US Naval Reserve Midshipmens School - Capstan Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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'f' gun ,Qs--' .T' ..,- an W 1g '4 ,xv Up the ladders, through the passageways, the books going hc-lter skelter in our arms but not yet on the deck, we managed to get our coats on hooks and ourselves into the classroom. Maybe he wonyt give the test today, we hoped. Maybe this and maybe that, but there he was already on his way in and those were certainly P-work sheets in his arms. 'WVe'll have a little quickie, gentlemen, he said, just to see ifyou have studied your lesson? And we started, mulling formulae, mumbling pray- ers and munching fingernails. The problem reads: You are on board a destroy- er, the Throckmorton P. Snodgrass, course 070, speed, very little indeed in times like these. You have just taken a running fix and found yourself 729 miles from your DR position, south of the Estimated Point, attained by using radio bearings from Lighthouse A, Station B, and the tower of the RCA building in New York City, four blocks from the Gay X'Vhite XVay and the Crossroads of the VVorld. Oops! There is a torpedo looking you right in the eye, on course O45 relative, and itis coming much fasterahan you're going. There are shoalsjust a wee bit ahead and you are within the danger circle, headed for certain doom, and your 47 COD has just reported that two seaman shot an albatross five minutes before the torpedo was sighted. The lookout reports that there is a re- calcitrant school of fish on the starboard beam, playing C'sloogey with a pearl, and a call to the engine room reveals that some viper in the crew is inciting a mutiny. Now the required answer is: XVhat course would you have to steer in order to make the late show at Radio City? Ah, you get to thinking about New York in De- cember, the Gay VVhite Wfay, a late show with a midnight supper at the Stork Club and then, Bow- ditch falls to the deck. The busy little beaver be- side you wants your eraser and another one would like to have those Current Tables, please. The bell rings and you havenit even begun. You gather together your gear and envision Camp Upton in December with everyone pointing at you when you walk down the street without the Ensign's stripe. But someone is mumbling in the rear. He had worked it all out, got the ship as far as a Kansas cornlielcl, and then the instructor told him that it was patently impossible and that only blank papers would get 4.0's. Oh, my goodness, what did I do to deserve this?

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T WAS quiz day again and we were frantically cramming mnemonic devices into ourselves while sharpening pencils and arranging the texts in a convenient, portable pile. There was Dutton, the Pacific Ocean Tide Tables, the Azimuth Sun Bearings, Introduction to Astronomy, Current Tables, and Bowditch. Gee, heis a heavy one . . . Cln more ways than onej Our roommate was one of those mathematics sharks who could handle a protractor like a surgeon handles a scalpel, draw neat circles and meticu- lously straight lines, and work out intricate prob- lems while we were still struggling with the first fix. There were a few score like him in the entire school. Accomplished lads, really out of this world, who found Navigation a cinch and couldn,t understand why all the others ever had trouble with it. Come onw, he said. HLet,s go. This test today will be simple. You really should breeze through itf' Muttering an imprecation, we collected our books and joined a group in the passageway. C6 How do you get the t and d of the sun?,, '4What is a good dehnition of azimuth?' CC Howinhell do you convert Watch Time to G. C. T.?,' And so it went. We tottered off apprehensively, barely missing a fall on the ice, miraculously preventing the books from slipping, and keeping the compass point out of the anatomy of the fellow in front. It was a lucky start, but we never took luck for granted for we knew it was better to figure you didn't have a chance. Then the surprise of passing would be sweeter and the shock of bilging, less potent, since expected. l46l ,,.-f

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