Cruise Widows: A Novel

By Hope Moore

After a detachment of photographic reconnaissance aviators is sent from Florida to the USS FDR, five cruise widows are left behind. With a lengthy separation ahead of them, the widows have no choice but to establish a bond as their husbands begin their mission.

The five women, who already know a great deal of trust and faith is necessary to be a good navy wife, are at different stages in life, but new to this type of separation. Nan Levin is a mother of two with a talent for creating delicious meals and clothes from designer patterns. Pat Dunn is happy to have her mother help with her children. Mert Sorensen is an excellent cook and baker and mother of three who runs her house like a business. Lia Hayes has seen her share of tragedies, but is now a happily pregnant newlywed. Beth Williams, whose husband is the photographic interpreter for the detachment, is an exceptional bridge player. As the five women find companionship during the separation, none have any idea that a catastrophe aboard the ship will cause not all of their husbands to return home.

Cruise Widows shares the compelling tale of five women who embark on an unforgettable journey of bonding, friendship, and heartache after their naval husbands head to sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491740002

Hope Moore

Hope Moore is the pseudonym for the author who was a cruise widow several times while her husband was on active duty as a tail hook Naval Aviator. She and her husband, the parents of four adult children, live in Texas. This is her second book.

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CRUISE WIDOWS

A NOVEL

Copyright © 2014 Hope Moore.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3998-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3999-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4000-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912382

iUniverse rev. date: 11/03/2014

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Any resemblance to places, persons, or events is purely coincidental and strictly a composite of impersonal relationships of the author.

Introduction

There is a phrase that is exclusive to the US Navy and applies to all the women whose husbands are aboard a navy vessel at sea for the period of at least four weeks or more. Because the men are gone for this period of time, their wives become cruise widows, for, according to the navy, the men aboard ship are cruising, and their wives are figuratively widows because the men are not within telephoning distance. These cruises can last as short as four weeks or as long as nine months, if the men are in the western Pacific, or WESPAC, as the navy calls it. No longer does the navy have yearlong, around-the-world cruises, because our national defense doesn’t seem to need goodwill at ports of call over the entire world. However, we still maintain a fleet in the western Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the northern Atlantic Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea.

Before satellites, all air reconnaissance was done by just one squadron from Jacksonville, Florida’s Naval Air Station. The squadron dispatched four naval aviators plus a photographic engineer, as well as all the men necessary to maintain the planes these aviators flew while in a detachment. Each day, always aboard a navy aircraft carrier, this detachment kept two men in the air when the ship was at sea, preferably during the daylight hours and only occasionally at night, when they were photographing areas where their presence had to go unnoticed.

Each detachment had an officer in charge, called the CO or a squadron leader, who was the senior officer present. Next in line was the executive officer, or XO, who was usually a rank beneath the leader. There were also two other naval aviators and the officer (or PO) who interpreted the film the aviators had taken while in flight. Each officer had a call name by which they communicated with each other as well as the air boss aboard ship and the combat information control center, although chatter was not used unless the information were important. To sign off a communication, the ending of the sentence was Roger, a phrase coined during World War II by flyers and other persons communicating.

The squadron in Jacksonville was named VC-62. The V indicated airborne, the C indicated photographic reconnaissance, and the 62 was a numerical identification. The squadron consisted of about fifty officers, all of whom had attended the Naval Photographic School in Pensacola, Florida, for six months in order to learn the mechanics of using the equipment aboard the fighter planes to take pictures from on high of targets of importance to the navy. These planes and their aviators were also left over from World War II’s eye in the sky that kept track of all the necessary activities of the enemy in order to determine where and when to conduct raids that would cripple or destroy sites on the ground or at sea. This ability was never adopted by the enemy, and it gave the Allied forces a tremendous advantage in the bombings of special targets that supplied—or were the equipment centers of—the enemy. For instance, photographing the wake of a ship for two days could show where the ship was headed and how fast it was moving, and this information could be invaluable.

A detachment from VC-62 was aboard the USS Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or the Rosey Boat, as the navy’s men affectionately called her. Preparations for the detachment had been going on for six months before the ship was to depart from North Island, Coronado, California, or from Alameda, California. The aircraft carriers at sea from the East Coast were in waters close enough for the aviators to fly from the Naval Air Station at Jacksonville and do practice landings aboard, and then they would return to the base in Jacksonville. Two aviators flew each day of the week with weekends excepted, and they rotated who flew with whom so as not to become a pair that became permanently attached to each other, for security reasons.

Bernie Levin was to be the squadron leader of the detachment because he was a commander in rank, and his call name was BL. He was from Tampa, Florida, where his parents were businesspeople. He had a younger sister, but she was to be married, he was four years older than she, and their familial relationship was not intimate due to the difference in ages. Bernie had been a graduate of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and he had been an outstanding student who graduated summa cum laude. Bernie was considered handsome by the women he met because he carried himself with dignity and poise. Any naval aviator considered himself outstanding in all respects, and so Bernie was as proud of himself as any and all of those egotistic men who had the guts to land an airplane on the tossing and pitching deck of a navy aircraft carrier at sea.

He had worked in his family’s business from an early age, and numbers came as easily to him as the ABCs. When Bernie was in Atlanta, he met a young woman who was a clerk in the best department store in the city. The store had an employees’ restaurant, and he wandered in to take a look at their facilities in case he might get some new ideas for his father’s business. On a Saturday he went to the counter, ordered lunch, and found a table that was unoccupied. At the same time an attractive young woman approached the table, and as they each pulled out a chair to seat themselves, they looked up and realized that the table was about to be occupied.

He smiled and politely asked, Are you expecting someone else to join you? If not, may I share the table with you?

Nancy Collins smiled back and answered, Be my guest.

Bernie sat there and expected the young lady to initiate a conversation, but she seemed to be in a rush to eat her lunch. Unknown to him, Nancy thought him to be from the managerial department, and she was waiting for him to talk. He finally said, My name is Bernard, but my nickname is Bernie. I’m a student at Georgia Tech. With this their meeting got off to a proper beginning.

My name is Nancy Collins, but my friends just call me Nan. I’m a clerk working here in the ladies department. I’m pleased to meet you.

Bernie thought she was attractive, but he could tell by her clothes she was not as well-to-do as the women whom he was usually accustomed to dating. His family had money enough for him to associate with other families of similar circumstances, and he was also used to the women he met being extremely friendly and conversationally adept as they tried to impress him. He found her silence distracting because it was so unusual to him. He had no idea that she had only thirty minutes in which to have her midday meal, and then she had to be back on the floor so that the other ladies could eat theirs.

In the silence he began telling her about himself—an oddity for him. I’m going into the navy when I graduate from Georgia Tech. I’m there on a Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps program, and all my tuition and room and board is paid for by the navy, so I am required to serve at least four years when I graduate. I like their flight program and am applying for it before I receive my commission as an ensign after I graduate. That takes care of my future for the next few years. He paused and then decided he didn’t want to do all the talking. What do you plan to do with your life?

Nan had just taken a mouthful of food when he asked her this, and in actuality she had never really given her future that much consideration. She had a sister who was married and lived in Savannah, and she hoped to be invited to visit there and find a job in the city that she thought was much more interesting than Atlanta. Nan was a brunette with highlights of red in her full head of hair. Her figure was attractive but not outstanding, but most men thought she was lovely.

Bernie had been pursued by the girls in his high school, not only due to his being on the football team but also because he was noticeably handsome. He inherited his mother’s dark hair and eyes, and the girls thought these eyes could look right through them. His dad was a doctor with the stereotypical persona that went with the profession, and Bernie enjoyed the attention the females in his life gave him. He wasn’t conceited, but he was only a few steps away for being overly confident. This was the ego that made him a man capable of landing aboard an aircraft carrier without any worry of failure.

Slowly she swallowed and said rather tersely, I really haven’t given much thought to my immediate future. I have only been working here a few months, and frankly the work isn’t really that interesting. My father has a bakery that is doing well enough, and I had been working with my family before coming here. Savannah appears to be a lovely and historic city where I would prefer living, but until I have enough money saved to go there and live until I find work, I have to stay here. With this statement she felt she had revealed enough to him. She followed this remark with a big swallow of her Coca-Cola as she rose from the table. I have to get back to work, so please excuse me. Then she was gone, carrying her tray to the nearest canister that collected the plastic tableware and trays.

Bernie wanted to know more about her, so he gathered his tray and its contents and followed her at a few steps behind. Bernie was six feet tall, and he immediately noticed that she was nearly his height because she was wearing high heeled shoes. He bolted ahead of her so that he could hold the door open for her, and she was almost unbalanced by leaning forward to open the door for herself. This caused her to take hold of his arm to keep from falling, and this unexpected physical contact seemed to be pleasant for each of them.

He accompanied her to her department, but he felt quite ill at ease among all the ladies lingerie in and on the counters where she worked, and so he felt it was time for him to leave. Without giving much consideration to what he was saying, he found himself asking her when she was through working for the day. I would like to have dinner with you this evening, if you aren’t already busy, he said.

Nan was as surprised as he was by his question, and she replied, I’m through at six this evening. I’ll go with you, if we can go somewhere other than the cafeteria here.

That would be fine with me. I’ll come back at six and meet you here. I promise we won’t have supper at the cafeteria; there are other places we can go. Is that all right with you? he wanted to be sure of her response before leaving.

Yes, I’ll be ready. Maybe you should at least look at the ladies slips while you are here. My manager doesn’t care for our having personal talk when we should be selling things. Maybe you have a mom who would appreciate a lovely silk slip? Nan didn’t want to lose her job, and she knew others were watching her and the nice-looking young man who seemed intent on keeping her attention.

That’s a great idea. Let me see what I think my mother would like to have me send her. He knew his mother would be surprised at his sending her a parcel of ladies apparel, but he thought that to be less intimate than any other item he could see. He knew his mother bought her own lingerie at a store in Tampa, where she got a discount because their store gave discounts to the owners of other stores where they shopped. My mother is rather short and a little overweight, and I have no idea what size she is.

Well, why don’t we just pick a petticoat for her instead, said Nan. That way all you have to decide is if it’s large enough in the waist to fit.

Let me look at that pink one. Bernie pointed to a slip in the counter. Do you mail things for customers? he asked.

Yes, just give me the address, and I’ll send it to that department. It will be mailed on Monday. She removed the petticoat and held it up at the waist for him to check.

Bernie gave his consent, pulled out his wallet, and paid for the item and its shipping. As inconspicuously as he could, he left the counter before the color began rising in his face.

That night the two began a courtship that lasted until he graduated and was accepted for flight training in Pensacola, Florida, a year later. They were married the day after his graduating and commissioning.

Next in line of seniority was Lieutenant Commander Charles Richard Dunn, a native of Bethesda, Maryland, whose call name was Done It. Charlie’s father was a doctor at the naval hospital in Bethesda, and Charlie knew he would be attending the Naval Academy as soon as he graduated from high school. His grades were adequate for selection to the academy, but his position as a wide receiver on his high school’s football team gave him a distinct advantage. In his junior year of high school he began applying for acceptance, and he was notified during the summer before his senior year that he would be among the plebes at the academy the following summer. His father was proud of him, and his mother supported his decision to be a career naval officer, so he played football at the academy his first year but found it was a much rougher game than high school had been, and he opted out after the one semester of play.

Charlie had chosen to attend flight training rather than the submarine base at Groton, Connecticut. He felt this height of six feet three inches would be a handicap in negotiating aboard a sub, but he was sure he could fold up into a fighter plane’s cockpit, especially if he had his name on the outside of the cockpit. If he could get his plane captain to push the seat back as far as it would go, then he could buckle his knees under the control panel and be relatively comfortable. Charlie was a ring knocker, which meant he had attended the Naval Academy and wore his academy ring, and with the stone turned under his finger, he knocked with it on the tables, as did other academy grads; that way they recognized each other.

While in training at his first base in Pensacola, Whiting Field, he met a woman in the women’s navy whom he kept seeing while he was at Whiting Field. One day after completing a flight with his instructor, the two men met the lady officer on their way to the officers club for a drink. His instructor, a marine corps captain, hailed her, and she joined them at the club. Her drink was relatively mild, so he ordered the same, a cranberry cosmopolitan, and she remarked about this, much to Charlie’s surprise. The instructor interrupted and explained, We aviators have to be able to fly at short notice, so we aren’t heavy drinkers, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Introductions were made, and the lady officer, whose name was Pat, had not noticed Charlie—especially because she and the instructor were dating. However, now she took a hard look at the ensign. She was a lieutenant junior grade with a half stripe more in rank, and she really hadn’t considered him worth her attention, but now she realized he had deep-colored eyes that seemed fastened on hers. Happy hour lengthened into dinner, and although the men were in flight suits, the club didn’t refuse their request to be seated with those in the dining area. When the instructor excused himself from the table to go get handsome, Pat found Charlie’s conversation humorous as well as interesting. When dinner was over, the men walked her to her quarters, and Charlie offered his hand to her to say good night. Pat thought this quite courteous and found his touch warming. Within a week, she let the marine know she preferred the ensign, and she and Charlie were dating. Shortly after that, in the back of her station wagon, they made love. Four weeks later a pregnancy test showed positive, and they made an appointment with the base priest, setting a date for their wedding after Bans were posted.

Charlie still had another year before he received his wings of gold, and by then he was also the proud father of a darling daughter. Pat had resigned her commission as soon as they set a wedding date, and the two found a small home in Pensacola. Pat was a gracious hostess, and Charlie soon learned how to keep their company entertained as she cooked dinner for the aviators (including the marine instructor). Their home, which had a generous patio, became the gathering point for Friday afternoons. A small amount of vodka was added to the fruit drinks he served, but only in full glasses, because no one knew when the alert might be sounded for everyone to return to the base and prepare for expected (and unexpected) events. Their daughter’s name was Patricia, which they shortened to Tricia, and that was all she was ever called.

Lieutenant Edmund Sorensen was a mustang, or a former enlisted man who had earned credits and a commission for attending Officer Candidate School. At the completion of this strenuous twelve weeks of training, the men became officers, but the name mustang always stuck with them. In the marine corps there were more men of this rank, so it was more usual than not, but in the navy few of these men ever outgrew the designation, and they continually had to prove themselves as officer material. All the crews aboard also knew of this past, and some admired it—but others didn’t because although they might be a bit jealous, this was never verbalized in the presence of a mustang.

Edmund was from Minnesota and of Swedish descent, so his call name was Sorry. He had been determined to remain single until after he was commissioned and entered into flight training. When home on leave before he was sent to Pensacola, he met a lovely blonde at a Church picnic one Sunday. She was the only girl in a family of five sons, and she could hold her own with her brothers. Edmund was in a sailor’s uniform, and she deftly scoffed at him when he was not near enough to hear her remarks. None of her family had served in the military, and she thought the white suits that fit quite well, accompanied with a sailor’s cap placed jauntily on the wearer’s head, was absurd.

Edmund heard one of her laughs and knew he was the subject of it, because one of the brothers commented further on his appearance. Edmund was no stranger to ridicule, and he walked over to the younger man and asked if he wanted to take the insult into the parking lot. His sister saw the bulging muscles in the sailor’s suit and decided this had better end, considering she had really been the cause of the situation. Her name was Mertis, but everyone called her Mert. She said, Hey, sailor, if I take it all back, will that stop a fight you probably would win?

Edmund couldn’t resist her question, and he was a real gentleman at heart. He said to the young man, Come over here and shake hands on that, and it will go no further. Then he shook hands with the lovely blonde Swedish girl whose blue eyes shone.

He managed to hold her hand a little longer than was necessary, and so she gave him a challenge. Do you want to arm wrestle with me? I’ll guarantee you I can hold my own!

No, ma’am, I’d be too embarrassed if you were to win. Instead, would you join me for an ice cream cone if I let you choose the flavor? Grins now adorned both faces, and Mert decided here and now that this man was special. Ed, as he was called, was about five feet ten inches tall, and he was also a blond Swede. His eyes, from his mother’s side of their family, were almost purple, which made his appearance more noticeable than if they’d been blue.

Mert flew down to Pensacola every few months because she was attending the local college on a scholarship and didn’t want to miss her classes. On her third visit, Edmund took her on a boat cruise around Pensacola Bay, and under a full moon he proposed and presented this lovely young woman with an acceptable engagement ring. Back home in Blue Earth, Minnesota, Mert began assembling a trousseau and hope chest, and when Ed received his wings of gold, she pinned them on his chest after graduation. On this festive occasion they proceeded to the base chapel and were married. They went to New Orleans for a honeymoon before he joined a fighter squadron in Norfolk, Virginia.

The junior aviator in the detachment was a blond-haired but deeply tanned man from McAllen, Texas. He had attended Texas A&M, which had the second highest number of newly appointed officers to become navy personnel, behind only the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His call name was Cowboy, and he wore a cowboy hat whenever he was out of uniform. His family owned a ranch as well as a business that arranged deer-hunting safaris in that part of South Texas.

As a youngster he had learned to hunt, and his marksmanship was legendary at an early age. He had a younger brother who worshiped him, and although he wasn’t as healthy as his older sibling, he also wanted to join the navy. As an Aggie, Allen McAfee Hayes showed in the school as a young man who never missed winning its rifle contests with his own team members as well as a