The union brought forth my sister, Helen, on February 3, 1940. She was born at 914 S. Emporia on a cold and icy day. There wasn't much food in the house and Janzen used to hide what there was from Freda and me.
1940 was a year of great change in my life. Not being able to get along with my step dad, J. Janzen, and almost going "all the way" with girlfriend Alberta; but not wanting to get her pregnant, and not doing so well in high school - it seemed as though a way out would be to join the Marines. I got some information about the Marines from the Post Office. I decided the wide red stripe down the side of the trousers looked gaudy. So I left the pamphlets in an overstuffed chair in our front room and decided to join the Navy. I weighed 129 pounds - the Navy said I had to gain a pound and also be circumcised. I gained the pound by drinking malts with raw eggs and a Doctor at The Wichita Hospital took care of the other. So on December 19, 1940, I kissed Alberta goodbye and boarded a train (with two other guys), for Kansas City to be sworn into the Navy the next day. About an hour after the train left the station I knew I had made a big mistake! How could I get along without seeing and holding Alberta every night? The next day, December 20, 1940 I was sworn in the US Navy for 6 years! (When I went to sign up I thought I could sign up for 3years - not so!).
Great Lakes Naval Training Station was cold in December. We learned how to sleep in hammocks wash and roll our clothing, shoot a 30-06 World War one rifle, and march in formation with orders from our Commanding Officer, a Chief Petty Officer, of Company 140. I was so lonely for home and Alberta I would have left if it were not for the 10 foot fence around the place and that we heard the Marine guards patrolling the fence would shoot you if you tried to go over it.
Finally our nine weeks of training was over. Our company was slated to all be shipped out to the Battleship Arizona after we came back from our 9 day "Boot" leave. On the last day before starting the boot leave I saw on a bulletin board that if I wanted to go to a "Trade School" rather than be shipped out to the Arizona I could sign up for it. So I signed up for "Aviation Ordnance School" which was at Jacksonville Florida.
The nine day "Boot Leave" back to Wichita was much too short. Alberta and I were intimate - more than once.
Then it was to Jacksonville, Florida for four months of training on machine guns and bomb loading etc. The Navy pay was still $21 a month. Exercise 30 minutes each morning. Slept in hammocks. Jacksonville a good "Liberty" town. very lonely for Alberta - but met Elaine Starrett who said she was 16, but I found out later she was only 13!
We and her friends went to Jacksonville Beach which had the most fine white sand I had ever seen.
After four months at Jacksonville, Florida, I was assigned to a PBY squadron at Floyd Bennett Field, New York. I had met so many nice people in Jacksonville I really didn’t want to go to leave. Letter from home informed me that Freda’s boy friend, Larry Dilling, had found the Marine Corps pamphlets I had left in the overstuffed chair and had joined the Marines!
I was so homesick for Alberta and home I considered desertion when we got our back pay on August 1st. But liberty in New York dispelled that notion. Central Park was filled with girls looking for sailors to have fun with. So “Joe” Granger and I would head over to Manhattan, via bus and subway, to a little bar named “Dorrance.” I would have five Manhattans and the bar tender gave the next one on the house - and we were ready for Central Park.
Being the latest members to join the Squadron, Joe and I were assigned to help retrieve the PBY-5 airplanes when they would taxi up (in the water) to the ramp and then we would attach the wheels so they could be pulled up on the apron. Joe and I became great friends in the Navy and was in the same Squadron for several years and even now (1998) we correspond.
Central Park wasn’t the only place we went to. We were given passes to The Radio City Music Hall to see the “Rockettes” and to see Frank Sinatra at the Paramount - and then head for Central Park.
I met Unice Tang in the Park and met her the next night at a near-by bar. After several drinks we headed for the Park and found some bushes where we could not be seen. Another night I met Joan Romano in the park and she invited me to her house for Sunday dinner. She lived at 1958 Bathgate, in the Bronx, with her mother who cooked a fine Italian meal for me. I really fell in love with Joan who was a great looking woman.
After four months in New York our Squadron (VP-71) was moved(in August of 1941) to Quonset Point Rhode Island. I hated to leave New York - I was just getting to know some nice girls and loved Manhattan! Providence would be our “Liberty” town in Rhode Island. How could it compare with New York? On the first free weekend I could I hitch-hiked to New York to see Joan. We went to the movies and ate but she seemed distant and not really caring if I were there or not. It was obvious that I was more in love with her than she with me. After several such trips to NY I finally got the message.
Joe and I found “The Girls City Club” and found a lot of girls in this dance club. This is where I met Vivi-Ann McNulty. We hit it off right from the beginning. We were like together every time I had liberty. She was the new love of my life! But then came December 7, 1941. All liberty was cancelled - but I went ashore anyway - I thought this might be the last time I would ever get to see her. We could’nt make love - her mother was just in the next room. The Squadron was ordered to Hawaii to replace PBYs that the Japs had destroyed. In two weeks we were packed and on the ship USS Albermarle going to Norfolk Va. and then via train to San Francisco. When the train stopped in Kansas City I called mother for a brief hello.
In San Francisco, on Christmas, December 25, 1941, Joe Granger and I were hitch-hiking to town when a car stopped and the elderly couple (the Agnews) invited us to have Christmas dinner with them - which we did. In a few days we were on The President Johnson heading for Pearl Harbor. From my diary of the trip - “We are in a convoy of 25 ships and are number 11. Boat is one of filthiest dirtiest old rat traps you ever saw. 3500 soldiers plus three squadrons of PBY ground crews aboard. The soldiers all have bunks - but since we came on last we do not have bunks (hammocks are strung between the ship stanchions) spent time trying to get some sleep on sea bags up on deck till I got rained out. Can’t stand smell down below. Method of feeding very unsanitary. Little food. No water what so ever. Coffee. what a hell hole. Two meals a day. Takes so long to feed a meal - stand in line 2 hours.” and on December 28, 1941, “Good deal for ordnance men - stand machine gun watches - 3 on and 6 off - get to eat with ships crew. Good food and plenty of it. Poor guys who have to stand in line for two hours for a crummy meal. Ship getting littered with trash - job on gun watches is to pump water through the gun when in action to keep it cool. Plenty of time to think of home and other places such as Providence, N. Y. Jacksonville and the swell times I’ve had and the people I’ve met. Many guys thinking a torpedo will be getting us. Many have no doubt about it at all - me? Half and Half. Of course I realize we are in a hell of a position with Jap raiders around. But when my time comes I’ll go. Wish my ma could or hope she is praying tonight. Thinking of Alberta and Vivi Ann.”
Finally arrived at Pearl Harbor, exactly one month since the attack. The sunk ships - with parts sticking above the water - were very visible. The water in the harbor was thick with oil.
After a few days at Ford Island the squadron was moved to Kaneohe Bay where many PBYs were destroyed on December 7th.
Kaneohe Bay is on the “windward” side of the island of Oahu, just across the island from Pearl Harbor. The barracks we occupied were unfinished with “drop lights” and no windows - that is, no enclosed windows. Around the barracks was just one big sea of mud. Granger and I were assigned to putting together lockers - the kind you saw in high school hallways. The hangers and shops, what was left of them after the bombing, were about two blocks from the barracks. We didn’t really need the drop lights because we were under a black-out and could have no lights on anyway. No one knew if the Japs were going to come back and bomb us again or even invade the island. When an “alert” was sent out we would run to our revetment and man machine guns just in case an attack was on the way. Of course we had our helmets and gas masks with us also. You were required to carry your gas mask every where you went - to chow, to the “head” - everywhere. On evenings when there was no moon it was so dark you had to follow the curb of the street with your foot to find the way back to the barracks. Granger and I were about the newest members in the Ordnance gang, so we got all the dirty jobs like putting together the lockers. Other times we cleaned the 30 cal. machine guns which had been fired by the PBY crews while out on their missions of scouting the waters in the area. The PBYs could fly for 14 hours at one stretch. Seven hours out and seven hours back on a different route keeping a lookout for Japs and downed fliers.
What did we do on out “Liberty” days? We hitchhiked to town, Honolulu, and some, not me, looked for the “Cat” houses. Five dollars was all you needed, plus patiently waiting in line. A friend told me he was in the room ready to go and he was so hot he ejaculated before penetration was made - he was mad at himself! A Bishop Littell, had open house for the service men, and invited local “good “ girls to come over and talk to the guys and sip tea and have cookies - but none could leave or make dates with the guys. With rented golf clubs I played golf at the Mid Pacific Country Club, Lanikai - Kailua, Hawaii. Allan Anania and “Fluff” Locke joined me from Kaneohe.
Met Betty Lou Billingsly at a dance for serviceman held at the Royal Hawaiian. Had several dates with her but there were so many service men around, I wasn’t important in her life. When I went over to her house she wouldn’t be there and I would wind up talking with her grandmother who looked like she had some Hawaiian blood in her. Made third class Ordnance man which meant a raise in pay to $90 a month. I ask Vivi Ann Mc Nulty to open a savings account for me so I could have a nice little nest egg when I got out of the service - and maybe even start a life with her - though I didn’t tell her that. I was still in love with my first love - Alberta, and would have to wait to make that decision later. But each wrote me often, with pictures and news of what they were doing. I knew mother always needed money, so I often sent $10 to her(a lot of money in 1942).
PBYs had bomb sights and their care and maintenance were the responsibility of the ordnance shop. I was assigned to the “Bombsite Shack”. Learned how to maintain them and the “Stabilized Bombing Approach Equipment” also used as an autopilot by the PBY pilots. Sometimes the planes would all go to an “advanced base,” where I didn’t know, but that left a lot of empty time on my hands. The base movie theater had a movie in the afternoon and I made a lot of them. Wrote a column(“Slipstream”) for the base paper (Kaneohe Klipper) on what was going on around the base. Battle of Midway going on (June 1942). Was issued a .45 and a 30 cal rifle just in case they come here. Granger got to go to states to go to Torpedo School for a number of weeks. Had hopes I would be sent back for Bombsite School - but no luck. The Aircraft carrier Saratoga would pull in to Pearl Harbor and I knew Larry Dilling was on it so I went over and visit him aboard the “Sara.” He came over to see me once and forgot to take his gas mask when he left to go back - so I returned it to him the next day. Poker and crap games going on at all hours in barracks. Get mad at myself for getting in and loosing sometimes. Luau, with buried pig and Hilo Hattie and Hula dancers to entertain the men at the base helped to take some of the boredom away. Very homesick for States and Alberta and Vivi Ann McNulty. Boredom to end soon - squadron moving to Latoka, Fiji. The date - November 1942.
First impressions of Fiji were the native boys at the ship dock yelling “Boola”, so we called them the “Boola” boys. I think it means “Hello.” The airstrip in Fiji was named Nandi and was near a town named Latoka. We were in tents along side to the air strip which had one big hanger where the repair shops were for our PBYs. We now had PBY-5As which had wheels on them. We slept under mosquito nets - and one night I woke up and saw a spider - the size if my hand - inside my mosquito net! No more sleep that night for me. What we had to eat was mostly mutton(that's old sheep!) that was cooked outside in vast open vats - the smell was enough to make a man want to puke! We had it three times a day. The officers had steak - hard liquor, and when the Red Cross nurses came they were only around the officers tents.
We enlisted guys got two hot beers a week, mutton and no Red Cross nurses! I suddenly realized that the difference between having the good things in life and eating mutton was that they had four years of college. I resolved that I was going to get a college education so I could have some of the good things of life!! We were not supposed to go to the nearby native villages - but we did. At one, the native “boola” boys families all welcomed us and as we sat in a circle on the dirt floor they passed around a cup with a milky looking substance called “Cava.” It tasted soapy and didn’t make me sick. This Fijian island is round and we were on one side and Suva was 167 miles no matter which way you went. In Suva the business men were Indian and the workers were the native Fijians. Suva was so far, most liberties were taken in Latoka which didn’t really offer too much entertainment for a service man. But you could get a haircut - from an Indian barber.
After four months on Fiji, the Squadron was moved north to The New Heberties, to the island of Espirto Santo owned by the French and the British. There were several air strips on the island. We were at “Bomber 3.” There was an island in the bay of Espirto Santo named “Aora Island,” where the ships from the fleets anchored so the crews could go ashore and party for a few hours of R&R. The Saratoga was there during our four month stay, and Larry Dilling came over to visit me. The island had an extinct volcano with a beautiful blue lake, so clear you could see the bottom - 40 feet down! We were in Quonset huts - a step up from the tents of Fiji. Several earthquakes shook the island while we were there - nothing big - maybe a 4.5 or a 5 0n the Richter.
Next move was north again to the Solomon's, and Guadalcanal, which had been secured by the See-Bees and Marines a year before. Our base was at Henderson field, where so many Marines died so that the field was denied to the Japanese and we needed it as a stepping stone in our war effort. We were in tents and mud for several weeks until the Quonset huts were built. It rained every day in the afternoon for about an hour. We sat on coconut tree logs outside in the rain to view movies once a week. There were still Japs in the hills - and once in a while they would shoot down toward the air strip. Every night a lone Japanese airplane would fly over and drop one bomb - just to interrupt our sleep - we would head for the fox holes. We called him “Washing Machine Charlie” because of the sound his plane made. Thanksgiving Day 1943 while the Squadron was having its picture taken at Henderson, a bomb dump “went up.” The Tulague river ran buy our camp. One night it flooded the entire camp - we were awakened and given 5 minutes to vacate, I piled all my stuff on top of a 3ft crate I used for my personal things. Later I found the water had come up only to the top of the crate - my stuff was dry!
On Fiji, our PBYs were painted black and they were known as “The Black Cats.” The ground crew, which I was one, got “flight pay” by flying with the flight crews at least four hours a month with them. Most flights were 14 hours in duration, sweeping the South Pacific looking for Jap submarines or downed fighter plane pilots. Four hours at the machine gun position in the blister then four hours in one of the bunks aboard the aircraft. When we saw a shadow under the water that was the shape of a sub we could drop a 100 lb depth charge - I never figured out how the pilot could tell if it was a Jap sub or one of ours! I was the bomb sight man in the organization. If the flight was scheduled for the possible use of the bomb sight I would put one in the plane - then retrieve it when the plane returned. The bomb sight - a Norden 15 Mark 5 - was about the size of a football. The bombardier was instructed to put a .45 bullet through the telescope part of the sight if it was possible the Japs might get their hands on it to prevent them from copying the unique part of the sight.
After four months at Henderson Field we moved north to Munda, New Georgia. While most of the ground crew went by ship, I went by DC-3 with our 19 bomb sights. This way one of them would less likely fall into the hands of the Japs. On Munda we lived in tents and had to fight the mud again, but the Sea-Bees had spread a lot of chat around which helped a lot. I spent most of my time providing scheduled checks on the bomb sights. It is now late 1943 and I had been in the Navy for three long years. Would it ever be over and I could return to the states and my Alberta/Vivi Ann? letters from both were sweet and my affection for each seemed to change with the latest letter from one or the other. Of course I was sending money to Vivi Ann to put in a savings account for me - was I leaning toward her? But Alberta was my first love - could I be in love with two women? The days were hot - one day I went to the Gunnery Officer's tent to inquire about the possibility of going up for the “Chiefs” rating. He was sitting there naked - and I had so much trouble not looking at his “privates” I think I garbled my request and wasn’t considered - or maybe there was some other reason. Finally, early in 1944, I got the word I was going back to the states for a 30 day leave and reassignment states side after 28 months in the Pacific!
After a flight to Esperito I boarded the “Jeep” aircraft carrier, “Salvo Island” for the 17 day trip to San Francisco. Had to spend a week there before my leave home. So I hitch hiked to Las Vegas to see my Dad who was working as a “fry cook” at the Silver Slipper. May West was the entertainer there. I sipped scotches there until dad was off then with his current wife, Helen, we got something to eat then to their ramshackle place in the desert - I spent the night at their place.
Thirty days leave! Wow, home at last! The month of May 1944 was mine to spend any way I wanted before reporting to my next assignment at Waldron Field, Corpus Christi, Texas. It was good to see Alberta, mother, uncle Milton and my golfing buddy Pete Rose. Alberta was the perfect girl “back home” who had waited for me. Mother and four old daughter, Helen - not to be confused with dad’s Helen, above - was living in a one room apartment in the north end of Wichita which had been flooded by a recent flood. It hurt to see her living in such conditions. I had to do something about it. The perfect excuse to see Vivi Ann, in Providence R. I. and to get the money she was saving for me. After four days in Wichita I headed for Providence. Vivi Ann was ready and willing. We expressed our feelings for each other in a first class hotel in downtown Providence. She withdrew the money she had saved for me, $1900, and I headed back to Wichita all on a weekend. Back in Wichita I found a small house on Green Street for sale for $2500. Just perfect for ma and Helen. Alberta, who had been working at Beech Aircraft Co. had
saved $800 - with my $1900 I could buy the house. Within a week the deal was closed and they were in their new home - and out of the flood area. I felt good!
After 28 months in the South Pacific, in Hawaii, Fiji, Espirito Santo, New Hebrities, Guadalacanal, and Munda, New Georgia, received 30 days leave. Alberta was working at Beech Aircraft Co.
The 30 days went by very quickly. Helped move mother, played golf with old friend Pete Rose, and spent a lot of time with Alberta. But I couldn’t get Vivi Ann off my mind. So I sent her air fare and met her in Chicago for two days at the Conrad-Hilton on the Chicago River. Back to Wichita and then off to Waldron Field, 6 miles south of Corpus Christi, Texas. The navy used it to train gunnery to student pilots in SNJ airplanes. They used real bullets to shoot at sleeves and also gun cameras to shoot film at the targets. My job was to develop the gun camera film - on a large 16mm movie film developing machine - and then show it to the student pilots. To get “Flight Skins” (extra pay for flying) I had to have 4 hours a month flying time. I had to fly with the students making “runs” on the targets - which pulled a lot of “Gs” in the runs.
Via mail, Alberta and I decided to get married in Wichita in August.of 1944. So on August 27th at mother’s new place, 520 Green, with Milton and Margie Reed, Wilgus and Zelphia Hainline, my mother, Alberta’s mother, Maude Hill, and the Reed boy, Donnie, and my young sister Helen we were married. Two weeks later she was in Corpus Christi and we were living in a one room apartment. In December we heard that Harold Hiner had been killed in the “Battle of the Bulge” in Germany. Also Alberta knew she was pregnant.
The same day President Roosevelt died, April 12, 1944, I made “Chief” in the Navy. The first time a new Chief ate at the chief’s mess he had to eat out of a trough with oversized utilities. Alberta wanted to have her baby in Wichita, so in June of 1945 she returns to Wichita and Fred Jr. is born on July 3, 1945. She was back in Corpus Christi in two months and we were living in a three room apartment at 1682 Armada Park. While she was in Wichita, a buddy and I got drunk in town (Corpus Christi) and went to a pink hotel, “The Princess Louise,” and for $10 each “had” a middle aged woman - I had to wait in the bathroom till he was finished- then I got “seconds.” The one and only time I ever used a “Lady of the Evening.”
In the summer of 1945 the Navy sent me to Washington DC, to the Anacosta Naval Base to learn how to run the developing machine for the gun camera film. I met several girls there that were interesting and loved to party.
The instructors at Waldron sometimes made flights and overnight stays in their home towns. I got to be a passenger on such flights to Wichita.On one such flight while in Wichita, Pete Rose was in town and he introduced me to his girl friend, Berta” and her girl friend, Daisy. Daisy and I became close friends - even though she had a sailor boy friend stationed in Oklakoma who came up to see her often. She later married that sailor boy, and had several children. Daisy and Berta lived at 411 W. Lincoln. One time when I was in town Berta wasn’t going out so Daisy and I had to go to the Lassen Hotel and room 326.
My six years in the USN was up January 9, 1947, by which time I was enrolled at Wichita University and actually attending classes while still on “Terminal Leave.” My goal was to get a degree in Electrical Engineering. Wichita University did not have a degree program in Electrical Engineering at that time. I had completed a correspondence course to complete my high school while still in the Navy - so I was accepted at Wichita University - but I knew that after several years there I would have to transfer to a University that offered a degree in Electrical Engineering. Sister, Freda, was married to Larry Dilling and they were living with mother at the place I bought in 1944. Mother and Dilling knew Alberta and I were coming home and would need to live in the Green street house - so they found other places to live. Chemistry was an interesting but tough subject for me. So were the coeds at the University(interesting - not tough) - especially Shirley Stovell! This 19 year old was hot and ready.
Betty - Alberta - Freda, Marvin, Wendel, me, Fred Jr., Sherry, Larry, Helen, mother, and Larry's mother.
After two and a half years at Wichita University I was accepted at the University of Denver as a student in pursuit of a degree in Electrical Engineering. Shirley and I were married on October 5, 1949. We lived in brick student housing on the campus - there were Quonset huts on the campus for veteran students that had families started. The bulk of students at Denver University were returning veterans going to school on the “GI” bill which provided tuition plus “substance” pay for college for the same amount of time that the veteran had served in the armed services. So I had six years of schooling coming.
To continue this blog; go to Life and times of Fred Hadley 1950s
