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George G. Dawson

Wantagh, New York-
Korean War Veteran of the United States Navy

"I was sure that we were about to capsize. My first thought was of my wife back in New York. She would soon become a widow and might never know what happened to her husband. My second thought was that I didn't want to be alone up there, and I wished I could be below with my shipmates. If I was going to die, I wanted at least to be with my friends."

- George G. Dawson

[The following memoir is the result of an online interview between George Dawson and Lynnita Brown in August of 2006.  Besides the interview responses, the memoir includes excerpts from writings done by Mr. Dawson in a Senior Writing Group in Wantagh, New York.]]

Memoir Contents:

• Pre-Military
• Navy Boot Camp
• Radio School
• Camp Crowder
• North Africa
• Okinawa
• My Second War
• Post-Korea
• My Third War
• Retirement
• Final Reflections
• Addendum
  • Love Eternal - Poems
  • Newsletters from Somalia - 1963
  • Newsletters from Somalia - 1964

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Pre-Military

I was born in August of 1925 on Shelter Island, New York. My father (Harry) was one of six children. The rest were females. He worked as a painter in my grandfather's painting/decorating business.  During the summer months on Shelter Island, he also served as a cop. Year-round we had only one policeman on the Island, but a second was needed during the summer when all the tourists and summer residents arrived. Father was a World War I veteran, having been a sergeant and having been decorated. (I don't know what the medal was for.) He was very handsome and very popular on the Island. I am not sure when he married my mother, except that he must have been in the Army because I have a photo of them together and he is in uniform. Her name was Frances. Since I was an infant when they divorced, I had no idea what she looked like. My brother Granger was five years older than I was, and my sister Nan was four years older than me.

Shelter Island is a small island (about three miles wide and seven miles long) nestled between the two forks of Long Island about 100 miles east of New York City. It can be reached only by boat. There is also a small landing strip that can accommodate small planes, but I doubt that it is used very much.  During my youth, the island had a population of about 1,200. It is double that now, largely because of the influx of well-to-do retirees from the city.  There are no movie houses or theaters. No traffic lights or public telephone booths. The school had about 175 pupils during my youth from Grade 1 to Grade 12. There is no McDonalds there (really primitive, eh?). There were four hotels during my youth, as well as four churches. But there were three fire departments.  I believe that they have been consolidated into one now. There were two golf courses and two ferry boat companies (one on the north shore and one on the south shore). There are two post offices--one in the center of the town and the other in an area known as "the Heights", which is in the northern part of the town. Mail is not delivered to the door of the homes there. One has to go to the post office and pick it up. There are no numbers of people's houses. During my time there were few (if any) street signs, although there may be some now. Everybody knew where everybody else was located. During my youth there was one very large hotel (150 rooms) and several smaller ones--all open only in the summertime.

Those of us who were natives of the island made our living by fishing, farming, and catering to the "summer people" who needed someone to cook their meals, wash their clothes, mow their lawns, paint their houses, and mix their booze.  My first paying job was caddying on one of the golf courses. Next, I was hired by the big hotel to be part of the maintenance crew, but did many things beside mowing lawns, making repairs, etc. (more about these jobs later).

During my childhood and youth, I lived in about 15 different houses.  The reason for this was the Great Depression of the 1930s.  For the first five years of my life, I lived in my grandfather's house on Shelter Island.  It was a good house that he had built himself in 1890.  I was born in this house in 1925 and lived there off and on until I joined the Navy on my 17th birthday.  It was a sturdy, well-built house with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and three bedrooms.  As time went on, an indoor toilet was added and various improvements were made.  My grandfather kept up with the times, being one of the first persons on Shelter Island to have electricity, a telephone, and an indoor toilet.  There was a large front lawn surrounded by hedges, a garden on the north side that provided us with corn and other vegetables, and apple and pear trees and grave vines on the other side.  There was a barn, a shed, and a chicken coop in the back, and still plenty of room for more trees and shrubs.

Although there was plenty of room for me and my siblings to play in, I got the notion that I would like to have a small piece of ground that was mine and mine alone.  I thought that a piece ten feet long and three feet wide would do nicely, so I asked my grandfather to give me such a piece of real estate.  When he said that I could not have it, I asked why not.  "Because," he said, "it is against the law."  Indeed, whenever I asked for something equally ridiculous, I always got the same reaction, "It is against the law."  I got tired of hearing this so I finally asked, "Who makes these laws?"  He said, "The Senators."  I replied, "Well then, I want to be a senator."  From that day on I was called "Senator."  Not bad for a child of six or seven.  But nicknames can have meaning, and my grandfather was very clever at creating them for people in our little town of Shelter Island.  A Mr. Scott, who always whined and complained, was dubbed "Misery."  Mr. Barker, who walked (actually, shuffled) very slowly was called, "Speed."  Mr. McDonald--noted for his propensity to butt into conversations--was named "Buttsy."  Indeed, nearly everyone on this little island of 1400 people had a nickname.  In fact, the town's weekly newspaper once devoted an entire page to listing the nicknames then in use.

How was I affected by my new nickname?  My grandfather was frequently visited by other men in the town who liked to come and get his opinions on political and economic matters.  Although I was only about seven years old, I enjoyed listening to the conversations.  I learned a great deal.  Of course, some things were confusing at first.  For example, I had to learn that "damned Democrat" was not all one word.  But I did learn things about politics, government, and the economy that most kids didn't learn until they were in high school.  By the time I was in the seventh grade, I was way ahead of the others in these subjects.  The district superintendent, a pompous man named Mr. Wilmot, had a habit of making surprise visits to the school.  He walked into a classroom unannounced and started questioning the students.  If they could not answer the questions that he thought they ought to be able to, the teacher's job might be in jeopardy.  One day he barged into Mr. Weed's seventh grade class and threw this question at us:  "If you had money to invest, what would you do with it?"  There was a devastating silence for a few moments, and Mr. Weed began to sweat.  I raised my hand and said, "I would buy Home Owner's Loan Corporation bonds."  Mr. Wilmot growled, "Why would you buy them?"  I answered, "Because bonds are safer than stocks, and these are backed by the government."  I had heard all of this from my grandfather.  Mr. Weed breathed a sigh of relief, and Mr. Wilmot departed to torture some other ill-prepared teacher.  By listening to my grandfather and his friends as they discussed politics and economics, and imbibing as much as I could absorb, I was inadvertently preparing for my own career.  No, I did not become a senator, but I made a decent living as an economist.

I was well taken care of by two of my aunts, one of whom (Aunt Annie) was unmarried. My grandfather was a widower and crippled.  Aunt Annie lived with him, so she was like a mother to me until my father remarried and returned to Shelter Island with his new wife.  I have few memories of my father during those five years before he married my first stepmother, but the ones I have are happy memories. He was the first to get up in the morning, and I was with him as he made a fire in the kitchen and even cooked some breakfast for himself and me. When, where, and how he found his second wife is a mystery to me. It was in 1930 when I was five years old that my father reappeared with a new wife in tow.  When my new "mother" (Susan) arrived, my older sister and brother and I moved onto a farm with our father and Susan elsewhere on the island.  (The other major catastrophe of that year was the beginning of the Great Depression.)

We moved frequently after that because of our inability to pay the rent. We rented a house somewhere, lived there for a month or two, and then were evicted for non-payment of rent.  Because we had no place to stay on Shelter Island, we went to New Hampshire, where my stepmother had a brother who owned an inn. It seemed to me, even as a six-year old kid, that the brother was not at all pleased to see us. We rented a small cottage nearby. Father went hunting for food. We tapped maple trees to get syrup. I went to a one-room school, where I was the entire first grade. We lived in New Hampshire for a few months, but the brother couldn't squeeze any rent out of us either, so once again we got the boot.  We moved to Maine, where my stepmother's sister Myrtle owned an ancient farm. The farm had no electricity, no running water, no telephone, and no indoor toilet. Again, I went to a one-room school. Everything was scarce, including food, so once again we were invited to leave.  Before the school year ended we were back on Shelter Island, as there were no jobs in Maine either.

We found that the situation had not improved on Shelter Island, but my father came up with a brilliant idea.  Near the south shore there was a huge estate owned by the late F.M. Smith, the man who invented Borax and made millions from it.  After Mr. Smith died, his family moved to California.  The estate, with its huge mansion, boat house, stables, barn, etc., had been abandoned.  My father wrote to Mr. F.M. Smith Jr. and informed him that his valuable property was deteriorating.  If he would allow us to live there, my father would make repairs and keep this valuable property in good shape.  Young Mr. Smith bought a new car just to drive back to New York and meet my father.  My father was a very personable man--the type that people tended to like immediately.  Young Mr. Smith succumbed to his charm, bolstered by the several glasses of apple-jack that my father plied him with during his visit.  He agreed to let us live on the estate.

We were not permitted to enter the mansion, which still contained valuable furnishings, books, and the like.  He graciously allowed us to live in the barn.  We cleaned out the upper story of the barn and made the best of it.  As luck would have it, that year turned out to be the coldest in history.  It was so cold that the bay froze over and one could actually walk to Greenport on the ice.  The barn was not heated, so we used those smelly little portable kerosene stoves.  I squeezed in between my older brother and sister to keep warm at night.  Well, now we had a place to live, but what about food?  We dug clams, caught fish, picked berries, and sometimes enjoyed venison, thanks to my father's marksmanship.  In the spring we planted a vegetable garden.  We also had a few chickens, which provided eggs and an occasional chicken dinner.  Life was still very hard, but then the government stepped in and provided some help.  It was decided that veterans of World War I should receive bonuses.  My father received a bonus of $500.  In the 1930s, this was a lot of money--enough for us to leave Mr. Smith's abode and find a house with running water, a furnace, and indoor toilet.

After Smith's barn, my father received a veteran's pension ($500, I think) for having served in World War II. This, plus a loan, enabled us to build a house near the center of Shelter Island. We did most of the work in building the house, but received advice and guidance from a carpenter who lived next door. I was about 10 years old at this time. However, this didn't last either as we could not make the payments. In 1937, we went to Florida, as someone had told my father there were jobs there. This proved to be untrue. We stayed in three different places in St. Petersburg, Florida--a motel and a couple of houses. As usual, we got evicted for non-payment of rent. I went to junior high school there. I think the school was named Lelman and is still there. I was in the 7th grade and was 12 years old. Times were hard. At Christmas in 1937, we had one can of beans to share for our Christmas dinner. The school work was easy because I had already learned everything in our Shelter Island school. I did not have any friends while there. I think I was shunned because I was a "damned Yankee."

I was glad when we returned to Shelter Island, I think in the spring of 1938. We rented a large house in the northern part of the Island--an area called Shelter Island Heights. We tried to make a living by renting rooms to summer visitors. My father and step-mother were not getting along.  I detested my step-mother.  She taught me to fear my real mother by saying that she wanted to kidnap me. Since I didn't even know what she looked like, I was a bit wary of any strange female that I might see on the Island. Susan was vicious and brutally cruel, especially to my older brother Granger (five years older than I), who was not in the best of health. Example: One day we were planting a garden. She needed to cut some string and told my brother to go to the barn (we were living in a barn then) and get "a sharp knife." He came back with a butcher knife, and she was furious. She meant a small paring knife, but he didn't know that. Nevertheless, she beat him with a yardstick until the yardstick broke. This only increased her rage, so she beat him again because it was his fault that the yardstick was broken! I was sometimes beaten with a paddle. There were other things she did to me that I can't bring myself to describe. I don't know why my father allowed this, unless it was part of his belief that we ought to be able to "take it like a man." My father never hit me.  It was on my 13th birthday that I "became a man." She was about to give me a whipping for having accidentally broken a phonograph record. I looked her in the eye and said, "You are not going to beat me--ever again."  I didn't realize it, but she and my father were breaking up at that time.  In August of 1938, they split, and the marriage that had lasted seven years ended.  We kids were sent back to live with my grandfather and aunt Annie. That was one of the happiest days of my life. My step-mother went back to New England (Maine, I think), and my father went south. He settled in South Carolina and married a divorcee there. He and his new wife visited Shelter Island a couple of times. She was nice to me and did not try to become a "mother" to me. I was grateful for that.

The next four years living with my stern, but loving, grandfather and Aunt Annie were among the happiest in my life, in spite of the hardships.  My grandfather's house was my favorite abode because of the comfort, security, and love that I enjoyed there.  Mr. Smith's barn was another favorite abode because it showed that we could tolerate hardship and survive it.  When my grandfather died, I lived only with Aunt Annie and at times with other relatives who needed a temporary place to stay.  I went to school and had a peaceful and pleasant four years until my 17th birthday, when I joined the Navy.

I was in the 8th grade in 1938 when a hurricane struck Shelter Island. I was sitting in the last seat in the last row next to the wall at school that day. There was a barometer on the wall near my desk. The kid in front of me, Elmer ("Sonny") Edwards, noticed that the barometer reading was dropping rapidly. He mentioned this to the teacher, Mr. Montford Weed, but Mr. Weed commented that that old barometer couldn't be right. Shortly after that the windows began to rattle and trees in the school yard began to be blown over. It was announced that school would close and we were to go home.  My only means of transportation was my feet, so I started walking toward my grandfather's house, which was about two miles from the school. As I walked home, I kept being blown over by the wind and trees all around were being blown down. I actually crawled part way home. We lost power, and several trees on Grandpa's property were blown down. Because my grandfather had built the house very sturdy, it suffered no damage that I can recall. We had old-fashioned kerosene lamps up in the attic, so we used them for light. Nobody on Shelter Island was killed by the storm but we were without power for several days. We had enough food because my aunt always kept canned goods in the pantry.  There was also a general store right down the road from us. When the storm was over, we busied ourselves cutting up the trees that had blown over and cleaning up the yards.

While my siblings and I lived the remainder of our childhood on Shelter Island, my father moved to a southern state, met a divorcee there, and married her. Her name was Zulene. I never lived with my second stepmother. She and my father came to the Island for a visit once in a while. She was nice to me, but did not try to be a mother to me--which suited me just fine. As for step-brothers and sisters, I know of none belonging to Susan. Zulene had a daughter (I can't remember her name) who was older than me and nice to me whenever I saw her.

I liked most of the kids in the school on Shelter Island, and I think they liked me. Did I like school? It depended upon the course and the teacher. I enjoyed some subjects, such as history, English, music appreciation, and art. Some teachers were great; some were incompetent and even sadistic. (Teachers could beat kids in those days and get away with it.)  I was active in a number of things. My class started a school newspaper, and I was voted Editor. I also acted in school plays, and played the drums in the school band, a dance band, and a jazz combo. I had a drum at home. At first it was just a toy, but when it seemed that I had some talent for it, they somehow managed to buy me a good drum. The man who played the drum in the town band gave me a couple of lessons. After that I had an instruction booklet that I used to learn more. I also watched any drummer I saw, such as in a marching band or at a dance. I was not interested in playing any other instrument, although I loved music--especially marches of John Philip Sousa. Also while in school we had to play all kinds of sports.  I liked baseball the best.

There was no military group in the school. However, when it became evident that the United States would become involved in World War II, many of us volunteered to be aircraft spotters. A wooden tower was built on someone's lawn (later moved to the school's roof), and we spent a couple of hours at a time watching for aircraft. Any aircraft that was seen or heard was reported by telephone to a central station somewhere else on Long Island.  Also, as part of the government's effort to cope with the Depression, there was a program that enabled high school students to do some sort of work in the school and get paid for it. I became the janitor's assistant. One of my female cousins worked in the principal's office.

A teenage boy growing up on Shelter Island was expected to own guns and to use them for hunting.  I owned a .22 caliber rifle and a shotgun.  The rifle was used primarily for keeping the rats out of the chicken coop.  One can't do much real hunting with a .22 rifle.  A shotgun was another matter.  During the hunting season, my friend Ben and I went to an area called Ram Island.  It really wasn't an island, but a peninsula jutting out from Shelter Island proper.  The best time for duck hunting was early in the morning, so we went to Ram Island at sun-up, did our shooting, and were back in time to get to school.

One day I was particularly eager to go hunting because I had acquired a new shotgun and wanted to try it out.  The ducks were too smart for us that day, and we did not even get a shot at one.  So we went back to Ben's house.  We entered the barn where Ben's father, a carpenter, had a very long wooden work bench.  We stood by the workbench to unload our shotguns.  When I tried to eject the shell from my gun it went off, blowing a hole in the workbench and just grazing Ben's jacket.  I was shocked and explained, "My Lord--I almost hit you!"  Ben glared at me and replied, "You son-of-a-bitch, you mean you almost missed!"  We then worried about the fact that there was a hole in the workbench.  Fortunately, Ben's father rarely used that part of the bench, which was very long, but used the other end.  so Ben nailed a shingle over the hole.  For a long time we worried about what would happen when Ben's father discovered the hole in his bench.  Miraculously, he never did.  Later I went on to join the military, where I learned better ways of using firearms.  Ben also joined the military and later in civilian life, he became Chief of Police on Shelter Island.  I keep in touch with Ben by e-mail, and we laugh about that incident.  He has never retracted his comment, however, in which he asserted that I was the offspring of a female canine.

My first full-time job was in the summer of 1941 at a hotel on Shelter Island, New York.  Before that, my only paying job was as a caddy at a golf course.  The pay for serving as a caddy was 50 cents.  Some golfers expected the caddy to carry two or even three bags for that amount.  I rarely made more than 50 cents in a day, and found that caddying was no fun.  Some of the golfers had violent tempers.  One man that I caddied for often erupted and threw his clubs into the woods.  I had to plow through poison ivy, thorns, and other obstacles to retrieve them.  Then when back at the club house, I was expected to act as his valet, bringing him drinks, fetching his jacket, etc.  There was a large hotel on Shelter Island that opened in early summer and closed after Labor Day.  To get a summer job at the Prospect Hotel was everybody's dream.  On the lawn in front of the hotel there was a very large sign with the name of the hotel and a painting of the bay with boats, seagulls, etc.  I noticed that the paint was peeling, so I approached the manager and offered to repaint the sign.  I had always loved to draw and paint, and had even earned a little money painting signs for local businesses.  The manager was pleased with the results and hired me to paint additional signs.  When all of the sign painting was done, he put me on the payroll as a member of the maintenance crew.  I was ecstatic.  During the Great Depression, any job was "everybody's dream!"  I was pleased to be on the maintenance crew because it enabled me to do work that I enjoyed, such as painting, minor carpentry, and gardening.  Since the New Prospect Hotel was the largest building and establishment on the island and paid fairly decent wages, many people sought summer jobs there.  One got to meet many people (other workers who came from New York City) and to do kinds of work that other establishments did not offer, such as the very large wedding parties.  Meals were provided by the hotel, although they were often the "left-overs" from the kitchen.  With the Prospect Hotel wages, I paid for the clothes I needed and also bought myself a drum.

At the Prospect Hotel, I did many chores, such as planting flowers and shrubs, mowing the lawns, and making minor repairs.  My pay was a dollar a day and lunch.  At one point I was transferred to the kitchen to assist the man who was in charge of desserts.  He was a black man, and I soon learned that all the stereotypes I had heard about black people were not true.  He was friendly and pleasant, and we got along very well.  One time the hotel was handling a big wedding for a very wealthy couple.  The dessert menu included something called "Wedding Forms."  These were made of ice cream, but shaped and colored to represent various flowers and birds.  After the wedding was over, there was a good supply of these forms left.  We stored them in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, and every time we felt like having ice cream, we ate one or two of them.  Then one day the head chef came and asked to see the Wedding Forms.  He had neglected to tell us that there was another fancy wedding scheduled, and that he needed all of those items.  He was furious when he saw what we had done to his precious Wedding Forms.  I was then removed from the kitchen and assigned to the bakery.

The baker was a German who adored Hitler.  All day I had to listen to his ranting and raving about how "This country needs a Hitler!"  We were not yet at war with Germany, so he was exercising his freedom of speech to put down the country that was providing him with a decent living.  He was a tyrant to work for.  I couldn't do anything right.  One of my chores was to carry the 100-pound sacks of flour from the storage shed to the bakery.  Since I weighed only 120 pounds myself, this was an ordeal.  I was rescued by another German.  One day when I was struggling to pick up a sack of flour, this man--who was in charge of all financial matters--saw my predicament.  He gave the baker a blistering tongue-lashing and had me returned to the kitchen to serve as a dishwasher.  When there were no more dishes to be washed, I served as a "bar boy" working with the bartenders.

The hotel had its own dance band, led by Lester Lanin, who went on to become a celebrated band leader in New York.  But on one occasion, another group came from the city to play at the hotel.  This was one of the so-called "Big Bands" that was known throughout the country.  We were all excited about the fact that "Les Brown's Band of Renown" was coming.  Apparently the drummer became ill or was unable to play for some unknown reason, and they needed someone to replace him.  I had been playing drums since I was seven years old.  I played in the school band, the town's marching band, the school's dance band, and a jazz group.  So at the age of 16, I found myself playing drums with one of the nation's best known big bands.  It was the thrill of a lifetime.  To this day--65 years later--I still brag about having played with Les Brown's Band of Renown.

After the hotel closed for the season, I was back to being just another high school kid.  The permanent staff of the hotel went to the Bahamas where they ran a seasonal hotel during the winter months.  It was given to understand that I might be able to join the permanent staff after I finished school.  What a life that would be!  Summer on Shelter Island, and winter in the Bahamas!  When the staff returned in June of 1942 to reopen the hotel, I was back in the maintenance gang.  We did a thorough paint job on the place, repainting every room and every part of the building.  But then the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground.  I don't know what caused the fire.  It might have come from the kitchen.  Perhaps someone left a stove on.  Since we had just painted the whole thing, it went up quickly.  I did not see it burn.  I did not learn about it until the morning, when my aunt (I was living with my grandfather and an aunt) told me about it.  I went to the site of the hotel to see if I could help.  There was an annex that had not burned, but it was clear that the hotel was finished.  I helped search through the rubble to try to find anything of value, but found nothing.

I got a job as a waiter in a small family-owned hotel elsewhere on the Island. It was simply called "Behringer's"--the name of the family.  The wages were small and the tips were smaller.  When I served people in the dining room, there were no tips at all.  When I served people in the "beer garden," there might have been a nickel or dime once in a while.  Often after leaving Behringer's, I went up the road and worked as a waiter in a bar/restaurant.  This was a different kind of clientele--rowdy drunkards.  They were people who thought it was cute to trip a waiter when he was carrying a large tray full of drinks, or even light a match to his jacket when he was bending over a nearby table to serve drinks.  My worst experience there happened one night when a party of about ten people came.  They drank for hours and then ordered sandwiches.  While I was in the kitchen getting the sandwiches, they skipped out without paying the bill.  The waiter was required to pay the bartender for the drinks when he got them, and then get his money back from the customers.  So I was stuck with a large bill.  When I complained to the owner, he just shrugged.  It was shortly after this that I turned 17 and joined the Navy.

The pleasant aspects of my life before I joined the Navy were the friends I had on Shelter Island, the kindness of my aunts and cousins, the activities at school, my hobbies (stamp collecting, drawing and painting, playing the drums, reading), and being nicely treated by other Islanders.  I was also a Boy Scout, reaching the Life Scout level before I left the Island to join the Navy. I enjoyed the hikes, the camping out, and the trips to upstate New York. Then they added a Sea Scout unit, so I joined that and learned a few things that became handy when I joined the Navy.  I learned Morse code, for example, and became a radio operator in the Navy.  I also learned how to handle a sail boat and how to rescue someone who was drowning.

Three other close family members also served during World War II. My older brother Granger was in the Army infantry and served in Europe. My cousin Dorothy joined the WAVES (Navy women), and my cousin Clarissa joined the WACs (Army women).  Before enlisting, the only veterans I spoke with were my father (a sergeant in World War I) and my Uncle Bill (sailor in World War I). I spoke briefly with a neighbor who had just completed his Marine boot camp. The only information I got from him was that I should expect to do a lot of swabbing of decks.  None of these caused me to become apprehensive--indeed, I was only more eager to "get into this thing."

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Navy Boot Camp

I joined the Navy in 1942 on my seventeenth birthday.  I enlisted because I was eager to do something for the war effort and I had always planned on joining the Army or Navy when able. I chose the Navy because I loved boats and I had grown up on an island. When I was younger, my father (an ex-Army sergeant) had thoughts of getting me into West Point to be an Army officer. My Uncle Bill, who had served in the Navy during World War I, convinced me that the Navy had better food, better living conditions, and less danger than the Army. Also, at that time I believe that one could join the Navy at age 17, while one had to be 18 to join the Army. I didn't want to wait until I was 18 to get into the war. None of my friends joined at the same time. My family did not object to my joining.

I went to the Navy recruiting station in New York City on August 17, 1942 (one day after my 17th birthday).  There I got a preliminary medical exam and filled out some papers (I can't remember the contents).  I was told that I needed my father's permission to join.  Nobody came to the station with me.  I took the next train back to Greenport, and then the ferry back to Shelter Island.   I was not sworn in until September 4. I was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois, for boot camp. I went by train to New York City, and again by train from New York City to Great Lakes. I did not know any of the others who enlisted at that time.

Before leaving New York City to go to Great Lakes, we had several hours to kill. For a while I helped out by filling in names, etcetera. Then several of us went to mid-town Manhattan and saw two movies. I don't remember the title of the first one, but we went because the beautiful Hedy Lamarr appeared nude for a split second. Aside from that, we didn't like the picture. Then we went to see "Pride of the Yankees," a good film about baseball star Lou Gehrig. Later we boarded a train for Chicago. We got sandwiches to eat on the train, but had to try to sleep in our seats. At one point we stopped and were taken to a restaurant for a meal. Arriving in Chicago, we were loaded into the backs of trucks to be taken to another rail line. Everybody whistled or yelled at the girls we saw on the sidewalks along the way.

As we entered the gate of the Great Lakes boot camp, we heard a yell from the current "inmates" all saying in a sing-song way, "You'll be SORRY!" Our barracks were new, but were not yet finished. The window panes had not been installed, and it was cold and damp at night. We surrendered our civilian clothes, which were put into boxes and sent back to our homes. We were issued our uniforms, and our names were painted on parts of our belongings, such as sea bags and dungarees.  I don't think my unit had a number.  If so, I can't remember it.  (Hey, I am at the age when I can't remember my own phone number.)

I don't remember how many were in my "platoon," either. I did not know any of them before. Most were from New York or New Jersey. A couple of people were taken from our group to serve as temporary petty officers. These were men who had had some military experience. I don't remember any names. One claimed to have served briefly in the Army and got discharged when they discovered he was under-age.  I did not see a single black person there.

Our chief was from the south. When we were leaving he told us that he had been apprehensive about having a bunch of New York/New Jersey northerners, but that he was very pleased with us--and we were more than pleased with him.  The chief petty officer assigned to our company was not at like the monsters you see in movies. He was a rather small, quiet, and soft-spoken man. We soon learned to love him. I have a photo of him with me and my buddy, a kid named Bisciotti (we called him "Biscuit").

Bisciotti is the only one who stands out in my mind, and that's because we were buddies.  After boot camp, however, we never saw each other again.  Aside from Biscuit, the only man who stands out in my mind from boot camp was a guy who was in great physical shape and who could do all kinds of things that nobody else could do (such as doing push-ups using only one hand).  He was rewarded by being considered the best man in our group and being given his choice of where to go for further training.  I think he opted to be a torpedo-man.

There was nothing unusual about the physical aspects of the camp.  There were just plain wooden barracks and other buildings.  I don't remember being bothered by insects.  Our barracks had not been finished, so it was cold and damp. Our bunks were made of wood. We were constantly reminded that the Navy would not tolerate dirt--either on one's body or on one's clothing and gear. We had to keep the place spotless, and we had to shower every day. If someone failed to shower, it was likely that his mates would seize him, drag him in the shower, and give him a very cold shower and scrubbing with stiff brushes.

I can't remember exactly what time we were awakened, but it was probably 6 a.m.. Meals were good, but many of us missed home cooking. Shoes and uniforms had to be spotless. We sometimes had to wear wet clothes because there was no way of drying them after we had washed them. My own situation was not typical, because I was always on call to play my drum. I was called upon almost daily to play the drums for "drill masters" who were teaching guys how to march. Also if there was any kind of ceremony where marching took place, I played the drum. I was not part of a group, although I was not the only drummer in the camp. I did not have to make up for any of the training activities that I missed when I was off playing the drum. To my knowledge, I don't think anybody resented the fact that I got out of some of the training by being a drummer.

I don't remember what time lights were put out. We each did our turn as guards in the barracks. I found it hard to resist lying down and dozing off. I did that once and was caught by a petty officer, but he just gave me a warning. I was never awakened at night except when it was my turn to stand guard.

There was no corporal punishment in boot camp. Someone might occasionally be required to do extra duty in sweeping the deck (floor), but nothing more than that. We were scolded from time to time. For example, when the petty officer came in to get us out of bed in the morning, some guys yelled, "Go f---- yourself." The petty officer complained to the chief, who warned us that there would be punishment if anyone did that again. So, the following morning when the petty officer came in to get us up, someone yelled, "I am not telling you to go f--- yourself, but I am offering it as a suggestion."  I was not personally disciplined at any time. I did not get into any trouble. I do not recall anyone being disciplined other than a verbal scolding. The entire platoon was never punished for anything. There were no troublemakers that I can recall.

Food was plentiful and good, but not like home cooking. We had meat, potatoes, vegetables, cake, and coffee. It would not be the Navy, however, if somebody didn't complain about the food. Navy guys used a wide variety of terms for various food items, including "shit on a shingle" for creamed chipped beef on toast; "baby shit" for mustard, "horse cock" for cold cuts. If one was sent to the brig on bread and water, he was fed "piss and punk."  Strong coffee was "battery acid."  Margarine was "axle grease."

I don't remember how many weeks I was in boot camp, but it was shorter than it had been in peacetime because they needed to get men out quickly. I was excused from many of the activities and classes because they needed drummers. As I mentioned earlier, I could play the drums, so I was called upon by the drill "masters" to play while they taught the guys how to march in good order. I remember taking a number of tests--such as the Navy's version of an IQ test, being given the opportunity to buy GI insurance, and getting service numbers, identification tags ("dog tags"), etc.

We were not called upon to commit things to memory, although we had to listen to a long and boring reading of all the rules and regulations that existed at that time. We all received a copy of "The Blue Jacket's Manual" which was full of good information and advice, although most of the guys didn't bother to read it.  I do not remember having to qualify for anything. The whole procedure was truncated because of the need to get men out and into active duty. There was physical education every day, but we did not have rifles, tear gas, or swimming.  The only films I remember seeing in boot camp were those horrible things about venereal diseases.

I did not have fun in boot camp.  I was glad to get out of it, but I was not sorry I had joined the Navy.  I was not at all apprehensive about being trained for war.  At that age I was not afraid of anything.  (Now I know better.)  For me, the hardest thing about Navy basic was the great deal of marching I had to do because of my being a drummer.  There was no ceremony when we finished our training, yet I did feel like I was truly in the Navy after the truncated boot camp experience.  I had a uniform.  I had survived some strenuous activity.  I lost weight and was in better physical condition than when I entered the military.

I went home on leave, but can't remember how long it was.  I visited relatives and friends.  Also, there was a patriotic parade for some holiday and I joined with the marching band playing the drums.  I was well-received by my relatives, by my teachers and former school classmates, and by the people of Shelter Island in general.  After my leave I returned to Chicago and then went to Madison, Wisconsin for training as radioman.  I was pleased with this, and we were assigned to dorms in the University of Wisconsin.

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Radio School

The fact that I knew Morse code was not a factor in being assigned to radio school. I don't know why I was selected for that, although I was told that only those who got high scores on the Navy's IQ test were selected. I was delighted to be sent to radio school because I already knew Morse code and other communication  means, such as signal flags.  I thought that it would be a chance for promotion, as well.  I think that the radio school was in a university because the university had ample housing space (nice dorms), kitchens and dining halls, classrooms, and some professors who could provide instruction in such things as radio electronics. Regular classrooms and labs were used for our training. Those teaching us Morse code and typing were Navy petty officers.

As for duration, I was there twice as long as expected (June 1942 to June 16, 1943) because I came down with double pneumonia and was in hospital for a long time. I don't know how I got pneumonia.  It was very cold in Madison, Wisconsin, but I might have caught it from someone else.  I was in hospital for several weeks.  After that, I was put on light duty (such as helping with paper work in offices) before getting back in to the full training routine for radio operators. The equipment we had was simple--Navy typewriters (which used capital letters only), radios, and telegraph keys. There was no problem with the equipment. Everything worked well. We also had some lectures (delivered by officers) on such things as the type of guns used on ships--things that did not apply specifically to radio communication.  Everything I learned in radio school was useful when on active duty, whether it was routine communications or communications during such things as invasions.  Field communications are critically important in any wartime situation.  One has to know where one's allies are and where the enemy might be.

Our ability to send and receive Morse code at various speeds was measured often. We had to take tests in which we had to copy and send messages, and then we were rated by the number of errors we made and how fast we could send and receive without making errors.  I did well at this, and ended my stay there with the rating of Radioman Third Class. I was told that I was at or near the head of my class in this respect. Most people did not emerge from the training with a petty officer rating, but usually as Seaman First Class, but with some "sparks" on the uniforms to indicate that they were radiomen. (Those who were working toward a petty officer position and doing so while on the job were called "strikers.")

I enjoyed radio school. I liked doing Morse code, and being near a city (Madison, Wisconsin ) meant that there were movie theaters, restaurants, bars, and girls aplenty.  My buddy Carl was from Chicago, and whenever he got a weekend pass, he went home to visit his girlfriend Shirley Meader.  One time he invited me to go with him and he asked Shirley to arrange to have a girl for me.  He neglected to tell her that I was only five feet five inches tall.  Now, there is an unwritten law in the United States specifying that short men may not date tall women.  Dorothy, the friend Shirley had obtained for me, turned out to be five feet seven inches tall.  So we swapped, since Shirley was only five feet two inches tall.  Everything worked out well and we saw our girlfriends a few more times before completing our training and being shipped out.

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Camp Crowder

After finishing radio school I was sent to Camp Crowder--an Army camp--along with many others for special training that included using rifles and pistols, and other things that one usually associates with training for soldiers and marines.  I think I was chosen to go to Camp Crowder along with several others who had earned rating of Radioman 3rd class because we had high scores on tests. We never knew exactly why we were given Army training.

Camp Crowder was an Army Signal Corps establishment. We learned army procedures and became acquainted with army equipment. We were given army fatigues, helmets, gas masks, rifles, and bayonets. We got the same training that soldiers got--marching, rigorous activities such as climbing walls, throwing hand grenades, identifying various kinds of poison gas, and learning to use rifles, carbines, and pistols.  We spent a lot of time on the firing range, using bolt-action Springfield rifles, carbines, and .45 automatic pistols.

We were organized into "Communication Teams." A team consisted of nine radiomen (eight 3rd class radiomen and one first class or chief radioman), five men who could speak a certain foreign language, and six officers (one Lt. Commander, one Lieutenant Junior Grade, and four ensigns in my team). In addition to the Spanish teams there were French teams and Russian teams. I assume that they were organized pretty much like mine. My team was known as "Spanish Team 3." The instructors were the same army men who taught the soldiers.   Training was both in classroom and in field. We were never told what our ultimate mission was to be. We inferred, however, that the United States might be planning to invade Spain. Spain, under General Franco, was in sympathy with the Germans.

In classroom we learned about army radio equipment, teletype machines, and an introduction to the language of our team. In the field we were taught various tactics and maneuvers. For example, we were told never to walk one behind another because if the man in front was shot, it was possible that the bullet could go through his body and into ours. We were taught the use of gas masks and given experience in trying to identify various poison gases. This was done by putting various types of gas in smoke bombs, having the bombs go off, and having us walk through the smoke and sniff it so that we could learn to identify the type of poison gas. (They all smelled alike to me.) Some of us got an overdose of the smoke when a gust of wind suddenly came up, blowing the smoke in our faces before we were ready for it. It was a horrible feeling. We were all gasping and choking. I doubt that it helped my lungs, after recovering from double pneumonia. In fact, some of us were hospitalized for a few days.

Toward the end of our course, we went through the overhead firing course. On a rainy night we marched several miles to a field that was set up to be like a battleground. There was a trench, which we entered. Across the field there were machine guns with live ammunition, but situated about 18 inches above the ground. When the firing started, we crawled out of the trench, and then crawled toward the machine guns. Along the way there was barbed wire that we had to get under, and there were explosions going off all around. These were like hand grenades, I think, but there were sand bags around them. We would not be hurt unless we actually crawled on top of the sand bags. We wore helmets and back packs and carried our rifles. To get under the barbed wire, we had to roll over on our backs and use our rifles to hold the wire up while we wiggled our way under it. By the time I reached the safety of the machine guns, my gas mask cover was torn to shreds and my clothes were wet and torn. We all made it safely. Our Lieutenant Commander wanted to go through the course himself, but the Army guys would not allow it.

I liked the Camp Crowder experience because it made me understand what the army guys have to go through. We were at Camp Crowder from July to October 1943. I wrote to my girlfriend Shirley while there. We were given a short leave before going overseas, but I wanted to spend it with my family on Shelter Island so there wasn't time to go to Chicago to visit Shirley.  I didn't realize at this time that she was my future wife.  She was just a nice girl that I had dated.

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North Africa

After a short leave, I reported to the Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. My shipmates and I were given liberty just before we shipped out to North Africa, but because our pay records had not caught up with us, we had not been paid for a while.  It was our last day in the good old USA, and we couldn't afford to celebrate it.  We pooled our nickels, dimes, and quarters, and found that we had just enough for one glass of beer apiece.  We entered a bar and ordered the beer.  The bartender was not only unfriendly, he was downright nasty.  He took his good old time before serving us.  After pouring our beer, he put a cigarette in his mouth and then reached into his shirt pocket for matches.  As he pulled the matchbook from his pocket, a ten dollar bill which had been folded into a small size fell out of his pocket and onto the bar.  He didn't notice it.  We did not touch the money, nor did we call it to his attention.  He saw the bill laying there, picked it up, put it in the cash register, and gave us the change!  Ten bucks bought a goodly amount of beer in those days, so we managed to down a fair amount of suds before returning to the Receiving Station.  Did we feel guilty about this bit of petty larceny?  Hell no!!  The next day, we boarded the liberty ship SS George Leonard. We became part of a huge convoy headed for the Mediterranean Sea.  I don't remember exactly when I left the United States, but I was glad to be going because I did not want to spend the war at home.  I was not apprehensive about anything.

The SS George Leonard was a cargo ship that had been roughly converted to carry personnel. There were soldiers as well as sailors on the ship.  I don't know whether the ship was also carrying cargo or not.  We were jammed into a cargo hold in bunks that were so close together (top to bottom) that we couldn't turn over in bed without pushing against the guy above us. The only people I knew on the ship were the other sailors who had been with me at Camp Crowder.  We could not shower, and had barely enough water to clean our teeth. All of our gear, plus our weapons, gas masks, etc., had to be in our bunks with us.

I had never been on a ship that big before, but I did not have trouble getting my sea legs, thanks to the fact that I had been on many boats around Shelter Island and other parts of Long Island.  Many people got seasick.  I got sick once, but I think there were other causes besides the rough sea.  I was helping out by working down in one of the holds, sorting out some materials (books, magazines, and the like).  It was stuffy there and the stench of the engine oil was sickening.  I went up to the deck and vomited over the side.  That was the only time I was ever seasick during my Navy service.  I went through much worse weather during the Korean War and didn't get sick, even though every other member of the radio gang was sick.  I had no specific duty while on the ship.  There was also no further training on the ship, except for being told how to put on a life jacket.  For entertainment on the voyage, I read books (a biography of Enrico Caruso, for one), played cards, and at one time enjoyed an impromptu show put on by guys who had some sort of talent.  We had one guy in my Spanish communication team who had a great baritone voice.  Some others told jokes or put on little skits.

A convoy could travel only at the speed of the slowest ship, so our convoy had to poke alone at a maximum of nine knots. We hit rough weather with very high seas.  I saw one of our escorts (a British corvette, which was a relatively small anti-submarine ship only 200 feet in length) go completely under the water, and then come back up again.  The trip took about three weeks. At one point on the trip, our engine failed and we had to stop while the rest of the convoy proceeded on. The sight of the rest of the convoy disappearing over the horizon while we bobbed around in the ocean was troublesome to us.  We had no escort, so we were alone in the Atlantic without protection. If there had been a U-boat in the area, we would have been a perfect target. We were ordered to put on life jackets and stay out on deck. The engine was repaired in time for us to catch up with the convoy just as the sun was going down.  It was traveling at a very slow nine knots (convoys could travel only at the speed of the slowest ship). As we were approaching Gibraltar, where U-boats liked to congregate because so many ships were going in and out of the strait there, the escorts were busily dropping depth charges. I don't think they sank any u-boats, but they kept them from attacking the convoy. This was in late 1943.  Once we were past the Rock of Gibraltar, the convoy split.  Some ships proceeded toward the North Africa coast. I don't know where the other ships went.

When we went through the Strait of Gibraltar, we were convinced that we would be invading Spain. (One of our Spanish-speaking guys was even planning to visit his grandmother in Madrid.) Equipped with rifles, gas masks, helmets, and Army-type clothing, we were considered ready for some sort of action.  When we asked for explanations, we were told only that, "When you come back, if you come back, you will be covered with medals."  We thought that when we invaded Spain, our task would be to go ashore with the invading force and set up field radio stations to communicate with ships off shore, with our allies, and possibly with underground freedom fighters.  However, we sailed right past Spain and went right to Africa with no stops until we were off the cost of Tunisia. The ship anchored far offshore, and my team was ordered to go ashore. We had to get into the landing craft by way of a rope ladder. It was dark and the sea was rough, so the landing craft was bounding up and down furiously. All I could think of was that I was going to break my leg trying to get into the landing craft.  I managed to get into the boat safely, but while climbing down the ladder, I lost my helmet. It took a long time to reach the shore because it was dark and we had to keep going around the masts of sunken ships.  We landed without incident and awaited the arrival of our officers.

When we stepped off the boat, I asked the coxswain when our officers would be coming. He replied that they would not come in until the following day. We had no instructions as to what we were supposed to do, so we looked for a place to sleep. It was dark, but we found a place that looked safe and secure. We set up tents, dined on K-rations, posted sentries, huddled together in our little tents, and tried to sleep. But it could get very cold at night in North Africa, so we began to look for something which we could use to make fires. We found some things that looked like the green slats in old-fashioned blinds. We tried to light them, but they wouldn't burn. To our great discomfort, the next morning we discovered that we were camping in an abandoned French Navy ammunition depot and that those green slats were solidified gun powder!  We quickly moved to another neighborhood.

When our officers arrived, they were as baffled as we were. They had no instructions either.  We never did learn why we had landed at this spot.  There were some British troops a short distance to the south of us and some French-Arab troops to the east of us, so we didn't feel that we were in any danger. We remained there for several days and finally learned that we were to go to Oran, Algeria, where the Navy had established the base that would be the base of operations for the Mediterranean. I was given the task of getting the enlisted men in my team to Oran. I was told to go to the Army air base some distance away. They had a cargo plane that made daily trips to Oran, and they agreed to let us ride in it. I had never flown before. It had no seats. We sat on the hard, metal floor for the long flight to Oran.

Oran was a large city that was in appearance much like a typical city in France.  There were office buildings, churches, restaurants, theaters, bars, houses, apartment buildings, and villas, and docks and piers by the waterfront.  My official designation there was simply U.S. Naval Base, Oran, Algeria.  I don't know how many people were at this base.  I also don't know what the population of Oran was, but it was a large city with both French and Arab inhabitants.  The Arabs tended to live in poorer parts of the city.

The enemy on the ground was gone when I arrived in Oran, but there were U-boats prowling around.  One destroyer was torpedoed shortly after leaving port to head for some other destination.  Otherwise the enemy was still in parts of Italy and in Southern France.  The general situation was that North Africa was now in Allied hands.  Germans were being pushed back in Italy, and invasion of Southern France would follow shortly after the more famous D-Day invasion of Northern France.  Oran was the major base of the Navy at that time.  Troops and ships that invaded Southern France left from Oran.  I was assigned to the Navy radio station there.

We were quartered in a fairly large, two-story building that was made of brick or brick-covered cement.  It had been a schoolhouse. It was not bad, but there was no fresh water, so we had to wash and bathe in salt water. There were also no regular toilets. We had to go "Arab-style" and squat over holes in the floor.  It was not in a compound, but was right by the street.  Living conditions were not bad during normal times. Bunks in our rooms were as comfortable as could be expected. Food was fairly good.  I ate horsemeat once there.  It was very good, but tough.  Indeed, I think I have a photo of a butcher shop with a sign advertising horsemeat.  (Years later, while serving with the Peace Corps in Somalia, my wife and I ate camel meat, which tasted like veal.  We enjoyed it.)  The stateside food we missed the most was ice cream.

My job was to serve as radio operator in the "radio shack" near our barracks.  During quiet periods we worked in various shifts depending upon the situation and the number of radiomen available.  During the critical periods, such as the invasion of Southern France, we were busy for very long periods at a time.  Sandwiches were sent from the barracks to the radio shack to keep us going during these critical times, and we got very little sleep.  Thus, the "daily schedule" varied from time to time.

I did not go to church in Oran.  I am a Protestant and I think all of the churches in Oran were Catholic.  There were no religious activities at the base.  As for entertainment, there wasn't very much. There was no R&R.  I did not smoke or gamble, but I did drink a little beer or wine sold in bars.  I had done some drinking (mostly beer) before going to North Africa.  Sometimes there were movies shown in the barracks. Once while I was there we put on an amateur night.  Guys who could sing, play instruments, or tell good jokes kept us amused. There was a beautiful beach a few miles out of town and we sometimes got into a truck and went there to swim. There was a movie theater in town that sometimes showed American films. The restaurants served nothing but spaghetti and cheap wine. There was one place just for American servicemen that served watery beer.

Prostitution was legal, although regular brothels in the red light district were "off limits" for us and were policed by MPs and the Navy shore patrol. Some of the barber shops had a woman or two in a back room who serviced those who really wanted more than a haircut. If a guy discovered a brothel or a single prostitute working out of her home, he usually apprised other sailors of it.  There were prophylactic stations near the red light district, and guys who managed to find a prostitute could go there and get something to help prevent venereal disease.  One of the saddest things I have ever seen was the presence on the streets of little girls of about 8 or 9 years old, offering to perform sex acts for a few francs.

I remember only one show put on by USO or something like it. It featured American comedians. There was a Red Cross place where we could go and relax and listen to phonograph music.  (The William Tell Overture was my favorite.)  The only American women I saw were Red Cross workers and one or two Army WACs.  The only holiday I can remember celebrating in Oran was Christmas.  Aside from getting a better-than-usual meal, the only thing we did was to have a group of orphan children come to our barracks for candy and something to eat.

My aunt used to send me some of her applesauce cake, which kept for a long time and was delicious.  No other things in packages came from home for me.  I didn't ask for anything to be sent from home.  As for others, one of our Hispanic guys got a package from home that contained such things as lipstick, nail polish, other cosmetics, and some women's stockings that he wanted to give to his French girlfriend.  Unfortunately, the nail polish bottle broke and the stuff ruined the stockings.

Nothing unusual happened in Oran that I can think of except for the time when one of our radiomen arranged to trade jobs with a radioman on a destroyer that was in port.  He hated Oran and wanted to go to sea.  The destroyer was torpedoed on the day it left port, and he was back in Oran with nothing but the wet clothes on his back.  We all thought that was very funny.  One time I had a chance to briefly meet my brother-in-law in Oran once.  He was from Southampton--a town near Shelter Island.  He was in the Army in Africa, awaiting shipment to France.

I didn't do any sight-seeing.  The Arab natives were treated by the French as inferiors. They did menial jobs and were harshly treated by the police. Once I saw an Arab man being arrested by the gendarmes. They pulled off his pants and marched him down the main street to the police station--he was nude from the waist down. Arabs were treated like black people used to be treated in the deep South in the USA. I became friendly with a little Arab boy who was hanging around our barracks. He followed me wherever I went, even if I had nothing to give him.  I forget his name.  After I left North Africa, I didn't see him again.  My best buddy was a sailor named Jack Griffin.  He was from a western state, but I forget which one.  He and I went everywhere together, joked, laughed together, etc.  When we returned to the United States, he was sent to a different assignment and I never saw him again.

War was no joke.  I felt that Hitler had to be defeated at all costs.  The people I met there had been under German control long enough to see that it was horrible.  We did have a few light moments in spite of the seriousness of war, however. One of my favorites involved our going to the beach to swim. There were no houses near the beach, so we could dress and undress in the open. However, when some of the guys acquired girlfriends and wanted to bring them to the beach, we had to build a little shed for dressing and undressing. We had two doors and a big sheet of plywood separating the male from the female section. Soon, one of the guys drilled a small hole about three feet from the floor. The guys took turns squatting down and peeping through the whole at the girls who were undressing. There was a young sailor who was very prudish and scolded the rest of us for doing this. We teased and taunted him so much, however, that he finally caved in and decided to take his turn at the hole. He crouched down and looked through the hole. Then he jumped up, his face beet red. All he had seen was a female eye looking in from the other side!

Another funny thing happened to me. The French Navy had their radio station on the west side of the city, while we had ours on the east side. We communicated by teletype. The teletype operators there were French Navy women or "French Waves," as we called them. One day after sending some messages, I struck up a conversation with the French operator, who seemed to be nice and friendly. I suggested that we meet somewhere downtown. She agreed to meet me at a popular sidewalk cafe in the middle of Oran. She said she would be wearing her uniform, sitting at one of the little round tables on the sidewalk, holding a popular French magazine in her left hand and a glass of white wine in her right hand.  When I arrived at the cafe, I saw about ten French navy women--each sitting alone at a little round table, each with that French magazine in her left hand, and a glass of white wine in her right hand! I realized I had been the victim of a very clever practical joke. I didn't dare approach any of them, so I slinked away.  Who says the French have no sense of humor?

The person who kept us laughing often was Larry, the Hispanic guy whose mother sent the lipstick and nail polish. Larry always found clever ways of getting out when he didn't have a pass. He acquired a French navy man's cap and put on the plain black rain coat that the Navy used. He would then sneak out, put on the French cap, and not have to worry about being stopped by our own Shore Patrol.

We remained in Oran until the Germans surrendered (I drank too much that day in celebration), and then we were sent back to the USA.  By then, I was a Radioman First Class.  I personally received a Letter of Commendation from the base commander. I don't remember exactly what it said, and I can't find it now. It was not related to a specific action, but to my service as a whole while there. I got the usual ribbons for service in that sector, good conduct, and the commendation. This "fruit salad" as we used to call ribbons, looked nice on one's uniform and in photos.

We knew it was our day to be rotated because the end of the war in Europe and the Mediterranean meant that we would not be needed there, whereas the war in the Pacific was still raging.  All in my communication team welcomed the return home except the Hispanic guy who had the great bass-baritone voice.  He had a girlfriend in Oran and didn't want to leave her yet, so his request to remain was honored.  He was almost in tears when he saw the rest of us leaving.  I think his name was Torres.  The rest of us were glad to leave Oran.  It had been interesting, but enough was enough.  (The hardest thing about being in North Africa for me had been the long hours in the radio shack without sleep.)  The only procedures we went through to process out of Africa were to pack our gear, get on the ship, and leave.  We saw no replacement people coming as we were leaving.  I doubt that they would have been needed since the war in Europe was over.

I returned to the United States in a troop ship, the USS West Point.  I think it was a civilian cruise ship, taken over by the Navy and given a new name.  I had no duty on that ship and there was no entertainment.  We went straight back to the USA, and the trip took about two weeks.  Weather was fairly good on the return trip and there was very little seasickness.  One interesting thing about the trip was that we each got a small cup of vanilla ice cream.  I had not had ice cream in nearly two years.  I found it to be delicious, but very sweet--so much so that I got sick to my stomach after eating it because I wasn't used to having something so sweet.

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Okinawa

Upon returning to the USA we were not covered with medals as promised, but at least we were still alive.  We disembarked at Norfolk, Virginia and went to the Navy Receiving Station there.  Nobody was waiting at the dock except those working there.  There were no civilians or  newspaper reporters there--just the grey Navy buses to take us to the receiving station in Norfolk.  Seeing mainland USA might have been emotional if we had returned to New York harbor with the Statue of Liberty in sight, but nobody had sentimental feelings about being in Norfolk.  (The sailor's appellation for Norfolk was "shit city.")  The only processing was done as we disembarked, and that was to get on a bus bound for Virginia.  The first thing that I did after landing was head straight for that bus.  After getting onboard, we had to make sure everybody else was aboard, too.

My last hours with my team were when we returned to the Naval Receiving Station in Norfolk, Virginia.  During my first liberty, Jack and I had a few beers and  I got a small tattoo on my right forearm.  I turned down an offer from a middle-aged lady to go to the beach with her and Jack and I both ignored several scantily dressed "ladies of the evening."  After a few days in the receiving station, we got our new orders, which included a leave before reporting to our new assignments.  As a team, we no longer existed.  We felt sad about breaking up, but we all went separate ways.

I don't remember exactly how long I was stateside before going to Okinawa.  I had a short leave, spending a few days visiting relatives on Shelter Island.  Then I spent a few more in New York City.  I took a room in a hotel there, with the intent of having some fun before being reassigned.  One day I took the subway to Coney Island and proceeded to wander around the beach.  At one point I encountered a young lady who had reddish-blond hair, milky-white skin, a pretty face, and a perfect figure.  Her name was Dianne.  She was seventeen years old, and she lived in an apartment in Brooklyn with her mother, a divorcee.  We became friends, and I saw her every day for the short time I was in New York.  We usually went to the beach, had dinner at a restaurant, and saw a movie in the evening.  Her mother was pleasant and seemed to approve of her daughter's latest "beau."

The day before leaving for California and proceeding to Okinawa, where the last great battle of World War II took placer, Dianne and I went to the beach as usual.  We had dinner in a restaurant and then saw a movie.  When we returned to her apartment that night, there was a note from her mother on the door.  It stated that she would be spending the night with a relative.  It was very late and I was not looking forward to the subway ride back to Manhattan.  Dianne said, "If you don't mind sleeping on the couch, you can stay here for the night."  I didn't mind at all!  We decided to listen to some music before going to bed.  Dianne put on a recording of a polonaise by Chopin.  I had removed my shoes and way lying on the couch.  The old 78-rpm record player was the type that automatically repeated a record if we did not remove it or stop the machine from playing.  We both fell asleep, too tired to do anything but cuddle.  So all night long Chopin's polonaise played until early in the morning when Dianne's older sister happened to come by.  The sister was furious.  Although we were fully clothed except for our shoes, she assumed that she had caught us in the midst of an illicit affair.  Dianne simply laughed at her screaming sister and refused to offer any kind of explanation.  Being a board-certified professional coward, I quickly put on my shoes, said "bye-bye" and sprinted for the door.  I went back to my hotel, packed my sea bag, and headed for California.  The next year of my life was spent on Okinawa where we built a naval base after defeating the Japanese.  Dianne and I wrote to one another for a while, but as the letters became few and far between, our relationship came to an end.  By now Dianne would be 78 years old if she is still alive.  I wonder if she still likes Chopin.

Dianne (Click picture for a larger view)

After I left New York, I reported to the Navy station in Noroton Heights, Connecticut, where I spent a few weeks teaching Morse code.  The people I taught already knew Morse Code, but some were not accustomed to the use of "speed keys." The conventional key for transmitting Morse code involved the pushing of a small key down--a short quick push for a dot. For a dash one simply held it down a bit longer. The speed key made it possible to send a series of dots without pushing the key down for each dot. The handle on the speed key was in a vertical position. To make a dash, the key was pushed in one direction, holding it just long enough to complete the dash. To make dots, the key was pushed in the other direction just long enough for the number of dots in the letter or number being sent. To make an "H" (four dots), the key was held twice as long as was needed to make an "I" (which was two dots).  Since speed keys were not normally provided by the Navy, I bought my own to demonstrate it.  The other radiomen who had them bought their own speed keys as well.  Tape recorders had not been invented yet, but something similar called a "wire recorder" had just been invented and we were able to see one and see how it could be used to record voice messages.

The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan came while I was at Noroton Heights, too. We were delighted that these bombs would end the war. Although I sometimes wish that atomic weapons had never been invented, a Japanese man once told me that we ought not to feel guilty about dropping them on Japan because they would have dropped them on us if they had them.  Japan was working on an atomic bomb at the time.

Noroton Heights was good duty. It was a pleasant area that was not too far from New York City.  The food was good, and the routines were not too demanding.  There was no entertainment on the base at Noroton Heights. When we had liberty, we usually took the train to New York City. A friend and I went to NYC when the news of Japan's surrender came.  We celebrated around Times Square in the same manner that most other people celebrated the end of the war--drinking. Some of the bars actually ran out of liquor. I am happy to say that my friend and I did a good deed while in the railroad station waiting for our train back to Noroton Heights. An attractive young woman who had had too much to drink was lying on one of the benches asleep. Several young guys in civilian clothes gathered around her and appeared to be planning to molest her. My friend and I went over to that bench, stood by the girl, and just glared at the guys. Although they had us outnumbered, they went slinking away. Ironically, when the young lady awoke, she assumed that my friend and I were there to molest her and started swinging at us! ("No good deed goes unpunished," as the old saying goes.)

After my duty at Noronton Heights ended, I went by train from there to New York City and on to a receiving station in San Francisco, California. Nothing unusual happened on the trip. I don't even remember any details of that trip. After a few days, I boarded the troop ship Cape Henlopen and headed for Okinawa, where the last great battle of World War II had been fought just prior to the end of the war.  There was no training, entertainment, or any other organized activity on the ship.  Nothing eventful happened on the trip and we did not hit any unusually rough weather.  We went straight to Okinawa, where they were building a seaplane base.   The island was about 300 miles south of the main Japanese islands.  It was about 60 miles long (counting from north to south) and about 11 miles wide.  I was there for a year.

At first I was stationed at the sea plane base on the peninsula called Katchin Hanto.  It jutted out from the main part of the island on the east side, and the base was on the tip of the peninsula.  There was another base on the west coast where several of my friends were stationed.  Just off Katchin Hanto, the Navy seaplanes could fly out to look for submarines or other enemy vessels.  Once the war was over, this wasn't very necessary.  Nearly everything on the island had been destroyed.  The capital city of Naha was leveled, except for the frame of one small building that was still standing, but of no use.

We lost over 12,000 Americans, as well as many ships, because of the Kamikaze.  The Japanese lost over 100,000 both through the fierce and prolonged fighting and because civilian as well as Japanese military committed suicide by the hundreds when it was clear that they could not win the battle.  There were high cliffs at the southern end of the island, and people threw themselves off the cliffs onto the rocks below.

Okinawa was vastly different from North Africa.  In North Africa, there were such cities as Algiers and Oran.  Okinawa consisted of small villages and the city of Naha, which was totally destroyed.  There were no stores, no theaters, no paved roads.  When we first arrived, our quarters consisted of tents.  Then the Navy Seabees (construction battalions) built Quonset huts and other stable structures and we slept on cots or bunks.

My original job on Okinawa was manning the radio shack at the Katchin Hanto seaplane base, and then carrying "guard mail."  This mail was delivered in person from one base to another.  I had a Jeep for this purpose and had carte blanche to go almost anywhere at any time without getting a pass or permission.  I carried a pistol.  After a few months, the base was no longer a seaplane facility and I was transferred to an airbase at Yonabaru, which was near the southeastern tip of the island.  Again, my job was guard mail.

I was friendly with all of the radiomen, but had no particular buddy.  At first we were not allowed to mingle with the natives.  Remember that many, many civilians on Okinawa committed suicide.  They had been told that the Americans would commit all kinds of atrocities if they took the island.  Japanese military were kept in some sort of prison camp.  Civilians were taken to the upper half of the island, while most of us were in the southern half.  Gradually, civilians were allowed to trickle south.  We hired some of them to work for us.  Most young men had been in the Japanese army and were killed or committed suicide.  We hired women to help the cooks and to do other menial tasks.  They were docile, cooperative, and friendly once they saw that we were not the brutes they had expected.  We had a few old men working in our motor pool, doing such things as changing flat tires.  At one time I was also in charge of a group of old men who were digging ditches on the base.  We had two young women working in our communications office.  They could do only menial tasks, and were enthralled by such "modern marvels" as staplers.  One gal asked if she could take one of the staplers to her village to show this remarkable machine to her people.  I let her do so, but when she brought it back the next day she had used up all of the staples!  I have photos of the two young women.

One day when I had a few hours to spare, I learned that someone with a jeep was going to drive over to the base on the west side on some sort of official business.  This person kindly agreed to let me ride with him.  There were no paved roads on the island, and no road at all going directly from the east to the west side because of the steep hills in between.  We had to drive down to the bottom part of the island and then up on the west side.  As the jeep driver went about his business, I visited the tent where my friends were lodged.  They were in a festive mood, not just because of my visit, but because they had just acquired a turkey.  The turkey had just been roasted and was ready to be eaten.  One of the guys had passed by the tent where the cook was preparing a meal for the officers.  The cook stepped away from the tent for a few minutes, so my friend went inside, grabbed the turkey, and hustled back to his own tent.  We enlisted men did not get turkey.  We were still surviving on C-rations, little cans of some tasteless concoction that was supposed to serve as a meal.  I was invited to join in the feast.  I had been taught that stealing was a sin, and that committing such a sin guaranteed a place for me in Satan's motel.  Although I had not stolen the turkey, I was equally guilty of accepting some of it.

The sailor who brought me to that side of the island forgot to come and get me when he drove back.  I scoured the entire camp, but could not find anyone who would agree to drive me back to my own base.  I would have to walk.  If I walked the same way we came, by going around the road, it would take all night.  However, there was a footpath through those steep hills, so I chose to head for my home base that way.  As long as it remained light, there was no great danger in walking on the path.  But many Japanese soldiers had not yet surrendered.  They were hiding in some of the hundreds of deep, natural caves that could be found all over Okinawa.  The Japanese remained hidden in them during the day, but came out at night to forage for food.  Some had crept into our camps to steal, and some even slit throats of Americans.

By the time I reached the highest point, the sun had gone down and it was dark.  The path was full of stones and my shoes made a crunching sound.  Every now and then I heard Japanese voices coming from the caves near the path.  Surely they could hear my footsteps.  If they wondered who was walking by and decided to come out and investigate, I might become dead meat.  I had learned a little of the Japanese language, but certainly not enough to attempt to pretend to be Japanese.  As I passed some of the caves, the voices stopped.  I thought that surely the occupants were listening to my footsteps and wondering who was out there.  Then I remembered the tune of the only real Japanese song from Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, "The Mikado."  Hoping that the Japanese soldiers would assume that I was a comrade, I whistled the tune of "Miya Sama."  My deception worked!

I did not leave Okinawa during the year that I was there.  I didn't ask for anything from home, nor did I receive any packages from home.  I also didn't celebrate holidays or my birthday.  I continued to write to Shirley, and made plans to pop the question to her when I got back in the States.  Meanwhile, our only entertainment on Okinawa was an occasional movie, playing cards, going around the island taking pictures, and swimming.  I took pictures of the natural scenery, the damage done by the war (such as the almost complete destruction of every building in the city of Naha), some of the people, the ships in the bay, the ships that had been destroyed either by the war or by the typhoon, the guys that I lived and worked with, things of interest such as the burial caves used by the Okinawans, and some unpleasant things such as the human skulls and bones that were scattered here and there.  We were right near the beach, so we could swim there easily.  I rarely went swimming for pleasure, however.  At first we lived in tents and had no showers, so we bathed by swimming in the bay.  We also went out naked in the rain with a bar of soap so we could wash ourselves that way.

Some lumber and other building material was left over from the building of the Quonset huts, so we asked for permission to use it to build a little club house where we could meet, play cards, chat, and relax.  Permission was granted and we all pitched in to build our club house.  We had enjoyed our nice recreation room for only a few weeks, however, when two guys got into a minor fist fight.  Using this incident as an excuse, the officers ousted us from our club and turned it into an officer's club.  A well-stocked bar was installed, and seamen were assigned to tend bar, keep the place clean, etc.  The men were furious, but could do nothing about it.  Then Mother Nature stepped in.

A fierce typhoon struck Okinawa.  I was manning the radio shack, which was located on top of a hill overlooking the base below.  When I received a message that required immediate attention, I went down to the base to find the duty officer, but I couldn't find an officer anywhere.  Nobody was in the officer's mess, in the officer's quarters, or anywhere else.  I thought they must be in their club, so I went there.  No one was there except the seaman who served as bartender.  He told me that all the officers had left the base and gone to a facility inland.  "How about having a drink?," he asked.  I'm not much of a drinker, but I took a couple of snorts that day.  The word spread quickly that there were no officers on the base.  The guys were very pissed off to learn that our officers had moved inland when the typhoon was coming. They didn't leave the island. As the typhoon approached, one officer came to the radio shack and asked me what I would do if our antenna tower (which was atop the hill) started to blow over. My sarcastic reply was, "I'm sure as hell that I am not going to try to stop it." It was a stupid question, as nobody could prevent a huge tower from blowing over.

The men quickly converged on the officers' club and went to work on their liquor supply.  The bottles that weren't drained were smashed.  Aside from trying to find an officer to get the message I had received during the typhoon, and the incident of going to the "officer's club" and finding nobody there but the bar-tender, I do not recall what I did during the typhoon. I had lived through the great hurricane of 1938 that battered Long Island and especially the small island where I lived, so I wasn't overly impressed by the Okinawa typhoon.  I remember that when the "brass" returned the next day, it took them a while to figure out how that typhoon managed to enter the club, destroy the liquor supply, and leave the building virtually unharmed.  I think that the officers got the point, however.  After Japan surrendered and the war was over, we closed down the base.  The officers invited all enlisted men to come to the club and help polish off their liquor supply.

At one point an important cabinet member came to Okinawa.  I remember seeing him come off the plane where he was greeted by the high officers.  I believe he was James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy.  Nothing else unusual happened during that year except for auto accidents.  Some guys were killed or badly hurt in accidents.  I personally saw two of them. Several guys were in the back of a truck which slid off the dirt road and went over into the field alongside of the road. I saw some guys being helped up. One was bleeding from the mouth. I was in my Jeep at the time, and was told to keep moving and not remain at the accident scene. The other accident occurred near our radio shack. The shack (a Quonset hut) was at the top of a high, steep hill. The road to the top circled around the hill. It was a dirt road. There were no fences. Some guys in a Jeep were going around the curves too fast. The Jeep slid off the road and fell down the side of the hill, killing one of the occupants. I don't know if any of the others who were hurt were killed. His personal belongings were sent to his family in the USA. He was not part of my communications team so I didn't know him personally. I don't know what they were doing up on that hill, except perhaps joyriding. We had no hospital near the seaplane base. The death of a man was always depressing, but we just had to press on with our chores.

After we had been there for a few months, the Okinawans put on a show for us.  Most of the guys didn't enjoy it because the Japanese music and singing was not to our taste.  In one part of the show, however, they tried to imitate American chorus girls.  This was the only part that the guys appreciated.  The food was about the same as it was in Africa, and my job in the radio shack was the same as it had been in wartime, except less stressful.  The emergencies now were typhoons, not bombs.  Okinawa was a fairly good assignment.  Since the war was over, there was less stress and more time to relax.

I knew it was my time to go home when my four-year enlistment was up.  I was not sad to leave Okinawa.  I returned to the United States on the USS Tazewell, a troop ship.  I went to the radio room and offered to help. The chief radioman assigned me to man the emergency radio room, which was smaller and located near the stern of the ship.  There I copied news items and the yeomen put out a daily "newspaper" from them.  I also copied weather reports.

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My Second War

With my tours of duty in North Africa and Okinawa, I was out of the country for three years and did not see Shirley at all.  We wrote often, however, and a strong friendship developed.  When the war ended in 1946, I was at last able to return to the land of my birth.  I went to see Shirley after I returned home. My enlistment was about to expire and I had to decide whether I wanted to re-enlist or take my chances in civilian life. Shirley would make all the difference. If she rejected me I would stay in the regular Navy and make it a career. If she accepted, I would take my chances in civilian life. It was a happy reunion, so I "popped the question" and we became engaged.  After she accepted me, I went home to prepare for civilian life. I returned to New York to visit relatives and she planned the wedding, which was to take place in a friend's house in Chicago. We were to stand between two Christmas trees and get married. This was in December of 1946.  I came down with a severe case of double pneumonia and was put in Navy hospital in St. Albans, New York. Shirley took a train to New York from Chicago to visit me in the hospital, but I was in a quarantine ward and no visitors were allowed.  She was told she could not see me, but a sympathetic pharmacist mate sneaked her into the ward and put us in a private room. We couldn't do anything but hold hands and giggle, but that was better than nothing.  I was not released until mid-January, so the Christmas tree wedding was abandoned.

As soon as possible, I re-enlisted in the Naval Reserve so that I could retain my rating if I ever went back in the Navy. When I was released from the hospital, I stayed with my aunt in Brooklyn. Shirley and I wanted to get married before anything else could go wrong. It was mid-January now, and too late to go to Chicago for the Christmas tree wedding. My aunt arranged for us to get married in her pastor's apartment. The wedding party was the minister and his wife, my aunt and her 10-year-old son Jimmy, Shirley, and me. The date was January 18, 1947.  Everybody said it wouldn't last, but it lasted for 58 glorious years.

Shirley and I continued to live with my Aunt Annie for several months until we could get settled into jobs and find a place of our own.  I worked as a radio operator at RCA, and Shirley worked as a telephone operator in New York City.  We found a very old two-family house in Queens, New York (one of the boroughs of New York City) that was selling for about $8,000.  We bought it, moved in, and began making mortgage payments.  The only changes made in the place were the improvements and painting that I did myself.  There was a family living upstairs, while we occupied the apartment downstairs.  My job at RCA was the only job I held at that time.  It involved sending and receiving messages by Morse code and teletype.  Many of the workers at RCA had been radio operators in the service as I had been.

During the Spring of 1950, the USS Kyne DE-744 and the USS Snyder--both destroyer escorts, were used to take Navy Reservists on training cruises.  I went on one such cruise on the USS Kyne to Quebec, Canada.  The trip north was uneventful, as we dropped depth charges (killing nothing but fish), fired our guns at targets, and had rescue drills.  Everyone looked forward to our arrival at Quebec City and a few days of liberty.  The Canadian newspapers treated our visit with enthusiastic interest.  Pretty French-Canadian girls stood on the wharf as we docked, and we provided guided tours of the ships for the Canadian citizens.  But "boys will be boys" and "sailors will be sailors" the world over.  The first incident occurred when one of the gunners mates pointed a three-inch gun at a gentleman walking along a nearby street.  Wherever he went, the gun followed him, which made him feel very uncomfortable and engendered some negative reactions towards our heroic crew.  Next, some of our sailors met some Canadian sailors and became instant drinking buddies.  One of the Canadian chaps who had been treated too generously to Canadian Club and other libations by one of our sailors kindly agreed to let his American counterpart borrow a Canadian Navy jeep.  This speed merchant came careening down towards the wharf, couldn't stop in time, and plunged into the river.  Scratch one Canadian Navy jeep!

The hearty welcome we had received at first began to weaken, as a shipmate and I discovered when we went to the grand dining room of the prestigious Chateau Frontenac Hotel with our ladies, and were told to "go to the coffee shop."  Just one more event was needed to put the finishing touches on our "goodwill visit" to our friendly neighbors to the north.  As we were leaving the pier for our return trip, the USS Snyder was moving too rapidly and turned to port too sharply.  Her stern ripped off a large section of the pier, leaving another impressive souvenir of the U.S. Navy's visit to Quebec.  I suspect that some Canadians were rather pleased when the Korean War erupted soon after this, requiring the U.S. Navy to turn its attention towards the Pacific.

Shirley had not been consulted regarding my re-enlisting. It didn't bother her until the Korean War erupted, and then she was in a panic. I had been going to the Brooklyn Navy Yard from time to time to work in the radio shack there, and had gone on a training cruise on the USS Kyne DE-744. But Shirley really broke down when I got my orders to report for duty and was sent to San Francisco to join the crew of the USS Yancey AKA-93, which was in port there. I saw her only once during the year I was on active duty. We were in port for repairs and she flew out to be with me. We had a few days together.

As a radioman first class, I was assigned to the crew of an attack cargo vessel (the Yancey) which was designed to carry troops, vehicles, equipment, and supplies to the war zone. The ship carried several smaller landing boats that could carry men, equipment, or materials ashore to support an invasion or any other combat operation. See the cover of the August 2006 issue of Military magazine. The ship depicted there is an AKA, and is exactly the same as the USS Yancey. We carried cargo of all kinds--from toilet paper to motor vehicles. The ports we visited in Japan were Sasebo and Yokosuka. Most often it was Sasebo. In Korea we visited Pusan and Inchon. We were allowed to go ashore in Pusan, but not in Inchon. There wasn't much of interest in Pusan. It seemed to be a rather poor and shabby city, much affected by the poverty that goes with war. We went back and forth between Oakland, California (our home port) and Japan or Korea. I think we made about five such trips during my year on the Yancey.

The most comical complaint that I ever heard about ship's food was on the USS Yancey.  Some joker got on the "bitch box" (loudspeaker) and yelled, "Now hear this.  The chicken with today's duty get down to the galley and swim in the soup!"

One bitterly cold night, we were anchored in Yokosuka Bay, Japan.  The signalman on duty was a sailor named Johnson.  He was given a long message to send by signal light to a ship at the other side of the bay.  It was the longest message I had ever seen and Johnson was unhappy about having to send it.  Actually, it would have been easier and quicker to deliver the message by boat, but "orders were orders," so Johnson reluctantly went to work by turning on the light.  He held the several pages of the message in his left hand and manipulated the signal light with his right hand.  He transmitted one word and then looked up to see if the other ship had received that word, which was indicated by a quick blink of the other ship's signal light.  Things seemed to be going smoothly, for every time Johnson looked up, he saw the blink that meant the word had been received.  It took over an hour to send the message, which went without a hitch, even though Johnson's hands and feet were nearly frozen by the cold.  After completing the message, Johnson looked toward the other ship expecting to see the final "roger" or confirmation that the entire message had been received.  However, all he saw was a light that kept blinking--blink-blink-blink.  He then realized that he was seeing a blinking buoy.  Johnson used every dirty word in the English language, and some that had not been invented yet.  But at least he holds the record for having sent the longest message in history to a blinking buoy.

On one voyage we had on board a number of sailors who were just out of boot camp and getting their first taste of duty at sea. Normally we did not have a doctor or a chaplain on board. On one trip, however, we had both. The chaplain was Catholic. He had set up his things to do mass or something that included the use of wine. He stepped away just long enough for somebody to steal the wine. Everyone, including the old chaplain, thought this was quite funny. I know who stole the wine, but there is an unwritten law in the Navy that one does not "rat" on a shipmate. I think the young doctor was just out of medical school and was also getting his first taste of life at sea. Like nearly all newcomers, he was the butt of a joke. He had examined the health records of the crew and was shocked at the large number of venereal disease cases.  Two amusing things came out of this.  The young doctor was standing near a rail enjoying the sea breeze when two quartermasters standing nearby decided to play a joke.  One said to the other, "Did you hear about the navigator?"  (The navigator was a full lieutenant.)  The other said, "No, what?"  The first one said, "He has black balls!"  (There is a navigational instrument that has two round objects the size and shape of a grapefruit.  They are colored black.)  The other quartermaster pretended to be shocked.  Saying nothing to the enlisted men, the young doctor approached the navigator and very nervously and quietly said that he had heard a rumor that, "You have, er, black balls?"  Immediately realizing that the doctor had been conned, the navigator said (pointing to the two black items in the wheelhouse), "Yes, there they are."

The other amusing thing was that the young doctor approached the captain with the suggestion that they try to reduce the number of venereal cases by having a contest to see which division could have the fewest cases.  The captain replied, "You don't know these guys.  They will be having a contest to see who can have the most."  Another thing that the crew found amusing was when a certain seaman married a gal he had met in San Francisco.  He got a dose of the clap (gonorrhea) from his lovely bride!

There were good officers and bad officers on the USS Yancey, and Lt (JG) Berk [fictional name] was one of the bad ones from the point of view of the enlisted men.  He was arrogant and overbearing, treating the men in his communications division like dirt.  Even after our radio gang had received the highest praise from fleet headquarters for efficiency, he took full credit and gave us poor evaluation ratings.  He always walked very fast, not because there was any need for speed, but it made him look like he was doing something important.  If someone happened to be in or even near his path, he roughly pushed him aside.  His habit of rushing everywhere also applied to ladders.  He went up a ladder in a flash, not looking up to see whether anyone or anything was above him.  One day two signalmen on an upper deck saw him dashing along a lower deck, headed for the ladder to the upper deck.  There was a large wooden bench nearby, so they picked it up and put it over the top of the ladder.  When Berk came flying up the ladder, his head smacked the bench, causing him to be laid up for a few days.  A few weeks later, we decided to re-paint the radio shack.  Everyone pitched in, covering the equipment with masking tape and drop cloths.  One man remained in the room to do the spraying while the rest of us vacated the shack.  I stood outside to warn people not to enter the shack.  But then Lieutenant Berk came dashing toward the door.  I yelled, "Don't go in there, Sir!"  He glared at me as if to say, "You don't tell me what to do."  He jerked open the door before I had a chance to explain.  It so happened that the man inside was doing the inside of that door at that moment.  Berk got a full blast of paint all over the front of his clothes.  Every enlisted man in sight chocked back the impulse to laugh.  Before long, Lieutenant Berk was transferred and replaced by a new communications officer who was a decent guy.  Nobody on the ship mourned Berk's departure.

A wide variety of things happened during my tour of duty on the USS Yancey.  Once while I was taking a shower on the Yancey, the fire alarm sounded.  Being in the nude and soaking wet, I couldn't get to my fire station (the emergency radio room) and was scolded for not being there.  The fire was put out rather quickly.  It seemed that someone left some oily rags in one of the empty holds and that spontaneous combustion ignited them.  There were also some episodes in which some guys needed psychiatric care.  The most unusual case was that of a Chief Pharmacist Mate.  He was a grouchy man, and when sailors came to him with complaints, he had a tendency to think that they were mentally ill.  He sent so many men to the psychiatrists in a base hospital that they began to think something might be wrong with him!  Indeed, that turned out to be the case.

There were times when some guys did seem to "lose it.".  One guy who seemed to be in perfectly good health mentally and physically went wild one time.  He put his head down and ran full speed into the metal bulkhead, doing some serious damage to his head.  As for my injuries, if they were minor I tended to them myself rather than go to the pharmacist mates.  For example, once I cut my hand when my jack knife slipped.  Another time while getting off of a landing craft and stepping ashore, something hit my right shin.  It was very painful, but I tended to it myself as I realized it was only a flesh wound and that my shin bone was not broken.  I was hospitalized four or five times for respiratory problems.  I had had a very bad case of pneumonia when I was at radio school in Wisconsin.

Rough seas didn't bother me very much.  In my nearly nine years in the Navy, I had crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans many times in all kinds of weather.  Furthermore, I had grown up on Shelter Island and had survived some severe storms, including the great hurricane of 1938.  But one trip on the USS Yancey nearly did me in.  On that trip, I experienced one of the most frightening events of my life.  While operating in the areas around Japan and Korea during the Korean War, we encountered a typhoon. The weather was bad when we started and got worse day by day.  The sea was very rough, and the ship rocked and rolled violently.  At first we got a lot of laughs out of it as coffee cups and trays went sliding down the mess tables crashing on the deck, and as men went slipping and falling all over the place.  Eventually, however, the cooks decided that it was impossible to prepare hot meals safely, so they fed us sandwiches of cold cuts.  Coffee was not served because the mugs slid off the table.

Sleeping was also virtually impossible.  Although we strapped ourselves in our racks to keep from falling out, the ships rolled and pitched so violently that we had to hang on anyway.  A large number of acetylene tanks were being transported on the deck of the ship that was right above our sleeping quarters.  These broke loose and rolled around the deck, making terrible noises as they crashed into various obstacles, damaging anything they hit.  We were all bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and everyone was getting short-tempered.

The weather kept getting worse and it was clear that we were now in a typhoon.  High waves crashed over the bow of the ship, making it very dangerous to try to walk on deck, so lines (ropes) were attached from the bow to the stern so that anyone who had to be on deck would have something to hold on to. Waves were as high as the vessel itself, and water broke over the bow.  Sometimes the stern was entirely out of the water and the screws turned in the air, causing the ship to shake violently.  It felt like some huge giant had picked up the vessel and was shaking the life out of it.

I found it difficult to do my job in the radio room. The typewriters that we used to copy Morse Code messages were bolted to the steel tables, but because the ship was rocking so violently, some of the typewriters broke loose and were smashed. Our chairs slid around, so we had to hang on with one hand and try to copy messages by poking the typewriters with one finger of the other hand. We tried to tie the chairs down, but they broke loose.  At one point, our main antenna also broke loose and flew around like a buggy whip. We could no longer send or receive radio messages. Someone had to try to climb up the mast and secure it.  As the head radioman, I felt that I ought to be the one to cope with it. I decided to tackle the job myself and try to climb up the mast, grab the antenna as it was whipping around in the wind, and secure it to the mast. When I got up to the mast, however, I realized that it would be impossible to do the job with one hand while holding on to the mast with the other.

I went from the center of the ship to the port side where there was a railing. I looked down at the ocean, and it seemed that the ship was standing still while the ocean was rising up toward us. Actually, of course, the ship was leaning more and more to the port side. I was sure that we were about to capsize. My first thought was of my wife back in New York. She would soon become a 23-year old widow and might never know what happened to her husband. My second thought was that I didn't want to be alone up there, and I wished I could be below with my shipmates. If I was going to die, I wanted at least to be with my friends. We lived together, so I thought we ought to die together as well.  The ship remained in this dangerous position for only a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.  It slowly started to right itself.  The sea seemed to recede, and we were upright for a second or two.  I dashed to the ladder and scrambled down into the wheelhouse.  The guys there were white as ghosts and their eyes were glazed and blank.  They were holding on to anything they could grasp. One of the quartermasters pointed to a device that showed how far the ship was leaning. If the ship had gone just one more degree to the left, we would have capsized and probably all of us would have died. There was no other ship in sight, and even if another ship was in the vicinity it would have been in the same predicament.  Many sailors suffered from bruises and other major or minor injuries. Having been born and reared on a small island, I had experienced hurricanes and had faced other dangerous weather conditions, but that typhoon in the Pacific was the closest I came to drowning.

After that, the rest of the cruise seemed like a pleasure trip.  The ship was badly damaged and much of the equipment had been ruined or damaged. My concern was the radio room. As mentioned, the typewriters were bolted down, but were shaken loose in the typhoon and some of them smashed. Minor damage was done to other things in the radio shack, such as chairs that went sliding around and slamming into things. We were able to function normally after the weather cleared up. I assumed that there was damage elsewhere in the ship, but I was concerned mostly with the radio shack and with the emergency radio room in the stern.

Eventually the ship had to return to San Francisco to spend two weeks in port for repairs.  This was a blessing.  I had not seen my wife for nearly a year.  I telephoned her from Oakland and urged her to come to San Francisco immediately.  She took all of our money out of the bank, flew out, and registered in a hotel.  Wh