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FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS
Reflections on the Navy Career of a Teenage Ensign
By Ronald Vail AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Ronald Vail
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-3487-5
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
YEAR OF UNCERTAINTY
The spring of 1942, with United States' participation in the war about six months old, found me, a brand new high school graduate, without a goal for the future other than the military draft in about a year on my 18th birthday. In those days, a young man was able to volunteer for whatever branch of the service he desired, but after reaching the age of 18, he had no choice but to be drafted and let the powers that be decide where he would end up, more than likely in the Army infantry where the demand was the greatest. For some reason, I had always had a preference for the Navy. The reason may have been that, when I was quite young, one of my aunts gave me a Navy house coat similar to the ones worn by the Midshipmen at the Naval Academy. I was always very proud of that robe. Consequently, I had it in mind that somehow I would end up a sailor.
At that time, the war in the Pacific was not going well. The Japanese, fully mobilized with superior numbers, were gradually wiping out our deployed forces in the Western Pacific areas. Our entry into the war in Europe had yet to be felt there simply because our mobilization efforts were proceeding very slowly. It should be remembered that it was necessary to convert civilians, including all the zootsuit jitterbuggers, into fighting military men, a monumental task in itself, and that manufacturing companies had to re-tool their production lines from consumer goods to war materials, at least as monumental. The latter was made more difficult as workers were called up for military service. So, to fill the void, women (who, up to that time, rarely were employed in "blue collar" manufacturing positions) came forward to replace the departing men and do men's work all down the line. The "Rosie Riveters" gave quite a showing for themselves and proved very handily that they could do "men's work" at least as well as the workers they replaced.
On the home front, rationing was becoming a way of life. Many essential consumer goods were either rationed or were unavailable. For a citizenry accustomed to having anything and everything as long as money was available for the purchase, shortages of such consumer goods required a major readjustment in their style of living. The rationing of gasoline, butter, some groceries, and fresh meats had a varying affect on every household. As I recall, in our restaurant, the only items for which we had to collect ration stamps were the fresh meats. Shortages of other items, such as the beer, ice cream, candy, tobacco, and cigarettes, were not very evident in the spring/summer of 1942.
Sometime around May or June, my folks heard about a government program run by the National Youth Administration (NYA), consisting of training, both classroom and field work, for young men to prepare them for various careers. As a result, I signed up for a program of field engineering which, as it turned out, was being conducted in Carbondale, Illinois, in association with the Southern Illinois Normal University (SINU), located in that city. There was no cost involved other than my transportation to the site.
Carbondale is located near the southern tip of the state in an area known as Little Egypt, primarily because there is a city on the southern tip of Illinois named Cairo, pronounced "Karo," I guess to distinguish it from its namesake in Egypt. It was the longest distance from my home that I had ever been by myself.
When I arrived, there were about 20 or 25 other fellows in the program who had been there for varying periods of time. We were housed in a large home, nearly a mansion, with an enormous yard surrounding it. The size of the yard sticks in my memory, because one afternoon I had to mow the entire yard by myself using a hand mower (power mowers had yet to come on the market) in time to catch a train back to Anchor for a weekend visit.
The house was a short walk to the center of town and was located adjacent to the SINU campus. We would spend one week in class studying various elementary engineering courses and then one week in the field doing actual engineering work.
The work in the field was the most enjoyable. We worked out of a laboratory and were assigned a car to use to go to and from the job sites. I was usually the driver, having had my driver's license since my 15th birthday. The job sites consisted of two areas where dams were being built. At the one site, the dam was already about 40 feet high with wet cement still being poured daily. At the other, the foundation for the dam, consisting of hard packed dirt and clay, was being prepared. Our job was to go to the sites and take samples to bring to the laboratory for testing which we were taught to do ourselves. Our results were written up and actually used by the construction company engineers.
One day we were required to go to the dam under construction to obtain samples of the wet cement. A couple of us had to climb a ladder to the top of the dam, some 40 feet up, and then haul up with ropes metal forms measuring about 2 to 3 feet long, 8 to 10 inches wide, and about that deep. Once we got them to the top, we had to fill them with wet cement and then, again with the ropes, lower them to the ground.
Filled with wet cement, they had to have weighed at least one hundred pounds a piece. I look back on that and wonder how we were able to do it without block and tackle. We took them back to the laboratory, let them dry for a while, and then subjected the dry cement blocks to a stress test to determine how much pressure it took to break them.
About August, I left Carbondale and returned to Anchor. I don't recall whether I was dismissed or whether I left voluntarily. I do know that my folks received a letter of appreciation for my participation in the program later that summer.
It was coincidental that about that time the United States launched the first major offensive operation against the Japanese by invading an island in the Solomons, a group of islands in the Western Pacific. The island, reported as and subsequently known in history books as Guadalcanal, was in a location where the Japanese forces could use it to threaten supply lines with Australia and New Zealand, both of course, U.S. allies. Some time later, I don't recall exactly when, I read a news article that said the actual name of the island is Guadalcanar and that the name became Guadalcanal as a result of an error in a news report sent back to the U.S. from the battle zone. Years went by and I was never able to verify the validity of that article, but after my retirement from the Navy, I was looking at an old world globe that my parents bought for me when I was a young boy in the early 1930's. Out of curiosity, remembering the article I had read years previously, I looked for that island in the Solomons and there it was just as the article had indicated—Guadalcanar.
The return to Anchor was timely in that it allowed me to apply for admission to the fall semester at Illinois State Normal University (ISNU) located at Normal, a small college town next to Bloomington, about 30 miles from Anchor. Since my grades in high school were quite a bit lower than bragging level, it was necessary to get my high school principal, Professor Theodore Abel, to write a personal recommendation to the admissions department. It must have worked for in September I became an ISNU college man. The curriculum I chose was the one which was required for the boys who were in the Navy V-1 program, a program designed to provide two years of college education preliminary to admission to one of the Navy Midshipman schools located at universities throughout the country. I, of course, was taking the subjects, but had not signed up for the Navy program.
The school year of 1942/1943 was a very peculiar one at ISNU as it probably was at most other universities throughout the country at that time. The first semester started off with a ratio of men to women of about 50/50. By the start of the second semester, there were hardly any men visible on campus. That experience alone brought up daily the reality that one's life there at ISNU was only a fleeting, temporary existence. At that time, the only men left on campus were 4-F's (exempt from service for physical reasons), the fellows in the Navy V-1 program, and those few such as me who had not yet reached their 18th birthday. Because of these factors, it was exceedingly difficult for me to take school work seriously. It did not seem important to get out of bed for an early morning class or take time away from non-curricular activities to study for examinations.
This attitude undoubtedly caused me to receive a failing grade in a Geometry class that was scheduled the first thing in the morning. The professor told us at the start of the semester that if anyone had more than two absences from his class, the student would automatically receive an "F". By the time the final exam came around, I had accumulated three absences.
The professor told me that I need not show up for the exam for there was nothing I could do to preclude his assigning me a failing grade for the semester. I told him that I wanted to take the final exam anyway. He said, "Suit yourself, but it won't change your grade." I took the exam and although he never revealed to me my exam grade, I am confident that I achieved at least a "C" grade. This has always made me wonder whether he was interested in teaching Geometry or in just achieving perfect attendance at his classes. He was probably one of those people who are unable to see the forest because the trees are in the way.
I rented a bedroom in a private home just off campus. In the bedroom next to mine was another student who was participating in the Navy V-1 program. My folks paid about 3 or 4 dollars a week for the rent and gave me 7 dollars for meals. I went home to Anchor every weekend, leaving Normal on Friday afternoon and returning on Sunday evening.
Quite frequently, the 7 dollars did not last me until noon on Thursday. Fortunately, there was a dormitory next to the campus that served meals on a pay-as-you-go basis. They would allow students to eat on credit as long as the debts were paid at the start of the subsequent week. So, those weeks when my non-curricular activities were somewhat excessive and my poker playing was unproductive, I did not go hungry.
Sometime early in the second semester, I was walking to my room from campus. As I was about to cross the street in front of the house where I was staying, who should drive up, but my folks. They had made a special trip to Normal to inform me of an opportunity sponsored by the Navy for students to apply for a new college program, called Navy V-12. My folks had read of the opportunity in the news paper and had hurriedly made the trip to Normal to alert me, because the application had to be filed the following day. Whether it was the day the application was made or later, I do not recall, but we all were required to take an IQ test. Although I was never very good at academic tests, I could hold my own in tests of practical matters. I must have made a satisfactory grade on the IQ test, for later I received a letter from the Navy that I had been accepted for the program and would have to go to Chicago on May 18, 1943, for a physical exam and to be sworn in to the Navy as an Apprentice Seaman.
In Chicago for the physical exam, there were a group of us who were required to stand around in the nude for hours while doctors examined us up and down and in and out. I had always been told that I had flat feet. Fearing that this might make me ineligible, I stood for hours on the outsides of my feet so that my arches would appear raised. Either the doctors did not detect my attempted deception or they could not have cared less. Whichever it was, I passed and was sworn in shortly thereafter.
After the swearing-in, we were sitting around talking to an officer about when, where, and how. I asked the officer, since we were given no paperwork, what I should say to the Draft Board when I report there on my 18th birthday in two days. He said, "I guess you'll be our first test case!"
CHAPTER 2
FIRST NAVY EXPERIENCE
About the middle of June 1943, I received orders to report to the V-12 unit at Indiana State Teachers College (ISTC) in Terre Haute, Indiana. The orders contained a reporting date of 1 July. Although there was a V-12 unit established at ISNU in Normal, the boys there who had previously signed up for the V-1 program made up most of the ship's company for that unit. I was very fortunate not to have been assigned there for with my poor grades in most subjects, I would have really been fighting an up hill battle.
Several of us arrived in Terre Haute by train in the evening and walked with our gear the 1 ½ to 2 miles to the college campus. We were quartered in what was previously the girls' dormitory, a four-story, U shaped building. Since my last name started with a letter at the end of the alphabet, I was assigned to a room on the fourth floor at the end of one of the legs of the U, Room 435, with five roommates.
Terre Haute was somewhat of an odd city with only one street of businesses about 2 or 3 miles long. As a result, one could walk merely one block away from the main street in either direction and be out of the business section and into a residential area.
ISTC campus was just about a half block off of the main street. I don't recall it being a very large campus, but there were the usual old and new classroom buildings, a student union with a large auditorium, and a gymnasium with an Olympic-size swimming pool.
For the first couple weeks, we had no uniforms, so we were not given liberty to go into town. Finally, when we were given the Government Issue, we were allowed to go into town over the weekend, but had to return to the barracks by midnight each night. Although I was still under the legal drinking age, the ones who were of drinking age came back saying that they could spend no money in the local bars. The locals bought them all the drinks they wanted.
These older men had come from the fleet after having applied for the program. They were of various rates and ratings, but on arrival they were all reduced to Apprentice Seamen. They probably numbered at least 25% of our total Unit population.
From the grades I had received throughout the school years, including the previous year at ISNU, it was obvious to me that I needed to make a swift adjustment in my study habits. Those who could not cut it academically in V-12 were immediately sent to boot camp, probably at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, just North of Chicago, and then to war on a ship.
I vowed to myself that that was not going to happen to me, not that I didn't want to see some action in the war, but that my objective was to do so as a commissioned officer rather than as a deck swabbing seaman. As a result of this vow, I earned passing grades in all my courses, except one. The grades were not the highest, but sufficient to keep me progressing.
The course that I failed was first year Psychology. I could not under stand it no matter how hard I tried in the beginning and the teacher, a young female recent graduate, knew the material backward and forward, but just could not make it interesting at least for me. After a while, I realized the situation was hopeless, so I slept through the remaining classes. Fortunately, my failing grade did not impact my standing in the program.
Our daily routine consisted of calisthenics the first thing in the morning and then classes all day with the last thing in the afternoon being two hours of physical training (PT). Among the first things they gave us in PT was what was called a strength test, consisting of push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squat-jumps, an exercise where you fell to your hands, extended your feet and legs behind you, brought them back in, stood up straight, and then repeated the exercise. For the strength test, it was necessary to do each one as many times as you could for points for the over-all score.
Being of rather slight stature, I initially did not score very well, somewhere around 40 or 45 out of a possible 100. The fellows with heavy builds began with scores in the low 90's. By the time a year had gone by, my scores had increased to about 90 and those with the heavy builds had increased only a few points to the mid 90's.
In warm weather, instead of exercising in the gym, we would double time to an obstacle course about a mile away where we would do calisthenics, run the obstacle course, run the 440 (quarter mile) course a couple times, do more calisthenics, run the obstacle course one or two times more, and then double time back to the gym. By the time I left there to go to Midshipman's school, I was in the best physical condition of my life.
Our physical training instructors were two "slick arm" chief petty officers. A sailor is allowed to wear hash marks on the sleeve of his uniform representing his years of service in the Navy; one stripe for each four years of service. These CPO's did not have four years of service for they were taken into the Navy with the rate of CPO to begin with, being college graduates with a degree in physical education. For some reason, one of these CPO's, a rather heavy set fellow, bordering on obesity, took a disliking to me and attempted to make my life miserable every chance he could.
One Saturday morning, we were scheduled for a full dress barracks inspection. To fail the inspection meant that all the room occupants would lose their weekend liberty. The chief, who had it in for me, let it be known that he would be the inspector for our room and that we had no way of passing the inspection. When my roommates and I heard this, we vowed to make him eat his words. On the day of the inspection, we had our room spic and span with everything shiny clean. The chief came into the room for the inspection and spent nearly fifteen minutes or more without finding any discrepancy. Finally, in utter desperation, he removed one of his white gloves, held it to the molding around the door of our closet, took a coin from his pocket, and with the glove between it and the molding ran them down one of the creases. Of course, when he removed the glove it had a mark which was probably more varnish than dirt. He made good on his threat and we lost our weekend liberty.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS by Ronald Vail. Copyright © 2013 by Ronald Vail. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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