Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

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From The Fargo to Rabaul By Rod DeCamp QFormer Qua t . .-ff.Ns..oe.4tes.fif-..,..fr,.ftk,,g..s,f,..f,im -Wherein Are Found Some of the Little Things That Make Up Carrier Duty ,hat's-where it all began- the Fargo. Although officially known as The Receiving Station, Boston, the former wool warehouse down on Beantown's Summer Street will, in Navy talk, always be known as the F argo. Renowned for its chow, elevators, canteen feminine employees, Sunday dances and brig, its chief claim to fame was its locale, pro- nounced Bahston. 3 It was in the pleasant atmosphere of that peer of receiving stations that the embryonic crew of the Bunker Hill gathered and forth- with proceeded to spawn rumors anent the activities of the ship, even though, at that time, the ship hadn't even an island structure to call its own! These rumors largely con- cerned the lapse of time before the ship would be commissioned, and beyond that, it was any man's ball game. Even at that early date, the inaccuracy of the scuttlebutt was some- thing out of this world! A solemn rule of the house, enforced by Boats' Wheeler in his more lucid moments, required that all hands be made to arise and partake of breakfast. This arousal required 3 goodly racket, generally produced by the vigorous pounding of a wooden slat against the steel bunkfjframes, accompanied by such merry rhymes as Let's go, let's go-let'S 121811 and stow, let's- etc., etc. Much praise is due the cooks for their thoughtfulness, however, in providing such matutinalihre-quenchers as tomato juice and other liquids calculated to calm a digeSt1VC SYStem quiteifoften in outrageous clam01'- With a substantial breakfast tucked away, the hardier spirits moved about purpOSCfUllY, 1' ermaster, transferred to V-7 Programj .ia ...!.wQ,.41xi4f' ' A X cleaning up, shaving, washing and attending to other duties of the morning. It must be regretted that all the spirits were not hardy, nor were they convinced yet that they had definitely arisen, for large numbers crept cravenly back to their sacks, and it was noted with some misgivings that the future crew of the Bunker Hill had an amazing faculty for going to sleep after a meal-even on top of all that good New England food, too! This affinity for the horizontal position was discouraged by the occasion of Quarters for Muster each morning, and certainly wasn't helped by standing at attention through the playing of The Star Spangled Banner, executed with agonizing slowness and fidelity to detail, to say nothing of the British and, as I recall, the French national anthems, also played in honor of Naval personnel of those countries, also present at the Fargo. The lads spent the remainder of the day attempting to evade, with varying degrees of success, various exercises and lectures, some necessitating a march to the Boys Club, which meant going out of the nice warm Fargo Building into the cold street. Then too, there was the ever-present danger of being instructed in the sooty art of fire-fighting, an exercise guaranteed to ruin clothes and dis- position in gaining first hand knowledge of the heat of oil fires and what to do about getting them out in a hurry. One of these Hre- Hghting classes shot a day all to hell. The dangerous period lay between the dis- missal from Quarters, and the opening of the canteen on the ninth deck. During this time one had to stay beyond the reach of Wheeler, and other of his ilk, who seemed stubbornly determined that the crew should do something other than sleep before liberty commenced. Once open, the canteen offered a splendid

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in a town built to take care of 500,000, he took up military visas and set sail for the South Pacihc. About this time the press abounded on the Bunker Hill: Also present were Elmont Waite, Associated Press writer, and Dan McGuire, United Press man who stayed long enough to get onthe Navy pay list. Dan's whoppers were characteristic of his good nature: . . . flak from anti-air- craft fire so thick that you could walk on it . . . .Of an action off Truk, when Jap torpedo planes attempted to attack our carrier forces, Monty Waite wrote: . . . Then the Hellcat dropped like a hawk from far above, and the torpedo plane literally dis- integrated and vanished in one quick blast. Flame and smoke arose momentarily from the water. That was all.. . Colorful language, as we look back on it. He was bringing to John Q. .Public pictures of what Mr. Public's kids are doing out here. Another visitor to the Bunker Hill was United Press, George E. Jones, outstanding for reporting the Navy's war. His datelines became familiar sights back home, just as his dynamic sentences hit you: War's jagged lightning can strike twice in the same place. It happened today at Clark Field, forty miles north of Manila . . . That was the day Hellcats roared down Dewey Boulevard, and Filipinos ran out into the streets to Wave at returning American pilots. There was William McGaHin, Chicago Doib, News correspondent, and there was Bill Baldwin of the Blue Network who recorded one of our battles, complete with actual sounds and the bona fide quavering of his voice. Lloyd Tupling, of the United Press, joined the ship late in October to become the most recent of the growing roster of Bunker Hill's Gentlemen of the Press. . . . They come and they go, and we still remember them, something they said or the way they looked in a tin hat. Their job is a long, often times boring, frequently dangerous studyg their thanks are few and far between. The press is more or less taken for granted- until it makes a mistake. You never actually realize just what a service they are perform- ing, or, actually, just how much they influence your lives. New words, they give you: flak, robomb. They introduce you to today's heroes, and you feel as if you know the heroes personally-but you seldom think about the guy who introduced you to them. Right this minute he's probably off on another mission, seeking out one of the kids and getting his slant on the war. 1

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refuge wherein one might sit comfortably assimilating malteds, cokes, coffee and ham- burgers, while discussing the relative merits of the young ladies behind the counters. Gnce inside the sacred portals you were safe, and even though VVheeler might drop in himself for a morning shot of joe, it was an un- written agreement that there would be no unpleasant scenes. One could thus relax until a similar, though shorter, alert that occurred in the afternoon. By that time, Wheeler had shot his bolt, so to speak, and found it difficult to remain awake himself. Thus it came to pass that much valuable sack- time was logged during the long afternoons, marred only by an occasional training film in which a cultured British voice explained the various types of Italian surface craft, and just what should be done about them all. During the day the time was well marked by the crowing of the announcing system, at an appointed time each afternoon emitted something that went like this: Now the faw to eight ahmed gahd lay down to the ahmed gahd room. About ten minutes later, this announcement was supplemented by a slightly grimmer version, in which the announcer said direly: Now the faw to eight ahmed gahd lay down to the ahmed gahd room or GO ON REPAVVTP' This seemed to constitute an end to the whole affair, as no more was heard regarding the ahmed gahd. At this point in the day's activities there were three definite classes of men in the build- ing. The distinctions were unique in the history of classes, for they were not based on money, antecedents, color, education, former occupation or previous condition of penal servitude. They were governed by the pos- session, or lack of, a small oval disc with a number stamped thereon. The numbers were odd and even and on alternate evenings were good for one hell of a time, in and around the environs of the Athens of America, Home of the Bean and the Cod. They constituted the Liberty Cards. The first, and far and away the most for- tunate class, was the one that actually rated liberty. The second was comprised of enter. prising young men who didn't rate liberty, but had grimly resolved that they were not going to spend that night in the Fargo Building, Many pounds were sweated away of an afternoon, weighing the chances of success of one or another particular scheme, Wonder. ing if the matter would come off without any hitch. The development of a hitch would have the dampening effect of landing them in the brig for various lengths of time. After an absence, the unfortunate ones would reappear upon the scene, healthier, less pale than the rest of us, no signs of dissipation, with a shorn pate-evidence of having spent some time in durance vile. The last class composed the group who did not rate liberty, and had no intentions of doing anything other than washing a white hat by way of an evening's entertainment. Before supper, the most favored class would fill the washrooms with merry singing and low insults. Row upon row of eager lads cheerily gashing their faces in an effort to outdo the next man in the ruddy smoothness of jowl found so attractive by New England's young ladies. This orgy of cleanliness would end only after every hair was in place, teeth brushed within an ace of removing the enamel, shoes shined to mirror-like perfection, and an honest effort made to brush the extraneous matter from the blues. Then the neckerchief, tied with care never lavished on a civilian tie, and tucked beneath the jumper to avoid collecting various bits and drippings of the meal, and so-down to chow. Some, im- patient of solid nourishment, would waitin the liberty chit line comparable, in their patience, to school kids awaiting the bell that sets them free on a Friday afternoon in Spring. Scarcely the first notes of the bugle sounded than the hounds snatched the chits and fled down the passageways toward the elevators- Some spurned mechanical aid and raced madly down the five Hights, out past the hard- pressed Chief trying to make a show of inspCC- tion of all hands, and onto Summer Street where they waited, buzzing happily like 2