Anniversary of an Impulse

Anniversary of an Impulse

(I know this is too long, but I don’t see where to shorten it)

I was in the WAVES during WWII and I went to boot camp at Hunter College, NYC. We were the first battalion at Hunter, and had to clean up after civilians that were evicted so we could be barracked in the apartments they had occupied.

At dawn on the first morning, a piped-in bugler and a uniformed woman loudly made us know that we needed to be down those flights of stairs ON The DOUBLE!!  We ran down the steps, mustered on the sidewalk, and were given a brief lesson in Navy terminology. DID YOU CLEAN THE HEADS? There was unrest in the ranks as we tried to figure out how to answer. The Wave officer explained it mean the bathrooms, and added words like bulkhead, deck, overhead, port and starboard; all words that we must use from than on.  They taught us to build bunk beds, march through mud-puddles in our own shoes, (because they didn’t have uniforms for us yet), and salute every guy we saw in a uniform, at least I did just in case I might overlook an officer. When I had my first liberty in the city, some surprised looking Army sergeants returned my salutes.

The six weeks of boot camp over, a large number of us were shipped to Memphis, Tenn. We embarked on a slow train that ducked for cover on sidings whenever any other train came down the track toward us. I guess our train had a low priority. There were many long, long, trains filled with war equipment. It was so exciting! My new friend Pat and I spent our time peering out the window at the scenery in southern states we had not seen before. She was from Staten Island, NY, and I was from Bethel, Conn. We, and most of the girls, were just 20 years old.

At Memphis we were transferred to busses and driven to Millington, the home of NATTC, where we were to be transformed into aircraft mechanics. We were the second batch of Waves there and they told us how lucky we were that the paving of roads had just been completed. Before that, everyone had been slogging through mud up to ‘here’ marching the mile or so to the classrooms and hangars on the other side of the base.

Our first job was to clean up the barracks before breakfast. Then we were off to class in our dress uniforms. There weren’t any women’s fatigue uniforms yet. We were given our dress uniforms the last week we were at boot camp. They marched us over to the men’s supply store and storekeepers issued us regular men’s Navy dungarees and shirts. We had our own underclothes and if they wore out we had to wear men’s boxer shorts. When our work clothes arrived, the main garment was a coverall that buttoned up the front. They were made of very lightweight denim that didn’t stand up well to the hard work we did. The buttons were always blowing open when we were standing behind planes in the prop wash. One day, just before a surprise inspection, I slid down the wing of a plane and tore a big hole in the seat of my coveralls. Pat was there and did some fast safety wiring to make me decent. There still were no woman’s shoes available. One time I had big holes in the soles of my shoes and had inserted  cardboard insoles that lasted only one day because of all the marching we did. I bought men’s Florsheim shoes and they lasted one month before I was back to cardboard insoles.

I loved every minute of our training; the classes, the hands-on practice on the planes, mostly flight-training planes. We learned everything from patching fabric on wings, to changing tires and engines. The only memories that stick out in my mind were of marching to music that was piped from a pole on every other block. You could still hear the loudspeaker in back of you when you got within range of the next one. This made for a lot of confusion and bobbing in the platoons as we tried to keep in step with each other. Another thing we soon learned was that we must not whistle. When we tried it one morning, the petty officer in charge told us it was bad luck to whistle at sea. Oh well…. OK.

Our classes included both sailors and Waves. The instructors in the classrooms were civilians, and some were very odd people. We Waves had a big-boned woman with short, dyed-black hair to teach us swimming. She was already tall, and added an inch or so more by wearing clumsy, high-heeled, wedge-style shoes. She had a loud yell and I don’t recall ever seeing her in the pool.

The instructor in another class+, Mr. Funderburke. was also tall, and he looked too old for the job. He seemed to be trying to dispell that look by displaying lot of activity. He would drone on at the front of the room and suddenly, with long strides, rush to the back. Sometimes he would suddenly raise his voice and wave his arms around in an alarming manner. At least he kept us awake, and maybe that was his intention.

The Navy was always worried about the boy-girl thing. There were about 20,000 young men and 5,000 young women on that base, and the Navy was determined to keep us apart. Couples were only allowed to walk side-by-side in a three-block area around the PX and theatre, which was a long way from our barracks. If you went to the movies with a guy, and he wanted to see you home safely, he had to walk three paces behind you after you left the three-block area. It made conversation and flirting difficult.

After six months training at NATTC, we were tested. Anyone graded in the top one third of the class was given the rate of AMM3/C. I was always good at tests and I made my rate. Later we learned that our easy rates really upset some of the old-time career sailors. They had to work so much harder and longer to get a rate. It wasn’t fair, but the Navy, needed the extra, rated personnel overseas, and we going to replace them stateside.

Next we were sent to our permanent duty stations. Waves were not sent overseas. Both Pat and I were sent to Pensacola on another slow train. We arrived late and I was afraid we would be court marshaled for being AWOL! Not only that, my last uniform blouse was dirty. But, they didn’t inspect us, nor care that we were late. Instead, they fed us sandwiches, put us on a bus and shipped us 40 miles out into the piney woods to Whiting Field near Milton, Fla. It was one of the network of flight training fields scattered around Pensacola.

We were the first Waves assigned to the base. The sailors in the next barracks did more than their share of ogling. They were soon moved to make room for as a new shipment of women, and we glad of that. We were tired of trying to keep Peeping Toms at bay.

I was put on a rigging crew, but later switched to engines. Leading Chief Flynn was strictly old navy, a big, rangy man who had been the champion boxer in the South Pacific Fleet. He always seemed bemused and a little alarmed by the sight of big-bosomed ‘sailors’ repairing planes. He asked which crew I would like to work with, and I picked a sailor who worked hard and always seemed to know what he was doing. I also liked his whistle. He kept whistling “Do You Ever Think of Me” off key.

 We worked eight-day weeks before we had one day of liberty, and we usually worked twelve-hour days. I was mostly a gofer, getting and handing tools to my hardworking, crew chief. When I asked if I could have a go at changing a fuel pump, he would allow it, but I could tell it was hard for him to keep from pushing me out of the way and doing the job himself. I was fairly tall and strong, but there were things I did not have the strength to do, and I had to ask for help. I hated that.

We were encouraged to get in flying time, and were given $50 a month extra to accompany advanced flight students while they practiced maneuvers like wing-overs or touch-and-go landings. Some of those rides were wildly exciting as the students dived and soared through the cumulus clouds. Some students were killed in mid-air collisions doing that. At some point a rule was made that we, the personnel in the engineering department, had to fly only with test pilots when they checked out the planes we had repaired. I will never forget my ride in a two-wing Yellow Peril, as it was called. We had just put a new tail on it. The test pilot was a grouchy person who could barely tolerate me going up with him. At the last minute a sailor handed me his white-hat and I took it not knowing why. I soon found out as the pilot put the plane into a tailspin, spiraling down, not once but several times. If I hadn’t had that white-hat to barf in, I would have had an awful job cleaning out the cockpit later instead of just washing a white-hat.

My crew chief, I’ll call him Len, had the same duty section as I, so we had the same day off. One day I had arranged to go see a horse a guy had talked about. Len decided to go with me, and we set off walking from Milton. We must have walked about three miles before he convinced me it wasn’t worth all the trouble and we didn’t know how much farther we would have to walk. How about we go back and go to the Bluetop for a beer. I didn’t want to make him mad because he was my boss, so I agreed, although I didn't like beer. It worked out OK and later we caught the last bus back to the base. He gave me an unexpected kiss goodnight and I went into my barracks in a glow. He was a good kisser!

Six weeks passed, during which I had a few dates and one or two with Len. One day as we were riding the bus to town, he said to me out of the blue, “I think I will marry you!”  I don’t remember what I said, I was too flustered, but I know I didn’t say yes. That didn’t faze him. When we arrived in Pensacola, he told me to go get my hair done, and he would meet me in an hour. I did as he said, and he was back as promised. I walked along with him, thinking, not saying a word. As we were approaching a Presbyterian church, Len said we should go in at the house next door. There stood a kindly old English gentleman, the pastor of the church, ready to marry us. Len had made the arrangements, and bought a wedding ring. We made our promises and the pastor’s wife and an unseen son, signed as witnesses. We paid the man and were on our way within thirty minutes. Back then, during the war, it wasn’t required that military personnel have waiting periods or blood tests before marriage, as was the law for civilians.

Talk about a no-frills wedding, this should win the prize! I walked out of there in a daze, and we started walking and talking. I don’t know where the time went. We stopped somewhere to eat hot dogs, and took a city bus to the end of the line. Then it was hitchhike or walk the 40 miles back to the base. Drivers during the war were kind about picking up servicemen, and we soon got a ride, but barely made it back before lights-out. He went to his barracks and I went to mine. 

Next day Pat was furious at me for not inviting her to my wedding. I told her I didn’t even know about it myself! She never forgave me. I didn’t see much of Pat after that. Len and I moved into a rented trailer until Navy housing was built just outside the back gate, and our name came up on the list.

Four months after we were married, Len shipped out to the South Pacific. He wanted me to get out of the Navy, and it turned out I could get an honorable discharge. I had joined early when the Waves were just organized, and when we raised our right hands to join, we also agreed not to marry a Navy man. We were allowed to marry a soldier, marine or coastguardsman, but not a sailor! The reason given was that it would foul up the pay records.  I had forgotten that when I got married. There were a lot of other couples in the same predicament. The Navy officials offered an honorable discharge between April and October of 1944. The war was still on and I liked the Navy, but Len wanted me out. I had to decide where my allegiance lay. I decided I had promised only the duration to the Navy, but it would be a lifetime with my husband. I would get out and do war work in a factory instead of fixing planes. So that’s what I did. Life happened, and I was married to Len for 33 years until he died at 59 years old.  Today would have been our 63rd  anniversary.