Chapter 24 Version 1
1943
Jane surveyed the Thanksgiving table and continued to tell
her story while Kay Grabon set up his equipment.
“I bought shoes for cousin Jane in London like she asked me
to in her last letter. When I brought them down to the post office, the clerk
asked me whether they were new or used shoes. I told him they were new and he
told me I could only send used shoes to Europe. He told me to take the shoes
out of the box, put them on and walk around and make sure I scuffed up the
bottoms. I put the shoes back in the box after I walked around in them in the
post office and the clerk asked me again if they were new or used. So now I
told him they were used which was true, I did use them” said Jane smiling as
she told the story. “Cousin Jane didn’t say what kind of shoes she wanted so I
sent her some brown walking shoes…used brown walking shoes.”
“OK, I have the camera on a timer. Smile and look into the
lens 1, 2, 3…” said Kay as he scooted back into his chair. Later that evening,
Kay developed the film so he could make some prints that weekend.
When he printed the photo he was pleased to see nearly all
of the Borsuk clan although his wife Helen was hidden behind the candles. In
the picture were Kay, Nancy, John, Mary Borsuk Polito with son Joe, Agata,
Helen, Joe Polito and daughter Maryann, Frances, Jane and Sophie. Absent were
Eddy who was down in North Carolina in the army and Rose Borsuk Miller.
Rose was married to Ralph Miller who was a coxswain in the
Coast Guard. A coxswain is in charge of a small boat or responsible for the
navigation and steering on a larger ship. Ralph was on an ocean going LST
“chasing Japs all across the Pacific”. LST stands for “Landing Ship Tank” but
Ralph referred to the designation as “Large Stationary Target”. A crew of 120
enlisted men and ten officers were required to man a full size LST that
transported all types of supplies and troops to an amphibious landing on a
beach. Smaller landing craft could have as few as a three man crew used to
transport troops during a beach assault and these would be carried by the
larger LST. The smaller craft were very dangerous for the troops as well as the
crew as they were directly in harms way.
Until this time, Kay had not been drafted. His eyesight in
his left eye was 20/200 which means that he could see at 20 feet what the
average person could see at 200 feet. If his glasses broke, he would be pretty
much blind out of one eye. Also, he worked at a defense related job. At Package
Machinery he was a Bench Assembler. He “worked from detail drawings in assembly
of gyro-compass, 50 and 30 cal. shell loading machines, 50 cal. disintegrating
link machines and, prior to conversion of plant to warwork, on wrapping
machines – made alterations for parts whenever necessary, operated engine
lathes, milling machine and drill press – rated as a machinist when first
employed.” For fun Kay was a target shooter with a 22-caliber rifle. A rifle
was mechanical and he understood the mechanics. He made $43.20 per week. Good
money in those days.
But in June of 1944 right after D-Day in Europe, Kay was
drafted. He was listed for “Special Assignment” because of his defective
vision. The military did a very good job in matching a person's job with their
skills. One of the objectives at Sampson NTS was to score high enough on tests
to get assigned to additional training. After basic training on 9/20/1944 he
went to Torpedoman's Mate School at Great Lakes NTC in Illinois for 16 weeks
and like Joe who went to Wentworth Institute in Boston to machinist school,
there was a note in his records that he must be assigned to a job related to
his skills. After training someone with a specialty skill for four months, the
government wanted a return out of that investment. Kay graduated well up in his
torpedomen class 14th out of 58 at Great Lakes.
His status was changed to S1c – Seaman First Class - on Jan 15,
1945. He was transferred on Jan 19, 1945
to N.A.A.S. Fallon, Nevada as a TMV3c(T)(SA) with a rate change effective May
15, 1945. That would be a Torpedoman Mate V Third Class with the T being
temporary for the duration of the war. The A may have stood for aviation.
Fallon Naval Air Station was among a group of military
installations within bombing distance of the west coast that were opened after
the start of WWII in case the Japanese invaded the continental US. It was near
Pyramid Lake where the torpedo training would take place. After the war it
became the location of the Top Gun training.
Torpedoes were replaced with much more accurate rockets launched from planes
after World War II. The only engagement where torpedoes were effective was at
Pearl Harbor where the ships were at anchor. In other circumstances, the
torpedoes were too easy to evade and the planes too easy to shoot down as they
dropped their torpedoes.
Since Kay had made gyro-compasses that kept the torpedoes on
track in his civilian job and his eyesight was far from ideal, a training job
for torpedoes used in naval aviation was a good fit. Nevada even made sense as
trained pilots would be close to the west coast for departure to the Pacific
Theatre. While the training had some spectators on the beach at Pyramid Lake,
the sunbathing was not without its hazards as torpedoes could sometimes go
rogue and head toward the beach. The bathers would scatter avoiding the life threatening
projectile as it plowed its way onto the beach - luckily without a detonation.
Unfortunately for Jane, her brother Eddy and brother-in-law
Kay were the photographers in the family. As she graduated from high school in
June of 1944, there was no one to take a picture of her at graduation. But she
had her plans made. She was going to beauty school in September.
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