TULANE NAVY ROTC

 

ROBERT W. SABATÉ, formerly Lt. jg, USN

  ©December, 2003

 

SCHOOL DAYS

 

My name is Robert W. Sabaté, formerly Lieutenant, junior grade, U.S. Navy and current President, Tulane University Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps Alumni (Class of 1952).  I was born 9 March 1931 in Los Angeles, California to John Joseph Sabaté, Jr. and Miriam Hubert Sabaté.  A year after the 1938 birth of my sister Marcia, we moved “back” to New Orleans, Louisiana.  I put it that way because both my parents were New Orleans natives, had met in Los Angeles, and as a small child I already had visited New Orleans several times.  Beyond the second grade, I was educated entirely in Louisiana.  Prior to Tulane, I finished at St. Rita School and at Jesuit High School in New Orleans.  All Jesuit students then were Junior Marine ROTC, and drilled every day.  I became sufficiently proficient in the manual of arms to finish second in the Tulane NROTC Battalion manual of arms competition, one of my few distinctions there.  I remained a buck private in both units, both of which then drilled with a replica Springfield rifle with operable bolt and trigger.  A few of these still are displayed in the Navy Building.

 

My development certainly is not representative of all midshipmen, but I know that many in my class shared a similar growing experience.  From age 9 I had some job or other.  I started by peddling Liberty Magazine door-to-door.  From age 12 through 16 I had a paper route.  In 1944 I was surprised by an order to report to the offices of the Times-Picayune Publishing Co. (then at Lafayette Square).  The New Orleans States (their afternoon paper that I threw, plus the Times-Picayune on Sunday mornings) presented me with a $25 War Bond for making the highest school grades of any T-P/States carrier the previous academic year.  When 15 and 16 I worked as a motorbike (Simplex Servicycle, made on Carrollton Avenue near Bienville) prescription delivery boy and soda jerk for Nicaud’s Drugs on Claiborne Avenue, across from the Water Works.  Another fellow there told me he was saving his money for college.  I thought he was nuts.  I was going to buy a motorcycle and forever roam the North American Continent.  That store, which recently handled used window A/C units, was torn down just a couple of months ago.  Right before that, I ventured inside and was struck by how small it seemed.  When I told my story to the A/C man, he led me to a Coca Cola wall bottle opener that undoubtedly I had used 55 years earlier.  He gave it to me.

 

At Tulane, I worked in the bookstore, then in the “back room” of the basketball building, directly across from the back door of the Navy Building.  First I was used only at the busy registration time.  In 1951 I was put on half time, at the princely remuneration of 75¢ per hour.  Shortly thereafter, Tulane was outbid by the motorcycle shop where I always hung out.  The pay wasn’t much more, but I could work more hours if I wanted.  More valuable was being able to use the shop tools, buy parts at cost, and I was able to buy a brand-new Indian motorcycle for $600.

In the Fall of 1947, with Selective Service (the draft) still in effect, as a Jesuit Senior I applied for a Regular Navy ROTC scholarship.  This involved a written test and a physical.  I was advised that I had made the required 90^th percentile cut, and was ordered to take the physical, which I passed (many didn’t).  At that time, I was interviewed by a Lt. Cdr.  Somehow I convinced him my life’s dedication was to protect my fellow citizens from foreign evils by inserting myself between them at sea.  I had to be accepted to a university in order to qualify for the scholarship.  Given a list of NROTC schools (22 at the time), I applied to Tulane, which I actually wanted to attend.  I also applied to Georgia Tech, my father’s Alma Mater, and to Harvard, just to stretch my luck.  I was accepted by all three gullible schools, I believe on the strength of the Navy’s tough requirements, rather than by my high-school record.

 

I was encouraged by my father (thinking about the tuition?), who had earned an Army Quartermaster Corps (roughly equivalent to Navy Supply Corps) commission from Georgia Tech.  Previously, in September of 1918, he had matriculated in a Tulane one-year crash Army ROTC curriculum.  The day after 11 November (now termed Veterans’ Day), they all were told to go home.  It being too late for WWI, he went to Tech.  Eventually he made First Lieutenant in the Reserve, but wound up too old for WWII.  His father, John J. Sabaté, Sr., trained at Jackson Barracks in 1898 to be a Spanish-American War artilleryman, but didn’t make it to Cuba before the war was over.  Three of my great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy.  My second son, Captain Etienne René Sabaté, was Third Infantry Div. Target Co-ordinator in Iraq.  He is a University of South Alabama Army ROTC graduate, now in Artillery.  So, service kind of runs in the family.  The Jesuit priests were split on whether it was moral for me to train to be a professional killer, and of course my mother was scared to death that I would perish in combat.

 

My dad took me to all the Tulane- Georgia Tech football games.  We walked over to the stadium, a few blocks from home.  He always waited until just after kickoff and then bought tickets for half price from a frustrated scalper.

 

Regular midshipmen (those with scholarships) received full tuition, fees, books, a $50 monthly stipend, three summer cruises, and regular commissions.  Contract midshipmen received nothing until their junior and senior years, when they got $25 a month, and they attended one cruise between those years; they were given reserve commissions.  On cruises, we collected a seaman’s wage, $75 a month.  During the school year we were issued uniforms and insignia: dungarees; khakis; dress tans, blues, and whites; covers; white T-shirts and boxer shorts (which few guys - there were no ladies then - wore, in favor of Jockeys); and a London Fog-style raincoat with zip-in fuzzy liner.  The T-shirts, shorts, and dungarees were stenciled with our names.  We were responsible for our web belts (tan, black and white), ties (“field scarves” - black and khaki), white shirts (for the blues), shoes (black and white) and socks (black and white).  Most of this stuff we could buy from a ship’s store at the Navy flight-training base, now occupied by UNO.  Regulation shoes were six bucks, socks 50¢.  Each June we turned in all issued insignia and uniforms but the dungarees and underwear, which we were expected to carry along on our cruises. 

For the cruises, at the Unit we were issued khakis and climate-appropriate dress uniforms, along with whites that resembled regulation pocketless bell-bottoms.  However, the white trousers were straight-legged with center button fly and secured at the waist by a draw-string, rather like pyjama pants.  Collar and cap were rimmed with blue to distinguish us from active-duty hands.  All these were surrendered upon return. In September, we still-growing lads were re-issued stuff (not necessarily new) that fit us - sort of.  Graduates left with covers, ensign insignia, the smog overcoat, one set of decent dress blues and tans, plus two sets of khakis and dress whites (still not necessarily new) to start their careers.  I was able to get through three years of sea duty buying only one new set of blues and tans, and some khakis.  My whites yellowed a bit.  I gave them away, along with my old blues, tans, and caps, but was able to sell my newer blues and tans.  I kept my khakis, dungarees, and my raincoat, which remained useful for several years.

 

Heading into the winter of 1954, we were shocked to learn that we must buy a heavy bridge coat ($100) and a sword ($75, including harness).  At a monthly salary of little more than $200, that represented a major financial burden.  My ship spent the entire final winter of my service in the Philadelphia Navy Yard with a skeleton crew under relatively informal circumstances, so I was able to avoid this expense.  Now I regret not having bought the sword, which came with the owner’s name etched on the blade; that would have been a fine keepsake, and the whole rig goes for close to $500 these days.

 

A Jesuit aptitude test found me to be a born writer.  Consequently, I applied to Tulane as a journalist.  Shortly before my 1948 Jesuit graduation, I was called into the NROTC office.  They told me the Navy wanted technical people, not writers.  Rapidly developing weapons systems created a demand for electronics engineers.  I talked to the Dean of Engineering.  Somewhat skeptically, they accepted me. 

 

Prerequisite for me to enter Engineering were College Algebra and Trigonometry, which I took in the summer of 1948 (the Navy didn’t pay for it).  I already was quite familiar with Tulane, as a neighborhood kid having ridden through the campus many times on my bicycle, and visited most of the buildings.  Therefore, when I registered in September I felt quite at home.  In those pre-computer days, registration was a drag, standing in lines for hours on the basketball court.  I made the acquaintance of a new classmate along the way, a WWII Army vet eager to embrace civilian life.  When we finished, he insisted we buy Greenie beanies as demanded of freshmen, “Get with the program!”  I reluctantly agreed.  When we stepped outside on the corner of Freret and McAlister, two upperclassmen grabbed my arms, a third brandishing hair clippers.  I didn’t much care, knowing I was going to have to get “high and tight” anyway. 

 

But this part of the “program” offended my new friend. “Let him go!” he commanded.  Apparently, they didn’t move fast enough.  All I felt was a firm push.  When I turned around, three of the guys were on the ground, one of them sort of spinning around, and two others were backing away.  “And if any of you as much as touches my friend, you’ll answer to me!”  I was stunned.  He was all of 5' 6'’ and 115 pounds.  Seems he had been an Army judo instructor and privately held some high degree in jiu jitsu (we didn’t start hearing about “karate” until years later).  I’m not sure this was solely responsible, but freshman hazing stopped then and there.

 

Engineering almost was my undoing.  I’d been told by earlier Jesuit graduates who’d gone into what I’d later regard as “bull courses,” like Business or Pre-Law, that compared to Jesuit college was a crip, leaving plenty of time to drink beer and chase Newcomb girls.  Instead, it was six grueling days a week, including four afternoons of labs, little sleep, with Sundays being dedicated entirely to study.

 

I came close to being bumped out of ROTC as a freshman.  A midshipman had to satisfy his academic department to stay in the Navy.  My nemeses were a one-hour course called Engineering Procedures, primarily a unit-conversion course, in which I got an F, and a six-hour supposedly combination Calculus/Analytical Geometry course, which earned me a D.  Neither grade made the Engineering Department happy.  It was fortunate that my Navy cruise schedule allowed me to retake these courses in the summer of 1949. 

 

At this point I should emphasize that no classrooms anywhere were air-conditioned (nor were ships, as I later discovered).  This situation persisted at least until 1972, through my final days of formal instruction.

 

I had to average a C in each course, against my flunking grade, which meant I needed an A in the Procedures course, and a B in Math.  The little A was easy to make, second time around.  The Math course was split in the summer.  My first day in Calculus, a Chinese professor breezed in, bowed, and in a high-pitched wail suggested, “Ais dthrow ay SMOOSE coff!”  With that, he drew a smooth curve on the blackboard.  At that point, I fell into despair, but he proved to be an excellent teacher.  After he drew a few more SMOOSE coffs, I adjusted to his lingo, and eventually made an A in his course.  The Analytical Geometry hadn’t been covered at all by my original prof, and although I kind of liked it, I made only a C.  The A and C averaged to B, so I was in!  But my Engineering days were numbered.

 

An unfortunate thing happened in my Calculus class.  A buddy middy who had traded me his motorcycle (my first) for my scooter sat next to me on the last row.  On the final exam, while I was checking my paper, he seized it.  While I was trying to retrieve it, he and two others began to copy it.  My commotion attracted the attention of a couple of students who informed me immediately afterward that they would turn us in.  I told them they should.  I never was called to testify, but the Honor Board expelled all three.  My friend of course was kicked out of the Navy.  He went to LSU and was accepted by the AFROTC.  He finished Engineering, went to flight school, and flew an F-86.  We still are good friends.

 

That summer we all climbed aboard the Sunset Limited for a two-night Pullman train ride to Los Angeles.  The searing desert heat required our windows to be open (no A/C). In 1949, trains still were drawn by coal-burning steam engines. Soon our cars were full of smelly, gritty soot that worked its way into our khakis.  We nevertheless were required to keep our field scarves  “two blocked.”  At both Jesuit and Tulane that had been the rule, all day, no matter the temperature, or activity except sports; this begat within me a profound, life-long hatred of ties.

 

We were filthy by the time we transferred to the Coast train for San Francisco.  Most of us spent the night in the YMCA.  That evening, we dined at a seafood restaurant.  Their special that night was boiled crabs.  One of the New Orleans fellows ordered a dozen.  The waitress tried to explain that they were big Dungeness crabs, and that one of them usually satisfied most people.  He adamantly demanded a dozen: “I can eat two or three dozen crabs!”  Needless to say, the rest of us, including a couple other customers, consumed whatever we ordered, plus one or two of his crabs.

 

In the morning we were bussed to Treasure Island.  Each school was split among several vessels, as was the custom.  I was assigned to the USS Springfield, a light cruiser.  As we sailed beneath the Golden Gate and entered the Pacific Ocean, still lining the rails, I experienced my first roll, and surge of mal de mer.  By evening, I felt very ill, as did many of the others.  My first watch was in Steering Aft.  Descending through the bowels of the ship to its stern-most and bottom-most compartment, waving as it does in the ship’s wake, is no way to cure sea-sickness.  I was miserable. Curiously, every time thereafter I sailed, I always felt a moment or two of discomfort, but never tossed my cookies.

 

One of the guys in my compartment came up punching when he was awaken during the night by a messenger for his watch.  He earnestly and apologetically explained this was unconscious and incurable, so beware next time.  Next time, three fellows visited him.  Again, out he came, and he was corporeally readjusted.  Turned out to be curable, after all, except for the pain that lingered through his watch.

 

My duty station was a 40-mm quad mount.  Under the relaxed eye of the seaman who normally was responsible for that mount, I did all the work: disassembling, cleaning, and greasing the guns, and polishing all the well-worn brass fittings - every day.  I never got to shoot them.

 

My GQ station was in one of the Springfield’s three six-inch turrets.  These use semi-fixed ammunition, a brass powder case and a separate projectile.  Both are presented in the vertical position by an elevator, rolled by hand onto a tray, and then rammed into the breech, by a three-man crew.  We went through this drill every day.  To illustrate the military’s capricious nature, the rammer, who pushed a lever, was a 200-pound athlete.  The powder case, which weighed about 35 pounds, was handled by another big fellow.  The solid bronze, 130-pound practice bullet was wrestled by me - who at the time also weighed 130 pounds.  I had to spin around 180 degrees with it, and roll it onto the tray.  After two or three days I sort of got the hang of it.  However, just as I was gaining confidence, I dropped the damned thing, and somehow it found its way through very close obstacles three decks straight down, narrowly missing a man on each deck below.  The bullet flattened its bronze nose and created a conspicuous depression in the armor deck that brought it to rest.  There was a prolonged moment of silence.  They announced I had the distinction of being the first ever to make that happen, but I received no written commendation.  Fortunately, live fire used a much lighter projectile, as I remember 95 pounds.  I almost tossed the first one across the turret.

 

The Springfield sailed first to San Diego.  Few cared about San Diego.  Everybody wanted to go to Tijuana, Mexico.  I’d been to both places with my folks as a kid. My first Tijuana evening was on Shore Patrol.  Our duty was to inspect all the licensed bordellos, which were off limits to US military.  The Mexican cops and even the madams were quite cooperative.  They opened doors for us.  Literally, without knocking.  This was a bit embarrassing for a clean-cut kid like me.  I did return on liberty for a cerveza at what they claimed was the world’s longest bar. 

 

You know about the “first salute” ceremony?  Ours were premature.  I escorted a couple of my shipmates, all in tans, on the Pacific Electric up to Hollywood.  On Sunset Boulevard, we encountered three whitehats hassling three attractive young ladies.  As we approached, they braced, threw us salutes, and retired from the field.  This duly impressed the girls, who became our dates for the evening.  The following year when - similarly attired - I visited some activated LA Air National Guard buddies at Langley Field VA, the airmen wore out my arm.

 

We proceeded to Panama City.  Though the locks were under American administration, the town itself was not much different from Tijuana.  The beer was equally good.  Our highlight was a train ride across Panama to Colon, on the Caribbean side.  On the way to Panama, we’d looped around the Galapagos Islands, crossed the Equator, and we all became shellbacks.  I will spare you the details of the ceremony, leaving them for you to enjoy.

 

The Springfield, by 1970 a missile ship, visited New Orleans for Mardi Gras that year.  A seaman escorted me and my clumsily pregnant wife through some of the spaces, including my living compartment.  I pointed out a number of things to my wife.  As we were departing, he said, “Sir, you seem to be familiar with this ship.”  When I explained I’d sailed on her as a midshipman in 1949, he drew a deep breath.  “That’s before I was born!”  I thanked him anyway.

 

My Fall sophomore Engineering curriculum included two courses extremely important for me.  One was a one-hour course in Surveying, which turned out to be more demanding than most three-hour courses.  The prof was a martinet, fiendishly slashing Fs over work that easily would pass for surveying professionals - answers not correct at the fifth significant figure, despite clearly displayed knowledge of principle.  It was designed as a wash-out course.  In addition to all the ROTC troops, including Army and Air Force, the campus still was over-run with WWII veterans.  The other important course was to fulfill a non-Engineering scientific requirement.  I blindly chose Geology. 

 

As the Korean campaign heated up, many WWII veterans were reactivated.  One was an Engineering classmate.  He’d been a BM1, and his last duty had been tug-boat skipper.  He was on disability, his ass literally having been shot off.  He’d lost a big chunk of his left glute and adjacent hamstring, which left him with a conspicuous limp.  He returned about six months later, telling me he’d been training small-vessel operators.  This likely was in preparation for the Inchon invasion.

 

I was certain by this time that I was not cut out to be an engineer.  I hated it.  I couldn’t concentrate on it, or imagine doing it for a living.  After a month in Geology, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.  At that time, exams came after the Christmas holidays.  I was in deep doo-doo, again hurting for quality points.  I needed to spend the holidays cramming.  Our final surveying project was to map Audubon Park between Magazine and St. Charles (except the golf course, for safety I suppose) in exquisite detail - every building, tree, bush, pole, lamp, curving roadway, etc.  This would have taken the entire holiday period, all by itself.  I kissed off Surveying (only a one-hour WF), hit the books, and applied for Geology School.  Happily, I was accepted, and the Navy approved.  In January, my Surveying prof looked me up and told me he’d give me more time to complete my project.  Must I reveal where I told him to insert his transit?

 

Nevertheless, my general Engineering background turned out to be very useful in my professional field, petroleum geology.  Especially important is that no engineer can snow me.

 

Our 1950 cruise started in Pensacola.  For the first two weeks our group was split among several of the outlying fields (Whiting for me), most of them designed for basic flight training.  There, we were instructed in airframe mechanics and theory of flight.  Though we slept in barracks, we were treated almost like officers, including participation in the officers’ mess, and the swimming pool with their wives and daughters ...  After a few days there we were called to quarters and warned we might be activated immediately, because South Korea had just been invaded.  But things cooled off for us.

 

At “Mainside,” we studied meteorology and gunnery.  We sailed on the old Lex for a day to watch flight ops, and another day flew around in a PBM.  Every unit, including the Academy, was there.  One thing I can’t stand is macaroni and cheese, because during WWII rationing we too often had to make do with Kraft Dinner.  We were served macaroni and cheese morning, noon, and night for a couple of days until whoever had screwed up our mess plans got his head on straight.  At the geedunk stand, I blew pocket money intended for Singapore Slings ashore. 

 

To tighten our aerial gunnery, we shot skeet with a Remington 12-gauge (Browning hump-back design), the first shotgun I’d ever fired.  My first round broke 17 (of 25) clay pigeons, which impressed the instructor.  He invited me back.  I then broke 10, finally 5 or 6, and he lost interest.  I’m not much better now, although in later years I bought a GI Remington out of nostalgia.  Back at school, the Unit shot .22  pistol and rifle on the indoor 50-foot range under the old Sugar Bowl Stadium, where all our home football games then were played.  The rifle was an M-22 Springfield bolt-action single-shot.  The pistol was a Colt Ace, which used a factory .22 conversion unit on the venerable 1911 .45 frame.  Our coach was a grizzly Marine MSgt whose name I cannot remember.  Though right-handed, he could hold the pistol upside-down in a left arm withered by WWII wounds, fingering the trigger with his pinky, and shoot a better score than any of us.  His other distinction was riding a bicycle backwards.  The only respect I ever noted in his expression was when I rode likewise, better than he could.  In later years I competed in pistol and rifle target shooting, various calibers, collecting a few trophies.

 

At Mainside we slept in four-man rooms.  I was room captain.  We had to pass a white-glove inspection before Saturday liberty.  Our bedding was coin-taut and everything seemed spotless, including the undersides of the drawers in our chests, but with his knife blade the inspecting officer managed to recover a few grains of sand from between the floor boards.  Pensacola is ALL sand!  “I’ll be back!  One hour!”  When he returned, his glove went everywhere (ignoring the deck, from which he knew we had meticulously removed every grain).  Disappointedly, he exited.  But he paused, twisted his handkerchief into a spindle, and passed it through the keyhole. Triumphantly, he hoisted it aloft, displaying a fluff of lint.  My roommates were permitted to leave, but as captain I was required to “walk tours.”  In full tans and with an M1 rifle, we marched in the blazing sun smartly for two hours back and forth in a parking lot, halting at each end, snapping the rifle to the other shoulder, doing an about face, and taking off again.  At the end of the first hour I was allowed about three minutes (“On the double!”) to take a sanitary break and drink some water.  This was the day that two of my motorcycle buddies (later AF [a B-26 gunner] and Marine [a surgeon] Korean vets, now deceased) rode in from N.O. on a Harley.  They had to wait three hours for me.  The three of us squeezed aboard the bike for a swim.  We skinny-dipped in the Sound, which now is totally built up. 

 

Near the end of our Pensacola stay the N.O. Unit held a dance.  Seems one of our guys, a preacher’s son,  knew a pastor there, who recruited his young female parishioners for the fête.  Our exec, Major Norton (remember him well, not always with fondness) attended with our other officers.  It was a revelation to watch our Unit Disciplinarian quaff a few suds, have a good time, and appear almost human.

 

The last two weeks of that cruise were at Little Creek VA for amphibious training.  Each was issued a single uniform, green civvy-style work pants and shirt.  We sailed out into Chesapeake Bay on an APA (escorted by huge sting rays) and climbed down into LCMs and DUKWs via cargo net.  We ran around in circles, and then hit the beach.  The boats invariably ran aground on a sand bar, so we had to swim ashore.  They made us flop and roll around in the sand.  Every evening we showered wearing our uniforms, to get the sand and salt water out of them.  Breakfast was pretty cool in those still-damp duds, as were the morning classroom periods.  On the final day we assembled for a commencement ceremony, basically a pass and review.  However, the VIPs were more than an hour late, during which time we stood at parade rest.  In the 95° sun, almost 100% humidity, the yankees started passing out, crashing to the turf.  Our N.O. troops had no problem with it.

 

On that cruise the Academy closely trained with us.  I couldn’t see any difference in performance.

 

Our 1951 cruise was to Europe.  We were loaded on a train to Norfolk.  ROTCs were cast among the battleship Missouri (me), her sister ship Wisconsin, a tanker, and a destroyer screen.  Soon  we ran through a heavy blow that rolled the Missouri nearly 20° (I read it on the gauge myself), a lot for a big wagon.  One of the cans lost a screw, broached and rolled to almost 90°, and recovered heading downwind.  She couldn’t come about, so was given permission to return to Norfolk (on a mission a few years later across the Atlantic, one of the cans in my group did much the same; two sailors were killed on the mess deck by stacked tables that broke loose from a bulkhead, but the ship was not damaged). 

 

Our first port was Plymouth, England, an uninspiring place, about like landing in Baton Rouge.  But we made the best of it. English beer, drawn from the cellar at room temperature (a misleading term - even in summer there, it’s about the same as your frig) is superb.  Most Englishmen enjoy no more than a pint of beer on their way home from the coal mines.  Trained at Phillips on Maple Street not to be satisfied with fewer than six or eight beers, we impressed the natives by downing that many after an hour or two in their pubs.  That they were 16 instead of 12 ounces and considerably more potent than draft Dixie made little difference to us.  I discovered that a Cornish pasty, claimed to be a meat pie, is composed of a crust full of gristle and rancid gravy.  To kill time we attended a movie, where we met a couple of friendly girls.  Unlike in the US then (not now), when movies simply kept rolling over, this one startled us by ending in brilliant light, exposing us in friendly embrace with the girls, who were not the least bit embarrassed.  Our next stop was Cherbourg, France, perhaps a bit more like Bucktown, where we discovered French beer is even worse than American, and the hairy-legged girls were more disinterested in us than we were in them. 

 

The fleet then split between Copenhagen and Oslo, where I went.  Sailing up the fjord (drowned Pleistocene glacial valley, for you non-geologists) was a real treat.  Every home flew the Norwegian flag, and sailors in very small sailboats tried to outdo each other in how closely they could skim our hull (this was pre-USS Cole).  The beer there is excellent, and the girls were lovely blondes; we began to yearn for a brunette for a change.  A bunch of us were invited (more like ordered?) to a dress ball (blues), with assigned dance cards and all that.  Two of the young ladies were reputed to be Norse princesses, and I danced with one of them.  Return was uneventful, although my watches throughout the ship were varied and dizzying.  You learn an awful lot, and this was valuable to my first active duty station, sister ship USS Iowa.

 

Prior to our 1952 commencement, the First Classmen had a formal ball, in whites, and with dance cards.  My date, who never had seen anything like this, was impressed enough to reward me with a some small degree of affection.

 

I was concerned about graduation.  I hadn’t completed my 12-hour Humanities requirement.  Also, I didn’t have a real minor.  I was able to demonstrate that my needed second- semester Archeology course always had been scheduled concurrently with Naval Science.  They looked at all my Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, and Math hours and granted me a “scientific minor.”  Then they blew off the Archeology because we got no credit at all (except for grade average) for the Navy courses.  Still, I was sweating some course (can’t remember which) right up to graduation.  Guess I must have passed.

 

Graduation was al fresco in the Gibson Quadrangle, including all Tulane graduates except Medicine and Law.  We were in whites, wearing caps with officers’ devices, for which reason we didn’t toss them.  After being sworn in (together with Army and Air Force) by an Air Force officer, who diminished the moment by explaining anybody can do it, we swapped our middy shoulder boards for the real thing.  The Unit krewe was hanging around for “first salutes” on our final visit to the Navy Building.  As now, this was our first day of active duty, as well as our last day at Tulane - I mean, GONE!  But I note these days some green ensigns hanging around the Unit for weeks, awaiting permanent assignment.

 

USS IOWA

 

My first active duty station, in 1952, was the battleship USS Iowa in the Korean theater.  In early June I rode my Indian motorcycle from New Orleans to Burbank, California to visit my uncle, and left the bike in storage there.  After a few days I rode Greyhound up to San Francisco, and checked into the Shaw Hotel on Market Street.  The following morning I reported as ordered, was given another physical, and was told to stand by in my hotel room every morning until 09:00 for further orders.  They did not come for ten days.  With little money, I was unable to enjoy San Francisco as I should.  I found a nearby restaurant that served a full dinner, including a glass of wine, for $1.75.  My usual was filet of sole, and once or twice I had abalone (delicious!) for a dollar more.  Finally, I was ordered to report to a certain dock with all my gear and board the USNS Algol.  I shared a compartment with seven other officers, not all Navy.  We were given no idea where or when we would land.

 

Our voyage across the Pacific took two weeks.  The Algol was full of Korea-bound Army soldiers below decks and dependents from various services above, bound for Japan and Okinawa.  The dependents included a number of very attractive wives, along with many children of all ages.  We had the run of the upper decks and all dined together, in two shifts, in a large dining room.  Daily, the soldiers were herded in shifts to the fantail for air and sun.  One young lady, maybe 16 and awfully pretty, stationed herself against the rail of the deck above the fantail to tease the troops.  She created such a commotion that her mother was ordered to keep her out of sight.

 

Although the officers aboard were primarily passengers, we were required to take part in numerous drills, including an anti-aircraft shoot.

 

The Algol docked in Yokohama.  I was taken in a Navy Chevy - driving on the wrong side of the road - to Atsugi Field, where some officers took off for places unknown.  I was driven on to Yokosuka, where I checked into the former Japanese naval academy.  There I was given my first lesson in Japanese honesty.  We were quartered in a dormitory room with maybe ten bunks, and there was no lock on the door.  I was concerned about my life’s possessions, but was told not to worry about it, and to leave all my shoes out by my bunk to be shined.  Everything was tended carefully, nothing stolen.  I finally got paid (in script) and was able to go out on the town.  The base officers’ club was very nice, all wood and bamboo and glass, excellent food, and there was a comfortable outside patio lounge with an evening band and a beautiful Japanese girl singing the then popular China Night (“He ain’t got no yo-yo.”)

 

After two days of this tough duty, I was carried by boat to a PBY aircraft that had been built on the New Orleans lakefront.  I was the only passenger.  I’d heard stories about the PBY’s wings flexing so much they appear to be supplying the propulsion; still, their flapping at first was quite alarming.  We flew to Nagoya, where the Iowa swung at anchor, and made a water landing.  The ship sent a motor whaleboat for me, and within minutes, somewhat damp, I was in my home for the next six months.

 

In 1950 I had spent six weeks on her sister ship, the Missouri, on a cruise across the Atlantic, along with another sister ship, the Wisconsin (a couple of years later I rounded out the quadruplets by viewing the New Jersey mothballed in Philadelphia Navy Yard). They run midshipmen all over a vessel, so I arrived quite familiar with the Iowa’s layout.

 

However, I was not prepared for the “Clip Shack.” To accommodate green ensigns (a dozen of us), a magazine normally storing clipped 20-mm and 40-mm ammo was cleared out for us. The Clip Shack was outboard of the 01-level deck, port side, overhanging the main deck and connected to the superstructure by a breezeway. We were stacked three-high in CPO bunks. Having no portholes and inadequate ventilation, we had to leave its single door open all the time. Immediately forward was a dual five-inch mount. My first night off the Korean peninsula I was jolted awake by a loud explosion and a tinny clatter.  I banged my noggin on the overhead beam just inches from my face. Rubbing my head and still feeling the concussion from the explosion, I scrambled down from my bunk, thinking we had been hit. I was told to relax; this was just H&I (harassment and interdiction) fire, designed to keep the enemy busy and awake during the night. It worked perfectly on me, H&I-ing my sleep all that night. The next day, exhausted, I dragged myself through my duty and watches. The second night, I slept soundly, thinking we had spared the enemy. In the morning, however, the deck was full of brass powder cases, indicating that we had been shooting all through the night. I hadn’t heard a thing! In fact, port-and-starboard watches, frequent general quarters and drills, plus my division administrative duties, left little time for sleep; usually I felt nothing but the messenger’s shake when it was time to arise.

 

Actually, enjoying nearly complete sea and air superiority, we did not expect to receive enemy fire; attesting to this was the fact that our beautiful teak decking had not been stripped away for combat.

 

The Iowa sailed some seven or eight miles from the coast, beyond the range of the enemy’s light coastal artillery. But we could reach them with our 5"-38s, and the range of our 16" guns was greater than 20 miles. One day, when we had blundered a little closer than usual, I saw splashes about a half-mile short of us, so I can claim honestly to have been shot at. We silenced their battery with a few 5" rounds without even going to general quarters.

Once two MiGs flew over us at high altitude. Deep within my barbette’s magazine, separated from enemy aircraft by two layers of 16-inch-thick case-hardened steel armor, I indulged myself with fantasies of heroic death in battle. The MiGs turned tail when a neighboring carrier launched a flight of fighters, even though they were aerodynamically inferior F9Fs.

 

Probably our greatest risk was mines. Our path was swept regularly. While on watch, I spotted a mine bobbing freely only a few hundred yards off our port bow. Having slipped its anchor, it was the classic ball type, sprouting detonator horns. We stopped dead in the water and put a marine to work on the mine with his M1 rifle.  I could see hits, but his .30-‘06 bullets could not detonate the mine. Finally, we found a use for the 20-mm quad mount atop Turret No. 2 (the one that later blew up). It never had scored in our frequent anti-aircraft drills. We had a large marine contingent aboard because the Iowa was the flagship of COMPACFLT “Whiskey Jim” Holloway, whom I was able to thank personally, at dinner in his quarters, for the Holloway Plan that had put me through college. I think the 20-mm mount was just something to keep the jarheads busy - they cleaned and polished it every day.  They could not man it while our 16-inchers were shooting.  But one 20-mm burst blew the mine, producing a spectacular waterspout.

 

Sometimes my watches were in a 5" director. One very clear day, through its powerful range finder I noticed a lot of people moving around on the top of a prominent, bald hill. I suggested a shot. Fire Control advised me that we had quit shooting at this hill because their troops maintained a sea watch who sounded an alarm when he saw smoke, whereupon everybody would dive for cover before the bullet arrived. So why waste ammunition? I told him we ought to keep them honest. Off went a high-capacity bullet. Just before impact, I actually felt alarm; I realized the lookout literally must be asleep at the switch! Everybody just kept walking around unconcerned. I derived little pleasure from seeing their bodies flying about in the air after the hit.

 

My GQ station was 16" Turret No.1 officer. Like everything else in the Navy, the turret was ruled by the iron hand of a Chief Gunner’s Mate. While deferring to my rank, the Chief tactfully let me know that my job was to stay out of his way. Often I amused myself with the turret’s 20X periscope. Through the scope, one could follow the entire trajectory of the big bullet. Usually I didn’t know what our target might be, but I quickly learned to predict the bullet’s impact point early in its trajectory.

 

Unhappily for the North Koreans, their rail system mostly followed the coast, the interior being too rugged for laying track. Normally, trains ran at night and hid in tunnels during the day. Late one afternoon we caught an early train on a high trestle between tunnels. Watching through the periscope, never had I been so impressed by the power of the 16". The first shot broke up the train, flinging cars skyward several times their length. They spun in the air and tumbled hundreds of feet to the beach below. Several enormous secondary explosions confirmed the destruction of munitions. The engine and a couple of cars somehow made it into the tunnel. By dropping bullets inside its mouths, we sealed both ends of the tunnel, and we totally destroyed the trestle. Next morning we passed the spot after receiving the incredible intelligence that a train had run during the night. The tunnel had been opened, and a rickety-looking wooden trestle at least a hundred feet high and hundreds of yards long had been erected in a matter of hours - an amazing feat of manpower!  We shot it apart again with 5", knowing full well it was futile.

 

My pride in the 16" was sobered by a Wonsan Harbor mission. On a regular basis, we shot up the rail yards there. Recalling the tunnel/trestle-repair incident, I thought this was a waste of time. At Wonsan stood a smokestack hundreds of feet tall, reportedly the tallest in the eastern hemisphere. I watched our aircraft circle and bomb it repeatedly but vainly. I was advised that the stack was off limits because so much ammo had been wasted on it. Neverthless, we fired a salvo that fell at the stack’s base. Great clouds of debris obscured the target. When the smoke cleared, the stack still stood, stubbornly. I believe it’s still there, symbolizing North Korea’s tight clutch on communism in spite of its proven economic failure.

 

Often, however, our target was out of sight beyond the mountains. A marine second lieutenant spotted such shots from our ship's helicopter, a twin-rotor HUP.  One day, at a range of 22 miles on a reverse slope, we were able to fire for effect after the first spotting round.  For $25, the Lt. sold me his personal sidearm - a .45 Colt Commander and shoulder holster plus hundreds of rounds of ammunition - because he had been ordered to carry a Navy-issue .38 revolver. This, my first pistol, was used to shoot at garbage tossed from the fantail. Within months, I was forced to sell it (for the same price) because a "welcome aboard" letter from the skipper of my next ship forbade personal weapons. Later, aboard my new ship, I was saddened to learn that my leatherneck comrade had been killed while spotting, shot down by small-arms fire.

 

 

There were other sobering moments. While standing watch near the bridge, I came alongside an escort destroyer, the USS Thompson, whose OD and helmsman had been killed by a direct hit to their bridge. We were to store their bodies in our butter and eggs locker, and we took aboard two wounded for medical attention. I knew that a friend - Louis Bernard - neighbor, and classmate, including grammar school, high school, and Tulane NROTC, was aboard that little ship. To my relief, he was the First Lieutenant directing his DE’s high-line operation, having time only for a brief greeting.

 

In later years, No. 2 Turret was destroyed catastrophically by a mysterious explosion.  A movie was made of this event.  The central character, responsible for investigating this accident, was the officer of Turret No. 1, who would have been ME.  I related this to the OD when the Iowa visited New Orleans on Mardi Gras in the 1990s.  Among other comments, he advised me that the 16" fire-control computers are the same mechanical devices we used, wheels and gears and levers and gyros, electronics offering no improvement.

 

Toward the end of our Korean tour, the Navy announced it wanted fleet sailors nominated for college NROTC, and I was handed our division’s jackets to make the picks. Being NROTC myself, I embraced this program with enthusiasm. Requirements included the candidate being a high-school graduate; unmarried; age 21 or less; have a mental score I remember being more or less equivalent to a 100 IQ; and being of good moral character.  My First Division had 109 whitehats.  Only my petty officers might have qualified academically, but all of them were over-age and/or married.  Sad commentary.  I believe Navy recruiters now are a bit more particular.  One of my men, a good-natured kid always eager to please, was so dense he had to be reminded continuously about what he was doing, when he was swabbing the deck.

 

The Iowa returned to Yokosuka, its Japanese home base, a number of times.  The shops ashore offered remarkable merchandise, like ivory chess sets, Canon cameras, and Noritake china, for almost nothing.  I still have some of that stuff.  Ordering things was no problem.  We never knew our schedule, but all the Japanese did: “You go Friday, back two week.”

 

A train ran from Yokosuka to Tokyo and beyond.  Kamakura, home of the world’s largest Buddha, was a fun place.  On a Tokyo visit, I decided to try one of those baths with half-naked women, the whole works.  They trimmed and shampooed my hair, manicured and pedicured me, and dumped me in a big, round steaming tub commanded by a woman who looked like a female Sumo wrestler, dressed only in a breech clout - not very enticing.  She scrubbed me until I was red all over, dragged me out and massaged every part, rubbing me with some kind of oil, wiped me down, dabbed me with perfume, ordered me to dress, and dismissed me.  I’ve never been so clean in my life.  Walking down the street two heads above all the inhabitants, I felt like the wind was blowing right through me.

 

One day we anchored back in Nagoya, where I’d originally joined the ship.  We were invited to a party at an all-service O-Club there.  It was a rather formal affair.  A few American ladies attended - wives, I think - but most were Japanese, all in slinky satin evening dresses, looking very American from behind.  A shipmate and I sort of monopolized a couple of the cutest ones who spoke good English, and we all had a great time.  One of the girls invited us to her home.  Somewhat skeptical, we rode with them in a taxi along the waterfront, which is all shipyards.  She casually mentioned, gracefully waving her hand,  that her father owned “This,” then farther along, “And this.”  We drove up to a house that rambled across a hill overlooking the harbor.  Her father, who knew the other girl, welcomed us graciously.  Wearing western clothes, he discreetly disappeared.  The place was an incredible mix of traditional Japanese and western rooms.  We sipped French cognac and talked spiritedly until we had to leave.  Their chauffeur drove us back to the dock.

 

Initially apprehensive about traveling among a recently vanquished enemy, I later felt safer among them than anywhere else in the world.  Several times I took the train, simply got off when a bunch of Japanese did, and looked for a place to eat.  Cafés often looked like all the other houses, except for scribbling on the walls.  One afternoon I dismounted, crossed the track with a half-dozen puzzled natives, only to encounter no more than two buildings in sight.  Fortunately, one was a restaurant.  Few of these people spoke any English.  I just patted my stomach, and they brought hot saki and food until I waved them off.  Sometimes I had no idea what I was eating, but it all was good, flavored exquisitely.  As recommended, I didn’t eat anything raw (vegetables likely were fertilized with human droppings), and my hosts displayed no offense.

 

In late October, 1952, the Iowa was relieved by the Missouri in Yokosuka Harbor, our home port. The sister ships swung together on a single buoy, in full dress, an impressive sight. In connection with the ceremonies, I was ordered to pick up some VIPs with the Captain’s gig. Several gentlemen in civvies and ladies clambered aboard and we headed back. One gent asked me my name and introduced himself as “Mark Clark.” General Clark was our Japanese occupation’s military governor at the time, having relieved McArthur to run the Korean affair.  He introduced me to Ambassador Holmes, to other dignitaries I don’t remember, and to all the ladies. The gangway hung from the Missouri’s starboard quarter, and the two ships were joined by a stage between their after decks, so to reach the Iowa I had to cross the Missouri’s fantail.

 

By this time, all hands on both ships were lining the rails. A Japanese military band on the Missouri was playing Sousa marches, and we were singling up. One of my shipmates, whom I will call Mike, who earlier had been sent on a mission like mine, failed to make muster. Mike’s roommate remembered him saying he might hoist a few at the Officer’s Club. Thinking fast, he ran across the stage to the identical Missouri to check their corresponding cabin. Meanwhile, all lines between the ships had been cast off, we were drifting slowly apart, and the stage connecting us rapidly was becoming too short. A Navy band now was playing our National Anthem, ladies’ hats and dresses were fluttering in the wind, and VIPs stood at attention. Not having time to dress Mike, who was dead drunk in his skivvies, his roommate rushed him across the stage in a fireman’s carry, in his hands holding what pieces of Mike’s uniform he could, and he carried him along the starboard main deck to their room. VIPs and the ships' senior officers looked on aghast, and both crews struggled to contain their laughter.

 

Mike was disciplined by a senior officer I will call Commander Jones. We sailed immediately to Sasebo to unload most of our ammo, later to be picked up by the Missouri. I had liberty in Sasebo, and Mike drew boat duty.

 

Some of us decided to go to the Matsu Lodge, a night club up the hill from the Officers’ Club. Because of a local ordinance, we had to supply our own liquor.  We stopped at the Officers’ Club to pick up bottles. There I noticed Cdr. Jones already drinking at the bar. We had a great time at Matsu Lodge. They took our shoes and assigned a neat geisha girl to each of us. The girls hovered over us constantly, refilling our drinks, serving food, and dancing with us between acts. Many years later, I was told Matsu Lodge is a whorehouse. I was there for hours, and never realized it! The entertainment was absolutely devoid of sex: it included acts like a sword swallower, a paper-doll cutter, a juggler, and ballroom dancers. The girls never gave us a hint. We tipped them well and left our liquor bottles - still nearly full - with them.

 

We had to be at the dock by 22:00. At about 21:45, we arrived to find Cdr. Jones in the bottom of the LCM, staggering drunk and quarreling with an equally drunk CPO. Mike, the boat officer, went below to break up the fight. Cdr. Jones ordered him to leave the dock, right now! Mike advised the commander that he had his orders: no earlier than 22:00.  Cdr. Jones became insistent about leaving.  Mike asked, “Sir, are you relieving me of command?”  The issue was resolved by Cdr. Jones passing out. Mike invited me to remain topside to help navigate.  Back at the ship, Mike carried Cdr. Jones up the gangway, up to his cabin, and put him to bed. We sailed the next morning. At quarters, Cdr. Jones looked terrible. Glowering, he ordered Mike to his cabin. There he informed Mike that his jacket had been cleared of the Yokosuka incident.

 

The Iowa sailed from Sasebo minus our senior Chief Boatswain’s Mate, who in effect functioned as our First Lieutenant.  When we reached Pearl Harbor, he sailed out with the pilot. He calmly resumed his duties.  Never heard of any discipline.  Maybe it was some sort of mission.

 

On our way to Hawaii, because we no longer were essentially at general quarters all the time, we shifted from port-and-starboard to one-in-three watches, a great relief.  My watches now included the bridge.  We sailed alone right through a typhoon, winds reaching more than 70 knots at times.  The bow, 60 feet above the waterline, plunged deeply into the sea and rose to pour many tons of water over the forecastle.  Safety lines had been installed between the ship’s eyes and port and starboard doors on the main deck.  The port anchor chain started to jump around.  We could see that a pelican hook had opened, but was still intact.  A man was ordered to secure it, timing his task with the ship’s motion.  As the water subsided, he ran forward, knelt over the hook, closed it, leaped to his feet, and rushed toward the port door, chased by a huge wall of green water.  From the bridge, we couldn’t see whether or not he had made the door.  One of the major I-beam lifeline stanchions near that door was bent completely over by that wave.  We started breathing again when we got the report he was safe. 

 

In Pearl Harbor we tied up right across from the Arizona, which then was merely a piece of rusty junk barely emerging from the water, continuously emitting globs of oil.  I had one day ashore.  Several of us rented a Dodge convertible and drove completely around the island of Oahu.  We wound up at the Grand Hawaiian Hotel, on Waikiki beach, which during WWII had been taken over by the military.  After a drink or two on the veranda, admiring an enormous nearby banyan tree, we were approached by a couple of cute sisters, kids of a stateside family visiting the island.  We danced with them for a while, under their parents’ watchful eyes.  I don’t know where their brothers were, but we borrowed the boys’ trunks and swam with the girls.  Very nice USA homecoming.

 

From Hawaii we proceeded to Long Beach CA.  When we made port, many families greeted their sons.  Many of the crew had been assembled from the West Coast when the ship was being de-mothballed in Bremerton.  I was able to spend a couple of days with my uncle and his family in Burbank.  With some difficulty I wheedled permission to bring my motorcycle aboard for our voyage to the East Coast.  The day of departure, I retrieved my Indian from storage and rode it onto the dock, expecting to have it slung aboard, but no such rig existed.  A narrow gangplank, with traction strips, and a hand rail only on one side, stood against the ship at a 45° angle, the last few feet overhanging the deck.  It looked almost vertical to me.  Holding my breath all the way, I backed off, took a run at it, and sailed onto the fantail; the Third Division BM1 glared at me for leaving rubber on his deck.  My bike rode in the after-starboard machine shop all the way to Norfolk, tied to an upright stanchion.

 

The Iowa sailed to New York, passing through the Panama Canal.  Like all U.S. ships of that era, she was designed to pass through the Canal.  Somehow, the donkey engines atop the locks, dragging us along with cables, maintained an even six inches on either side.  When we reached Gatun Lake, we opened water hoses to dissolve salt scale in the lines, and with the fresh water began to hose sea salt from the superstructure as well. “Carelessness” soon resulted in a thoroughly soaked crew. I agreeably allowed myself to be drenched - in the equatorial heat, it felt good. The party ended when somebody hosed down the skipper.

 

On the way to New York, I was assigned some administrative duties and served no more bridge watches.  A large number of our crew was from the New York area.  I went ashore, and found the place unpleasant.  A couple of visits in the sixties confirmed this impression, but on more recent visits I found the people there to have become much more agreeable.

 

From New York we sailed directly to Norfolk, with which I already was familiar from middy cruises.  I was carrying transfer orders to the USS Siboney, a jeep carrier then drydocked in the Portsmouth Navy Yard.  This time my motorcycle was slung down to the dock.  I rode it in freezing weather (now December) to a downtown cycle shop for temporary storage, and immediately thereafter reported for duty.

 

I was permitted to take my first leave, over Christmas.  I rode the Norfolk and Western to New Orleans and reveled for ten days as a temporary civilian.  

 

I spent two and a half more years in the peacetime Navy. Somehow, it wasn’t the same.

                     

 

USS SIBONEY

 

“It was a dark and stormy night ...” very cold in December of 1952 when I left the Iowa with all my gear and reported aboard the USS Siboney, an escort (“jeep”) carrier.  These were designed during the Pacific campaign to provide alternate landing sites for planes off the big carriers.  She was in drydock in the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth VA, a short ferry ride across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk itself, having her hull scraped and painted, and undergoing minor repairs.  I was led to my quarters, starboard-aft 02-deck, shared with as many as five other junior officers.  Most of the following 2 ½ years, however, four of us occupied it, occasionally sharing space with a squadron officer or two. There was no porthole, and the outer bulkhead curved in sharply aft.  We were directly below the flight deck, about where most landing aircraft hit it with a resounding thud.  Hanging from the outboard overhead was a sheave assembly that reeled in a flight-deck arresting-gear cable.  This sheave screamed whenever its cable was hooked, made growling sounds when the cable was tautened, and persistently dripped lubricating oil, despite several repairs.

 

I reported aboard in khakis.  While in the Yard, uniform remained rather casual.  But when we manned the rails to get underway, we shifted to blues.  Prior to this, I’d been treated with little deference.  When I appeared wearing five campaign ribbons and a battle star, more than any officer aboard below lieutenant, my shipmates displayed surprise and respect.  They’d thought I was a green ensign, graduating in mid-year.  Maybe I acted that way - I don’t know.

 

Being a line officer, I was assigned to a deck division, again First Division, as on the Iowa covering the forecastle regions.  This time, as on the Iowa, I was responsible for Division compartment cleanliness and other such chores, but I had few personnel duties.  The reason for this was my collateral duty to the Supply Officer, a Lt. Cdr.  It was his bright idea that Wardroom Mess Caterer (menu, food preparation, and grocery shopping) and Wardroom Treasurer (manage officers’ mess dues) should not be elective or appointed as elsewhere but be combined  under his command.  He convinced the skipper of this, and I held that job for the balance of my Navy career.  One of my jobs was to police seating assignments, based on date of rank, to include squadron officers when aboard.  Sometimes this was contentious, calling for study of the complainants’ jackets, often decided by a day or two.  Our Executive Officer, a Commander, was President of the Mess, whilst our Captain dined privately.  Ship’s officers accounted for about 30 members, which about doubled when a squadron was aboard.

 

Initially suffering numerous complaints and hoping to avoid more, I installed a menu suggestion box in order to please my messmates.  Instead, complaints soared.  It’s impossible to please everybody.  I decided to completely satisfy at least ONE diner: myself!  Curiously, I began to receive favorable comments and few complaints.  Sometimes this produced odd results.  I tried one of our favorite New Orleans dishes, red beans and rice.  They enjoyed the beans immensely, but being unaccustomed to plain rice, most passed it up.  Next time, I pre-mixed the beans and rice, and they consumed it with relish (well, I have to be careful with terms like that, because many of them had peculiar tastes in the application of condiments, especially catsup). 

 

There were numerous limitations, in particular perishables: fresh meat, eggs, butter, and milk.  Having limited storage ourselves, we had to draw and pay for such items from the enlisted locker.  Margarine works fine, and we found mixing some powdered milk with powdered eggs, plus a covert touch of Tabasco, greatly improves ersatz scrambled eggs.  I was proud of this job, feeding my shipmates well without ever having to collect more than our $42/head monthly mess allowance, which was paid directly into the mess account.

 

The in-port OD was required to wear a holstered .45, unloaded with two loaded magazines in a duty-belt pouch.  I liked to practice field-stripping the piece.  I was doing this with my eyes closed when my thumb slipped from the plug.  I opened my eyes in time to watch the plug, with the recoil spring, fly over the side, and splash in the water.  Because the routine was for the ship’s armorer to recover the pistol at 08:00 and replace it with another, I didn’t say anything about it.  Relieving the watch a week later, I inspected my piece - it never had been replaced, and obviously never had been looked at by any intervening OD.  With my best show of indignation, I ordered my messenger to advise the armorer that my pistol was missing some parts, and that he should report immediately to the quarterdeck with a sound piece.

 

I’d say the Siboney was at sea more than docked.  About half our steaming was within a day’s reach of Norfolk, generally at sea from two weeks to a month, in port for a week or two.  Being built on a T-2 tanker hull, for cruises like that we were able to carry enough of our own fuel plus aviation gas, and also were able to refuel our screen, usually five or six DDs or DEs.  Also, our aircraft were fueled several times daily.   This means the smoking lamp was out a great deal of the time, which never affected me.  My smoking was confined to an obligatory puff on cheap cigars tendered by new fathers.  The other half of my tour took us across the Atlantic or into the Caribbean for extended periods.  Our Atlantic cruises usually included a fleet oiler and a few more cans under command of a flotilla commodore: a captain, junior in fleet command to ours.

 

All our missions had to do with the development of anti-submarine warfare, discussed elsewhere.

 

We crossed the Atlantic twice.  My landing recollection is confused by time, so I will treat our visits as if they were on the same cruise.

 

My second visit to Cherbourg was a bit more interesting than the first.  In their best café I ordered boiled shrimp.  The shrimp came out like dry, tiny grass shrimp, the sort we use here for perch bait.  I tried to peel them, leaving no meat to speak of.  An elderly couple at a nearby table, grinning, signaled manually that I was to eat them whole.  It was like munching grasshoppers.  Their vin blanc was only middling, unusual for France. Another culinary adventure was more satisfying.  A roommate and I rented bicycles and rode up the hill into the countryside, visiting cavernous Nazi gun emplacements overlooking the harbor.  For lunch we stopped at a small store in the middle of nowhere.  Against the proprietress’ objections, we selected a loaf of dark bread, instead of the light stuff she recommended.  It was a wonderful relief from the half-baked Bunny Bread at home and aboard ship.  We tried a number of different cheeses, all delicious, and a bottle of excellent Bordeaux.  I picked a can of sardines off the shelf, which horrified the dear lady.  Because of restrictive tariffs against that Norwegian product, it cost as much as everything else we consumed combined, which at the time actually amounted to almost nothing. 

 

The town threw a party in our honor, providing beer and wine, many young ladies, and a band for dancing.  I was assigned to the Shore Patrol unit that covered this event.  I remember particularly one especially pretty blonde who, despite copious leg and underarm hair, closely resembled Brigitte Bardot.  We were instructed to check occasionally the alley behind the building, where some of the partying ladies sold their favors to our crew, against the wall or perched on garbage cans, shamelessly grinning at us.  By agreement with the local gendarmerie, we were to leave them alone so long as there was no violence.  My ardor for “Brigitte” evaporated when I discovered she was the busiest one.

 

On the way to the Med we put into Lisbon, Portugal.  For lunch, a compatriot and I visited an elegant downtown hotel recommended by a guide book.  Right away, I became nervous.  In its luxurious lobby a string quartet was playing.  The dining room was much more ornate than any in New Orleans, or elsewhere I’ve seen since.  We ordered drinks and studied the menu.  I picked a meat dish, and my shipmate ordered chicken, both dinners complete with various vegetables and what not.  Out came soup and then salad, which nearly satisfied me;  I wondered if I was going to be able to eat my entreé.  With our bottle of wine came a large tray that bore - apparently - all the food we’d ordered, so we divvied it up, cleaned it off, and dug in.  I was puzzled by the obvious dismay of our waiter, until he began to deliver course after course of our main order, including desert, which we hadn’t anticipated.  It took many rending belches and another bottle of wine to polish all that off.  The initial tray had been full of appetizers! To subdue our rebellious innards, we finished with a cognac. Total bill, including a generous tip, amounted to about $3.50 apiece, things being a little different then.  We took a train to the casino at Estoril.  My friend led me to the roulette wheel, for which he had a system: play black and red, or odd and even, and on any loss double the next bet, and you can’t lose.  After a dozen or so spins, the croupier politely but firmly advised us to try another table.  Others were betting hundreds of dollars-equivalent every spin.

 

After passing through the Straits of Gibralter, we encountered a strong south wind and a blinding dust storm from Morocco.  During the blast, an eagle blown from the firmament lit on our highest yardarm to rest.  Some of the crew tried to tempt him with meaty morsels, which he haughtily ignored.  Our running light shining on him failed to dislodge him during the night.  In the morning, it was clear, and he was gone.  His dignity added more substance to my military insignia.

 

Next stop was Naples, Italy.  I had duty the first day in port.  My comrades were returning with new Beretta .25-cal. automatic pistols they had bought from some character in an alley for $12.  That evening I went ashore and followed their directions.  A fellow there explained that they’d sold out, but he knew a private owner who might sell me his.  Against my better judgement, I followed him through even cruddier alleys to a tenement, upstairs to where a large family was at supper.  A gentleman (?) excused himself from the table and showed me a worn-out Browning .32 automatic in which I had no interest.  Nevertheless, he invited me and my guide to join them at their meal, and would not excuse us without our at least drinking a glass of wine with them.  I’ve never developed a taste for Italian wine, and their hospitality didn’t help.  The next day, I toured the city’s points of interest, a lot less frightening.  In a cavernous mall, I bought a harmonica to replace my own worn-out instrument.

 

In Athens, Greece, seat of western civilization, several of us hired a taxi for a tour of their magnificent ruins, which to me by comparison with modern architecture illustrate the depths to which humanity has plunged over the millennia.  Awaiting the liberty boat, in a dockside bar we sampled the favored Greek beverage, ouzo, which alone is sufficiently foul to condemn the entire nation (just kidding!)

We put in to Turkey’s secondary port, Izmir.  Water there is so shallow we had to anchor miles out, a navigational challenge for our liberty boats.  The big deals there were Persian rugs and Meerschaum pipes, neither of which I bought, but some of the guys loaded up. The underground exchange rate there was the most ridiculous I’d encountered,  making things almost free.   Missing my own bike, I rented a motorcycle, a little 250-cc BMW one-lunger, to tour the place, dressed in mandatory coat and tie.  The shop didn’t trust me to return it, so they made me take one their young fellows along.  Along the way, I stopped at a restaurant, which stood alone in the countryside, atop a hill.  My boy obviously was hungry; they wouldn’t let him in the dining room, but agreed to feed him in the kitchen.  I was seated at a table in their impressive Moorish dining room next to some Turkish army officers.  Much deference was shown to an older, bald one.  Sneaking a peak at the illustrated pocket guide we were issued for each nation, I identified him as a Lieutenant General.  Spotting me as American military, despite my mufti, he gave me a courteous nod.  I had a delicious lamb dish, with all the trimmings, along with a wonderful beer.  All this luxury worried me, but the bill, including the kid, amounted to a couple of bucks.  Later, at a hotel bar I ran into a Tulane alum, a young tobacco company employee, who drove me in his new Oldsmobile to the American Club, where all the American tobacco execs met.  It was like Homecoming.

 

Our last stop in the Med was at Algiers, capitol of Algeria, then still firmly under French control.  Sound close to home?  I told a French naval officer I took a ferry to Algiers all the time, the part of New Orleans that’s across the Mississippi River.  Laughingly, he responded that his ship had put into New Orleans and he’d done the very same thing, to see what it’s like, and was terribly disappointed.  I took a tour of the Casbah, thinking it might be like our French Quarter.  While it contains some well-preserved, marvelous old Moorish structures, it’s a horrible slum.  On one of the curving stair-step pathways through the place, an old fellow was gouging and eating parts from a raw sheep’s head. 

 

Overlooking the harbor is a nice park, sloping between the main street and a low wall about 30 feet above a street below that runs along the waterfront.  This area’s affliction is juvenile pickpockets.  There’s nothing subtle about them.  They circle you, and when your back is turned they take a run at you and try to snatch your wallet or wristwatch - all under the gaze of gendarmes who make no move to stop them.  I was OD on our last evening, when the gendarmes dragged one of our squadron officers, somewhat inebriated, to the ship.  Pestered by pickpockets in that park, he grabbed one as he went by and playfully tossed him over the wall.  He was startled to hear a long wail and a thud, not realizing how high a drop it was to the street below.  The kid survived without serious injuries, but our officer was booked with assault, and the US consul talked them into surrendering him back to the ship.  I had to toss him in the brig to sleep it off, because he was determined to go back ashore and take it out on somebody.

 

Our final stop was the Canary Islands.  I had only a few hours there.  I told the bartender, whose broken English complemented my fragmentary Spanish, that I came from a place full of Islenos.  In an effort to possess  adequately the western reaches of their Florida colony, in the late 1700s Spain sent many Canary Island families to the St. Bernard Parish area.  I told him I grew up not knowing the “ez” names - Martinez, Fernandez, Nunez, Ramirez - were not English.  He laughed.  He was a Fernandez, and was aware that some of his ancestors had become Americans.

 

Some of our operations were in the Caribbean, which brought us to Guantanamo Bay (GTMO, or “Gitmo”) several times.  On the Cuban coast just west of Gitmo is the small town of Siboney.  Nobody seemed to know whether that had anything to do with our ship’s name, and we never stopped there.  We did go to Havana, where upon tying up we were honored by a formal visit by the dictator Generalissimo Fulgencio Batista and a commander (wearing Pensacola wings) who commanded his navy’s (?) air force (?).  They came to the bridge, where our captain directed me to take them on a tour of the hanger and flight decks, and for coffee in the wardroom. This, of course, was pre-Castro.  Later, as an oil-company executive, I was invited on several occasions to fish off Gulf rigs on what had been Batista’s private yacht, a beautiful mahogany creation now named the Lone Wolf (had it been Lupo Solidad?)  We enjoyed Sloppy Joe’s - Ernest Hemingway’s favorite bar - and La Floridita, claiming to be inventor of the frozen daiquiri, with a row of Waring blenders buzzing continuously.  A marvelous night club along the beach, mostly outdoors, featured scantily clad ladies who appeared to be dancing amongst the crowns of the palm trees.

 

Port au Prince, Haiti, far from being princely, stimulated no desire to return.  My great-great grandfather, Guillaume Hubert, a plantation owner, had been forced to flee Haiti by a slave uprising in the late 18^th century.  According to History of New Orleans, far from being a Simon Legree, he was helped by a faithful slave to sail away, but in December of 1814 he again was evicted from his plantation near Chalmette LA “by a roving band of British soldiers.”  Just off the dock was a colorful group of buildings that remained from a world’s fair.  One beckoned us to partake of an adult beverage to help us endure our visit.  The inside of the building characterized the nation itself: it was an empty facade, splinters of wood and chicken wire behind the crude outside plaster.  The inhabitants of the land wore colorful but ragged clothes.  Here and there strolled better-fed, non-uniformed men openly carrying revolvers, and the citizens gave them wide berth.  They were the Tonton Macoute, a third-world version of the Gestapo.  One attractive place existed, a hotel that catered to visitors.  Behind the bar was a salt-water tank that covered an entire wall, featuring huge green turtles and containing many colorful fish.  One of the guests was a cheerful, talkative fellow.  When I told him I’d studied Geology, he asked me to wait, and quickly returned with a bag of rocks.  They were bauxite, the principal aluminum ore.  I told him that some of his samples resembled a school hand sample that was represented to be high grade.  This excited him.  He was a prospector.  He invited me to accompany him into the mountains, which of course I could not do.  Much of the bauxite refined in Louisiana is mined from Caribbean islands.

 

 In Kingston, Jamaica it was fun to listen to black cabbies who sound like Londoners.  Many sailors never got farther than the bar on the dock of the lovely hotel where we landed.  The uniformed doorman there was a tall, thin, stiff black man wearing rows of British campaign ribbons.  Some of us heeded an invitation to visit the British Army officers’ club, a short cab ride away in the hills.  I’ve never seen an American officers’ club so stiff and formal looking, very much like an uppity country club - which, in effect, it was.  My supply officer boss had directed me to return to a dock address to pick up some frozen, boxed meat he’d arranged for.  He sent the captain’s gig to pick me up.  When we unpacked the meat, we detected an unpleasant odor.  The ship’s doctor examined it and told me it wasn’t officially rotten, but he wouldn’t eat it.  The barracudas around there probably still are trying to digest it.

 

Perhaps I should put in a word for Navy medicine.  Any affliction that involved fever, coughing, sniffling, nausea, or rashes called for an APC pill (the “All Purpose Capsule”: Aspirin,  Phenobarbitol, and Codeine).  The patient was expected not merely to survive this potion, but also to report for duty within 24 hours.  However, Sick Bay on the Iowa performed surgery on sailors wounded off Korea, transferred to us from smaller vessels.  On the Siboney, we had several cases of shock after non-fatal air crashes, broken bones - primarily from sailors falling through hatches - and at least one emergency appendectomy. 

 

My first Navy dental visit was on the Siboney.  You don’t make an appointment: you’re ordered there.  I approached with some trepidation, sure I would walk out toothless.  Instead, he cleaned my teeth and scheduled me for several filling replacements.  This done, he announced the X-rays showed my lower left wisdom tooth to be impacted.  After many shots of novocaine, he attacked me with chisel, mallet, levers, pliers, and other indescribable implements of torture, whilst explaining he also had to take out the perfectly healthy upper because without opposition, it would do strange things.  I forbade that, and he readily agreed to leave it in.  Sure.  Whatever you say. Small, bloody pieces of my lower tooth began to accumulate on his tray.  With dismay I watched this gory collection grow, and was shocked to see my upper tooth appear there - I hadn’t even felt the sneaky scoundrel pull it.  Later, my civilian dentist told me the fellow had done excellent work.

 

While in Philadelphia I reported to Philadelphia Naval Hospital to ask about the removal of a face mole I kept cutting with my razor.  I was surrounded by doctors, bored with disgustingly healthy sailors and looking for something interesting to do.  Before they were finished, anything that wasn’t perfectly smooth skin was gone.  I walked out of there looking like the loser in a Chinese hatchet fight. 

 

Generally, Navy medical care was excellent.  But Philadelphia also fit me for my very first pair of glasses.  I couldn’t see with them.  They said I’d get used to them.  I wrote it off to unfamiliarity.  But they never got better.  Later, I visited a private optometrist in Norfolk.  He checked me out and looked at the Navy prescription.  Scratching his head, he said it read just like his.  He put my glasses in his refractor.  They weren’t close!  Obviously, they’d given me the wrong pair.  Some sailor probably still is feeling his way around with mine.  The Norfolk dispensary made up a new pair for me, and they were fine.

 

St. Thomas, American Virgin Islands, was a strange experience.  At the time we visited, taxi drivers were on strike.  Their idea of a strike was to take you anywhere you wanted to go and not charge anything; they wouldn’t even accept a tip.  We went to a hotel night club at the other end of the island to hear a great steel band.  Honeymooners there became visibly impatient about our dancing with their brides, so we decided to leave.  Unbeknownst to us was that the taxi strike had been settled, but for some reason no taxis were available at the hotel.  We began a foot trek to the dock, which was several miles away, knowing we’d be technically AWOL.  Then we found out why there were no taxis.  Several were lined up at a school where a party was winding down.  They insisted each of us would have to pay a full fare, four bucks apiece, even if we shared one hack.  So, each of us sat in a hack of our own.  When the first in line started out, the rest honked at him, stopping him.  They all refused to have anything to do with us, obviously anticipating immediate loads from the school party anyway.  So, we started hiking back down the road.  Soon, we became aware of one of the taxis pulling up to us, possibly relenting.  Just then, a bus swung from a side road and stopped for us.  For a nickel apiece we rode the bus to the dock, in plenty of time.  Ugly Americans - but with provocation.

 

I bought a car, a ‘50 Mercury, and was allowed to park it on Norfolk Naval Base, except that I couldn’t leave it there when we were underway.  I had to store it in a downtown garage for 50 cents a day.  I also had a motorcycle.  They allowed it on the Base, but I couldn’t park it there overnight.  I left it chained to a fence outside the main gate along a street that led to the nearby Newport News ferry.  The result was predictable.  My new Triumph motorcycle was stolen, and although the joy-riding thief rode it back it had been heavily damaged.  So I paid a downtown shop to fix it and store it, which meant I couldn’t ride on a Sunday, unless they planned to ride as well.  Eventually, a classmate and his family rented a house where I could leave it.  I rode all over eastern Virginia and northern North Carolina.

 

As a relief from shipboard quarters I liked to stay overnight in “tourist cabins,” which then cost about $2.50.  In a tiny Virginia town where I was the only guest that evening, the owner, a little old lady, invited me into her house for a Coke, and persuaded me to play Canasta with her and her attractive teen-age daughter.  Although I hate cards, I won back the cost of my room.  To cut her losses, the lady ordered her daughter to accompany me to my room, turn down my covers for me, and see if everything was OK.  The girl sat on my bed, talking incessantly, and was a chore to get rid of.  What on earth could she have been thinking about?

 

You might divine that in those days I had unconventional - by modern terms -  relationships with girls.

 

Normally I could park my car right on the dock next to the Siboney.  One day they spray painted a ship across the dock.  I and a whole dock full of drivers were dismayed to find our cars covered with tiny droplets of haze gray.  The Base was not the least bit sympathetic, saying that we parked at our own risk.  I found that if I carefully plucked at each droplet with a fingernail, it would pop off, and the residue would disappear under rubbing with a cleaning compound.   A friend invited me to meet him at one of the parks for a family barbecue.  They’d brought along a young female neighbor who was quite attractive and friendly.   I parked in the shade, and fortified with a Budweiser started picking at my car.  She came over to aid me, using a wooden fingernail groomer that worked better than a fingernail, saving ours.  She plucked furiously, and I rubbed, and within an hour or so we were done.  My car never looked more beautiful!  When we parted, I got her phone number.  Next time in port, I called and suggested we dine and dance at the Air Station O-Club.  The main club was pretty stuffy, but those zoomies know how to live!  She sounded agreeable, but hesitant.  Finally, she admitted she was married to a whitehat who was at sea, and she didn’t want to go to a Navy facility, particularly one limited to officers.  I could see the headlines: Sailor Murders Naval Officer Messing With Wife! So much for that.

 

Much of my social life was in Washington DC.  I drove up there several times.  A good New Orleans friend, now an attorney, had gone through Tulane Air Force ROTC in Electrical Engineering, and spent all his time in Alexandria VA working on classified projects he will not discuss to  this day.  He went to Georgetown Law School at night.  His AF roommate was the quintessential college boy, adept with a ukelele, dancing the Charleston like I’ve never seen, and a master at promoting parties, girls and all.  Twice, the police joined us in their apartment, so we had to go public.  The Andrews AFB had a remarkable O-Club, with several restaurants, bars, and ballrooms.  Once I was asked to meet the group at a downtown DC lounge.  I arrived early and went to the bar for a beer.  When my friends arrived and chose a table, I spun from my stool to greet them.  A firm hand gripped my arm.  “You can’t do that!”

 

“Uh, what?”

 

“You can’t carry your drink to the table.  I’ll do it for you,” urged the waitress.

 

“Thanks, but I can manage.”

 

            “You don’t understand - it’s against the law.  You can’t drink standing up.”

 

“Excuse me, Ma’am, but I’d think that would be a better test of sobriety than drinking on your butt.”  Since, I’ve become extremely impatient with silly liquor laws.

 

The Siboney participated in the Naval Academy’s 1954 commencement.  As soon as we tied up, a herd of lovely young ladies was ushered aboard.  They were guests of the graduating first classmen.  Several wore diamond rings and were scheduled to be wed the next day.  They - and we junior officers - enjoyed a tour of the ship, and punch with cookies in the wardroom.  I followed some of our officers, dressed in whites, to the Academy O-Club.  Two five-star admirals already were there, having a good time with our skipper.  He made sure we met them.  They were Nimitz and Halsey.  A few years ago in the Fredericksburg TX Nimitz museum, in a conversation with a rabid Nimitz fan I offered him the hand that had shaken Chet’s hand.  He accepted my hand, but I’m not sure he believed me.

 

The Siboney spent the winter of 1954-55 in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  Time was allowed for some folks to drive up there from Norfolk and meet the ship, while for others they hoisted our vehicles aboard, including my motorcycle.  With United Services Automobile Insurance [look into it!] on my ‘50 Merc, I had no problem driving onto the Yard.  For the time it took me to get the required coverage for my BSA Gold Star, I had to leave it in an open lot outside the gate.  Considering my experience in Norfolk, this was frightening, but my bike survived. 

 

Anticipating policy approval (this was before e-mail or fax), in our machine shop I fabricated a tiny windshield of plastic and aluminum merely for attachment of my base sticker.  It gave me surprising weather protection in the colder months, as in December when I wove along the meandering Schuylkill River.  January was a bit of a shock for a southern boy.  I’d found an unused shed on the Yard for my bike.  Thinking that yankees who garaged their bikes  for the winter were pansies, on a clear, frigid day I decided to take a ride.  With some difficulty I got the beast started and proceeded out the shed.  When I got into daylight, the bike instantly fell to the ground. I couldn’t pick it up.  The pavement was covered with clear ice.  Two yardbirds came by. After a hearty laugh, they helped me pick it up.  Sliding around amongst tires and boots, it took all three of us to get it back into the shed.

 

Several incidents involving Philadelphia girls caused me some embarrassment, disappointment, or concern. 

 

I met a Navy physical therapist (no remarks, please) in the Yard O-Club and dated her three times before I had to tell her I was not that kind of a boy (old fashioned?  By this time I was “sort of” engaged to a girl back home). 

 

My father worked for an insurance company whose headquarters were in Philadelphia, and he called one of its officers about my presence. Dad told me the daughter was pretty blonde my age, who was a TV model for one of their local beers.  Watching Friday night fights in my favorite bar on South Broad Street, I’d seen her on TV.  Hey!  I called and visited the father, who was a nice guy.  He fixed me up with his daughter for a date.  Excited (a model!), I picked her up and took her to the O-Club for dinner and dancing.  She was bored (been there, done that) and looked as if her sponsor had paid her in kind - I think she outweighed me.  I concluded she must have filmed a series of commercials a few years earlier.

 

My embarrassment stemmed from one of my collateral duties, ship’s photo officer.  We took stills of all take-offs and landings, sometimes from the air.  All were processed in our own shipboard lab.  Always having been interested in photography, I enjoyed this, even a ride in an AF, which scared me to death - I never imagined that our flight deck could look so small!  Anyway, the skipper arranged a ship’s party, a smorgasbord and dance in a North Broad auditorium I regularly see now on Friday Night Fights, The Blue Horizon.  As usual, we depended on church pastors for women, and this time they really let us down.  My photo boys took a lot of pictures.  One of my lads proudly showed me one they’d taken of themselves at a table laden with beer bottles.  I laughed and pointed to one of the girls, whose face was oddly contorted, and commented, “Man, I wonder where they drug these in from - look at this one!”  A pregnant silence ensued, and all the men stared at me.  Finally, the lad responded, “Sir, that’s my sister.”  He lived in Philadelphia (why didn’t I know that?)  He invited the whole lab to Christmas dinner, which I couldn’t make because I was on leave.  So he invited me especially to dinner in January, and I met his sister, along with her fiancé.  She actually was quite attractive and very nice.  I asked her if her brother had told her what I’d said about her.  She giggled and told me she never was very photogenic.  She accepted my apology very graciously.

 

Professional concern arose over a young lady at the Yard offices.  My supply officer boss ran me over there a few times with requisitions for all kinds of stuff.  My contact was a Yeoman Third, awfully cute.  I dated her twice, picking her up at home, of course avoiding Navy hangouts.  I don’t know what happened, and never asked: the XO called me in and asked me if I was aware of the Navy’s policy about its officers fraternizing with enlisted females.  I told him yes, sir.  He turned back to his business without a word.  My last personal connection with her was a phone call explaining the situation.  It didn’t seem to surprise her.

 

Many Philadelphia bars were circular or horse-shoe shaped, designed to allow guys and dolls to stare at each other across the bar.  At 16:00 our brand new ensign (oddly mature, more about which below) and I went into a bar like that downtown, but not to connect.  Nevertheless, I had a hard time not staring at a strikingly pretty dark-haired girl across from me.  She was accompanied by a not particularly attractive older woman.  Two seedy looking guys proceeded to hassle them.  The women looked across at us pleadingly.  My companion surprised me (I knew he was a family man) by telling me he’d take the older woman, having noticed my interest in the young one.  I followed him around the bar.  He asked, “Are these gentlemen annoying you, ladies?”  Their answer was a welcoming smile.  My heart raced - not so much for the ladies, but about the position in which we placed ourselves - however, the guys reluctantly retreated.  We had a couple of drinks and pleasant conversation with the girls, after which mine told me she had to go home for dinner.  The other one said she had to catch a bus.  My shipmate announced he’d return to the ship.  The bartender warned us to be en garde - the two guys were cops, mean ones.  I accompanied the girl home.  Right downtown, a couple blocks west of Broad, is a gated street reminiscent of Audubon Place.  She lived in an impressive mansion.  Her parents greeted me in the most hospitable manner.  Others were present.  They invited me to share dinner, which I gratefully declined, explaining I had to return to my ship.  The girl gave me her number, but we were leaving the Yard in a matter of days.  When I asked my friend about the cops, he announced he wasn’t too concerned: he’d been a marine judo instructor.  I know how to pick buddies.

 

He was a WWII veteran who rose to master sergeant in the Marines.  Upon discharge he immediately married his high-school sweetheart, found a job, but later started college on the GI Bill.  After a couple of years of school and three kids, the family was starving.  He needed more money.  At that time (Korean campaign), all the services were advertising they’d take a vet back at discharge rank.  Tired (he never explained why) of the Marines, he talked to the Navy.  They told him they couldn’t offer him his equivalent rate, CPO, but because of his weapons experience they recruited him as Third Class Gunner’s Mate.  With family allotment, the pay was sufficient.  In record time he passed tests and was promoted to GM2 and then GM1.  Shortly after taking the CPO test, he was appointed to OCS.  A couple of weeks after he reported, he received a letter telling him he had been promoted to Chief.  He took the letter to his commander and requested liberty to celebrate.

 

“What?  You know the rules.  No liberty the first 30 days.  Anyway, in a couple of months you’ll be an Ensign.”

 

“With all due respect, sir, from what I’ve seen just about anybody can be an ensign.  It takes a hell of a lot of hard work to make Chief Petty Officer.”

 

“Get out of here!  You’re confined to quarters!”

 

As he sat in his room staring at his promotion letter, the skipper’s messenger appeared and handed him an envelope.  He didn’t want to open it, afraid he’d been kicked out of OCS.  Finally, he slit it open.  It contained a liberty card and a note signed by the skipper: “Congratulations!  Have a good time.”

 

In December, 1954 the captain invited me to lunch in his cabin.  After our meal and some pleasantries, he asked me what my plans might be.  I told him I expected to complete my obligation (then three years) and in June return to civilian life.  Actually, I was suffering some degree of military burnout - eleven years, including Junior Marine ROTC, Navy ROTC, and three years of active duty. Smiling, he informed me that the Navy was very pleased with my performance, and that soon my pay grade would be receiving $240 instead of the $220 I presently was making.  I doubted his assurances about my standing (see below) and had been corresponding with oil companies.  All had told me I needed a master’s degree to be a geologist, and I had been accepted at LSU on the GI bill.  I had substantial savings, and contemplated Navy separation pay and a Louisiana vet’s bonus.  A geologist’s pay was more than twice a jg’s.  Also, I had decided marry my New Orleans sweetheart, expecting to propose on Christmas leave, and I never felt right about the married state while in the military - just a personal thing.  The captain shoved a paper at me.  It was a form completed for my signature, expressing my intention to leave in June, and in the meantime accepting a reserve commission in lieu of regular.  I signed it and handed it to him.  “Captain, this makes it look like you were pretty sure how this would turn out.”  He gave me a cordial but unmistakably dismissive nod.

 

On a freezing night I was relieving the midwatch when at about 04:00 one of our warrant officers staggered aboard, quite drunk, his overcoat buttoned askew and covered with vomit.  My relieved OD and messenger escorted him to his room.  He made it to morning quarters and disappeared until six officers, including him, mustered for .45 pistol qualification.  We were driven to the Yard’s outdoor range on a clear morning at 15°F in a stiff wind.  I was one of the first to fire, five rounds at 15 yards on a big 50-yard target.  Confidence carried from my NROTC .22 pistol performance evaporated when no holes appeared on the paper.  My Marine Gunny coach politely pointed to some chewed-up dirt five yards short of the backstop.  “You’re jerking the trigger, sir.  Squeeze slowly.”  I put all shots on the paper, a couple in the black, and that satisfied him.

They called the warrant officer, sleeping it off in the bus.  With watery eyes he hunched his way to the line, hoisted his pistol, Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! put his gun down without looking at his target, and lumbered back to the bus.  He put all his shots in a two-inch group, right in the middle of the black.

 

In recognition of my skill(?) with firearms, I was given command of a newly formed color guard.  With M1s we practiced the manual of arms on the flight deck every day for a week.  Some of my people had fired an M1 in boot camp, but none had drilled with them, and I’d never handled one.  “Inspection arms” being mandatory for safety, there was an epidemic of the dreaded “M1 thumb,” including mine.  Things went slowly, but despite my anxiety my color guard performed flawlessly when we piped aboard an admiral for our return-to-sea ceremony.

 

In early March of 1955, the Siboney returned to Norfolk with all our vehicles, which soon I had to put in storage because after a local shakedown cruise we headed again for Gitmo. Having cut most of our crew for our Yard work, we’d staffed up with a crew that was bigger and greener than ever.  This Gitmo visit was very different.  It was an intensive training exercise conducted by civilians. Consequently, we had to adjust to their schedule.  Up anchor at 08:00, drop anchor at 16:00, weekends off.  Underway, there was no rest.  I loved this:  “A busy sailor is a happy sailor.”  It reminded me of my combat experience on the Iowa.  With appropriate apologies, by comparison the peacetime Navy is rather Mickey Mouse.  For example, in those days short Wellington boots were in fashion, and sometimes a cuff would drop into a boot.  In the PX at Norfolk a commander angrily growled, “Get your trousers out of those boots!”  I startled him by laughing, though I quickly snapped to with an aye, aye, sir!

 

Along these lines I have to confess to a serious breach of regulations.  Because of all our spare time in Gitmo, after supper I went ashore most evenings to the Club for a swim and maybe a snort. The Club had a liquor store that sold popular brands for about a dollar, when back home the stuff was about four times as much.  Anticipating separation and some celebration at home, every evening I’d smuggle a bottle aboard in my swim bag until my safe was full.  Mind you, I never had as much as a sniff of it while aboard.  When I finally disembarked, I cumshawed a blanket and wrapped my stash with it in a suitcase.  The messenger helping me to my car was a little guy who could hardly pick it up. “Lieutenant, this is awful heavy - what do you have in here?”  Exercise weights, I told him.

 

Tulane’s graduation had been the first day or two in June, but the Siboney kicked me off in mid-May because they were leaving Norfolk on a cruise that wouldn’t return by June.   When I reported to the separation folks, they immediately started to process me out.  I demanded a job or other delay until June. “Why?” they asked.  Because I was concerned someday some Washington bureaucrat without much to do would review my jacket and discover I hadn’t fulfilled my full three-year obligation, and then what?  Regulations produce a certain amount of paranoia.  Nevertheless, I was driving back to New Orleans about ten days early, towing my motorcycle with a fork-hitch I’d designed and built at the hobby shop.

Perhaps I should say something about Academy graduates.  As midshipmen who cruised with us, they seemed no more qualified at anything we were doing.  As officers, all were quite cordial to us ROTCs, except for a certain amount of “ring knocking.”  At the junior level I could not perceive any particular official favor toward them. On the other hand, few of our pilots and senior aviation officers were Academy. Curiously, the Academy guys seemed laid back because after the taut discipline of Annapolis they were experiencing a much higher degree of freedom.  I found them to be very narrowly focused.  We were much more liberally educated and privately experienced because of their academic confinement. 

 

The Siboney often had three officers on the bridge: OD, Junior OD (JOD), and Junior Officer of the Watch (JOW).  The reason for this is that all junior flying officers must serve a certain amount of surface duty and make OD before they can be promoted.  Hordes of jgs and lieutenants came aboard for up to six months for this purpose, and then were gone.  I broke in dozens of ODs, a little scary. They would appear as JOW and in a few weeks become OD, skipping JOD.

 

I became more familiar with the ship, her performance, and routine than anybody aboard, including the succession of captains I sailed under, all transients.  This got me into trouble.  The Siboney was a tub.  Being a tanker, she had a flank speed of only 19 knots, but could be persuaded to 21 or so in a pinch.  On a calm day, especially in warm waters, it was all we could do to get enough wind over the deck to satisfy our flyers.  Turning time was something like watching a lunar eclipse, and a full-rudder turn brought the ship to a 1/3-speed wallow.  Formation sailing always was limited to the slowest ship (us); still, keeping up was a chore.

 

One clear day we were sailing, flank speed, at right angles approaching all the other ships, which were sailing in a line to the right, bones in their teeth.  We had to turn right and fall in at the tail end.  I had the con.  I stationed myself at the alidade out on the port flying bridge.  My plan was to maintain a near-collision course with the last ship’s stern, falling left only very slightly.  I planned on a half-rudder right turn that would slow us as we slid into line, falling behind the last ship no more than would give us some chance of regaining station as we picked up speed.  I and others had done this many times before. 

 

The captain, a green one, watched nervously, shoved me aside to read the alidade for a few seconds, and commanded, “All engines stopped, left full rudder,” thus relieving me of the con.  I immediately retired to the starboard flying bridge to stay out of the way.  At some point, the captain cranked her up and around.  When we were on course, he glared angrily at me.  I merely turned and emotionlessly glassed our screen, literally disappearing over the horizon.  I’m sure that’s tucked in my jacket somewhere.

 

 

EARLY ASW

 

Although I started out as a battleship sailor (Missouri: Atlantic; Iowa: Korea), I spent most of my Navy career on an aircraft carrier.  She was the USS Siboney, an escort (“jeep”) carrier built up from a T-2 tanker hull (we routinely refueled our destroyer screen).  From late 1952 to mid-‘55  I was one of her Gunnery Dept. officers, always part of the Atlantic Fleet.  My entire Siboney tour was spent in the development of Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) techniques, although I was ship’s company, never directly involved in aviation operations.

 

Our first ASW aircraft already were WWII museum pieces: F6F, F4U, Grumman Avenger, Douglass Dauntless, and blimps.  We did not land the blimps, but provisioned and fueled them with pick-up lines as they hovered overhead.  They recruited several of us for blimp-pilot training, but I demurred when I learned I’d have to extend for a couple of years. Later we flew the AD, AF, and helicopters, and when I left we’d gotten into the twin-engine S2F.

 

One of the AD pilots I befriended didn’t much like them.  Aeronautical hot rods, they had an enormously powerful radial engine with so much torque it tends to rotate the plane around the propeller.  Landing at Norfolk, his engine “hiccupped.”  When he hit the throttle to clear the engine, his plane did a 360° roll and somehow hit the ground on its wheels.  He was detained for several days for de-briefing, because in most such incidents the plane lands upside down, killing the pilot.  How did you survive?  He insisted nobody could do what he did intentionally.

 

Most of the time we flew the AF, which was the largest single-engine (same radial, air-cooled, 18-cylinder, 3600-horsepower mill as in the AD) aircraft ever built.  They flew in hunter-killer pairs.  One carried a huge radome beneath, while the other was armed with disposable sonobuoys and depth charges.

 

The helicopters were of the single-rotor type (I don’t remember their designation).  They operated at shorter ranges, and dunked their sonar from a line instead of dropping a sonobuoy.  We also flew the twin-rotor HUP off the starboard quarter for rescue.

 

During my 2 ½ years of ASW exercises, we lost a number of planes, but suffered no serious casualties.  A few went down at some distance and were rescued by the screen. I witnessed five, all AFs: one lost power immediately after being catapulted; one somehow jumped the barrier and landed on another plane, destroying both; one carried a cable over the port side; and another tried to wipe out the island.  The latter two were said to have violated wave-offs.  All hands survived.

 

Sadly, during amphibious exercises off Vieques I witnessed the loss of a returning helicopter and 16 marines.  Its tail-rotor boom collapsed, the resulting main-rotor torque causing it to spin and literally augur into the water from perhaps 75 feet. It was a single-rotor machine with a cab-over-engine appearance, and large openings on the sides (similar to those often pictured during the Viet Nam era).  The pilots scrambled out of the top and inflated a raft, but the troops went to the bottom.  They must have been stunned by the impact, and didn’t recover quickly enough to shed their gear and climb out; I saw no such attempt.  The machine sank in seconds.  They were recovered the next day.  The water is so clear there that at the150-foot water depth I could follow the 5:1 chain scope all the way to the anchor.

 

For that exercise we were host for hundreds of Marines.  They were quartered on the hangar deck.  When they returned each day from their “assault,” the first thing they did was hunker down and clean their rifles.  Before they could eat, they also had to shower.  Two salt-water shower heads, running continuously, were rigged on a sponson, together with a single, triggered fresh-water rinse.  They all walked naked from sleeping bag to shower and return, a practice I imagine had to be modified when Navy ships of the line started to admit females.

 

Our squadron guests bragged about their ability to find submarines.  I know from my bridge watches that we found plenty of foreign subs, primarily Russian.  I also feel that few US subs penetrated our screen.  After “killing” us, they’d triumphantly hoist their periscope, and I saw that only once.

 

I’m sure nowadays this sounds like a Model T operation!

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

Shortly after I returned to New Orleans I received a letter from the commandant of the Eighth Naval District, Algiers, ordering me to report immediately for duty in their active reserve unit.  I ignored it.  Soon I got an urgent phone call from a commander over there, explaining that under the law I MUST report for five years active reserve duty.  I advised him that I was familiar with the law, which imposes an eight-year service obligation, but the part after active duty may be inactive reserve, which I chose.  A few days later I received another letter from the admiral, bluntly telling me that if I did not enter his active reserve unit, he could cause me to be yanked back to active duty.  On his letter, which I returned to him, I penned a note asking him if the most terrible punishment he could think of for not joining his reserve unit was active service as an officer of the United States Navy.  That was that. 

 

But don’t get me wrong.  If my country needed me, I would have gone willingly.  I’d go now.  You must consider that all my class had grown up during the Great Depression and WWII, and then served during the Korean conflict.  We all were wondering what it might be like to enjoy the peace we’d been denied for so long, along with the growing post-War prosperity.

 

But I wonder how many people were trapped this way.  Service is one thing, but honesty is another.  For example, one of my Siboney signalmen mentioned to me that he had washed out of the naval air cadet program, and that’s why he was in the Navy.  How long now, I asked.  It had been nearly five years.  A bright fellow, he wanted to finish college.  I said they’d told us midshipmen, when on our Pensacola cruise, that the required hitch for a wash-out was the same as the current enlistment period, which was four years.  Maybe he should discuss it with Personnel.  My next watch he approached me as if he wanted to kiss my hand.

Few of my 39 mates of the Class of ‘52 made the Navy their career.  Three made captain - no admirals.  Most ranks above jg were earned in the reserve.  At this writing six are deceased, none in combat.  I’m not sure if any served in Viet Nam.  A plaque honoring our class is affixed to the east bulkhead of the Navy Building.

 

For spending money, the two summers after leaving the Navy and while in graduate school I worked for a contractor my family knew.   I scraped, painted, finished cement, insulated walk-in florist refrigerators, and did some carpentry.  My immediate boss, a big black fellow, told the contractor he’d never seen a white boy work like that.  One day I was shoveling a ditch alongside a building in preparation for a plumber to lay a line.  The plumber turned out to be a motorcycling acquaintance from the “old days.”  Watching me wipe sweat from my brow, he advised me that being a laborer was a dead end.  I had to learn a trade.

 

After two years at LSU (1957) I earned my MS in Geology and went to work for Shell Oil Company.  My New Orleans fianceé and I then wed, a marriage that lasted ten years until she died of a kidney disease.  We had no children.

 

While at Shell, I became interested in the business side and began undergraduate business courses at Tulane’s University College, completing 36 credit hours and earning a Certificate in General Commerce, along with an award for the highest grades in the night school certificate program.  I moved across the fence to Loyola to get my MBA.  After my first wife’s death, I decided to attend night Law school at Loyola, and in 1972 received my JD (#22 of 222, including day-school graduates) and passed the Bar Exam.  Since then, I have been a licensed attorney and a certified petroleum geologist.

 

By 1972 I was a Shell Senior Geologist with low expectation of advancement, remarried (to a girl who worked at Shell), with a small son.  I told Shell, either make me exploration manager or shift me to the legal department.  It didn’t happen.  I moved to Koch Exploration Company as manager - later vice president - of their Gulf Coast operations, and was blessed with yet another son.

 

Since 1986 I have been president of two small oil and gas exploration companies, San’Doil and Energetix Petroleum, and Vice President of a small environmental company, Lumitox.  I remain active in oil and gas exploration.