After the invasion of Inchon and subsequent tours of duty in Formosa, my ship was again on duty when I received word that my older brother Edward had died. I was given emergency leave and flew from Tokyo via Honolulu, San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta to Rome, GA .I did not make it home in time for the funeral.
I was told on leaving my ship that I would be recommended for a shore station, therefore Barbara Sue and I decided to get married while I was at home and when I found out where I would be stationed she would join me.
However after reporting in at San Diego I was put on a plane and flown to Treasure Island, in San Francisco. There I stayed for two weeks awaiting orders and finally I received order to report to the USS Gen. Hase for transport back to Japan and be reassigned to my former ship, the Henderson.
That trip aboard the transport ship Hase was a nightmare.There were 3300 soldiers aboard going to Korea. Probably 50 percent of them were seasick the whole trip. You could not get away from the odor of their throwing up.every where you went soldiers were hanging over the rail.I dont think I ate more than three meals in the mess hall.I lived off stuff that i could buy in the ships store.
It would be 6 months before I returned to the states. Once we returned to San Diego, we were to go into dry dock for some much needed repairs, so Sue flew to San Diego and joined me.
Best Laid Plans:Sue joined me in San Diego in April of 1951 where I had rented what was essentially a garage that the homeowner had closed the doors and made into a little apartment. It consisted of a small bathroom with a commode and shower stall, a small kitchen and a bedroom. Every morning that I was at home I would get up first and check her house shoes for bugs and go into the bathroom and get the snails off the shower walls. One morning there was a frog sitting on the commode. As I recall we paid $50.00 a month rent and that was the best we could afford.
I look back now and wonder about how I could have brought a 17 year old girl away from her home and family to a setting like that, where I would leave on Monday and go to sea and not be back till Friday. The only defense I can make is that I was only 20 years old and so deeply in love that I could not bear to be away from her.
All my carefully thought out plans came to a screeching halt.The reasoning behind Sue joining me in San Diego was that my ship was supposed to go into dry -dock for repairs and we would be in the states for a year.However after only three months we recieved orders to set sail back to Japan and Korea.So we bought Sue a one-way airfare to Rome,Ga.
My ship left San Diego and got to Honolulu and our orders were changed sending us back to the states. But by then there was no money left for Sue to come back to join me and mainly, while she was with me those three months she became pregnant.
