Skirts of Navy Blue: A Memoir of World War Ii
By Jil Carlson
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About this ebook
As far as I was concerned, World War II was a snap despite blackouts, rationing, and no nylonsjust tan leg makeupGuaranteed not to come off ...the hem of your dress, the chair you sat on, or your dates trouser legs when dancing. In a burst of patriotism, I joined the WAVESthe Navys version of the WAACs (only with cuter uniforms), and met some great new friends including Candy, a movie starlet, and Howard Hughes who I thought was a radio repairman (I didnt catch his last name.)
The trip from Los Angeles to Hunter College in New York was a revelation; troop trains do not have dining carsyou march to various mess halls from wherever the train halts. I also discovered that the subway does not run from Chicago to NYC.!
Candy made boot camp a pleasure. We got to read her fan mail, and her familys chauffeur delivered weekly goodies from Schrafts and Bergdorf Goodmans (her three roommates were the best dressedlingerie-wiserecruits in the Navyand the only ones to gain weight inspite of all that marching.) . She also gave me the opportunity of turning down her invitation to have lunch at the Stork club with little Gloria Vanderbilt, and see Carmen Jones, a big Broadway hit. I chose instead to lead a gaggle of misguided recuits in an almost futile attempt to find the Empire State building.
Finally, the Navy, overlooking my southern accent and a tendency to address pilots as honey (Take a wave- off, honey), gave me one of their coveted billets as a Control Tower Operator and sent me to Atlanta, Georgia, for further training, There, I learned to drive a jeep, fly a plane (courtesy of the Link trainer) and to be careful where I sat on public streetcars Jim Crow was alive and well!.
Assigned to a small control tower in Corpus Christi, Texas, I met a tall, lanky radio repairman who laughed at almost anything I said, and was my good buddy during some dramatic changes in my life. His visits ended when I suddenly marred the Best pilot on the base. It was several years before I discovered that my buddy had been the elusive Howard Hughes.
During the 80s I wrote a weekly column for Roll Call, the Washington, DC newspaper. (Casandras Corner by Jil Carlson), and loved being with Fords Theatre promoting shows, during the 70s.The 60s were spent doing my own TV show.
Skirts Of Navy Blue is pure escapist reading for anyone who has only seen The War through John Waynes eyes.
Jil Carlson
Jil Carlson was born in Dallas, Texas, and attended a variety of schools where she gleaned a cursory knowledge of shorthand (which she was a whiz at taking down but, unfortunately, could not read) and typing. This led to a later resume that read like an F.B.I. Wanted poster: “Last seen working at a Bob’s Big Boy Drive-In, also briefly spotted sorting mail at Warner Bros. movie studio, inking cels for Disney, typing for Lockheed Aircraft plant, clerking at Bank Of America, painting pottery at Gladden-McBean, and working as a dispatch clerk for United Airlines. As soon as she turned 21, she joined the Navy and was assigned to be an Air Traffic Controller in spite of a tendency to call pilot’s ”Honey” (“One-oh-niner. ..Take a wave-off, Honey”. Jil also found a new Best Buddy by the name of Howard, who she thought was a radio repairman, but turned out to be Howard Hughes. Her Navy days were over after she married the top pilot on the base and settled down to raise five children. When she was asked to come to Washington,D.C. and help her brother open his new Mexican Food restaurant, she loved the east so much, she later moved there, working for historic Ford’s Theatre. She also wrote a weekly humorous column for Roll Call, the newspaper the president reads each week. Ms. Carlson now lives a few miles from Carmel in Northern California,. Her extended family includes five grand children, six great grand children, and Mewriel, her persnickety cat. Books by JIL are: SKIRTS OF NAVY BLUE, ESCAPE FROM DISNEYLAND, AND THE EDSEL AND I.
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