The Boatswain

The Pacific Ocean is wide and occasionally very wild, but sailing on her brings occasions of joy, too. Her tropical waters are warm and inviting and often us carrier sailors would get to swim in her like the picture below (and, NO, it’s NOT the Bennington, but we did the same.) On particularly hot days, we’d often lie to, (just stop and drift) lower an elevator, put a couple of boats in the water for safety reasons, and hold swim call! VERY refreshing!

Swimming in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

Or, if we were lucky, we’d get to make a Port Call in Hong Kong where there were bargains galore and good Liberty. (Today, since Hong Kong is no longer under the British, the major Asian port is Singapore.) Because of our size, we always had to moor to a buoy in Hong Kong, using one of the ship’s anchor chains, which is a BIG job in itself! (see picture.)

At sea it was an endless training exercise, especially for the flight deck personnel and the air crews. Day & night the pilots honed their skills, making them the best fliers around! However, in addition to refueling, we also had to get together with supply ships and, using the portable flight deck crane as a tied down support, we’d shoot over a line, pull in the rigging and bring supplies aboard in cargo nets.

Using the Line Throwing Gun

Van at the Cargo Net

Carrier duty was a busy time as usual, with the main difference being that, this time I was in charge of the refueling station, the anchoring detail, and the mooring details, the ship’s boats, and ALL deck force evolutions and work.

Taking on Fuel - Van on His Station (That's me in the middle of the lightest area.)

Close-up from the previous picture

After I had been appointed a Warrant Officer, I was sent a set of orders to another Carrier, the USS Bennington, to be their Ship’s Boatswain. She was scheduled to go on an exercise to Hawaii, then return to San Diego and I was told I could even go to Hawaii with her, or wait until her returned. It turned out that the officer I was to be relieving was the one who made me miss Carl’s birth and he wanted to be relieved early and NOT sail for HAWAII! HAH! Fat chance! I chose to wait for her return and let HIM wait to go home again!

USS Bennington passing the Arizona in Pearl Harbor

After she returned, I reported aboard and was given a stateroom and introduced to my fellow warrants. We had our own mess and stewards and it was a nice bunch of men I was with.

Warrant Officer's Mess

The first thing we had to do was find a decent place to live. The place we were in was clean, but very small. We went house hunting and visited friends who had bought places and finally found a set of brand new houses in El Cajon, which we thought was just a division of San Diego. We’d been looking at three bedroom places, but were told “for only $5 a month more” we could get 4 bedrooms, so that’s what we settled on.

Our brand new house... with no grass and no freeway behind it!

The rear of the house, which we still own!

It was only 13 miles to the Naval Station at 32nd street where I was attached as a Tug Skipper.

My Tug

My tug was part of the Waterfront Operations Office, which included Tugs, Yard Oilers, Garbage Scows, etc., all for servicing the Navy ships that came into San Diego Bay, one of the busiest ports on the west coast. Tug duty was 24 hours on (we stayed on the tug) and 24 hours on standby. When on standby, we could go home, but were “on call” in order to assist the duty tugs if needed. Of course we were also on our tugs during regular working hours, but normally DID get weekends and evenings off.

San Diego Waterfront Operations Office craft

I’d been there almost a year and we were enjoying the duty, when along came another item to change things. I received a notice received saying “The Congress of the United States takes pleasure in appointing you a WARRANT OFFICER, W-1, in the United States Navy”.  Another promotion and this was a major one.

Me in my newest working uniform as a WO1

The one thing we didn’t like, though, was hearing that, since Cuba was considered shore duty for Warrant Officers, I would immediately be eligible to go to sea!

I finally was able to get a set of orders taking us to the West Coast. I got orders to report to San Diego, CA, to be a TUGBOAT skipper in the Naval Station. We were to fly to Jacksonville.  Ellen and the kids would go by train to visit her brother, who was in the Air Force and stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, on the Florida panhandle. Meanwhile, I had to go to Miami and pick up our car that had been shipped there, and then drive to get the family.

Here’s a view of our Cuban workers at the end of a shift, heading across the bay to Caimanera, a Cuban city, where most of them lived. (Don’t know what it’s like today!)

Cuban Workers Going Home After Work

Carl on the flight to Jacksonville

The trip in the old Ford was not too bad. Traffic was light and we stopped often enough to take it easy. Aside from the stop at the Air Force Base, we did some sightseeing, including New Orleans, (which has the world’s WORST coffee!) tourist traps (complete with poorly kept wild animals), the Alamo, and the sand dunes overrun by dune buggies at Yuma, AZ!

We had received a FORM letter with our orders saying “Don’t worry about your family, as the Navy has PLENTY of available housing”! HAH! We arrived in a pouring rain on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, 1957 and went direct to the housing office. What a farce! I showed them the letter about “lots of housing” and they laughed and told me there was a SIX MONTH WAITING LIST for TEMPORARY housing!!! I never did find out who sent us the info about housing, as everyone passed the buck to someone else. So we checked into a Motel again and the next day I started house hunting with the local paper.

The place we rented for a while in National City