Jan. 28, 1944, I was sworn into the U.S. Navy. We draftees at that point were given the choice of Army or Navy. I had read the book "Red Badge of Courage", and wanted no part of the Army.
I had taken the precaution, probably by my parents advice, to take with me a written recommendation from my High School science teacher. This, combined with my electronics course at Hillyer Jr. College caused the Navy to give me the "Eddy Test", a test promoted by Capt. Eddy, an electrical engineer, to measure aptitude in electronics, "radio" in those days. I passed. Everyone else headed for Camp Drum, NY, but they gave me 30 days "delayed orders" plus railroad tickets to get me one month later to Great Lakes Naval Training Station, IL, just north of Chicago.
So I came home. I had 30 days that I wasn't expecting. I needed excitement. I'd never been away from home alone before anyway. I decided skiing would be fun. So I checked out Mt. Tremblant, in Quebec Province. Somehow it appeared that it wouldn't work out. Next choice, Lake Placid, NY. That looked OK. So I went to Hartford and bought a pair of skis, and bought a bus ticket to Lake Placid, and got a hotel reservation there.
It was the first time I'd ever been on a long bus ride. I remember one night passing through Watkins Glen. Finally I got there and checked in at the hotel. The ski tows were ruining, and they had various slopes. I started out on the beginners slopes, but after a while it was quite tame. So later I graduated myself to courses running downhill on winding trails through the woods. We went quite fast through the trees, but it seemed OK, you just lean in the direction you wanted to go and everything worked out OK. In conversations with others, people took me for a seasoned skier.
I didn't stay but a few days at Lake Placid, and I came home. Eventually it was time to head for Chicago. I travelled straight through the night. The next day I was in Chicago, following the directions to get to Great Lakes NTS, which I did. There they issued me a uniform, and gave me something to put all my clothes in to send them home. And I was in boot camp in the middle of Winter.
The weather was rather bad, but we still drilled outdoors. I actually don't remember being cold though. Everyone started to get mildly sick. I did also, but a little more than many. So while the rest of the company had target practice for one week, I was in sick bay with "cat fever" (catharral fever). The one memorable time there was one day while I was laying in bed there, two corpsmen came to me to get a blood sample. But unbeknownst to me, one was in training and the other was his trainer. Maybe I was his first guinea pig. He struggled to get a sample. Seven times in the left arm and three times in the right arm before he finally "struck oil". I got him to switch to the right arm as my left was starting to wear out. Actually, they both, towards the end, wanted to quit, but foolish me, I didn't let them!
So I got better, and rejoined the company, minus target practice. We did, however, learn stuff from the Bluejackets Manual. Those in charge made believe they were tough guys, but they didn't fool me. The rules were strict of course. We kept all our belingings in a "sea bag" that we kept tied up to a rail. Anytime you needed anything, you had to untie it and take it down. One of my "shipmates" was Al McBride from Pittsburgh. I talked to him a couple of months ago by phone when I was visiting Pittsburgh. Another one was Niswander. He seemed rather inept, and was always taking down and tieing up his sea bag. One night the comment was what iis Niswander doing? The response: "Oh, he's just Niswandering around".
After 4 weeks of boot camp we were shipped down to Chicago, to Hugh Manley High School for 1 month of intense pre-radio math. The photo at the left was taken at Hugh Manley. I'm in the middle of this segment of a group photo. For the whole month we were never allowed out of doors until the very end. The Navy had taken over the whole High School. There were tripple decker bunks in the gym where we slept. The local radio station owned by Balaban and Katz had donated to the Navy a TV camera, video amplifier, and cathode ray picture tube. Those in charge of it had pointed the camera out the window, and it was connected by a thick cable to the amplifer, which was connected by another thick cable to the picture tube. Closed circuit TV. My first observation of it. It was impressive, but there was occasional trouble due to an intermittant bad connection somewhere.
After this month, they put us on a troop train for Gulfport, Mississippi. On that train I saw winter turn into summer as we headed south. About half way there in the middle of nowhere, the train stopped for no discernable reason. It was way past "chow time". People were hungry, but we had not been given any food. There were complaints. Outside some people were selling sandwiches. Some would not buy any on general principles. But I guess I was unprincipled, and bought. In retrospect, the whole thing now looks suspicious, doesn't it? Oh well. Truthfully, I never thought of the obvious angle until just now.
Finally we got to Naval Training Station, Gulfport, Miss. for 3 months of Primay. We slept in Quonset huts, did our own laundry, and had intensive training in general radio theory. For one class we each built a superhetrodyne receiver. I remember once, doing my laundry, I saw somebody else's newspaper headlining the Allied invasion of France. One of my classmates was of religeous bent. He had several nicknames, as "the chevroned reverand", "the sneaking deacon", and "the sinister minister".
We did have week-ends off, finally. So every week end I liked to see how far I could get from Gulfport. I travelled by bus to Mobile, Alabama, Jackson Mississippi, New Orleans Louisiana, and once from there via steamboat up the river to Baton Rouge and LSU where I went to their museum and saw some Confederate money, saying they would pay up six months after the end of hostilities between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.
Another time I went again to New Orleans and went swimming in Lake Ponchetrain. Again, another week end I went to a paper mill town, Bogalusa, Louisiana. I didn't always go by bus. Often I hitch hiked. It was easy in those days. Everyone was patriotic, and anxious to give servicemen a ride. Once in central Mississippi as I was hitch hiking through, I was walking along a road through the country, and happened to go past a farm where the chickens had gotten out of the fence, and I helped the farmer get them back in. It turned out I was headed for a town he had never been to. In fact he had never been over 20 miles from home!
Time to go.
I had taken the precaution, probably by my parents advice, to take with me a written recommendation from my High School science teacher. This, combined with my electronics course at Hillyer Jr. College caused the Navy to give me the "Eddy Test", a test promoted by Capt. Eddy, an electrical engineer, to measure aptitude in electronics, "radio" in those days. I passed. Everyone else headed for Camp Drum, NY, but they gave me 30 days "delayed orders" plus railroad tickets to get me one month later to Great Lakes Naval Training Station, IL, just north of Chicago.
So I came home. I had 30 days that I wasn't expecting. I needed excitement. I'd never been away from home alone before anyway. I decided skiing would be fun. So I checked out Mt. Tremblant, in Quebec Province. Somehow it appeared that it wouldn't work out. Next choice, Lake Placid, NY. That looked OK. So I went to Hartford and bought a pair of skis, and bought a bus ticket to Lake Placid, and got a hotel reservation there.
It was the first time I'd ever been on a long bus ride. I remember one night passing through Watkins Glen. Finally I got there and checked in at the hotel. The ski tows were ruining, and they had various slopes. I started out on the beginners slopes, but after a while it was quite tame. So later I graduated myself to courses running downhill on winding trails through the woods. We went quite fast through the trees, but it seemed OK, you just lean in the direction you wanted to go and everything worked out OK. In conversations with others, people took me for a seasoned skier.
I didn't stay but a few days at Lake Placid, and I came home. Eventually it was time to head for Chicago. I travelled straight through the night. The next day I was in Chicago, following the directions to get to Great Lakes NTS, which I did. There they issued me a uniform, and gave me something to put all my clothes in to send them home. And I was in boot camp in the middle of Winter.
The weather was rather bad, but we still drilled outdoors. I actually don't remember being cold though. Everyone started to get mildly sick. I did also, but a little more than many. So while the rest of the company had target practice for one week, I was in sick bay with "cat fever" (catharral fever). The one memorable time there was one day while I was laying in bed there, two corpsmen came to me to get a blood sample. But unbeknownst to me, one was in training and the other was his trainer. Maybe I was his first guinea pig. He struggled to get a sample. Seven times in the left arm and three times in the right arm before he finally "struck oil". I got him to switch to the right arm as my left was starting to wear out. Actually, they both, towards the end, wanted to quit, but foolish me, I didn't let them!
So I got better, and rejoined the company, minus target practice. We did, however, learn stuff from the Bluejackets Manual. Those in charge made believe they were tough guys, but they didn't fool me. The rules were strict of course. We kept all our belingings in a "sea bag" that we kept tied up to a rail. Anytime you needed anything, you had to untie it and take it down. One of my "shipmates" was Al McBride from Pittsburgh. I talked to him a couple of months ago by phone when I was visiting Pittsburgh. Another one was Niswander. He seemed rather inept, and was always taking down and tieing up his sea bag. One night the comment was what iis Niswander doing? The response: "Oh, he's just Niswandering around".
After 4 weeks of boot camp we were shipped down to Chicago, to Hugh Manley High School for 1 month of intense pre-radio math. The photo at the left was taken at Hugh Manley. I'm in the middle of this segment of a group photo. For the whole month we were never allowed out of doors until the very end. The Navy had taken over the whole High School. There were tripple decker bunks in the gym where we slept. The local radio station owned by Balaban and Katz had donated to the Navy a TV camera, video amplifier, and cathode ray picture tube. Those in charge of it had pointed the camera out the window, and it was connected by a thick cable to the amplifer, which was connected by another thick cable to the picture tube. Closed circuit TV. My first observation of it. It was impressive, but there was occasional trouble due to an intermittant bad connection somewhere.After this month, they put us on a troop train for Gulfport, Mississippi. On that train I saw winter turn into summer as we headed south. About half way there in the middle of nowhere, the train stopped for no discernable reason. It was way past "chow time". People were hungry, but we had not been given any food. There were complaints. Outside some people were selling sandwiches. Some would not buy any on general principles. But I guess I was unprincipled, and bought. In retrospect, the whole thing now looks suspicious, doesn't it? Oh well. Truthfully, I never thought of the obvious angle until just now.
Finally we got to Naval Training Station, Gulfport, Miss. for 3 months of Primay. We slept in Quonset huts, did our own laundry, and had intensive training in general radio theory. For one class we each built a superhetrodyne receiver. I remember once, doing my laundry, I saw somebody else's newspaper headlining the Allied invasion of France. One of my classmates was of religeous bent. He had several nicknames, as "the chevroned reverand", "the sneaking deacon", and "the sinister minister".
We did have week-ends off, finally. So every week end I liked to see how far I could get from Gulfport. I travelled by bus to Mobile, Alabama, Jackson Mississippi, New Orleans Louisiana, and once from there via steamboat up the river to Baton Rouge and LSU where I went to their museum and saw some Confederate money, saying they would pay up six months after the end of hostilities between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.
Another time I went again to New Orleans and went swimming in Lake Ponchetrain. Again, another week end I went to a paper mill town, Bogalusa, Louisiana. I didn't always go by bus. Often I hitch hiked. It was easy in those days. Everyone was patriotic, and anxious to give servicemen a ride. Once in central Mississippi as I was hitch hiking through, I was walking along a road through the country, and happened to go past a farm where the chickens had gotten out of the fence, and I helped the farmer get them back in. It turned out I was headed for a town he had never been to. In fact he had never been over 20 miles from home!
Time to go.
1 comment:
Great post, Dad! This is more information than I ever remember hearing. What I remember of your Navy days: salvation experience in Chicago, fried cockroach egg, learning to type on the ship, cycling in Hawaii and visiting Japan after the war was over.
Patricia
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