Well I finally get around to my U.S. Navy career.  After basic training in San Diego, Calif. I had orders to go to Norfolk, Virginia. For about 2 or 3 days, 3 of us new guys stayed at the ships Master of Arms area. One Master of Arms (the ships police) asked if any of us 3 newbie's could type. I was the only one. He said, "come with me, you are now working in an office." I was supposed to be working in a Machine Shop. Everything worked out though. I worked on a tender (a repair ship) the U.S.S. Cadmus AR-14. We were stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. I worked in the Repair Department Main Office as a Yeoman (Clerical). I worked for a Lt. Comm. Fred Ewing and a Chief Scully. (I have an interesting side story about Chief Scully). In the Repair Department we had a compliment of 350 men. The Department was divided into 4 Divisions. There were 300 men that ran our ship, separate from Repair, total 650 men on board. Besides my duties in the Office, Commander Ewing also assigned me to the diving crew as a helper. I helped suit up our divers, handled the lines, and watched the gauges on our Dive Boats compressor. Lots of fun and memories. Not very exciting, but wouldn't trade it for anything.

Note: I nearly went to Salvage Diving School in Norfolk, Virginia. I was suited in the Deep Sea Diving Rig (big metal helmet) and had to go to a certain point and back. I did this with no problem. Afterward we were put on the base bus and I returned to the ship. Later that same day I had a visit from the Diving School. All I had to do was to extend my active service for one more year. I declined. Later I had second thoughts but life goes on.

I went through a hurricane "Gracie" 9-30-59 in Norfolk, VA. We had a boiler out on our ship so we stayed tied up at our pier. We were probably the only ship left in Norfolk.

My sleeping quarters was in R2 Division with 125 other guys. My job was to take care of the paperwork for the repair department and its personnel. I worked with two guys, Tom Flynn from Carbondale, PA and a guy named Toliver. We also kept up with the liberty cards and passes and other requests from our personnel that had to be signed off in our office. We were a repair ship between yard periods. We would take 2 to 3 ships every 2 to 3 weeks to work on. Our repair department people would take things off their ships bring it to our ship and repair it and then reinstall it on their ship. My main job was to go to the ships and check the status of the jobs we had in process. Our officers would have status report meetings with their officers during their stay.

Every three months we would go out for war games for a couple of weeks. We would leave Norfolk on a Monday morning and do war games. On Friday we would pull into a port until Sunday. Monday morning we would pull out to sea for more games until Friday morning. At that time we were back in Norfolk for another 3 months. We repeated this as long as I was there. We went to exotic places like Puerto Rico, New York 3 times, Baltimore, Boston, New London, Conn. and Newport, RI for 6 weeks in the dead winter. I only had 1 wool blanket and I nearly froze my buns off. Plus with our bell bottom blues the wind would blow up one leg and down the other leg.

I nearly went to Salvage Diving School. I went to diving school on the base and they put me in one of the deep sea suits with the big metal helmet, anvas suit, shoe and belt weights and helped me into the water. I walked to a designated poiint and back with no trouble. We went back to our ship a little later and they came to me and wanted me to sign up for another year so I could go to that school. I declined, but the Lt. Comm. Ewing was over our ships diving drew and I did help suit up our divers and handled lines and watched the gauges on the compressor that we had in our diving boat. Lots of fun!