Memoir: Hot War - Cold War | Page 3

the drop zone. Finally, with a lunge, I landed on the dummy,
wrapped both legs around it, and grasped and hauled back one of the
straps. I managed to spill enough air to deflate the
canopy. Controlling a dummy that is being tossed around by a
sudden gust can be like riding a spirited pony.
Back at the shop after the tests, we inspected every part of the
parachute closely to see how well it had been repaired. At one time,
apprentice parachute riggers were not certified until they jump-tested a
parachute that they, themselves, had inspected, repaired and packed.
Jump certification by riggers was suspended because of the enormously
increased workload.
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On Sunday, December 7, 1941, I was working the night shift in the
Parachute Shop. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that morning was
being reported on the radio in almost continuous news flashes. About
an hour after the work shift began, our supervisor instructed all male
parachute riggers to go immediately to the aircraft maintenance main
hangar nearby. Several hundred men from aircraft and aircraft
systems repair shops, and other shops on the air base, were already
there. They were milling about; I joined them and wondered why we
had been called together.
A military officer climbed to the platform at the top of an aircraft
maintenance stand. Drawing attention by rapping on the stand's railing
with a metal object, he told us that the Air Corps needed skilled
workers and supervisors immediately at Hickam Field in Hawaii.
Whoever wanted to go, he said, should raise his arm and his name
would be placed on a list.

I happened to be single, footloose and fancy-free at the time, and my
arm got caught in the updraft. We were told to stand by, and the others
instructed to return to their shops. Those of us, who stayed, lined up,
and our names, badge numbers, and job titles were entered on a list.
Each of us was given an instruction sheet.
The next morning, following the instructions, I reported to the
dispensary for vaccinations and immunization shots in both arms, and
then to the Personnel Office to sign papers that came at me from all
directions. I had a week to get my affairs in order; after that I would be
on stand-by for departure. A week later, along with several hundred
other volunteer workers, I boarded a train on a siding next to a
warehouse, and was on my way west.
The train, with all windows covered by blackout curtains, left Patterson
Field, Dayton, Ohio, in the dead of night, and arrived three days later at
Moffett Field near Mountain View, California. Disembarked, we lined
up for bedrolls, and were pointed toward rows of tents in a muddy field
adjacent a dirigible hangar. An instruction sheet, tacked to the tent's
center pole, told us where the mess halls were located, and the meals
schedule by tent number.
More trains arrived the next day and the day following. Hundreds of
civilian workers joined us in the tents waiting for the next leg of our
journey. We quickly got to know each other; we had come from all
across the country: New York and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia,
Alabama and Texas, Utah and California. The Air Corps bases at which
we had signed up were Griffis and Olmstead, Patterson and Robbins,
Brookley and Kelly, and Hill and McClellan. We were the vanguard,
ready to move out with little or no advance notice.
Except for a carry-on bag, with a change of clothing and personal items,
our luggage had gone directly into the ship's hold.
Days passed. The 'alert' came one night at 2 AM. Voices shouted
along the lines of tents, 'This is it, you guys. Movin' out. One hour.'Â
In a torrential downpour, we slogged through ankle-deep mud and

climbed into the backs of canvas-covered trucks. Flaps down, escorted
by armed military guards in Jeeps, all of the trucks were blacked out
except for dim lights gleaming through slits in their headlights. We
formed up as a miles-long convoy rolling north along U.S. 101 from
Moffett Field, and arrived, shortly before dawn, at Fort Mason,
adjacent Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The trucks filled the
pier from end to end; a gangway led up to the deck of a ship alongside.
We learned later that she was the U.S. Grant, a World War I troop
transport.
Herded below deck, we jammed into compartments where the narrow
bunks were five high along aisles barely wide enough for passing. A
'Now, here this... .' over the loudspeaker restricted all passengers to
their compartments, and to passageways only