THE SCHEMERS

Sometime during 1947, Keith Fairchild, a Radioman, and I , a Signalman, both graduates of a Class A school and both checked out in tower work and aware that the wartime Specialist Y rating standing for tower operator was going to be a permanent rate of Air Controlman with a Class A school in sunny NAS Jacksonville, FL, decided that it would be a good career move to apply for that school if we made the Navy a career. Besides we were tired of Michigan winters and we deserved a break toscrew off a little at the Navy's expense, something like an R&R leave..... knowing full well we were not to have notions along this line. Here was scheme worthy of a sleevewith many hashmarks. In my case, I wanted to put myself in a situation where I could test my discipline re studies habits, for I left highschool for the Navy after my Jr. year with three years of success in atheletics and girls with the other stuff something to endure. My purpose was to determine whether I could hack college courses with the GI Bill if I disciplined myself. Wonder of wonders, the powers- that- be thought it would be excellent to have Fairchild and me go to AC school for the winter of '47-'48. Well, we got down to NAS JAX to be welcomed by all hands on the teaching staff to help them pack up the school that was being relocated to NAS Olathe, KS ! We helped pack and spent the winter in Olathe freezing our backsides off. The only compensation was that Kansas City, MO, was the best liberty town a sailor could wish for. Fairchild and I got thru the school ,with the only new wrinkle for us being that we received training for work in Combat Information Centers aboard ship. Also, ACs were expected to know morse code in blinker light; here Fairchild and I were pressed into being instructors. We got back to GI in early Spring of '48. I decided to apply to only one college : if accepted , I'd go; if not, I was career Navy. Another wonder of wonders, for I was accepted in spite of my dismal highschool record. Fairchild went on to make the Navy a career, as you can see by his pictures on this site.

Now , a good sea story would end here, but the Navy wanted some payback for the investment they had in me. I was in the middle of the first semester of my Jr. year of college when I received orders to report to NTC Great Lakes to receive further orders. The Navy needed what I called Xmas help for the Korean War. I managed to get a deferment until after the end of the semester and checked in to Gt. Lakes on Jan. 31, '52., suffering from a monumental hangover from a party my frat had thrown a reserve Yeoman and me. Here I received orders for NAS Corpus Christ. Got down there the day that that egoist Douglas MacArthur was making his 'old soldiers never die" speech to Congress, the very one who thought it a general's prerogativeto make foreign policy instead of his Commander in Chief. The main mission of Corpus was to train aviators in instrument flight. Some brief highlights of that duty........