Chapter 37 - 1945 At War's End - Jane Gets a Job - Kay, Ed and Joe Demobilized

Chapter 37 Version 2

1945

“They made a mistake. You have to take this back” said Agatha.

“There is no mistake” said Jane.

“Yes, they made a mistake and you have to take this back” insisted Agatha.

“OK” said Jane and she picked up the envelope and put it back into her purse. It was no mistake and it wasn’t going back!

After graduating from beauty school in the spring of 1945, Jane took a few weeks to do what she had been delaying. She had been living with some pain. Then it was done. Without her appendix, Jane felt better but stayed in bed for a week to convalesce. She spent her time in bed not reading or listening to the radio, just sleeping. Then she was allowed to walk. On the first day she walked down to the post office and that was much too far to go. A neighbor spoke with her at the post office and drove her back home.

Jane started working at Charlotte’s beauty salon before she was fully recovered. On the job the first week, she lifted something that was too heavy and created a lesion on her operation. Going back to the doctor, he confirmed that she injured the operation and Jane only worked at Charlotte’s for one week. She did make $80 for the week. When she came home and gave it to her widowed mother, her mother couldn’t believe that she made that much money in a week. Jane didn’t take the money back and she didn’t go back to work at Charlotte’s.

Jane was confronted with a problem. A few older women at the beauty salon, and one in particular who was Jane’s neighbor, decided they did not want an inexperienced girl working on their hair. After recuperating, Jane was in Holyoke at the second floor apartment of her sister Helen at 5 Faille Avenue and she called a local beauty salon to see if they needed a new beautician. She immediately walked down to the beauty shop for an interview.

“I think you are going to like working here” said the manager of the salon after about one minute into the interview. Jane started working the next day.

Helen’s husband Kay was in the Navy in Nevada so Helen welcomed Jane’s company during the week. On weekends, Jane went back over Mt. Tom to be with her friends in Easthampton. Jane would give her friend Bert facials. She went to the Majestic Theater on Cottage Street on Sunday afternoons with her friends including Aurelia. Jane liked westerns and light hearted mysteries like “The Thin Man Goes Home” with Myrna Loy, William Powell and Asta the Dog.

Jane’s friend Bert was going to a beauty salon owned by Lorita in Easthampton. She recommended Jane to Lorita when she heard that Lorita was looking for a beautician.

“No thank you, I am not looking to move from my present job.” Jane told Lorita on the phone.

Jane’s brother Ed had been going to infantry school down in Fort Benning , Georgia before going to unit training for infantry officers at Fort McClellan in Alabama. He started infantry training in October of 1944 and finished his infantry officer training in June. He left for the western Pacific in July a few weeks before the atomic bombs were dropped. His assignment was to the 800^th Military Police Battalion that was based in Manila in the Philippines. He arrived in mid-August the day after the Japanese surrender delegation left Manila to return to Japan. This was a few weeks before the formal surrender of the Japanese on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Ed was in Manila when Stanley arrived on the USS Rocky Mount to take Admiral Kincaid’s staff to Korea. The 800^th MP’s had been involved in the taking of New Guinea and Luzon with heavy losses. Had the Japanese not surrendered, they may have been involved in the scheduled invasion of Japan in November. Instead, Ed was assigned to be part of the occupation force. Lieutenant Borsuk was put in charge of seventy military policemen in the Kobe/Kyoto area of Japan. His job was not only to police the occupation forces, but also to police the civilian population. Having 45 points for demobilization, Lieutenant Ed left Japan in February of 1946 and separated from the active military in April at Fort Devens in Massachusetts.

“No thank you, I am not looking to move from my present job.” Jane again told Lorita and again Lorita would not take no for an answer. She kept calling on weekends when Jane was home.

On the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Kay left Fallon, Nevada for his annual leave. Including his travel time, Kay was on leave from August 5^th to August 31^st. At every stop of the train, he heard the Andrew Sisters singing, “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” both coming and going. By the time he returned to Fallon, his job of torpedo training for use by bomber pilots was no longer needed. But on November 1^st 1945 Kay only had 31.5 points and was not yet eligible for immediate release. On January 30th 1946, Kazmer went to San Francisco on his way to the Boston Separation Center in Massachusetts. He was honorably discharged from the Navy on February 8th 1946 and returned to Helen in Holyoke.

“OK, I am interested in coming back to work in Easthampton” Jane finally told Lorita in December of 1945. Jane started working for Lorita in January of 1946. The timing of Jane’s decision was good as the salon in Holyoke was sold to investors from Vermont. A few months later, a water problem in the salon spilled over into a food store next door. The salon in Holyoke shut down and never reopened. Timing is everything.

It seemed that everyone was being demobilized except Joe. On September 17^th, 1945, ACORN 29 itself was decommissioned. Joe was assigned to Naval Air Base Yonabaru, Okinawa. There would be no need for his ACORN unit to rehab another captured airfield during the cancelled assault in November against the Japanese island of Kyushu. His training as a LCI, Landing Craft Infantry, motorman would have been especially dangerous in that landing. Japan still had over 6,000 aircraft for the defense of the homeland. Their plan was to use half of the aircraft as kamikazes against the landing craft concentrating on the infantry and wreaking havoc on the shoreline. Smaller ships and mini-submarines were also to be used as kamikazes to go along with the 3,000 aircraft. This would be a change in tactics as the beaches were not contested on Okinawa. The defense on Okinawa was done in the inland hills. But the atomic bombs were a game changer and Joe was never called to this next assault. He might even have been ferrying Lieutenant Ed’s MP unit to the beach on Kyushu.

On November 1, 1945, Joe had only 27 points and was ineligible for immediate release. He decided to study for the exam that would qualify him for an advancement in rating to MM3c. He was MMS3c – a shop machinist mate. A MM3c would be a full machinist mate. Joe sat for the exam on January 25, 1946. He qualified and on February 6, 1946 was approved pending an actual vacancy. On February 26^th, his rate was changed from MMS3c to MM3c. This was done on some of his paperwork.

On March 18^th, a day before his birthday, Joe’s points were recalculated to be 29 and he was eligible for discharge. He had the option of reenlisting at his new rate and probably be assigned to an airfield in China or he could go home. Joe had seen enough. He opted to go home.

Millions of veterans made their way home under Operation Magic Carpet uneventfully. Joe’s trip home would be one of the exceptions. On his way home, his ship broke down and was lucky to be close to Japan as it was towed into Yokohama in Tokyo Bay. The ship took two weeks to repair so Joe enjoyed some R&R in Japan. Had the ship broken down in the middle of the North Pacific in bad weather, it may not have made it to Seattle. Timing is everything. As it was, the repaired ship had to contend with huge swells and it was a very rough crossing to Seattle.

Then it was off to the Navy Separation Center in Boston via train on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Joe arrived in Boston on April 24^th. He was honorably discharged on April 26,1946 as a MMS3c as his paperwork for this rate increase didn’t catch up with his records before he was discharged. Joe did not care to “Hurry Up And Wait” any longer.

Chapter 36 - 1945 Stanley & Henry Return from the Pacific

Chapter 36 Version 1

1945

Numbers are important. The military is a highly analytical organization devoted to numbers, hierarchies and plans. Squadrons, platoons, battalions, assault groups, armies and navies have functions that are coordinated by exacting plans at least before the shooting starts. In September 1945, one of the largest sets of war plans, Operation Downfall, had two parts. Operation Olympic was to have established air bases on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu in October of 1945. The assault on the island of Honshu would bring about the fall of Tokyo in the spring of 1946. When Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 these plans were no longer needed. The plan that was activated was Operation Magic Carpet, a demobilization plan for millions of American servicemen in a very short period of time. Enlistment times had been for a specific number of years, usually two or four. But in the national emergency that was World War II enlistments were extended for the duration of the national emergency. If you were in the armed services, you were in until the war ended. When the Japanese accepted the terms of the unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945 and the signing was done on September 2 in Tokyo harbor on the deck of the USS Missouri, Operation Magic Carpet was already being unrolled. Utmost on every serviceman’s mind was “When do I get to go home?”.

In August Operation Magic Carpet started a trickle of servicemen being repatriated followed by a torrent in September and a flash flood in October and beyond. All manner of ships from aircraft carriers to troop transports to LST’s were used to ferry lucky POWs, soldiers, sailors and marines back to the west coast so they could be discharged and go home. Sometimes the ships themselves were making the last trip to the US west coast or east coast for retirement from service. Sometimes the ships returned to the far east for an additional cargo of men who had seen enough.

“I do not want to reenlist. Do I have enough points to go home now?” asked Stanley. All of the men on the Rocky Mount were finding out if they had enough points to be sent home immediately. Operation Magic Carpet had a point system that would determine if you could go home. Stanley’s math was pretty straight forward:

            .5 x months of service                                 29 = 14.5

            .5 x years of age                                          28 = 14.0

            .25 x months of overseas deployment         24 =   6.0

            10 x dependents                                             1 = 10.0

            Total                                                                     44.5

Stanley’s marriage to Jeanette didn’t stop him from getting drafted but it helped to get him back a little sooner than other bachelors on the crew.  Before the Rocky Mount departed Manila for Korea, a few crewmen were selected by lottery for a quick exit back to the States and the sailor with the most points was allowed to go home immediately.

After picking up Admiral Kincaid in Korea on September 9th, the Rocky Mount steamed across the East China Sea heading for Shanghai, China. When the ship reached the mouth of the Yangtze River it was forced to go back out to sea for a few days to ride out an approaching typhoon. After the rivers were cleared of mines, the Rocky Mount was the lead ship in a procession up the Whangpoo River to the Bund in Shanghai’s waterfront. The Rocky Mount, followed by the cruiser Nashville anchored off the Bund to the great welcome of the Chinese on September 19th. The wartime service of ACG-3, the Rocky Mount was nearly over. On November 2^nd, Admiral Kincaid transferred his command to ACG-12 USS Estes and the Rocky Mount prepared to come home.

                                                                                                

On September 8^th, the transport ship USS Cambria delivered its cargo of occupation troops to Nagasaki, Japan. The next mission was to pick up three groups of returning servicemen first in Manila, then in Shanghai where Stanley boarded on October 23^rd. The Cambria then picked up its last contingent of retirees on Okinawa on October 29^th where his brother Joe was still stationed. On November 12^th, the Cambria steamed into San Francisco Bay. The Rocky Mount had been scheduled back to San Francisco a number of times but there was always another assault to be trained for and Stanley had gone for over two years without leave in the States.

On the 21^st of November, Stanley was received into the Boston Separation Center. The next day, Thanksgiving Day appropriately, Stanley signed his discharge papers and the left for the open arms of his wife Jeanette.

Henry’s repatriation was even swifter than Stanley’s. Henry boarded the USS Alderamin on August 17 at Okinawa just two days after the Japanese agreed to their unconditional surrender and two days before the Japanese surrender delegation flew into Ie Shima on their way to Manila. After Henry left, the VMF (N) 533 squadron was deployed to Peiping China in October 1945 before heading back to Pearl Harbor. Henry’s final cruise took him back to familiar territory stopping at Eniwetok in the Marshalls, and Pearl Harbor before landing in San Francisco on September 22^nd. On October 23^rd, Henry was heading back to the Discharge Section of SS-48 MASG-51 in Bainbridge MD. Henry had earned 54 points in his nearly three year enlistment:

            Service Credits                            = 33

            Sea & Foreign Service Credits    = 16

            Combat Credits                            =   5

              Total                                              54

Henry had thought about writing to a girl he had seen back in Easthampton named Aurelia. Now that the war was over, a letter might be a way to be introduced to her. She lived on Ferry Street where Henry had worked before he enlisted in the war. Aurelia would walk with her girlfriend near Ward Avenue where he lived. Henry was a 19 year old recruit when he left. He was returning as a 22 year old marine staff sergeant on December 7, 1945.

Both Stanley and Henry had come and gone from Okinawa. Joe remained on the island reminding himself of what he had learned in the service “Hurry up and wait”.

Chapter 35 - 1969 Summer Vacation

Chapter 35 Version 1

1969

 “If you have not had calculus in high school, raise your hand.”

Of the thirty-five incoming RPI freshmen sitting in Amos Eaton Hall, John and two others raised their hands.

“I suggest that you take a summer class in calculus before you arrive in the fall. Here at Rensselaer we use the same text book that MIT uses. At MIT, they cover the book in three semesters. Here we cover the same material in two semesters. Our classes are worth four credits instead of the standard three credits. That allows us to have a sophomore class in matrices and linear algebra before taking the class in differential equations. Any questions?”

John thought –“I am behind before I get started!”

“In freshman chemistry, we have two four credit semesters to cover the material in the test book. Lectures will be given by the faculty that wrote the textbook you will be using.”

“In freshman physics, we use the most used college physics textbook in the country, coauthored by an RPI professor you may get in your recitation class. You are encouraged to attend the lectures that are like technical magic shows. We don’t require the use of calculus in the first semester but it is OK if you do use calculus.”

It was late June and John was at the overnight RPI freshman orientation in Troy , NY. He had been working at Northampton State Hospital for a few weeks after high school graduation. He was receiving a lot of advice lately.

“Don’t go too far away because you will be coming home every weekend” advised his Cioci (Polish for Aunt) Lally.

“You need to change this schedule so that you don’t take physics and chemistry at the same time. Nobody takes them at the same time” advised John’s high school math teacher.

It was already too late to find a summer calculus class and his schedule at the hospital would be a problem to work around. John went down to the bookstore and bought a $.99 paperback entitled appropriately “Calculus” and began preparing for college. All of the engineering students took the same pre-engineering curriculum. There was a common testing period at eight o’clock on Friday so everyone took the same test in chemistry, physics and math at the same time. There was no deviation from the pre-engineering curriculum.

“What are you majoring at college?” asked another summer attendant nurse who was an upperclassman at UMass.

“Civil Engineering”

“A lot of students start out in engineering but nobody graduates in engineering.”

“A group of us attendant nurses are sending away for tickets for one day at a rock concert in upstate New York. Would you like to join us?”

“When is the concert?” asked John.

“August 16^th . The concert is multiple days but we are just going up for Saturday.”

“ I need the money for tuition so I will pass on this” said John.

“We are going to smoke the patients in the courtyard now. Do you have matches? We also shoot baskets for quarters with the other attendants – it wouldn’t be ethical to include the patients.” During training, the term “smoke the patients” was not to be used when the attendants were lighting cigarettes for patients. Patients could have cigarettes but not matches or lighters for obvious reasons.

John wasn’t athletic enough to compete in basketball one on one. Uncontested, he could shoot the basketball well. He left that evening weighed down with a pocketful of quarters. He was never asked to play “21” for quarters again.

Everyday at work was a crap shoot without the dice. John was on “relief duty” so he was not assigned to work on a specific ward. Every day he was assigned to a different ward. Many state hospitals across the country like Northampton were built in the mid-1800’s using the Kirkbride plan. While the architectural detailings were unique, the basic layout of a Kirkbride hospital was always the same whether in Athens Ohio or at Oregon State Hospital where “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed in 1975. Up the granite or brownstone front stairs and you were into the administrative hallway. The nurse’s station was on the left where John checked in and out and received his ward assignment for the day. At the end of the hall was the great rotunda. Originally the rotunda at NSH was open to the third floor ceiling with stairways all around for access to the women’s wards on the left and the men’s wards on the right. The kitchen, laundry and hospital store were straight across the rotunda. Due to the number of patients launching themselves from upper stories to the hard rotunda floor, elevators and floors on each level of the rotunda were added later.

The wards attached to the rotunda fanned out to the north and south like bat wings. The first wards attached to the rotunda were open wards – unlocked both day and night. Patients on open wards could come and go as they pleased.  Assignment to an open ward for the day was good but uncommon. As the wards stepped outward, they were locked with separate keys. John was issued a set of keys to the wards that were too large to easily fit into one’s pocket and an attendant nurse bent a spoon into thirds as a belt hook for the keys. The large end of the spoon slid down behind John’s belt and the thin end of the spoon bent upward to form a hook. A metal chain secured the key ring to a belt loop on John’s white bell bottom pants to prevent the keys from being taken when restraining a patient. The keys could unlock the entrances to the underground tunnels that connected to other buildings and contained old unused cells and water treatment therapy rooms. Staff was dressed in white to distinguish them from the patients. Contrary to popular mythology, white coats were not worn by the attendant nurses.

The farther the patients were from the rotunda, the more severe the patients were until the infirmary wards were reached. In the North Infirmary wards, the patients were generally wheel chair bound. The fifty or so patients on each floor were taken from bed to wheel chair, cleaned, fed and the beds stripped and remade with clean linens with hospital corners as there were no fitted sheets. After the patients were taken care of, John would wash the floors and maybe some of the walls if there were time.

For one day, John was assigned to do suicide watch – eight hours of watching a person who was thought to be suicidal. One thing that John was not allowed to do was to set up or dispense medications which required at least a Licensed Practical Nurse – LPN like two of his aunts that worked at NSH – Rose and Mary.

There was a lot going on that summer. The Apollo 11 moon landing by Neil Armstrong was accomplished on July 20^th. The head administrator of the Apollo program was a RPI grad who later became the Institute’s president. The next spring, Jack Swigert who earned a RPI master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Hartford was the last minute replacement astronaut on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. Swigert was an engineering test pilot for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft from 1957 to 1964.

One of the patients on a locked ward that John had been assigned to a number of times was a good artist. Carlos was selling pictures of the moon landing he drew for cigarettes. John bought one and Carlos also drew his portrait. John was on good terms with Carlos who had an outgoing personality.

Sooner or later John needed to register with the draft board. On July 24^st, he went down to register in person as in his mind that would be within 10 days of his eighteenth birthday. He filled out the form and handed it in. He needed to get a 2S deferment to go to college.

“Your registration is late.”

The registration was required by the eighteenth birthday. After realizing his error, John choked out “I’m here now.”

“You will be hearing from the board in a few weeks.”

John showed up for work on time at 6:45am for Sunday morning on August 17^th. He had heard from his draft board in the prior week. The selective service registration card showed a July 24^th registration date. He was relieved to see his classification card came in a few days later with a 2S. That Sunday morning, the nurse in charge seemed relieved to see him but she was still in a state of panic.

“I am so glad to see you came today!”

That is an unusual greeting thought John.

“We are short staffed today so we will try and get someone to work with you on 3NH1. Here are the names of two patients that are trustworthy. They can help you feed the patients at lunch time.”

3NH1 was the third hall on the first floor on the north side from the rotunda which was a locked ward that John had never been on. John headed off to his assigned ward. When he entered, he saw that the stainless steel food cart had been used to feed the 75 patients on the ward. The patients on this ward were ambulatory and certifiably insane. The two trustee patients were just finishing helping clean up from breakfast. John made a quick inspection of the ward keeping his back toward the walls and decided that today there would not be much cleaning done. A nurse did show up and set up the meds but was off to the next ward quickly. John took the patients down to the nicotine stained solarium room to smoke the patients. He tried to keep his back to the wall as he lit their cigarettes. He set out some puzzles and games and tried to keep the patients occupied so they would not notice that he was the only staff on the ward. Then it was lunch time and the food cart returned with lunch. After lunch, John received a call that nobody was available to pass meds so the meds were passed. John went back into the ward office and locked the door behind him. He opened the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) and looked up the medications that had been passed. Thorazine, artane and mellaril were the most common ones and made interesting reading until the next shift arrived at 3 o’clock. John made the report for the shift as the person in charge. “8/17/1969 1^st Shift - No Incidents.”

“No, I don’t wish to work another shift today” John politely told the nurse in charge as he left that day.

He pushed the Chrysler Newport’s pushbutton transmission into drive and turned on the radio. “The Weight” by Bob Dylan’s backup band “The Band” was playing. The song was from John’s favorite album from the summer entitled “Music From Big Pink”. There was a report that the New York State Thruway south of Woodstock was closed due to the abandoned cars as people walked their way to the rock concert where Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were currently performing. John hoped that the other attendant nurses would be back for tomorrow’s shifts.

By the third week in September, John was packing his footlocker with everything he would need at RPI. With working the summer at minimum wage, he was able to save about 25% of the cost of tuition, room and board for a year at RPI. Just another week of work at the state hospital. John had hoped to make some connections with civil engineering construction companies at the RPI summer alumni party to get a job in construction the following year. “We are more interested in finding jobs for graduates” he was told. John would have to keep his options open to work at the state hospital again for the next summer.

“Keep an eye on Harold today. He is quite agitated and will probably jump someone. We can’t do anything until he makes his move so just be alert.” John had not been the target of a malicious move by a patient all summer. At the beginning of summer, a full time attendant told John that in the event of an altercation, make sure to get rid of his glasses fast. If a punch came his way and it hit his glasses, it would likely break the bridge of his nose. The patients were being smoked in the solarium when Harold made his move. John was lighting a cigarette for a patient who had gotten his hands on a pair of electric hair clippers. He clipped a path down the center of his head into a reverse Mohawk. “Do you like my new haircut? I did it myself because I am the bald eagle!” At that moment Harold got a running start and headed straight for John. A few yards from his intended target, Harold was tackled and brought to the floor by Carlos, the artist patient. The other two attendants on the ward along with John subdued Harold while the ward nurse administered a sedative and led Harold to an isolation room containing only a rubber covered mattress. Harold would stay in only as long as it took for him to regain his composure and would be taken out by two attendants for a bathroom break every so often. John went back to the solarium to pick up his glasses off the floor. Carlos had earned another pack of cigarettes that evening.

John arrived at RPI at the end of the summer. In his mailbox, found he had mail. His schedule was there and a formal letter from the physics department with his homework assignment, reading and problems, due on Monday morning. He looked over his schedule and saw that there was two hours of physical education every week for no credits. He counted up the classroom hours and found that there were twenty-seven hours in classes including all the labs. There were also instructions to meet at the Field House for a convocation with the President. John made his way to the Field House noting posters that there was going to be a freshman college mixer the next weekend and a concert by a group he had never heard of called Iron Butterfly next month. Student tickets were $2/each.

The President of RPI instructed: “Look to your left. Look to your right. One of you three will not be here to graduate.”