Last updated 1 July 2013
In(tro)duction
When you first do something you usually get it wrong Persevere and eventually you will get it right. This helps you grow up. But occasionally in our country this character building rite of passage is upstaged by a way that is neither right nor wrong. It just is.
It is called the army way. The draft, a universal feature of our major wars of the 20th century (WWs I and II, Korea, Vietnam), forcefully introduced most young men, and a voluntary number of young women, to this third way of life. I was no exception.
My time in the army (April 20, 1953 to February 27, 1955) was not voluntary. It was however preordained when I was about 12. I injured my left knee on a field of honor dedicated to sand lot football. A half-inch bursar formed on my knee cap. Several times through my early teens it swelled and left me limping with the aid of an Ace bandage. An attempt at surgical repair by our superannuated family doctor only made it worse. By high school, however, my bursar and I had reached a modus vivendi that enabled me to run cross country well enough to earn a letter.
World War II was over by then, and though I registered for the draft at 18, war seemed unlikely in an exhausted world desperate for a little peace, prosperity and quiet. This illusion was shattered by North Korea's invasion of its southern sister in 1950. I was editor of my college's daily paper in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when the usually quiet AP printer in our office clattered into life and didn't stop all that day. We quickly remade the front page to reflect this new reality.
Suddenly being in the draft pool took on more significance. Grades for example became a matter freighted with life and death. Young men with grades much like mine vanished between semesters. I began to pay less attention to the delights of "real journalism" and to attend classes. Remedial work on an economics course preempted my plans for a summer of golf, and I squeaked by.
When my final semester loomed I became engaged. We planned a wedding in a year or so when I would have graduated and found work. Then the realities of my student deferments ending came into focus and I started that semester a married man. A husband, even without children, was less likely to receive "greetings" than a single man. Also, young married life was, well, agreeable.
But the police action in Korea showed no signs of ending, and I knew that, married or not, my number would come up. Military recruiters were active on campus and a Navy rep assured me that being deathly afraid of the water was no barrier in today's Navy. So I took and passed their OCS entrance test and was scheduled for a medical exam. Four years as an officer in the Navy beat being an army private for two years in the snows of Korea listening to Chinese communist bugles ordering attacks.
My decision was reinforced by a friend who had enlisted in the Marines out of high school on promises of playing his trombone in a Marine Band. He landed with MacArthur at Inchon, and wrote me, "They took my trombone away and gave me an M1 rifle." The Bounding Main sounded better and better, even though the Inchon flanking maneuver was a great success until the Chinese intervened.
My spouse and I drove down to Dallas for the medical exam in a freak early spring snow fall. It was not a good augury. The young Navy doctor was quite friendly and promising until he noticed the lump on my knee. "An old football scar," I said, "Excuse me for a moment," he said, and left. He returned trailing an older man with twice the number of stripes on his arm.
"Hi, son," the new/old doctor said and grabbed my knee and squeezed. Hard. I came out of my chair. "Son," he said, "We have steel decks in the Navy. If you were to fall and hurt that knee it would take two men away from the fire fight to carry you down to your bunk. I'm afraid we can't use you, and it's a shame because you certainly qualify in every other respect."
We drove home to another new reality. I was working for the Daily Oklahoman as a cub reporter, doing reasonable well I thought, when I was abruptly transferred to the oil page. Even in Oklahoma that was an obvious dead end. It was explained to me that as draft bait I was not now worth grooming to advance. Come back when the war was over. "I'm not going anywhere," I told my wife. "Might as well volunteer for the draft and get it over with. Maybe they won't take me with that knee."
My draft board was delighted. In a week my orders to report for a physical were in hand. "Oh, that," the doctor said. "A fatty growth. Extra padding to protect the knee." I was ordered to report back for induction on April 20, 1953. Years later my mother died on that same day of April and I have been wary of that date ever since.
Reporting for induction was routine. My wife cried. My mother cried. My father and I tried not to cry.. Then they left and I stepped forward with others from Tulsa and took the oath "to protect my country from all enemies, foreign and domestic." "At ease!" barked a burly guy I later learned to term a non com, obviously meaning by that order its exact opposite. We silently shuffled out and on to a waiting bus and headed for Fort Sill, a dusty place near the ranch town of Lawton in Oklahoma's southwest corner. I had never been there before and I have never gone back.
The moment of awakening the next morning remains the worst moment of my life. "Two years!" I wailed. Nobody looked at me funny so I guess I didn't say it out loud. The day got better over breakfast and was filled with the routine of assembling uniforms and other kit into an enormous duffel bag. In the army way. You carry it everywhere when on the move.
Occasionally we were allowed to rest and "smoke 'em if you got 'em." Shortly a trim young second lieutenant would stroll in, a sergeant would snap us to attention, and an orientation lesson would commence. We learned the language of army insignia and rank for example. We learned a lot that we really needed to know, but not what we really wanted to know: where were we going next?
One orientation was run by a veteran staff sergeant with a deceptively easy manner. "Men, the only weapons you will need will be issued to you by the army. You don't need the knives, brass knuckles, razor blades and pistols I know are in your pockets. So get 'em out and hand 'em to me. If you don't and you are caught with 'em later it's company punishment and if you are caught using 'em, it's an automatic courts marshall with time. So let's have 'em." He eyed us one by one. "Come on now."
One by one we handed over our concealed weapons and it was an astonishing haul. No guns, but every shape of knife and razor. Having safely disarmed us he took on a more sensitive topic. "Now I know many of you boys are from The South where races don't mix. But the army way is different. President Truman ordered the armed forces to integrate. So everybody is treated the same in the army. And that's an order and that's how it is. I may not like it. You may not like it, but that's how it is." And, to an astonishing degree, that's how it was. Prejudice didn't vanish, but it shrank and the withered residue went more or less quietly underground to the military's eternal credit.
There was no rest after dinner either. We lined up for the first of an endless series of shots to immunize us from the air we breathed on each other and the grime of living in close quarters. Finally we were returned to the barracks where earlier we had learned how to make a bed the army way. Before dozing off I noticed a couple of cadre going through the barracks and tying towels on the end of random beds. I was just about to drift off while wondering about this when the guy bunked above me got up, and shifted his towel to another bed. I checked my bed. No towel. I slept.
Next morning about 3 a.m. I was shaken awake. "You're on KP today," somebody whispered loudly. "Get suited up. Fatigues." There was now a towel tied to my bed. You dare not sleep when others are up playing musical towels. From then until 11 pm I was on KP, mostly washing trays, my hands in harsh soapy water that was half lye. Eventually I lost the nails on the two left fingers of my left hand; new growth pushed the dead parts out. Lack of street smarts has its consequences.
In a New York minute I had gone from Big Man On Campus to Low Man on Totem Pole. For now the two years of basic ROTC mandatory at Oklahoma colleges were the most relevant years of my education. I already knew how to line up by height, march close order drill, do the manual of arms, stand at attention and at ease, prepare for inspection and spit shine shoes. But those were future bennies. Now we were puzzling over two pages written in the foreign language of army speak -- our orders. In brief they said we were going to Fort Bliss, Texas, by bus for basic training.
Basic Training Redux
Fort Bliss is neighbor to the ancient town of El Paso. El Paso is as far south in Texas as you can get and not be in Mexico and as far west as you can go and not be in New Mexico. Across the Rio Grande river from El Paso is Juarez, Mexico, larger than El Paso, and home, we were told, to eight hundred whores eager to pass on wondrous diseases in exchange for not much money.
Meanwhile, back in Fort Bliss we learned that it was the home of the U.S. Army Artillery, where the caissons still go rolling along. That was thrilling. Artillery we knew fired shells at the enemy from emplacements safely placed miles back from the front. Thoughts of enemy aircraft came later, as did rumors of wars without fronts.
There isn't much new about basic training. The first eight weeks was designed to strip your civilian sloth away and stamp the outline of a lean mean fighting machine on your young pliable body. The second eight weeks were for filling in the details and prepping you for your first assignment, perhaps even in your MOS (Military Occupation Specialty).
We were housed in eight man huts dating back to the early days of WWII. They were dark, hot and uncomfortable. Ventilation was not a strong suit, but the West Texas desert gave up its heat quickly after sundown, and we were seldom to bed before eleven (and up at four). Air conditioning? Maybe the Officer's Club. Open doors and windows let in some cool air and of course the insect world. But we were too exhausted to stay awake long most nights.
One night in particular we were at it until nearly midnight and bone tired. It was our first monthly payday. Then the army paid in cash. The next morning at 4 am those of us who had been too tired to take the usual precaution of stuffing our wallets inside our pillow cases, found them stripped bare. One guy, married with a child who had not had his allotment sent directly to his wife, lost $186. More prudent with allotments, I was still out $28, all I had. Those exact sums are burned into my memory. We reported the thefts immediately, but it wasn't until mid morning that word reached the MPs. Nothing came of their investigation into the several huts the thieves looted. Did I mention that lack of street smarts has its drawbacks? My wife scraped $10 together to send me. Fortunately, I didn't smoke and never have.
I only remember only one or two aspects of basic. One was the chants we would utter while drilling. Little ditties like "I don't know, but I've been told. Eskimo pussy's might cold. Sound off, one two three four, one, two . . . three
four!" (The only women about were the nurses we saw at sick call.) Another time was the night, exceptionally clear and cool, when we were returning from a tough all day hike through the desert scrub, and I suddenly felt good. I was back in condition, with reserves of strength and breath enough to easily make it back. Then there was the time when we were doing mass exercises with the whole battery at once, and the drill instructor yelled, "Hey, your looking good, keep it up." Delighted at any praise from this source we did. Finally I remember when, late in the first eight weeks, we were actually deployed on some basic infantry maneuver, and at a break we were informed that close in air support had been called for, and to watch for the fighter jet. It came in low, not 15 feet from the desert floor. With a whoosh and a roar it shot up the empty desert before us and was gone, a climbing dot against the sky. A mid-50's form of shock and awe.
The war across the Pacific was never far from our minds. We were frequently given brief updates of how it was going by the battery commander, an affable second looey. One day he strode in to a class to bring us an exciting bulletin. A truce had been arranged. Fighting had stopped! We of course whooped it up a bit as he left until our sergeant barked "at ease." He didn't look all too pleased, perhaps seeing fading opportunities for promotion in that news. "Remember," he said. "There's still Vietnam." The French were losing ground in Vietnam at the time and news accounts had some of our military brass proposing to atom bomb the jungle. President Eisenhower wasn't having any of that, and we paid little heed to the sergeant's prophecy that day in 1953.
You of course met all kinds in the army. One resident in our hut was a young farm boy, strong as an ox, but a blubbering baby inside. He lasted three weeks before a compassionate discharge sent him back home to that stump broke cow he told us he missed so much. (We wondered aloud what he did with her tail.) Another was a sergeant just back from Korea's killing fields with a lust to return. I met him because I had memorized my rifle serial number, knew something of the manual of arms and made Soldier of the Guard. This was an honor bestowed on the soldier that showed up for guard duty most ready to perform. His reward was to be excused from duty in favor of those less ready. It's the army way.
The sergeant in love with combat was doing duty as battalion officer of the day. His orderly turned up sick and he came looking for a substitute to do the work and found me reading in my bunk. Ignoring my earned time off, he commandeered me for hours to listen to his stories of hand-to-hand combat with "the gooks." His tales were graphic and bloody, and told with the relish of a true psychopath. They left me queasy and feeling like a pacifist.
Mostly, though, our duty was boring and tedious. We would even read the bulletin board for entertainment and learn all about the sergeant and two enlisted men court marshaled for sodomy and such. One day there was a notice that tests for advanced training in electronics and radar repair were available and open to draftees with enough time left to qualify. If accepted, your last eight weeks of basic training were waived, you made private first class and more money, you got ten days leave and married men could find quarters off base. The training would take over eight months, after which your assignment would be with the anti-aircraft artillery. One thing I knew how to do was to take tests.
Luck Be A Lady
I think I aced that test. I did well enough to make the cut and in quick order was back at the Oklahoma homestead preparing to set up housekeeping in El Paso in a camping trailer we hurriedly bought. It was bare bones, not even a john, but rentals in El Paso were scarce and expensive. I had arranged to park the trailer in the side yard of a fellow soldier -- also picked for the school -- for a nominal rent. We hooked up to his house water and electricity, all perfectly illegal. But living together was vastly better than living alone in those huts and we weren't caught for a while.
School was, well, school, and was what I had always been good at. We began with basic electricity, starting -- where else -- with Franklin and his kite and continuing with Faraday et al. Basic concepts such as resistance and capacitance, positive and negative voltages, etc., were covered and we went on to simple circuits for electric lights and heaters. Vacuum tubes were studied extensively. They were cutting edge then; solid state and integrated circuits were still in the future. The smallest electrical components were thumb nail sized. We learned to build and understand the workings of a simple radio and were introduced to the basics of radar.
General theory comprised the first half of the course, lasting about four months.
After a week's break we began the second half to learn all about the weapon system that would be our specialty. During that break, by an accident of timing, the city of El Paso caught up with us and we had to find refuge in a regular trailer court that we could afford -- and that had a communal bath house we could stand. We wound up on the outskirts of town in a new court, with few tenants as yet. It was run by a nice couple, the bath house was clean and the rent was actually less than we had been paying. The commute was convenient for both of our jobs and we were relieved not to be in steady company with our former landlord.
We had made the move over a weekend and the first two days were tranquil and pleasant. Monday morning too early we woke up to a clanging BANG! A brief pause and another one, and another. At daybreak we ventured out. The big bangs were coming from behind a large dense hedge at the property's edge. Beyond it we found the largest rail switching yard in the Southwest a quarter of a mile away. Coupling and uncoupling rail cars is a noisy business. It took some time but then we barely heard them.
The Skysweeper
Our companion in class for the next four months was a weapons system, not just a cannon. There was the gun of course -- a 75 millimeter caliber one -- but also a radar dish, with an antenna poking out of the middle, which we were warned for the sake of our unborn children not to point at our privates while it was transmitting . Connected to the radar was an analog computer, which took target information supplied by the radar and calculated the target's distance and speed, applied known factors about a round's trajectory and aimed for the spot the target would be when the shell got there. There was an optical sight station as well, which could be used when the radar couldn't be.
The whole system, work stations, crew, ammunition and all was mounted on a 360 degree swivel platform that let the artillery piece follow targets across the sky, while the gun barrel also moved to track the target. There was some question in our minds whether or not the swivel and tracking mechanisms could keep up with a nine hundred mile-an-hour low flying jet plane, but our job was to keep it working so it could at least try.
The system had a technical name of numbers and letters of meaning to its designers and the army's logisticians, but military publicists dramatized it as The Skysweeper, To us, however, that name meant a thick roll of schematics which we traced and studied systematically in classes for weeks before meeting the physical trays of wired components in person. They didn't look at all like their pictures.
But the burning question for me and my classmates as we approached the end of training was which way were we going: west or east? Korea or not Korea? We assumed that our fate was in the hands of our masters at the training command. Destination quotas would come down and names would be ticked off. Who knew on what basis? A few of the more politically minded kissed a lot of ass without knowing for sure which cheeks were the right ones. When the word was finally distributed my luck was indeed a gracious lady. I was bound for Europe, and the greatest suck up of all, my former landlord, was headed for Korea. Justice was never more poetic.
New York, New York!
If there was a formal graduation ceremony to cap our nearly nine months gestation from rookie soldier to radar repairman, I don't remember it. We had about three weeks to sell our trailer, drive home for a visit and get me to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Our luck held. The trailer sold quickly for cash and for what we paid for it. That cash fueled ambitions for a driving, sight seeing vacation culminating in several days in Manhattan. We worked it out on the trip from El Paso to Shawnee, Oklahoma, home to my wife's parents and where she would return after dropping me off at Camp Kilmer three weeks hence.
A mutual friend, my wife's boss at her last college town job, proved an enthusiastic enlistee to share expenses and be company for her on the trip back. Our first destination was Washington, DC, where friends from college awaited. The considerable territory in between is mostly a blur. It was May and the weather was excellent, and our mostly rural route a scenic delight. I remember an abundance of dogwood and the lush green lawns and white fences of Kentucky horse country. After crossing the Mississippi we ticked off visits to Virginia's Mammoth Cave and Natural Bridge .
Monumental Washington was nothing like the sprauling metropolis it has become, but still impressive. We bunked free for three nights in a vacant Georgetown home of a friend of a friend, taking refuge in a nearby B&B when the owner returned, and walking the endless corridors of the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art during the days.
Back on the road for the final leg, we first got hopelessly lost in nearby Baltimore. We found US 40 east and stuck to it through blue collar east Baltimore's endless blocks of red brick row houses with their signature white marble front door steps. Somewhere along the way beyond Baltimore we mid westerners got our first glimpse of the ocean in our whole lives and then plunged into Manhattan like we knew what we were doing.
Somehow we found a seedy hotel a few blocks from the UN building with three beds in the room and a place to stow the car. We had three days to do Manhattan on a shoestring. We rode to the top of the Empire State building, visited the new UN building, checked out the lions in front of the Public Library, rode the subway endlessly, walked and gawked 5th Avenue, stood at 42nd and Broadway and lusted after the plays then running. We ate once at an automat and found cheap Chinese and Italian eateries.
But my spouse, a committed thespian, was not content until we had seen at least two plays. My memory is that we found half priced tickets to a revival of "Good-bye, My Fancy," with both Robert and Gig Young in the cast. We had both played characters in an amateur production of this drama in El Paso, and I can't find Internet verification that it was playing then, so this may be a "recovered" memory substituting for what we did see, but I don't think so. Anyhow, we liked it, whatever it was.
The one that she wanted most to see was of course the hottest ticket in town: "Ondine," starring Audrey Hepburn in her first Broadway role. She won a Tony award for her performance in the same year she doubled down with an Oscar for "Roman Holiday." We staked out the theater an hour before show time one night, but it was sold out. "You can hang around. People do turn in tickets at the last minute," the cashier told me, "But I wouldn't count on it."
We found a small restaurant a couple doors down that was not very busy where we could nurse a coffee. After a while I said, "I'm going to stake out the box office," and returned to the theater entrance. Several people were in line and it was not moving. The thought struck me that I would have to intercept a ticket returnee before he ever got to the box office if I was to have a prayer of getting us in. At about the same time I saw an army uniform like the one I was wearing making his slow tentative way toward the box office window.
"Are you turning in tickets?" I asked. He nodded. "I need two and I have $20," I said. He looked at the box office line and said, "Okay." I had my wallet out already, showing him the bill. The exchange was made, and, somewhat elated I ran back to the restaurant with my prize ducats.
"Did you get tickets? she said hopefully. "Have 'em right here," I replied. Evidently she had been telling our story to the waiters, for they erupted into cheers and congratulations. So much for New Yorkers being unfriendly and hard to impress. Our seats were quite good and the play was superb.
When our sojourn in New York came to an end it was with some sorrow that I said good-bye for some months to my wife. When overseas, privates could not bring dependents and live off base. It was the barracks for me and her childhood bedroom for my spouse. We make the short trip back across the Hudson river and New Jersey to Camp Kilmer.
Over There
After my traveling companions had left the usual army "hurry up and wait" syndrome appeared. We wouldn't embark for Europe by troop ship for several days. Three day passes were on offer, restricted to 60 miles from the camp. My secret destination was Boston, further away than that, where a good college friend had found work after graduation at the Unitarian Church headquarters at 25 Beacon Street. Somehow I made my way to Grand Central Station in New York City, bought a ticket, greatly discounted for traveling servicemen, and called my friend. The train trip was an eye opener. Never before or since have I seen such dreary cityscapes. It was the backside of America on display in town after town. I hope it's better now.
Shortly before we rolled into Boston I slipped into a john and replaced my military shirt with a civilian one and stowed my hat.The Boston station was crawling with MP's as luck would have it, and my khaki pants and plain toed military dress shoes were screaming (to me), "Soldier out of uniform! Soldier with an invalid pass!" I ducked out of the station and up a side street looking for a phone.. There was nothing moving on that street but me and one vehicle rolling slowly toward me. On its side I saw as it rolled by the sign, "Shore Patrol." The Navy was looking for errant sailors and ignored me. I found a phone and began a pleasant three days of pretending to be in college again, with some Boston sight seeing thrown in. Then it was back to Kilmer and aboard the ship--the name of which I can't recall.
A troop ship is dreary, crowded and smelly. Sparse naked bulbs dimly reveal our below deck sleeping and lounging quarters. Picture two vertical metal poles from deck to ceiling about eight feet apart. Hanging at right angles from them on both sides were rectangular u-shaped metal frames. Stretched tight within each frame was a two foot wide canvass bed. The beds were staggered up each side of the poles with at most a three foot clearance between them. Picture endless rows of these contraptions with tight passage ways in between. Eight men slept in the same space that a normal bunk bed for two would occupy. Fortunately, the ship itself was at half capacity, so conditions were only half as bad as they could be, and no doubt were during WWII when the crowding came with lurking U-boats.
Shortly after getting aboard I somehow learned, perhaps by loudspeaker, that a volunteer was needed to compose a daily voyage newsletter. Knowing that many less interesting, even arduous duty assignments were soon to be filled, I hurried to apply. Seasoned journalists, I reasoned, would be in short supply, and I was right. I was the editor and sole reporter; my duty station was a desk, a chair and a small filing cabinet. There was a typewriter and a phone and somewhere a copy machine. My job was to fill two sides of an 81/2 by 11 piece of paper folded in half to make a four page newsletter.
It must have been fairly easy to do, because I remember having lots of leisure time, the run of the ship, and after the first day no supervision. I remember only one "scoop" with some clarity because it could have ended awkwardly but for an understanding woman. I was scheduled to interview the ranking army officer aboard, a full colonel traveling with his wife, on the assumption that it was good politics to butter up such god-like personnel at every opportunity.
The colonel's quarters were better than mine: a sitting room which I saw and a bedroom with private bath, which I assumed. He was not in. A striking, gracious lady answered the door, invited me in, found me a seat and explained that The Colonel would be in shortly. Small talk is not a notable skill of mine, but she filled the void with questions about where I was from and I reciprocated. Which is probably why I heard my voice asking her, "Have you ever been abroad before?" The double entendre hung in the air. But she soldiered on, gravely replying that yes, there had been many over seas duty stations in the past. Fortunately, the colonel arrived about then, I got my interview and left.
My only other memory of the voyage is of the sparkling weather, The North Atlantic was on good behavior: calm seas and light breezes; little sea sickness in the ranks and none for me. As a first ocean experience it couldn't have been better, and it was over too soon.
Europe On The Arny's Dime
We docked at early night in the German port of Bremerhaven on the North Sea, and were promptly herded into waiting trains and trundled through the darkness in antique rail cars with upright wooden benches. I have slept better in church pews. Early light confirmed we were heading due south.
Giving up trying to sleep while bolt upright squeezed between two other equally restive soldiers, I found a small platform between cars and gazed at an emerging landscape of endless green fields punctuated by toy like villages with red roofs and a sprinkling of church spires. It was quiet and peaceful except for the train sounds, more like Pennsylvania than enemy country. Indeed WWII was a decade past and West Germany was an ally. The weedy rubble of war was evident in the cities, however. We passed through Bremen, skirted the East German border, continued west of Frankfort and by late afternoon were billeted in an German army base near the resort area of Garmich and a hop and a skip from the Austrian border.
There we waited and rested from the hurried trip the length of Germany. Confined to base, there was little for us to do except -- once released from make work idleness for the night's meal -- to sample the pleasures of German beer at the local enlisted club. It was thick and potent, and to my mind far better in taste and effect to the American product. I have never changed my mind on that. We comfortably awaited our fate, assuming duty at some air force base fairly nearby.
However, that would not be the army way. Our destination was . . . . are you ready? . . .
England!
The why of it was too delicious a story to keep. We learned by the grape vine that clerical confusion back in Fort Bliss had sent our class contingent here and another class to England. Unfortunately, they were trained on a different AA artillery piece than our Skysweeper. We couldn't just swap assignments with them because each had to go where our guns were. God bless that errant clerk. We never wrote to thank him.
Our group of about 30 was too small for a whole troop train. Instead we set out in groups of seven or eight in the care of a Corporal with a wad of cash for transport and meals on commercial trains to the English channel and an overnight ferry across. Nights we stayed in local hotels and possibly a sleeper car or two: I forget.
What I will never forget is how incredibly lucky and luxurious we felt. Comfortable seats on the trains. "Bif steak" every night. Nothing to do but enjoy the scenery, and what scenery. A fair part of our journey took us along the German side of the Rhine River. I explained to a couple of geographical challenged buddies that the other side of the river was France.
We left the river and headed northwest to Cologne, where the effects of war were still visible in scattered blocks, surrounded by the glassy glitter of new post-war buildings and interspersed with older surviving neighborhoods, including its famous impressive cathedral. We spent the night near the rail station. The next day we entered the Netherlands and by night we passed the lights of a large metropolis. and I wondered aloud, "What city is that?" "Zat iss
Rotterdam!" a portly passenger pronounced impressively, and we thanked him.
Merry Old England
That night we spent on a ferry that departed from the "Hook" of Holland bound for the English port of Harwich (the Brits say 'ar'ich): ferries still make that passage today. We arrived in the early hours and boarded a train bound for a base near London. I had slept well aboard ship, but some of our crew were still suffering from the all night welcome to England they had enjoyed with female travelers in the ferry bar and elsewhere.
I still remember that train like it was yesterday. Nothing before or since that I have enjoyed seemed as comfortably appointed or as well served. We sat at round tables, two swivel chairs to a table, with ample space between each seating and a comfortably broad aisle dividing the cars. Tables were set with linens and silver. Water glasses and a silver pitcher were in place. A genial steward arrived to take orders for breakfast, free with our tickets. The English way with food has never enjoyed good repute, but you must make an exception for their breakfasts. This one was
superb.
That night we spent in some ramshackle out buildings of an impressive manor house, evidently allotted for a headquarters command during the late unpleasantness. We may have spent more than a night there, but eventually three "deuce and a half's" (two and one half ton trucks) arrived to take us to our new home: The Royal Air Force/United States Air Force Strategic Air Command Base at Upper Heyford, England. The Brits had pulled their aircraft out four years earlier, but they still owned the real estate and flew their flag with ours over the headquarters. As we soon learned, a squadron of B47 swept wing bombers was based here, some on the flight line, one engine running at all times, loaded for total atomic war. Our job at the Fourth Anti Aircraft Battalion was to protect them from enemy aircraft.
At Home in Upper Heyford
On the way to Upper Heyford we skirted the vastness of London, not yet ringed by M25, and rode by the "dreaming spires" of Oxford, only 15 miles south of our new base by convenient bus. London itself was 60 miles away. Upper Heyford was a small ancient village with a sprinkling of thatched roof cottages from centuries past that lay uneasily in the lee of the enormous air base. Our barracks it turned out were near a part of the town in walking distance to an ancient pub.
We were housed together, separate from the rest of the battalion, and a sergeant soon arrived to explain why. It was temporary, he said, because were here ahead of our weapons, and the troops were still manning some Second World War 40mm pop guns the Skysweepers would replace. It is emphatically the army way to arrive somewhere and find that your new hosts are not ready for you.
The sergeant was a grizzled veteran who looked older than his mid forties. He wore the three bare chevrons of a buck sergeant, but soon told us that he was formerly a master sergeant, busted for errant behavior which he hinted had to do with drink and women.
"I'll level with you," he said after chatting amiably with us, answering questions and letting us air our gripes. "I want those stripes back before I retire, which I can any time. You can help me. Any of you know much about close order drill?" Bobby, a good ole southern boy from Alabama, spoke up: "I went to a military high school. I can drill these guys on some fancy stuff," he said. Several of us had had years of ROTC and said so. The sergeant nodded happily. "All you guys have to be is the sharpest unit around, and I'll take care of you if you'll take care of me."
It was a deal. We started slow, but within a week had worked up to Bobby's fancy stuff. The Sarge was there at first, barking orders about shoulders back, heads high, eyes front and such until we got it. Soon we were looking sharp and the right eyes were noticing. We drilled an hour each morning and afternoon, and were supposedly spending the rest of our time reviewing our schematics and getting as equally sharp on Skysweeker circuitry as on the parade ground. Bobbie, who was a natural leader, kept us in the game, explaining to the slower witted that the Sarge could put us in for three day passes to London and Oxford. He and I had not been in the same class at For Bliss, but we soon became drinking buds.
One night Bobbie, myself and others headed for the village pub. Word was the locals were welcoming as long as you respected the favorite roosts of the regulars. The pub looked small, but was spacious enough inside. A huge age blacked beam ran maybe thirty feet along the roof peak and dominated the room. We were told right off that the beam had been there since the Crusades.
After a few beers Bobbie got directions to the necessary and I went along. The loo turned out to be an outside L-shaped brick wall with a trough along the long stem of the L. A stream of water trickled down its length to a drain. There was no roof, the sky was clear and the warm sun close to setting over charming woods and fields. We stood there absorbed in the business of relieving ourselves of a quart or two of beer. Bobbie asked me, "Can you imagine how many men have stood here over all those years? Rain or shine they have stood here." I nodded. Is Bobbie going to wax philosophical? Well, sort of. "And all those years nobody has thought to put up a damn roof!"
Roof or not, we found our way back to the pub with regularity. I even got to be a regular sub in the continuing games of cribbage, a game which my Dad and I used to play. Perhaps there is a cribbage gene: his mother, my grandmother, was born in England. This comfortable pattern of living couldn't continue and still be the army. On the drill ground one day, I stepped wrong and felt my trick knee pop, Next day I hobbled to sick bay and was issued an Ace bandage. Shades of Junior High. If anything the Ace made it worse, and I abruptly found myself headed for an Air Force hospital.
The English Patient
The 7505 United States Air Force hospital is located in Burderop Park, south of Swindon and some 60 miles from Upper Heyford. "I'm going to slice open your knee and clean out all the congealed blood and scar tissue that has accumulated on your knee cap. Recuperation will take a while but you will fully recover and that knee won't bother you again." Those probably aren't his exact words -- I didn't keep notes -- but that's the gist of what the personable AF Light Colonel MD explained before he operated.
What he didn't tell me was that I would hurt like hell for about a week and that I would have to beg the nurses for a shot to kill the pain in order to sleep. They were initially peeved because I had vomited all over the operating room, and they accused me of having disobeyed orders not to eat or drink for 12 hours before surgery. I hadn't and was adamantly innocent. Once the pain was down to bearable twinges my spirits soon lifted and I set about rehabilitation. .
A huge help in between exercise sessions was the shy young British woman who came by regularly over the next four weeks pushing a cart of books from the base library. I remember only two: "The Caine Mutiny" and "From Here to Eternity." There was also time to ponder the irony of how my knee kept me out of the Navy, failed to keep me out of the Army and was fixed by the Air Force for free. Inter service rivalry isn't all bad.
Finally I was ambulatory enough to limp about to the mess hall, the john and even the library in another building (where"Marion" was even shyer). My doctor finally released me to leave the base and I wangled a 3-day pass before being discharged back to my unit. Feeling stronger by the day. I haltingly covered a great deal of Swindon, staying at three different bed and breakfasts. For a private I was flush. There was nothing to spend money on at the hospital and I had won big at poker just before my knee popped. for the last time. That was the weekend that I fell in love for keeps with British style beds and especially breakfasts. Ever since breakfast has been my most favorite meal.
B and B's were a bargain then. Usually one pound and a shilling, or about $3.00 at the prevailing exchange rate.
One British pound was $2.80 then, but went for $3.00 at the poker table. I always started with a stash of pounds, made change from the pot and played a waiting game with a bunch of plungers. We played a variety of games with ample wild cards, but I stuck to straight stud, and usually sat out the rest. One luckless participant invariably voiced the mantra, "I gotta keep ya hon'est!" With some regularity he would call when he could not possibly win based on the cards showing. I could not possibly lose, and I wired the bulk of my winnings home. But I digress.
The Year Without Summer
Finally back with the Fourth Battalion I learned that our comfortable world close to the mess hall, the canteen, the local pub and far from our duty stations had come to an abrupt end. The 40mm pop guns were gone and our Skysweepers in place. Sarge was gone, too. His bargain with my classmates had paid off; he retired at his former rank. Also we had vacated the barracks and were now permanently housed 10 to the Quonset huts next to our weapons. They were not luxurious.
Life in the huts taught us how bad the weather could be. The year 1954 was called "the year without summer" by the British tabloids. Rain, mixed with snow alternated with heavy fog. Autumn provided no relief, and winter was hell. Our one oil stove ran out of fuel most nights and we would mostly awaken to a film of ice on most surfaces most mornings. It was the most.
But I am ahead of my story. When I first appeared late one afternoon at battalion headquarters fresh from hospital, someone said, "Well if it isn't Private Johnson home from his operation.". Here's a 3-day pass, your poor guy. If you hurry you can catch a military hop to Frankfort, Germany." I spent the next three nights at a hotel in Frankfort with a splendid bed and a shy comely housemaid who understood perfectly what I was suggesting but pretended not to.. All my life I have met mostly shy women unimpressed with my magnetic personality. I compensated by walking along the Main river way, stopping at various ale houses for beer and Rhine wine. The weather was warm and pleasant, but I had to fly back to the still chill of the British night in an unheated DC 3.
Back home I found that another revolution had occurred.The bosses of our company, from the CO on down, were gone and a whole new complement of officers and sergeants in charge. The reasons why were startling to me. I was oblivious to the under currents in the outfit: drugs, booze, payday loan sharking, serious poker, payoffs, favoritism. The turnover was thorough, discipline was reintroduced into our lives and the pace of work picked up.
Now I was brought face to face with this weapon of war that I was supposed to keep operating. We now ran the gear through daily checks and routine maintenance designed to keep them ready to fire. Firing them was something that we had never done: we and the guns were virgins in that respect. All the innards were behind metal plates fastened to the frame with nuts and bolts every two inches. They were a tedious bore to remove and replace so we had earlier begun bolting only the corners and a few in between. It wasn't as if we were enveloped in the smoke and dust of war, but the new regime soon made us button up by the numbers..
Few of the privates were Regular Army careerists. Most of us had never experienced a shot fired at us and the whistle of a passing bullet. That was about to change. No, I stayed in England. No, the Soviets didn't vault the Iron Curtain, let alone the English Channel. This shooting war was a one sided spat between the U. S. Army and the U. S. Air Force. It began with orders from Battalion HQ that we would pull guard duty each night on our gun emplacements. Rather than having one lone soldier dozing at each emplacement, four guys in one jeep patrolled them all. This brought the guard detail close to the idling bombers with their city busting pay loads, each guarded by an armed member of the Air Force police who decided on a case by case basis when we were too close. They let us know by firing warning shots close enough to our heads to clearly hear the bullets zing by. Our Command's strenuous objections were ignored. Quietly, without official announcement, the patrols stopped.
The weeks and months drifted by as they usually do when there is nothing really to do. I had one chance to show off my prowess as a trouble shooter. Our optical sight suddenly stopped working. The symptoms led me to a single area and I poured over its schematic and decided the trouble had to be with one circuit. I pulled the board and after my usual struggle to reconcile the schematic with the physical circuitry, I pointed to a thumb sized resister on the schematic and said to the curious onlookers, "I think this is blown." One of them peered briefly at the two foot long tray of circuitry and read off a number. "That's the one," I said. "Yeah," he said, " It must be shorted. It's still smokin'." I made a mental note to look at the board first in the future before memorizing the schematic. The fault was deemed beyond our local repair capability, so we ordered a whole new board and shipped ours off to a repair depot.
For that I had studied hard for nine months. My next chance to shoot trouble was at the firing range on the coastal side of Norwich overlooking the North Sea. We went there once, passing through the University town of Cambridge on the way, housed in the 2 1/2 ton trucks that were pulling our guns. The imperturbable scholars of Cambridge barely gave us a look.
The next day was spent fiddling with the guns and wondering when the target would get there. It finally arrived the second day and made a practice pass out at sea. Then it came by for real. The first gun set to fire was maintained by the same guy that kept us "hon'est" with his money at poker. He started it up, the gun barrel made one noisy loop, then pointed at the ground and stayed there. The fluttering cloth target was pulled by a small, slow moving plane that looked and acted more like the planes that pull ads up and down crowded beaches. It of course sailed by untouched.
The next gun performed as it was supposed to. The target was riddled and slowly sank. A cheer went up. The officers and non coms whooped with joy while the rest of us wondered what the fuss was about. Turned out that it was only the second time in the unit's history that they had actually hit a target. Those old guns we replaced were equipped only with visual sights with a shield of concentric rings to help the gunner guess how much to lead the target. It took an athlete with keen eyes to even come close. We now understood why a tall muscular young black gunner with a haughty smile and an an easy gait was treated with such deference by officers and men alike. He was the first to score a hit. No, his nickname wasn't Radar.
We sat around awaiting the target's return so we could do it again, but it never showed and the order came to break camp and go home, back to base. My guess is that the range didn't think it was necessary to stock many targets and so had nothing else for us to shoot. My weapon was secured for hauling still a virgin. It probably died still one, as the age of guided missiles was about to dawn and send such guns to scrap. Anyhow, we had conclusively proved that if asked we could clear the Jersey Shore of aerial advertising banners.
Goin' Home, Goin' Home
Winter came early, but with a ray of warmth and sunshine. No, British weather did not change. But my prospects did. My habit of reading camp bulletin boards paid off again. A notice announced that draftees accepted at a college could apply for an early discharge of up to 90 days in order to make the start of a semester. I had already decided to go for a master's degree in economics on the Korean version of the GI bill and had been accepted at Oklahoma A and M, my undergraduate alma mater. But were they the earliest start date I could find?
I promptly applied to several other colleges and was accepted at the University of Colorado and the University of California, Berkeley. But Oklahoma was still the earliest. So I told the army about Oklahoma A and M (now Oklahoma State) and my wife about Berkeley. Then we waited. At the time regular army (career) soldiers were streaming back from Korea as the truce -- still in existence today -- began to take hold. The draft had been scaled back and draftees were in heavy surplus. That didn't mean my request for an early discharge was promptly approved. Winter dragged on.
Weekend visits to London and Oxford helped fill the time. London was too big and too confusing for a cash strapped private on foot. I remember a map of Westminster especially because at every intersection every road changed its name. Other than Piccadilly Circus, my several return trips when older, more flush and mobile, have overlaid what I saw and did in those days. I did get to Harrods to buy an Irish linen table cloths and napkins and ship it home.
Oxford was different. I fell in love with the city of dreaming spires, less than an hour away by local bus. My favorite venue was the venerable Oxford Playhouse. Even during the week I could make the showing of an evening film. I saw J. Arthur Rank productions of Shakespeare (Richard III, Henry V) and Shaw (Androcleas and the Lion, Pygmalion) as well as home movies from Hollywood (Sabrina, Three Coins In The Fountain). Weekends local theater companies would put on plays. One much anticipated production was at Christmas: Swan Lake by the then Sadlers Wells Ballet company. I bought a ticket early, sixth row center, shrewd enough to observe that the first few row's view of the stage did not include the dancer's feet. That night I discovered that the sixth row had been promoted to the first row. An orchestra had been substituted for the first five rows. I saw Swan Lake through a sea of violin bows. But the music was splendid, and the nice couple next to me shared their snacks at intermission..
One fine day in early February, 1954, I was waved down by a smiling HQ clerk. "Congratulations!" he exclaimed. At last I was going home. Early.
Bon Voyage
Fairwells were brief, perfunctory even. I paid a last call in Oxford, in the Heyford tavern with the big black beam and waved to London while passing through entrained for the ship home. I don't remember where we boarded ship, probably Liverpool, but I do remember the ship, though not by name. What I remember was that the North Atlantic in February is a different beast than in June. Nor was there a cushy job writing a ships newspaper. This ship didn't bother with one. Instead I was consigned to the bakery located in the bowls of the ship, cleaning out the rotating machines with the big paddles that dough was mixed in. They were the size of small cement mixers. Dough residue congealed inside them like cement, too, and I spent my days up to my shoulders inside them scraping and scrubbing them out.
One good thing came from this unedifying experience. Though my gorge was in my throat most days I did not get sea sick, as many did, as the old bucket tossed and heaved through the waves. And I never have. Other warriors returning home have deserved the sight of Lady Liberty more than I did. No Purple Hearts were pinned along side my Good Conduct medal. But this homesick soldier was ever so glad to see her there to light me home.
The way home was by train via another stay at Camp Kilmer. We traversed Pennsylvania and Ohio where the neat splendor of the farms and villages reminded me of the transit of Germany. This is not surprising: "Pennsylvania Dutch" is slang for the Deutch Land from where their ancestors came. Then it was a slow turn south through Illinois, a piece of Iowa, all of Missouri and into Arkansas. Our destination was Fort Smith, an army discharge point on the Arkansas river boundary with Oklahoma.
Home began just across the river but I couldn't see it for three slow days as the army waltzed us through the discharge process of debriefings, orientation designed to make your transit from the military cocoon to the hard scrabble of real life not too traumatic, discussions of your continuing obligations as members of the Ready Reserve for the next six years (basically, keep your duffel bag at the ready), last minute opportunities to "re-up" for an army career, and other bureaucratic make work.
Finally, on the 27th day of February in the Year of Our Lord, 1955, I walked out of the gate, that infernal duffel bag strapped on my shoulder, discharge paper in one hand and the bus fare to Oklahoma City in the other. In more ways than one it was like a release from jail. The bus was hot, even though the day was frigid, and slow. It made its way due west, stopping at every depot in every small town, to discharge and load up with passengers, mail and freight. The roads were two lane and pot holed; Interstates were but a gleam in Eisenhower's eye.
It took six stuffy hours to get there, but my spouse was there to pick me up. "You smell like a goat," she said. It was good to be home.
Epilogue
After much packing and many farewells, we set forth in our Nash Rambler wagon, loaded to the brim, down Route 66, headed for Berkeley. The trip at a maximum of 40 mph in deference to the fragility of our vehicle was relatively uneventful. Approaching the San Francisco Bay Area on U.S. 101 in March we marveled at the lush green hills, the sunny temperate weather and beauty of California's coastal range. Much later we learned that the greenery a was short lived product of winter rains and that the hills were a parched straw color most of the summer and fall.
We took a motel room on University Avenue the first few days and looked for a furnished apartment, finding one on Blake Street a block from Telegraph Avenue and within easy walking distance of the Sather Gate and the Berkeley Campus. A couple of mornings later I set out alone for my first day of classes. The usual morning fog was not in evidence. It was a glorious day. Crisp air filled my lungs like fine wine. I thought briefly, exultantly: "The army is behind me," and then didn't think about it any more.
Now of course I have while writing this essay. Time has softened the colors and blurred the images of my days in the service of my country. The reader who is still with me will note that I didn't accomplish much. No heroics, no dramas, no traumas. And yet, in many ways it was as formative a period as I had had in my life so far. I had shouldered the responsibilities for forming a family, traveling to and living in new places, ridden all the trains I was to ride save a few short excursions, seen the ocean and crossed it, sampled both New York and London, even learned a few things about electricity that has helped along the way.
Once I was called into the company headquarters and given an hour long opportunity to reenlist. Trying to be polite I opined as to how I liked the army, had great respect for its institutions and accomplishments. After all it had won every war (to date) it had been called upon to fight. "But," I said, "I don't much care for army life. I don't think I'm cut out for it."
They let me go after that, and I haven't found a better way for summing up, so, gentle reader, I will let you go as well.
"I don't know, but I've been told . . ."
