A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (6 page)

Rosalynn was remarkably beautiful, almost painfully shy, obviously intelligent, and yet unrestrained in our discussions on the rumble seat of the Ford Coupe.

Mama and I were both surprised by my answer, because Rosalynn and I had not had any discussion about our relationship and certainly not about a future together. She was remarkably beautiful, almost painfully shy, obviously intelligent, and yet unrestrained in our discussions on the rumble seat of the Ford Coupe. She joined my family to see me off at the train station quite late the next night, after I returned from my date with Annelle, and I kissed her good-bye. I was glad to learn that Annelle married a medical student and moved to Macon. Rosalynn and I dated during Christmas vacation, and my parents and Rosalynn came to Annapolis in February for a brief holiday to celebrate the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. I asked her to marry me, but she rejected my proposal, then later wrote back from Plains to let me know that she had promised her father, on his deathbed, to finish college and would not marry until then. In the meantime she was dating other young men who were in college with her. I was distressed, and could only persist through my letters and an occasional telephone call. She finally accepted my proposal, and we were married the first week in July, after she graduated from the junior college in Americus. A few days later we started housekeeping together in Norfolk, Virginia, where my ship was stationed. We rented a small upstairs apartment a few miles from the navy base. This is a poem I wrote about her:

Rosalynn

She’d smile, and birds would feel that they no longer

had to sing, or it may be I failed

to hear their song.

Within a crowd, I’d hope her glance might be

for me, but knew that she was shy, and wished

to be alone.

I’d pay to sit behind her, blind to what

was on the screen, and watch the image flicker

on her hair.

I’d glow when her diminished voice would clear

my muddled thoughts, like lightning flashing in

a gloomy sky.

The nothing in my soul with her aloof

was changed to foolish fullness when she came

to be with me.

With shyness gone and hair caressed with gray,

her smile still makes the birds forget to sing

and me to hear their song.

We graduating midshipmen had to draw lots for our first duty station, and my number was near the bottom. My assignment was to serve on the oldest navy ship still operating at sea, the battleship USS
Wyoming,
which had been commissioned in 1912, served as a warship in World War I, then as a training ship and for shore bombardment in World War II with her twelve 12-inch guns. The
Wyoming
then became something of an experiment station for testing the most advanced designs of radar, communications, navigation, and gunnery equipment. I was obligated to remain on this post for two years before requesting a transfer to other duties. As a young officer I had both commonplace and highly innovative assignments, including electronics officer. This was a time of severe budget restraints, when only one preproduction model of a new gyroscope compass, radar, loran (a long-range navigation system based on radio waves), fire-control system, or weapon could be afforded, and our job was to test them as thoroughly
and inexpensively as possible. I was also responsible for both still and motion picture photography of towed aerial targets and shell bursts for assessing the accuracy of antiaircraft projectiles. This was during the early development of color film, a process that I learned on the ship.

Physically, my ship was something of a disgrace. The hull had been strained, perhaps by firing its main batteries during the war, and it leaked constantly. Despite the best efforts of the officers and crew to contain it, there was a small but steady stream of oil that exuded from the hull, so we were forbidden to come into the port and tie up with other navy vessels alongside the pier. Our only recourse was to anchor well out in the harbor so the surging tides would minimize the effects of our pollution. This meant that our access to the shore was in small boats that made sporadic trips to and fro when we were not operating out in the Atlantic Ocean. Senior officers and representatives of commercial firms had top priority, so the rest of us had to await our turns for boat rides. When seas were rough, of course, the small boats couldn’t operate.

Our normal schedule was to spend five days cruising back and forth off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina to perform our experimental duties, and then anchor on Saturday and Sunday. We ensigns had onboard duty as watch officers every third weekend and could go home to our families during the other two unless there were special tasks related to our permanent assignments. This was the time when new electronic equipment was brought aboard, installed, and tested for the following week’s work, and as electronics officer I frequently had to perform these tasks. I worked on the new equipment, and once I was shocked quite painfully while lying under a radar power unit being repaired. Morale on the ship was very low, and I was soon fed up with navy life. I carried out my mandatory assignments and was primarily interested in spending as much time onshore as possible, either being with my family or making furniture in the large and well-equipped hobby shop on the navy base. I remember hanging a sign over my bunk that said
SO WHAT?

At the end of a year, we were delighted to learn that the
Wyoming
would be retired from service and replaced by the USS
Mississippi,
which had been commissioned in 1917, served as an escort to shipping and
bombarded coastlines during World War II, and was converted to its final status in 1947 to assume the
Wyoming
’s duties. Its hull had been renovated in the shipyard and was in such good condition that it was permitted to come all the way into the harbor and tie up alongside the piers! The same experimental projects were performed, and the officers and enlisted men were just transferred to our new navy home without changing our basic job assignments.

By this time I began to realize how fortunate I was to have this job as electronics officer, because I had unimpeded access to almost every technological development being introduced into the armed forces, sometimes even including the army and marines. Really for the first time, I decided to devote my full abilities to my naval career and became deeply immersed in learning everything possible about seamanship, navigation, the equipment that came onboard to be tested and evaluated, and the ship itself. I became special assistant to the executive officer and volunteered to be director of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute, which provided free courses for officers and men to complete or supplement their educations at the high school and college levels. When we could assemble a small group, I taught classes in subjects of common interest. One sailor ordered a course on painting, but he resigned from the navy before his book and art materials arrived. When they came, several of the sailors and I experimented with watercolors and oil paints, and I began to sketch scenes around our apartment. I also collected some books about famous artists and their works. I now have a large collection in my library, including the 1939 edition of Jan Gordon’s
Painting for Beginners.

I had an interest in politics during those years but adopted the officially neutral status maintained by other officers. While serving my final months on the
Mississippi,
I had learned to admire President Harry Truman and his political courage as he made difficult decisions involving racial equality and bringing the world war to a close. This was during the early stages of the 1948 presidential campaign, and I heard that Truman’s predecessor as Roosevelt’s vice president, Henry Wallace, would be speaking as a presidential candidate in Norfolk. I knew Wallace was a strong critic of racial segregation, had been editor of the
New Republic
magazine, and that he
was calling for an end to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. When I told the executive officer of my plans to go to the speech, he was furious that I would participate in a political event and especially for a radical like Henry Wallace. He let me know that this would be a permanent black mark in my official records. I didn’t pursue the idea but continued to monitor the progress of the presidential race.

I don’t remember what induced me to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship that same year. I obtained the requisite endorsement from the Naval Academy and other letters of recommendation, wrote an essay, and submitted it as a citizen of Georgia, where I thought I would have my best chance. My statement expressed hope that, as a naval officer, I might use my knowledge of international affairs, to be acquired at Oxford, as a means to promote world peace. I was notified that I was a finalist and went to Atlanta for an interview. I stayed overnight with my cousin Don Carter, where I saw my first television set. I remember that the screen was about the size of a postcard. My main challenger was a thin and stooped young man from Alabama, who said he told the Rhodes interviewers that he had focused his studies exclusively on Elizabethan literature and had no interest in anything that had happened after the death of Elizabeth I, in 1603. I had practically memorized newspapers and magazines during the previous months and answered many questions about history, geography, and current events. Not surprisingly, even to me, the Alabama scholar was chosen. He and I communicated by mail once or twice, and I was grieved to learn from his parents that he died while still a student in England.

As a young naval officer, I had to do everything possible to stretch my salary of three hundred dollars a month to cover the cost of uniforms, my food onboard ship, rent for an apartment, and other living expenses of our family, which now included our son, Jack. There was a big difference between the cost of furnished and unfurnished places, and I made full use of the elaborate hobby shops on the large navy bases, usually manned by warrant officers who were expert cabinetmakers. From them, I learned the finer points of working with different kinds of wood, making well-structured joints, using proper glues, and finishing the surfaces. In the workshops I enjoyed designing and building chairs, beds, tables,
and cabinets. To save the cost of shipping, I left almost all the furniture behind when I was assigned from one duty station to another, but we brought some of the bunk beds, tables, and chairs with us when we later moved into a small unfurnished apartment in the Plains public housing project. Our nicest piece of furniture at that time was a white oak cabinet that I had built while we lived on the submarine base in Honolulu. It had mitered corners and recessed hinges and was designed to hold our high-fidelity radio and record system.

After two years I had the option of being assigned to another surface ship or applying for one of the three more special careers: intelligence, the naval air force, or submarines. By this time I had developed a strong inclination to operate at sea, so after careful consideration I decided to compete for one of the few assignments to submarines. I was selected, passed the claustrophobia and other psychological tests, and Rosalynn, our son Jack, and I moved to New London, Connecticut, for six months of intensive training with fifty other officers, a few of whom were from foreign countries. The instruction was highly practical, as we learned about the construction and diving principles of the ships themselves; assembling, storing, and firing torpedoes; operating the different guns used when on the surface; caring for the many large electric batteries that propelled the ship when submerged; and special seamanship techniques in handling the fragile vessel, with its strong and watertight inner hull surrounded by thin tanks, easily damaged.

(Note: We referred interchangeably to submarines as “ships” or “boats,” and usually pronounced “submariner” with the accent on the third syllable.)

There had been a number of fatal underwater accidents during previous years, and we were required to practice escaping from a damaged submarine that could not surface. Pressurized escape hatches would let a few men at a time leave the ship and enter the surrounding sea, at depths
up to three hundred feet. Rising through the water had to be done slowly and carefully to prevent the air in our lungs, which was under great pressure, being forced into our bloodstreams and causing unconsciousness or death. There was a one-hundred-foot tank at the submarine base, and we would go into the bottom, become accustomed to the high pressure, and then ascend through the water while clamping a small rope between our bare feet to control upward speed and breathing in and out through a Momsen lung. This clumsy device removed carbon dioxide from our exhaled breath and provided enough oxygen for survival. A few other trainees and I volunteered to make what was called a “free ascent,” without the artificial breathing device. It was crucial to watch the exhaled bubbles and not go up any faster than they did. It was a very unpleasant experience, and it is still my most vivid memory of those early submarine days. I was determined not to permit any other trainees to exceed my performance.