Memoir: Hot War - Cold War | Page 3

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.'??
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 when necessary, until we were out of the harbor.?? We were to have our life preservers with us at all times.
Hours later, the ship's vibration, a back-and-forth shifting in my center of gravity, and creaking along the bulkheads, told me we were under way.?? Scuttlebutt was that we were in a convoy, escorted by destroyers. Enemy submarines were suspected to be in the area.
We took turns, by compartment number, going on deck. On our way to Honolulu, the convoy zigzagged frequently to minimize the success of an enemy air or submarine attack. Finally, on the fifth day, land appeared on the horizon and, shortly afterward, we saw Diamond Head. Our ship