Anchors Aweigh . . . again

Ready to report to the Induction Center
20 August 1950

After being discharged from the Navy in December 1948, Dad expected (hoped?) that his military service was complete. However, with the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, his hopes were crushed when he was called back to active duty.

We lived in one of my parents’ houses during this quarter [Spring 1950] and then went back to Greeley for the summer sessions when school was out. We took their trailer house up to Greeley and rented space between the football field and the baseball field. During the summer sessions, the college rented trailer space and there were many teachers from all over who came with their trailers just for the summer. We had a good time with them as most of the classes were in the morning and they were all around in the afternoon.

The summer session was going well until we went back to Pueblo for the 4^th of July break, and I received a telegram from the Navy. I was in the Naval Reserve for the money to help get through school. The telegram said that with the Korean War in progress I was needed to return to Adak immediately and not to bother asking for a deferment because my orders were being drawn up and would be delivered very soon. I was going back on active duty as a communications Technician 1st Class and was told to make plans to depart within the next few weeks. We went back to Greeley, and I reported to the school administration with my telegram and dropped out of school. The administrators were very sympathetic, and since I had just taken mid-term tests before the 4th, I received full credit for the summer based on my mid-term grades.

Orders to Active Duty
27 July 1950

I received my orders to report to Denver on August 20, 1950 where I would be given my uniforms and sent to Seattle, and then would be sent to Adak for service, back to the same radio station I had spent 19 months at during World War II.

Check In Slip
23 September 1950

However, it was certainly not the same station I had left. When I arrived in Adak, though, all of the old Quonset huts we had lived in were gone and there were new barracks in use. Our old radio station was several Quonset huts put together with radio rooms, transcribing rooms, transmitting rooms and offices. Now it was one large building with all tiled floors, shining brightly in contrast to the sheets of plywood which we had for floors when I was there before. There were very few sailors on the station until 300 of us Naval Reservists arrived, outranking the 30 some men there, as most of them were seamen or 3^rd class. It didn’t help morale much to find out that they had called us up to active duty only to find out that they did not need us at this station and really didn’t want us.

It was very sad to leave my wife and small children and go back into the service.

This simple statement sums up the harsh reality of this Navy assignment, for this time Dad was leaving a wife and four very young sons. We'll reflect on that in a future post.