Best Matchmaking Service
By: Jerry Blackerby
Culture shock can come in many forms to a 17-year old country boy. Another form of culture shock is attitude. Growing up, everyone seemed to care about and look out for each other. After I got in the Navy, I found some Navy guys and and also civilians I came in contact with who only cared about themselves.
I have previously written about a couple of these incidents. One was the man in boot camp who was not taking a shower daily. Another was the thief in the barracks.
In 1951, Jacksonville, Fla. was not a good town for a Navy man. Apparently, there had been some problems previously with Navy people and the local civilians did not appreciate the Navy. We were told that there were signs in yards that said, “Sailors and dogs keep off.” I never saw any of them, but we were told that during an indoctrination.
I found that I could walk into a coffee shop and sit down. The waitresses/waiters would ignore us as long as they could and wait on civilians instead of Navy people. It was a weird experience, because San Diego had been very appreciative of the Navy people. I was in Jacksonville about 25 years later as a civilian and found that the local people were very appreciative of the Navy people at that time.
In 1952, I attended electronics school at the Naval training center near Memphis, Tenn. During Cotton Carnival time (several weeks in May and June), several Navy guys were caught alone and beat up by young punks about town and there were several outbreaks of fights between sailors and young punk civilians.
The first thing the Navy did was to pay everyone in $2 bills so they could show Memphis how much financially the Navy meant to the town. Then there were rumors that the Navy was going to allow "dungaree liberty," where sailors would go to town in dungarees and take care of the young punks. It never happened, just rumors. We were advised to stay in groups, not be alone when in Memphis.
The newspaper published a front page story about how much the Navy meant to Memphis and the possibilities of a "dungaree liberty." The newspaper asked that parents straighten out their kids. The last week of Cotton Carnival, there were no outbreaks of fights.
Treasure Island, at San Francisco, was not a good place to be in transit during the early 1950s. This is the base most sailors being transferred to anywhere in the Pacific were shipped out from.
The Commanding Officer had a wife who walked around with him during white glove inspections. Walter Winchell even talked about it on a broadcast and purportedly said, "Write your boys in Korea, but pray for your boys on Treasure Island." Not long after his broadcast, the base had a new commanding officer.
When I was there in transit in 1952, we had mess cooking or KP duty as the Army called it every other day. The alternate days, we were assigned various work details until noon and then allowed to go to town.
Some details were even assigned to work in the Commanding Officer’s wife’s flower garden, where she would come out and check the work. I heard horror tales about that detail, but fortunately was never assigned to that work detail.
There were too many people for the details so after muster (roll call), the petty officer-in-charge would march us past the coffee shop, which we called a gedunk. The old timers who had passed through Treasure Island before knew enough to run and disappear. The petty officer would rant and rave at the fleeing people, but could not leave the rest of the people or he would lose them also.
When he had the group down to the approximate number needed for details, he would assign details from the remaining troops, who were usually newer people. The person in charge of each detail took our ID cards. This way we could not disappear because we did not have an ID card.
If they needed more people later for details, someone would go into the gedunk and start checking ID cards. If young transients had an ID card, they would be put on a detail. Sometimes a detail would take a break and be in the gedunk, but the person in charge of the detail would have all of the detail men’s ID cards.
I spent two weeks there, but was not brave enough to run so pulled detail every other day. Next time through in 1954 I knew better and spent the mornings in the gedunk. In 1954, there was a different commanding officer at Treasure Island. The person in charge of a detail would take our chow pass instead of our ID cards.
Seven of us came through TI together, but I was the only one who had been there before. I explained how things worked and when the petty officer-in-charge marched us past the gedunk after muster, we seven ran to the gedunk. We had the senior man in our group hold our chow passes while we sat and wasted the morning. If anyone had come in looking for dropouts to add to a detail, the man holding the chow passes would claim we were his detail taking a coffee break. Fortunately, no one came in looking for additional men for detail assignment.
I loved the Navy. I planned to re-enlist when my discharge date came up. Unexpectedly, the Navy sent me to a receiving center at Pier 99, Seattle for processing for discharge two weeks before my discharge date. The first morning, I told them I intended to reenlist.
I thought I could return to my old squadron at Whidbey Island, but they wanted to assign me to an aircraft carrier. At that time, I had over two years of sea duty or overseas duty and felt I was entitled to shore duty (stateside). The Chief told me that everyone reenlisting in the Navy would be going aboard ship, regardless of previous duty. When they would not listen to me, I told them to give me my discharge.
At Pier 99, sailors waiting for discharge were on port and starboard duty (work details every other day). Most of the guys were discharged within two to three days. Each morning, the Chief, who tried to assign me to a carrier, would call me in and ask if I was ready to reenlist. I always refused. Each day he assigned me to the ship docking detail.
The ship docking detail was the coldest, wettest and roughest detail. We would work all afternoon and evening tying up ships in cold, misty rain in early March. We slept in a special building and were on call all night. The first night we were out several times during the night to tie up ships. I slept most of my off-duty day.
My second afternoon on the ship docking detail, the Bo’sun’s Mate in charge showed us a barge low on the water and several feet out from the high dock that had to be tied up better. He said we would have to get a boat to take a couple of people to the barge unless a couple of us would go hand-over-hand down a line that was already in place to get on the barge.
We would not be able to come back up the line, so a boat would come pick us up. Two of us went down the line and tied off the lines on the barge while the others tied off the lines on the dock. The rest of the crew went to chow while a boat came around to pick us up. After we ate, we rejoined everyone in the building where we would bunk.
The next morning, I woke up and asked about it being an easy night. One of the others told me that they had been out several times tying up ships and the Bo’sun’s Mate told them to leave us alone – let us sleep.
The Chief sent me on that detail every other day until my normal discharge date, thinking he was making life miserable for me. Each duty morning, he would call me in and ask if I was going to re-enlist. I would refuse and he would assign me to the ship docking detail.
Each afternoon on the ship docking detail, I was asked to do tasks that most of the men were afraid to do like going hand-over-hand down a line. After doing those little tasks, I then was not waked up during the night as ships came in. It was not such a bad detail after all.
I finally received my discharge papers on March 15, 1955 and planned to go to the east coast and reenlist. If I had to go aboard ship, I intended to see Europe, since I had already been all over the Far East. I met a young lady at church on my first night at home. She became my wife about three months later and I never went back in the Navy.
Copyright © Jerry Blackerby 2011