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.
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.
To go to page 2 go to:
http://lifeandtimesoffredhadley1940spage2.blogspot.com
To see what the 1950s looked like for Fred, go to:
http://fredly-lifeandtimesoffredhadley1950s.bolgspot.com/
