Chapters from "TIME TRIALS"
• 18 •
Western Pacific
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Normally, a young officer’s assignment after OCS is for three years, the length of one’s service obligation. Radar picket duty involves steaming to stations that hug the coast from Mexico to Alaska never straying too far into the Pacific Ocean. The navy considers this rather uneventful, tedious duty. It didn’t turn out to be, but I was not about to challenge the administrative bureaucracy.
After 18 months on the Tracer, I was set free and received an assignment on an ammunition ship, the USS Haleakala AE 25. This was October 1963. Not exactly warrior duty but, at least, we would steam to the Western Pacific—Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and, of course, Hong Kong, the prize R & R (rest and relaxation) destination.
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USS Haleakala AE 15
Rich, Bruce, and Pete - Ship Reunion San Francisco
Professor Burrell was correct; this was turning into an existential venture.
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The AE designation stands for “Auxiliary” and “Explosives.” Other auxiliary ships carried such labels as AO (oilers), AF (stores/food), AD (destroyer tenders) and AK (cargo ships). The list is long but destroyers, cruisers. and aircraft carriers, they are not. Yet, an advantage of auxiliary vessels is that we junior officers had double rooms. On the radar pickets, our quarters were single rooms. By contrast, junior officers on the aircraft carriers lived in glorified bunkrooms.
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The weapons carried on AE’s were encased and relatively safe. During World War II, when they carried open powder, a ship blew up at the dock in Port Chicago. It’s for good reason that ammunition ships are located some 35 miles up the East Bay from San Francisco near the Concord Naval Weapons Station mostly out of harm’s way.
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All AE ships are named after volcanos. What a surprise! The USS Haleakala carried the label of a Hawaiian volcano, and its relative newness (commissioned in November 1959) offered hope. However, I never set sail for WESTPAC (Western Pacific) on the Haleakala. Within a month, it skirted the coast northward to Puget Sound and the Bremerton shipyard in the Seattle area to be outfitted with a helicopter landing deck. I was given orders to join another in the fleet—USS Paricutin AE 18, an older variety bearing the name of a Mexican volcano. The vessel was built on the East Coast and launched during WWII in 1944.
Such is life in the navy. Rather than being on shore duty, a ferry’s reach from Seattle, I was dispatched to the Paricutin. This venture was hardly anticipated by the brass at naval headquarters on the East Coast.
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From our location at Port Chicago, I was issued a ticket for a flight out of Travis Air Force base to Tokyo then on to my new ship steaming somewhere in the Western Pacific. I arrived at Travis in ample time for passage on a jet plane. This is where the adventure began.
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One hour before departure, I heard “Lieutenant JG Van Scotter” paged. You see, my first assignment on the Haleakala was to attend special weapons school in San Diego. I would be in charge of missiles and nuclear warheads aboard the ship, which means I had a “top secret” clearance. No blemishes on this kid’s security record throughout grade school, high school and college. Although I doubt if those special fitness letters had anything to do with the privilege and responsibility.
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What I was about to learn is that my 11-hour overnight flight to Japan was changed to what would be a four-day precarious journey hovering just over the sea on a shell-like small prop-driven cargo plane. When naval officials at Travis checked the passenger list of the Boeing 707, it was discovered that I was the most junior officer with a top-secret security clearance.
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Off we went into the “wild blue yonder.” It was just me, the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, and my 6'4'' Black enlisted bodyguard for the 16”x12” top-secret package that likely was a nuclear component.
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RVS on duty in the Western Pacific
The first day out, we made it to Honolulu and the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. It had been 22 years since the Japanese raid on the historic base, but WWII seemed in the distant past. My bodyguard was to stay with the plane and package going sleepless overnight, while I gathered a few hours of shuteye. In turn, the pilot and co-pilot hit the Officers Club bar and drank themselves to sleep.
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This was an inauspicious start. At least, I had the opportunity to see my college friend, Harry Blomgren, who had the choice-duty of being assigned to Hawaii. As we boarded the plane in the morning, it seemed only the navigator and I were sober and rested.
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There would be three more stops before arriving in Japan. The next was Midway Island; not much there, but I pulled rank and had an enlisted man, to his displeasure, guard the cargo and give my bodyguard some sleep.
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Then it was on to Wake Island followed by Guam, where my good friend from high school, Bob Klitzkie, would eventually relocate and serve as an attorney, talk-show host, columnist, and territorial senator. Bob was an adventurous soul, and at 6’5” the center on both the Elks’ football and basketball teams.
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The final journey after dispensing with the package was to be at Sasebo Naval Base on the Japanese island of Kyushu only to find that the Paricutin had departed early that morning. After enjoying a respite on the island, I was flown to Okinawa, where the ship was to be in a couple days. While staying on base, I drifted to town and witnessed a protest against the United States’ military presence.
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Again, it was a day on the naval base and night at the Officers Club enjoying dinner and drinks. There, I met Bill Boyd, whom I had competed against in football and track for Knox College, another Midwest Conference School in Galesburg, Illinois. Bill and I were hardly strangers sharing stories of college games and military life. Our likeness was telling at 5'10”, 156 lbs. with the same 100-yard dash speed. He had gone through officer’s training with the Army and played football in Japan.
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This was not yet the end of my journey in finding the ship. After a few more days trying to locate the elusive Paricutin, while enjoying naval base recreational facilities and officer club cuisine, I finally caught up with my assigned vessel. In the process, ferrying about on planes and bases, I was able to catch up on serious reading.
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I remember distinctly during one hop reading about cutting edge educational research and curriculum reform in two journals: The Atlantic and Saturday Review. The effort was headed by James B. Conant, former Harvard professor, university president, and later U.S. ambassador to West Germany.
One engaging article was authored by Merle Borrowman, a professor of history and chairman of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Professor Burrell’s message had found its grounding, and I decided to pursue a career in education. Within two years, I would be studying under Professor Borrowman at Wisconsin.