Night School Pays Off
In the late 1930’s, while working for United Shoe, I took an evening course at Tufts College in Medford on The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives, receiving an official-looking certificate. I had always been interested in chemistry.
When, on December 8th, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan and Germany, I immediately took my certificate down to the Navy recruiting station and enlisted in the Navy, convincing them that I was an explosives expert. I figured the Navy would be safer than the Army; besides, my father hadn’t liked the Army (in Russia) either.
A few days later, I received my draft notice from the Army. I went down to the Army recruiter, and told them that I was already in the Navy, and had my Navy officer contact the Army and tell them, sorry, we got him first.
And so I was in the Navy.
Officer Training
The Navy sent us new officer recruits to a twelve-week Naval Officer Training Program at Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana. Besides training in Naval operations, we were put through the most grueling physical fitness program of our lives.
When we had the graduation dinner, the commander told us, “Men. You have done well. You are now in the best physical condition you will ever be in. It’s all downhill from here.”
Too Far to Walk
In the spring of 1942, I was a newly commissioned Ensign in the United States Navy, having completed training at the US Naval Training Academy at Notre Dame. Everyone anxiously awaited the news of where they would be posted to. Who knew if it would be Pearl Harbor, Algeria, the North Atlantic, or some other battle zone?
Finally the dreaded news came. I telephoned my mother from the Boston Navy Yard.
“Well, Ernie,” asked Rosa, nervously, “Is it far?”
“Yes, Ma,” I answered, “it is far. It’s definitely too far to walk home to dinner every night, but I can drive home on the weekends.”
I was posted to the Hingham Ammunition Depot, about 20 miles from my parents’ house in Newton.
I Take Jean on a Very Explosive Date
When I was courting Jean, probably on about our third date in the late spring of 1944, I promised Jean that I would pick her up one evening at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the Back Bay.
During the workday before our date, however, we had had a very busy day down at the Hingham Ammunition Depot, where I was a lieutenant in charge of depth charges and other explosives. A large transport ship was leaving from the Navy Yard in East Boston with ammunition for the invasion of Normandy, and the Hingham depot was sending them a shipment of depth charges to help defend the transports against German submarines.
That evening, just as I was about to leave on our date, I realized that we had forgotten to send the detonators along with the depth charges.
Without the detonators, the depth charges were useless.
I decided that the only thing to do was to deliver the depth charges to the ship waiting at the Navy Yard myself. I loaded the back of his Jeep with the detonators, and drove into Boston and went into the Ritz-Carlton to pick up Jean.
When we came out, I found another man in his car banging into the back of the Jeep. I screamed at him to get away—but I didn’t tell Jean that the whole thing could blow up at any second. Not until I had delivered the detonators to the ship did I tell Jean what had been in the back seat.
No comments:
Post a Comment