While I Was Away, Memoirs of Running Quiet and Deep during the Cold War

By Mike Klein

Early in my naval career there were times when I needed some guidance and discipline. Hindu Peterson, COB on Tirante, showed the way. He and Captain Dave Purinton set my course to follow.
I graduated from submarine school in 1957, and lost track of a couple of classmates. Chuck Callahan, Bill James, and I were in technical ratings, Chuck an ET, Bill and me RMs. So, after the basic submarine course we classed up in Advanced Sonar/Electronics, a two-week add-on. From there we went to the fleet. Bill went to Threadfin - SS410, and Chuck and I received orders to Tirante - SS420. Both were diesel-electric boats operating out of Key West.
The three of us separated from the navy after our first tour. Bill went to Philadelphia, Chuck went to Bridgeport, and I went to New York. Almost four years later I reenlisted and received orders to a brand new boomer, an SSBN. And, there’s Chuck! He had reenlisted, gone to nuclear power school, and was now a reactor operator.
After Tirante, there was a very short tour on Archerfish. There were a fair number of memorable characters on Archerfish, all relatively new to the boat and mostly single because of a submarine force wide message asking for single volunteers to take part in Operation Sea Scan. The boat was redesignated AGSS and had a new classified mission. Among that crew was Ken “Pig Pen” Henry. Ken’s book Gallant Lady: A Biography of the USS Archerfish helped inspire me to write this book.

Many submarine Cold Warriors may not be aware, but late in the twentieth century there was a shift in our tradition of the Silent Service. In August of 1998, COMSUBLANT, VADM Giambastiani issued a message to SUBLANT and others. The subject was “Telling the submarine force story.” Here are a couple of quotes from the text. “The remainder of this century and the beginning of the new millennium will be exciting times for our submarine force. Seawolf and her sister ships and the new attack submarine (NSSN) will give us the technological edge we need to maintain undersea superiority. Our people, who are consistently among the best in the navy, will maintain our position as the premier submarine force in the world.” And, “Our submarine sailors deserve recognition for their hard work and dedication; their story must be told to the rest of the navy and the American public.” Aye, Admiral, here you go!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Klein
• Release date: Oct 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370576142

Mike Klein

Mike Klein grew up in New York City. He joined the navy in the mid-1950s and grew up some more. A radioman, he was first in the Mine Force, and then found his home in the Submarine Force. He rode four classes of boats, beginning with the Tench class, followed by Balao, Lafayette, and Sturgeon. Other assignments included a submarine squadron staff , a NATO tour, and two tours at the US Navy’s submarine school. After retirement, he went to work for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, working in the submarine division as logistician, involved primarily in the development of training for weapons systems acquisitions. Mike left government service to focus on satellite communications training for ships and submarines. This is his first book. Job Name: 746962_WIWA PDF Page: 746962_WIWA_cvr.p1.pdf Process Plan: Virtual_Proof_MultiPagePDF Date: 17-05-11 Time: 23:46:33 Operator: ____________________________ PageMark-Color-Comp ❏ OK to proceed ❏ Make corrections and proceed ❏ Make corrections and show another proof Signed: ___________________ Date: ______

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While I Was Away

Memoirs of Running Quiet and Deep During the Cold War

by

Mike Klein

Copyright © 2014 by Michael N. Klein

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN 978-0-692-34658-7

Revised edition

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to sailors of the Cold War. Those who served on the surface and below. We have shared experiences that are worth remembering and getting down on paper. They must be because we talk about them and relive them whenever we get together. Beginning my navy career in the mid 1950’s, life in America, and the navy was very different than today. I would like to think that we had some minor impact on the way things are today in the world.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my fellow submariner Bill James for his invaluable help as the initial reviewer and editor of this book. A hell of a submariner and a terrific radioman.

I also want to mention Gail, the mother of our children. She helped immensely with the writing of this book, totally recalling events from the past, especially those concerning the home front. What a memory. And to Jane, my late wife, gone too soon. And to my copy editor Janet Wagner, couldn’t have done it without her.

I saw the submariners, the way they stood aloof and silent, watching their pigboat with loving eyes. They are alone in the Navy. I admired the PT boys. And I often wondered how the aviators had the courage to go out day after day and I forgave their boasting. But the submariners! In the entire fleet they stand apart!

James Michener

Tales of the South Pacific

Togetherness is an overworked term, but in no other branch of our military service is it given such full meaning as in the so-called Silent Service.

In an undersea craft, each man is totally dependent upon the skill of every other man in the crew, not only for top performance but for actual survival. Each knows that his very life depends on the others and because this is so, there is a bond among them that both challenges and comforts them.

All of this gives the submariner a special feeling of pride, because he is indeed a member of an elite corps. The risks, then, are an inspiration, rather than a deterrent.

Joyce Brothers

Profile of a Submariner

Written after the loss of the USS Thresher in 1963.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Part I The 1950s: Wood, Steel, and Oil

Getting started

Boot Camp and Basic Text: Bluejackets’ Manual

RM A School

Mine Force

USS Direct (MSO 430)

USS Vigor (MSO 473)

USS Flamingo (MSCO -11)

Submarine School

USS Tirante (SS-420)

January 1958

New York City

Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia

Philly Bars

Sea Trials

US Naval Base, Key West, Florida

U/W for Havana, Cuba

COMM Stuff

Qualification

Marseille, France

Oh, by the Way…

1 January 1959

Mediterranean and Gibraltar

Key West

Operation Petticoat

Tuesday, 16 June 1959. 0827 U/W

Depth Excursion

Fall of 1959

Friday, 8 January 1960

USS Archerfish (SS 311)

Part II The 1960s: Here Come the Nukes

Broken Service

Pullman Company

NY Central Railroad

Chevrolet Truck Factory

Bethlehem Steel Shipyard

PATH

United Parcel Service (UPS)

Pennsylvania Railroad

Admiral Hyman Rickover

Boomer

Shakedown

Surprise, Surprise!

Norfolk, Virginia

Charleston, South Carolina

Rota, Spain

Patrol One August 1964

Patrol Two January 1965

For CO Only

Partol Three July 1965

Ant Farm

Training at Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Family Grams

Patrol Four December 1965

Hump Day

Patrol Five June 1966

Patrol Six November 1966

Air Conditioning Failure

Patrol Seven my last, May 1967

COMSUBRON SIXTEEN

COMSUBRON SIXTEEN STAFF

New and different

Hostilities Exercise

VERDIN

USS Pueblo

Mid-February 1968

USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

August 1968

NAPLES

Travel from Rota to Naples

Part III The 1970s and the War Is Still Cold

AFSOUTH (Allied Forces, South), Naples, Italy

Back to Connecticut

I/T School

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt

Fast Attack Boat

Chasing Uncle Joe

Naval Submarine School: Director, RM/QM Training

Academic Review Boards

Exit

Epilogue

Glossary

Index

Foreword

I met and got to know Mike Klein when we both attended class 11-57 of the US Navy’s Submarine School. Then we went through advanced sonar and electronics school together, which was in 1957. We became reacquainted through something called e-mail circa 2004.

I’m proud to call Mike Klein a brother submariner, a friend, and a good man.

Bill James RM2(SS)(P1) USS Threadfin-SS410

Preface

I wrote these memoirs to get down on paper our Sea Stories. Those that we share when we are together at reunions, veteran functions, and at ceremonies like inductions into the Holland Club for those fifty years SS qualified. These stories are memories that we share together, and they are also for those who follow. This is a revision to the first publication of this book, which was primarily for family consumption.

In 1955 I joined the navy and retired twenty-two years later, after riding submarines as a radioman, working with NATO in Italy, and teaching at the navy submarine school. Early in my naval career there were times when I needed some guidance and discipline. Hindu Peterson, COB on Tirante, showed the way. He and Captain Dave Purinton set my course to follow.

I graduated from submarine school in 1957, and lost track of a couple of classmates. Chuck Callahan, Bill James, and I were in technical ratings, Chuck an ET, Bill and me RMs. So, after the basic submarine course we classed up in Advanced Sonar/Electronics, a two-week add-on. From there we went to the fleet. Bill went to Threadfin SS410, and Chuck and I received orders to Tirante SS420. Both were diesel-electric boats operating out of Key West.

The three of us separated from the navy after our first tour. Bill went to Philadelphia, Chuck went to Bridgeport, and I went to New York. Almost four years later I reenlisted and received orders to a brand new boomer, an SSBN. And, there’s Chuck! He had reenlisted, gone to nuclear power school, and was now a reactor operator.

I wouldn’t run in to Bill until many years later, maybe forty years. I was scouring the Internet for a picture of our SUBSCOL graduation, found it, and realized Bill had posted it. We talked about our navy adventures and all that had transpired in the interim. I decided to write it all down in this series of memoirs. Bill contributed to the effort greatly by becoming the first editor.

After Tirante, there was a very short tour on Archerfish. There were a fair number of memorable characters on Archerfish, all relatively new to the boat and mostly single because of a submarine force wide message asking for single volunteers to take part in Operation Sea Scan. The boat was redesignated AGSS and had a new classified mission. Among that crew was Ken Pig Pen Henry. Ken’s book Gallant Lady: A Biography of the USS Archerfish helped inspire me to write this book.

Privacy of personnel is a consideration. Most players in this book have been assigned pseudonyms, except for Bill, Chuck, and those I consider public figures.

Many submarine Cold Warriors may not be aware, but late in the twentieth century there was a shift in our tradition of the Silent Service. In August of 1998, COMSUBLANT, VADM Giambastiani issued a message to SUBLANT and others. The subject was Telling the submarine force story. Here are a couple of quotes from the text. "The remainder of this century and the beginning of the new millennium will be exciting times for our submarine force. Seawolf and her sister ships and the new attack submarine (NSSN) will give us the technological edge we need to maintain undersea superiority. Our people, who are consistently among the best in the navy, will maintain our position as the premier submarine force in the world. And, Our submarine sailors deserve recognition for their hard work and dedication; their story must be told to the rest of the navy and the American public." Aye, Admiral, here you go!

Friedrich Nietzsche once described the illusion of memory in this way: ‘I have done that,’ says my memory. ‘I cannot have done that,’ says my pride and remains unyielding. Eventually—memory yields. Or, as Gerard DeGroot said in a book review he wrote for the Washington Post, The past is what happened—history what we decide to remember. I offer these quotations as a way of saying that my memory of the past is as good as the account that I’ve written. Others with whom I’ve checked my recollection of events often didn’t remember a particular incident or couldn’t recall who did what or had the wrong year or the wrong boat. When I could, I’ve checked my facts.

Introduction

Today, driving out toward Annapolis, Maryland, from the DC beltway, you go over the new Severn River Bridge. If you look downriver, on a clear day you can see three old very low frequency (VLF) antenna towers. The steel towers rise about 1,200 feet and once supported a stranded bronze cable that was strung between them to form the antenna. Originally there were six, but since the transmitter was shut down years ago, three of the towers were razed in November 1999. Very low frequencies are ideal for submarine communication. The majority of the radiated signal propagates through a ground wave, and over water the signal can penetrate to a depth of 100 feet or so. A megawatt VLF transmitter like the one at Annapolis could reach a submarine thousands of miles away. The last radio signals that I copied while on a submarine emanated from that antenna array. There’s no romance there, just a glimpse of history.

I served aboard four submarines: two diesels, a boomer, and a 637 class SSN. After my last sea tour in 1977, I served as director of the RM/QM (radioman/quartermaster) Training Section at the Naval Submarine School in New London, Connecticut.

Part I

The 1950s Wood, Steel, and Oil

Getting Started

On the morning of 14 November 1955, I left my one-room rental on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. I took the D train to 90 Church Street in lower Manhattan. The night before I’d spent some time with my girlfriend, and we’d said a long good-bye. When we parted, she had taken most of my personal belongings with her. I wouldn’t need them for a while. When I got off the train, I walked over to the assembly point and was sworn in as a brand new recruit in the US Navy.

Without much fanfare, I immediately boarded a bus with a bunch of other recruits. We were heading to naval boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland, which was about forty miles north of Baltimore. Just a month earlier I had been working in the Park Avenue office of a major construction company, and about six months before that, I had quit high school and left home. The Korean War had ended in July 1953, but the navy, along with the other services, had continued to draft young men. I had received my draft notice and had registered as required, but I thought that being in the navy would be preferable to being in the army. As a Boy Scout, I’d made a few trips across the Hudson River to go camping in the woods of New Jersey, sleeping on the ground at the Alpine Boy Scout Camp. That was fine for a weekend, but I couldn’t see doing that for years. So, to avoid getting drafted in to the army, I decided to join the navy. I was working in an office on Forty-Second Street and Park Avenue, and one day I used my lunch break to walk across town and enlist at the recruiting station in Times Square.

Boot Camp and Basic Text: The Bluejacket’s Manual

Boot Camp, Bainbridge, MD, 1956 MNK in white T-shirt, is in front row on the left.

Upon arrival at the US Naval Training Center (USNTC) at Bainbridge, they wanted my hair and then my clothes. I heard lots of Get in line, asshole to belly button, peppered with and over there or over here. After my head was shaved, I was told to stand in those squares painted on the deck. Yes, it wasn’t a floor anymore; it had become the deck. Strip down and put your clothes in this box. Address it to your home. I didn’t want to send my things to my landlady or my home, so I sent the box with my leather jacket, dungarees, and shoes to my girlfriend. I hadn’t started calling dungarees jeans yet and neither had anyone else I knew. I had paid good money for that jacket and was fond of it. It was made from cowhide, which was common then. The next time I saw my girlfriend, she was wearing it. That made me smile.

After muster stay in ranks for a Short Arm Inspection Who thought up this routine, I wondered? What was a Short Arm Inspection? Clap? What was clap? Break it out, skin it back, and milk it down. A preventative health measure? The purpose of that examination was to determine whether a sailor had a venereal disease by observing discharge from the penis. I have to say that the only time we had this exam it was done by a corpsman who was less than enthusiastic about it. Who could blame him? We were lined up in ranks, and after telling us what to do, the corpsman went rather quickly down the ranks, making the required observation. Obviously that’s where the nickname pecker checker came from.

We received extensive venereal disease training, and my favorite of all the diseases covered was chancroid. Favorite was the word uttered by a seventeenyear-old who was scared and disgusted by the pictures and description of painful, oozing ulcers on a penis. The takeaway message was always wear a condom when making love to strange, exotic women, especially in the Far East, or anywhere else for that matter.

Then it was get in that line and get your uniforms, dress shoes, and boondockers, the standard issue black leather work shoe. I was given two blankets and a pillow, and told to sign for them. I read the document given to me along with my blankets and pillow: It is further my understanding that, if through my own negligence or carelessness, these items are lost, destroyed, or not returned, I will be subject to disciplinary action. Man, these guys are serious, I thought.

Okay, then we marched around, shot a .22 rifle, and put out a fire. Later I sat in a hot classroom, wearing my peacoat, and fell asleep while learning naval history and tradition from The Bluejacket’s Manual.

I started with one company, made up of primarily raw teenagers. After a few weeks I contracted pneumonia, spent a week or so in the hospital, and then joined another company at about the same point in training as I had been when I was sidelined by pneumonia. The new company, by contrast, was made up of mainly draftees who were older, and some were married.

I joined the drill team and marched around, twirling my rifle and looking pretty cool. The team practiced marching in formation and performing routines with precision. Word came down that the team had been invited to appear on Perry Como’s television show, which all of us thought was a pretty good deal. However, we were told the television studio was relatively small and could only accommodate sixteen team members, four ranks of four, to perform the selected routines. We knew everyone couldn’t go, and in retrospect, the decision of who should go was simple. They just took the sixteen tallest sailors, which eliminated me and a few others.

We learned a lot about the navy, and maybe something about ourselves, during the twelve weeks of boot camp. The list of subjects covered included naval regulations, naval history, physical exercise, boxing, and shooting a rifle. We learned how to be a sentry by guarding clotheslines and dumpsters. And laundry—we learned a lot about washing clothes and scrubbing the khaki color out of our spats until they were white. We became experts at smoothing and folding our blues and whites until they didn’t need ironing. Then we learned how to pack a sea bag properly, so that every item of the uniform fit, and there was still plenty of room for your ditty bag. A ditty bag was a small cotton drawstring bag that held shaving gear and other toiletries. It was quickly dubbed a douche bag, or maybe it had acquired that name long before.¹

We learned shipboard nomenclature and jargon, firefighting, and damage control, as well as semaphore signaling and sound-powered telephone talking. We were taught the meaning of international flags and pennants, and how to tie various knots. One full week of boot camp was spent doing nothing but working hard from before dawn to just before taps. That week was referred to as Hell Week and started each morning at 4:00 a.m. in the base galley/scullery of the mess hall, where we assisted the cooks in their preparation of breakfast for the troops. We also helped them prepare the noon meal and then supper. This daily grind didn’t end until early evening, when those assigned to scrubbing the huge kettles in the scullery staggered into the barracks, soaking wet and smelling of wet grease. I escaped that drudgery and was assigned to scrubbing the wooden decks and painting the bulkheads of the barracks instead.

We had liberty one day during a weekend toward the end of the twelve weeks. We had a choice of two destinations: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the lure of 3.2 beer, or Baltimore, Maryland. I chose Baltimore merely because I hadn’t heard of Lancaster, and I didn’t know what 3.2 beer was. The number 3.2 referred to the low alcohol content of the beer, which could be sold to minors. Two memories stand out from that trip to Baltimore. First, a couple of us saw an ad for a burlesque show featuring Tempest Storm. We found our way to the Gaiety Theater and saw a beautiful redhead take her clothes off. I became a fan of burlesque immediately. Anyway, the other memory was more disconcerting. We looked for a place to get something to eat. We found a restaurant, and as we entered, I noticed a sign in the window that said Whites Only or words to that effect. I had never been farther south than New Jersey before and was a little shocked by the blatant segregation. Of course I knew about prejudice and segregation, but I’d never seen evidence of segregation firsthand. That was early 1956.

I met a lot of characters while I was serving in the navy. I guess that goes without saying. There weren’t many characters in boot camp mostly because the company commanders were handpicked to represent how a squaredaway sailor should look and behave. And, I think most of the recruits were too afraid to show their true personalities. Guys who were jokesters got along pretty well, but those who acted up, were quickly straightened out or booted out of the navy. A comment one of the company commanders made stuck with me. It was after a lecture on venereal disease that featured pictures of a penis infected with chancroid that will be with me forever. (Don’t look on the Internet for pictures because one glance, and you may not want to have sex for a while.) Anyway, that lecture was followed by a talk on sex and homosexuality. For sex, condoms were recommended; abstinence was not addressed. For homosexuality, the company commander simply said, It doesn’t matter which end of the dick you’re on, if you’re both men, you’re both fags. This discussion was based on the reading of certain articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Penetration however slight was the key phrase of Articles 120 and 125, which cover rape and sodomy.

Knowledge, skill, and aptitude testing occurred at various points during the twelve weeks of boot camp in order to determine a path of future training in a professional field of the navy. I remember one test that required listening to three letters in Morse code and then indicating what they were. That’s how I became a radioman candidate.

A company of recruits would graduate boot camp every other week. Because of inclement weather, our graduation ceremony was held in the massive drill hall. We buffed our shoes, put on our dress blues, and marched around while a band played. Later that day it occurred to me that I had a brief introduction to Morse many years earlier. Before moving to New York, we lived in Chicago; I was born there. We lived across the street from the Henry Crown Field House, part of Chicago University. It was 1944. Each morning navy ROTC students would do calisthenics on the field. As I watched, some would then go inside and practice sending and receiving Morse code. A momentary fascination before being chased away by an instructor. You received orders to your next duty station, and you were on your way, unless, like me, you received the designation OGU (outgoing unit). Those of us OGU were just waiting for the next Radioman School–Class A (RM A) to convene. But, you just can’t sit around waiting in the navy; you have to do something. I was assigned to the master-at-arms (MAA). My job was to stand watch in one of the barracks that housed men who were awaiting disciplinary action or discharge. That was not a fun bunch. They had already been labeled as misfits or malcontents and had only been in the navy a half hour or so. I was given a brassard (a band worn on the sleeve) and a stick. The brassard had the letters MAA printed on it, and the stick…well…it wasn’t a heavy nightstick. It was more like someone had cut about eighteen inches off an old broom handle. You couldn’t hurt anyone with it; all you could do was maybe keep them eighteen inches away—until you could escape. I decided that if during the night a fire broke out, I would wake those who were sleeping and get them out. I would ignore the smoking in their bunks, loud talking, and any other grab-ass. I was relieved when less than a week later I joined the next RM A class and was out of there.

RM A School

On 29 February 1956 my status changed from on board for recruit training, NTC, Bainbridge, MD, to on board for DUINS in RM/A SCOL and FFA BuPers. That translates to duty under instruction in Radioman A School and for future availability to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. I started class on 5 March 1956 and graduated twenty-seventh out of thirty-eight on 17 August 1956.

The two basic ways the navy communicated then was radiotelegraphy, i.e., Morse code, and radiotelephone, i.e., voice. Not to leave out signalmen (SM) who used flags, pennants, semaphore, and flashing light, but that’s a different bunch of sailors. All their work was done with the sender and receiver within sight of each other. We were the long-haul guys.

Probably the most important part of A school was Morse code. No matter what ship or station you reported to, you would be expected to copy Morse code. Regardless of what the curriculum called for on a particular day, there were always a couple of hours of practicing Morse code. First, you had to learn the code, and then you could begin practicing its usage. At the beginning of the class, one instructor loved to say, A is di-dah (dot-dash), and all the rest are different. To graduate, a sailor had to be able to receive Morse code at a speed of twenty-two words a minute with a high level of accuracy. Additionally, there was a Morse sending requirement. That speed requirement was less than twenty-two words per minute. I can’t remember the exact number.

Copying a plain language message was easier than copying five letter groups. When you’ve copied the first part of a word in English, you can just about guess the remaining letters. Five letter-coded groups are made up of five random letters that could be in any combination. No guessing was possible. One of the most impressive code copiers I met was an RM on one of the tenders in Rota, Spain. At lunchtime, and not at a high tempo, the crew in radio would leave him on his own to cover all the circuits, and the submarine broadcast. He would put the broadcast on a speaker and walk around radio central listening. After a line of ten coded groups—fifty letters—he’d sit down and type it out while listening to the next line of groups. I never observed this, so I’m sure there was some exaggeration, but everyone agreed, the guy could copy some code. He had a backstory. He was a converted CT (communication technician) and trained as a manual Morse operator. He had to convert because while stationed in Japan, he met and married a Japanese national. That was a no-no for CTs back then.

Mastery of the twenty-two words per minute objective started off very slowly. Initially most of us thought of Morse code as dots and dashes. We learned that there had to be a flow, a rhythm. The letter A is di dah. The letter C is dah di dah dit. When warming up to practice sending code, a lot of RMs used three words: best, better, bent. Best is Dah, di di dit, dit, di di dit dah. The idea was to strive for accuracy and not worry about speed. Instructors frequently reminded us that accuracy leads to reliability. Our guiding principle was to aim for reliability, security, and speed, in that order. As one instructor said, If a commander can’t rely on the accuracy and completeness of a message, security and speed of delivery are meaningless.

We copied code on a typewriter. Bill James reminded me of the method used to teach us to touch type. An overhead projector displayed the QWERTY keyboard layout on a screen. It didn’t help to look down at the keys while typing because the letters had been removed. The fact that there was no shifting from uppercase to lowercase was helpful. The COMM typewriters had no lowercase letters. All our messages were printed in capital letters.

So, we listened to Morse recordings, recognized the letters, and then remembered where the corresponding key was on the typewriter. After initially learning the code and the typewriter, a portion of the training day was simply practice, practice, and more practice. Through the weeks of training, progress was slow for some and fast for others. It was odd, but sailors would get hung up at various speeds. Spend a whole week unable to get past sixteen words per minute for example, and then make a breakthrough and zip along to twentytwo. I got hung up at twenty for some unknown reason.

There was a lesson on security and the handling and safeguarding of classified material, including a reference to cryptographic material. This training was limited and not very substantive. I think the idea was simply to introduce the fact that, depending on where we were stationed in the future, we could be exposed to classified material and consequently be responsible for the proper handling and safeguarding of the information. There could be consequences if we mishandled classified material. As a scare tactic, we were given examples that could land us in Fort Leavenworth Prison, a military prison in Kansas. There you could find ex-communications officers and ex-radiomen who had been convicted of some violation in the handling of cryptographic material. The US Naval Prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was where sailors convicted of violations of the UCMJ served their sentences.

Radioman training was evolving and would continue to evolve through my career. But, at the time, A school had recently been expanded to include sixteen weeks of basic electricity and electronics. The aim was to provide skills and knowledge to radiomen so they could maintain and repair radio equipment. At about the same time a new rating of Teleman (TE) was introduced to operate and maintain the emerging expansion of Teletype systems throughout the navy. The TE rate didn’t last long. Operation and maintenance of Teletype systems eventually became the responsibility of RMs. Years earlier there had been a RT (radio technician) rating. That rating went away and the related responsibilities fell under the electronics technician (ET) rating. Over the years as various systems advanced and incorporated more and more electronics, it became clear that many ratings required basic electricity and electronics (B&E). Eventually, B&E school provided the fundamentals to all. Upon graduation, sailors branched off for unique and specialized training in their particular rating.

In our B&E training, we learned to use some tools and equipment like volt and watt meters, we even developed some soldering skill. If you needed to replace a burned-out resistor, you had to know the resistance value, which was determined by the colored stripes around the resistors.

We were introduced to the electron theory and electronic circuit design and analysis. We also learned how to read schematics. Antennae and radio wave propagation, e.g., sky wave and ground wave were explained. The effects of the ionosphere and troposphere on electromagnetic radiation were covered. We were taught how to operate transmitters and receivers that were in the high and ultra high frequency (HF/UHF) range. Whether a sailor’s first duty assignment was shipboard or at a shore communications station would determine the equipment he would use, but the basic concepts would apply wherever he was assigned. We even learned to operate a facsimile (FAX) machine. It was a far cry from today’s machines and was used primarily for sending and receiving weather maps that depicted large ocean areas. It was very slow, smelly, and susceptible to atmospheric static, which could make the map unreadable. That would result in a request to send it again, and I’ll piece it together. The smell came from an electrically charged stylus that burned dark lines on the chemically treated paper. The paper was placed on a rotating drum and the stylus burned light and dark lines on the paper, depending on the amount of electrical current flowing to the stylus. The process gave off an acrid odor.

Once a sailor graduated from RM A, that was it for training. All future training would be on the job (OJT). Equipment or procedures that were peculiar or unique to a ship or station had to be learned from a technical manual or onboard personnel. Years later an RM B school would be developed, and it provided advanced training on up-to-date equipment and systems. And, shipping over could get you a set of orders to B school. Lots of submarine RMs at the end of their first enlistment were faced with a decision: to get out or ship over. So, in the ‘60s when B school was established, it was an inducement to ship over.

One of the A school instructors was a trim first class RM who looked good in the uniform. He could have been photographed for recruiting posters. He talked about being an extra in some movies while he was stationed on the West Coast. He said he had been an extra in Miss Sadie Thompson, a movie starring Rita Hayworth, and that he wasn’t interested in making chief because he would have to give up the sailor uniform in favor of the chief ’s uniform, and he wouldn’t look like a sailor anymore. I don’t think anyone bought that. He was the instructor who taught us transmitters. A student performing the tune-up of a transmitter would use a couple of tuning knobs to adjust the output power. The instructor watched the needle on the output meter and urged the student to Bring it up an RCH or Bring it down an RCH. I’ll just say that he meant for the student to move the needle the width of a pubic hair.

The other memorable A school character, other than our class leader, was an old warrant officer, and I mean old. He moved slowly as if every joint in his body hurt. He was somewhere up in the administration of the school and would occasionally muster the entire class outside on the grinder (parade ground) for what amounted to a pep talk. He would speak from a raised ceremonial platform and basically encourage everyone to work hard and graduate. Then would come the threat If you flunk out of school, you’ll be ordered to a garbage scow. And when you go alongside the ships to offload their garbage, it will be thrown down on your head. They will yell down, ‘Here you go piggy.’ After that image was planted in our minds, everyone was re-energized. He would dismiss us, and one of the instructors would call out Hand salute. Everyone saluted the old geezer, but his return salute was not what one would call snappy. He would slowly bring the tip of his fingers to the edge of his cover (hat), and with what seemed like arthritic pain, he would slowly drop his hand to his side. Then we were gone.

There were many personnel inspections on Saturdays, and when they were over, we were all dismissed. There would be hundreds of sailors leaving the base—not just from RM A, but all of the other A schools in session at Bainbridge. There were sailors heading in all directions after making it up the road to Route 40 to hitchhike or to the Perryville train station, then north to New York, or south to Baltimore, DC, etc. One of the guys in our class had a car, a not-so-old Mercury with a chopped top, which was considered a cool attribute at the time. He lived out on Long Island. Everybody thought he was rich because he had a car and lived on Long Island. He probably was. Anyway, a handful of us would catch a ride with him up to New York whenever we could. He’d drop us anywhere that wasn’t out of his way and pick us up at Penn Station on Sunday night. We decided on Penn Station because if for some reason he didn’t show by nine, we could catch the last train to Perryville, and then hitchhike to Bainbridge before midnight, when our liberty was up. (I-95 wouldn’t pass through this area until the mid-1970s.)

Two classmates from Brooklyn rarely met us at Penn station, and they didn’t always catch the train either. However, they would be in their bunks on Monday morning. Still in uniform and filthy. They didn’t want to go through the gate after midnight and get written up, so they managed to find a place where they could dig under the perimeter fence and slip underneath it. They were both pretty good in class, and I’m sure they developed in to good radiomen. They just didn’t think a thirty-six-hour weekend was enough, and it wasn’t.

I don’t know how it got started, but one Saturday morning during personnel inspection, we were in ranks with the division officer making his way down the line, looking over each sailor. Someone keeled over flat on his face. One of his classmates knelt and rolled him over; he was moaning. An instructor told some guys to pick the guy up and move him into the shade of a nearby tree. Summers were hot in Bainbridge, and if you had to stand in the sun at attention, you couldn’t last very long. We were always cautioned to not lock our knees and to keep them slightly bent. I still don’t know what that gem was good for. In retrospect, I don’t recall anyone stressing the importance of drinking water, which could have helped. The word quickly spread that the fainting spell was fake. It was a good way to get out of inspection and get a head start on liberty.

Then it was my turn. I decided to fall sideways toward the sailor next to me. I didn’t have the guts to go down face first. When they rolled me over, I kept my eyes shut and tried not to laugh as our class leader told them to pick me up and carry me back to the barracks. The scheme failed because as I was being carried away, he said, No liberty for you guys until I see that everyone is okay. He didn’t address his obvious suspicion directly, but we got the distinct impression that the jig was up. He was a pretty sharp cookie.

Mine Force

USS Direct (MSO 430)

I reported to the Direct on 10 September 1956 in Panama City, Florida. The executive officer (XO) was Lt. Lawrence Layman, later to become director of naval communications and retire as a rear admiral. The ship’s home port was Charleston, South Carolina, but it had been temporarily made available to provide testing services to the US Naval Mine Defense Laboratory on Florida’s gulf coast. It was a long, hot trip from New York, where I had spent my A school leave. It was late summer and still warm in New York, but it was even hotter in Florida. I flew to Jacksonville and waited hours in my dress blues (required attire when traveling under orders) in a sweltering terminal for a plane to Panama City. It was a small commuter-type plane that had maybe twenty seats. After a short flight, we landed at what appeared to be a desolate runway. No other planes were on the ground, and no one met the plane. The other passengers scattered into waiting cars. There was no terminal to speak of, and no ground transportation available. There was only one thing to do: I got out on the road with my sea bag and stuck out my thumb.

USS Direct MSO-430

When a car stopped, I asked in which direction was the Mine Defense Lab. The driver was going the right way and took me down the road. After a short ride we stopped, and I looked across the road and saw a chain-link fence with an open swinging gate. I thanked the driver for the ride, hoisted my sea bag, crossed the road, and showed my orders to the lone guard in the small guardhouse. The guard said Direct was in port down at the pier, which was about a mile or so away. He said I could hike down the road or wait for the truck that would bring his relief in a half hour. After a long couple of days of traveling, I was anxious for the trip to be over and wanted to report to my ship, my first ship. I said I would hike down to the pier.

The sun was beginning to set, and the light disappeared quickly as I began the walk down the heavily shaded road. After a few yards the dense jungle started closing in—yes, where I come from that vegetation would qualify as jungle. I had seen Spanish moss hanging from trees in Tarzan movies, and this looked very familiar. A sign along the road that warned of alligators firmed up my change in decision: I’d wait for the truck. Thinking back now, there may have been a smile on my lips. This was the start of my navy adventure.

I was excited and maybe a little apprehensive about reporting to my first ship. A number of firsts were in store for me: first time at sea in the beautiful Gulf of Mexico, first time seasick, and the biggie—first time on the air. Direct had a first class radioman as a leading petty officer: RM1 Baronti, a fellow Bronxite. One morning after quarters (inspection), just a few days after I had reported, we went into radio. There was one other RMSA (radioman seaman apprentice), a kid named Swanson who had graduated two months before me. That was the radio gang: two RMSAs and one RM1. Baronet said we had an outgoing message, and stepped into the transmitter room and began tuning the transmitter and then the receiver, to the frequency for NSS, the call sign for the Naval Communications Station in Washington, DC. He turned to me, handed me the message, and told me make the call.