, sir.  Maybe—maybe not if you can land close to the ramp and they get us out of the water in a hurry.  I’ll bend that tin back, dope a bunch of fabric patches on it, and pile on some mattresses for collision mats.”  He sighed again and reached for his tool box as I climbed back into the tower.

That first war patrol was an anti-submarine sweep down between Molokai and Maui where there had been reports of a submarine in the vicinity of Lahaina Roads, the old Navy anchorage off Maui that was used before Pearl Harbor became operational a few years before.  We had also been alerted that all fishing boats and sampans had been ordered to stay in port.  We were to check out any vessel we encountered.  It was rumored that such boats were being used to re-supply enemy submarines.

Gibson finished his makeshift patch of the bottom, caught an hour of sleep in the forward bunk, then came to relieve me in the tower.  I went aft to take position on one of the waist machine guns.  Just as I started aft, the pilots spotted a large fishing boat underway ahead.  Jus as I stepped into the waist compartment and reached for the interphone headphones, the pilot made a low pass past the fishing boat.  Without orders to pen fire, the third mech opened up with the port 50-cal machine gun and raked the vessel from stem to stern.

There had been two men visible on the boat—one on deck and one standing in the cabin hatch.  As fountains of water and splinters from the boat sprayed into the air, the man on the deck went over the side.  The other man ducked back into the cabin.  I grabbed the gunner by the arm and yanked him away from the gun.  The pilot was yelling, “Cease Fire!  CEASE FIRE!” on the interphone.

We circled and came back, our co-pilot calling on the radio for a ship to come out and investigate the fishing boat.  The boat did not seem to be badly damaged.  It had laid to and the man from the cabin pulled his deck hand from the water.  They both stood up and did not appear to be injured.  When we were informed there was a ship on the way we continued our patrol—after the pilot had some very harsh words with the trigger-happy seaman striker.

It was after dark when we approached Pearl Harbor to land.  Gibson and I had placed three bunk mattresses over the makeshift patch, piled on two cases of fifty caliber ammunition for weight and I agreed to sit on top of those when we touched down to try to hold the mattresses in place against the force of the water when the airplane settled down.

I do not recall that pilot’s name but he made a great feather light power landing headed straight for the launching ramp on Ford Island.  Alerted by radio, the beach crew was ready with the big side mounts already in the water.  As the airplane slowed and settled, water poured in all around the mattresses.  Our timing was good—I heard the tail hook clank into place, the tractor on the beach wheeled us around, and the side mounts banged into their sockets.  Our first war patrol was safely over.

Awaiting the New PBY-5s

"We were an operating squadron again."

During that almost idyllic but rather boring peaceful time, I maintained a desultory correspondence not only occasionally with the family back home, but also with Patty Cross, Elaine, and Shirley Mills.  The latter did not last.  Somehow I was just not much interested and her letters were not the breezy, chatty notes that I got form Elaine and Patty.  Shirley’s letters tended to have a rather possessive flavor to them.  I decided that I could do with less letter writing so, finally, I wrote her that we were not meant for each other—a sort of “Dear Jane” letter.  In return she sent me a new portrait of herself inscribed, “To Conrad, a boy who will always have a spot in my heart”.  I thought that would be that.

I kept up my correspondence off and on with both Elaine and Patty, keeping them up to date and asking about people and things at home.  Elaine was the most faithful to answer.  She wrote as delightfully as she talked, often skipping blithely from subject to subject and always was interesting and entertaining.

Around the first of November (I did not record the exact date in my diary) every one of us were on the ramp the day the new PBY-5s came sweeping around Bird Island and over the bay.  They were a magnificent sight when they made one pass in formation over the base before they peeled off to land.  They were powered by the latest supercharged Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 engines that produced 1,450 horsepower each.  That gave them better takeoff capability, a cruise speed of 110 knots, and improved climb capability.

There were external changes that were obvious.  They flat sliding waist gunners hatches had been replaced by Plexiglas gun “blisters” that also gave good visibility for anti-submarine patrols.  The shaped of the rudder had been changed to a straight trailing edge.  Instead of the silver fuselages and rudders with squadron stripes, the new airplanes were painted a camouflage blue on the topsides and light grey on the bottom in an effort to make the airplanes harder to see by potential enemy either from above or below.  All in all, the PBY-5s had much more businesslike appearance than the old PBY-1s and the deep-throated roar of those big fourteen cylinder radial engines literally sent delighted shivers along my spine.

Our rather sullen non-cooperation with Lt. Delaney, born of boredom and inactivity, was suddenly forgotten.  We enthusiastically reinforced the beach crew with volunteers (me included), splashed the big 600-pound side mounts into the water, and in record time brought those beautiful aircraft ashore.  We were an operating squadron again.

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.

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!”

Competition on the Parade Ground and in the Barracks

The balance of August went by rapidly in a blur of classes and rowing whaleboats on San Diego Bay.  (Later I did not understand their insistence that we know how to row as all of the whaleboats in the U.S. Navy by then had gasoline engines.)  It callused our hands and toughened our back muscles.

During the first week of September examinations for special training were give.  I requested aviation machinist mate (AMM) school.  The Bluejacket’s Manuel spelled out the duties as: “Assemble, service and repair airplanes and airplane engines.  Splice aircraft wiring.  Know principles and theory of flying.”

Richard had been correct.  The examination was a snap.  It dealt primarily with identification and use of basic hand tools and question concerning mechanical knowledge and skills.  The time limit was one hour.  I finished in 35 minutes and when the grades were posted I had a 4.0 and was accepted for AMM school on North Island.

Sometime around then, we from the Pacific Northwest had a real run-in with the Texans in the first platoon.  One evening just before taps I was coming back from the library and there was a commotion outside our barracks.  I found a circle of Texans taunting Jimmy Williams, a small fellow from Astoria.  In high spirits, they were calling hi a “prune-pickers” and using him as a human medicine ball; pushing him from one side to the other.  The ringleader appeared to ba a tall, drawling Texan, named D.S. Langford.

Jimmy was not particularly enjoying the game.  I shoved my way through the group and confronted Langford.  “Okay,” I said, “why don’t you guys pick on someone your own size?!”

Langford looked down at me from his more than six-foot height.  “Well, if it ain’t our plane spotter!  Why don’t you find someone my size?”

My short-fused temper asserted itself.  “Why don’t you Texans get off our backs,” I fumed.  “You think you are God’s gift to creation but you are as full of crap as a Christmas goose!”

Langford came at me and I ducked a wild swing and tripped him onto the ground.  He came up swinging and a melee erupted.  Jimmy went scooting up the stairs yelling for the second platoon.

In less time than it takes to tell, a battle royal was in progress that worked its way into the first floor barracks.  As more of the second platoon prune pickers poured down the stairs there were blows, grunts, and a crashing of metal bunk frames.  It halted abruptly when there was a sudden roar, “A-TEN-shun!!”

“All right!  Who started this?”

Langford was standing directly across the aisle from me.  He looked at me and I stared back at him.  After a hesitation he said, “I reckon maybe I might have, sir.  I threw the first punch, I guess.”

That did not seem right to me so I spoke up, “Only after I tripped him, Chief.”

The others caught on and there was a chorus of voices all taking the blame.  Nelson finally shook his head.  “Okay, you people, get this mess cleaned up by taps and hit the sack.  I will be back and I do not want to hear one sound that the base commander might hear at his house on the hill!”

Both platoons pitched in and we had the first floor barracks set to rights by the time the bugle notes of taps echoed across the compound and the lights went out.  I had just fallen asleep an hour later when the man in the next bunk nudged me and whispered, “Pass the word, fall in in uniform with leggings and rifles!”

In the moonlight I could see Chief Nelson glowering from the doorway.  I could hear muffled noises from the floor below as the Texans turned out.  Nelson got us in ranks and marched us out onto the grinder. For two hours we marched in close order drill to muttered commands in a moonlight parade.

As it turned out, Nelson’s playing one platoon against the other paid off.  There was no company on the station that marched with the precision of 40-52 as each platoon endeavored to be the best.  The following weekend all companies, in dress whites with leggings and rifles, were transported to the Marine Training station for a dress parade and admiral’s marching competition.

Just before we marched out with Chief Nelson in the lead, he addressed us, “Okay, you people, we are gonna have our own little competition today.  I want to see who the best platoon may be.  See if you can keep those lines straight and stay in step!”

It was a heady feeling when we marched out onto that huge parade ground to the beat of the marine band playing Sousa marches like “Under the Double Eagle” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever”.  Our lines were precise and our heels hit the ground as one man, all eyes straight ahead with our bayonetted rifles exactly aligned.  There were ten companies of sailors and ten of marines.

It was an even more heady feeling when, at the conclusion and we were all drawn up on the parade ground at parade rest, Chief Nelson was called front and center with our recruit company commander and they were presented by the admiral’s lady with the blue and gold Navy E flag for excellence.  Company 40-52 was the best, including the Marine Corps!

Finally, we of Company 40-52 were Navy shipmates.  It no longer mattered where we were from, we were the best.  We celebrated together.

The admiral’s review at the marine base had been on a Friday.  The next day while we were getting ready to go on liberty, word was passed that the results of the tests we had and assignments had been posted on the bulletin board.  I hurried to check the list and there was my name on the assignments to AMM school, North Island.  The name immediately beneath mine in the alphabetical order was “Langford, D.S.”

As I turned to go, the tall Texan and onetime foe was standing behind me.  He grinned.  “Well, Frieze, looks like we have not seen the last of each other!”

I smiled ruefully.  “No, I guess not.  You know, Langford, you didn’t have to try to take the blame for that ruckus that got us the moonlight parade last week.”

“Well hell,” he said, “you didn’t have to chime in either.  Sure was a good little se-to while it lasted.  No hard feelings?”  He stuck out his hand.

I laughed and shook his hand.  “No, no hard feelings.  What say we go ashore and have a couple of beers to celebrate?”

We went and had a great liberty afternoon.