From Movie Run to Sub School
  by
Richard B. Fason, USS Queenfish SS393, EM2c, 1944-1945 

I enlisted at Albany N.Y. in November, 1942. They enlisted me with the rating (EM3c) because of my past electrical experience. The Seabees were set up in the same room and tried to enlist me but I turned them down. 

Two weeks later we were loaded on a train for Samson NY, at Lake Geneva. We arrived in the morning at Samson Naval Training Station. The station was still under construction and we were one of the first companies to arrive there. We stepped off the train in ankle deep mud  and single-filled to a building where we received our standard navy issue, including sea bag and a hammock - I never used the hammock. The next day they marched us to the tailor shop where they were supposed to make the clothes fit you, I was lucky mine fit well.

For the next few days it was shots, barber and dentist. After all this, we were down to the start of boot training which was hell, but I finished with good marks. I always had my left foot where my right one should be when marching. We didn't get the whaleboat training because the lake was frozen over - that was the end of boot camp training.


I had been assigned by (BuPers In Washington, DC.) as an instructor in Class "A" Electrical School at Samson Training Station. The school unit wasn't quite finished so I was put in charge of the OGU (Out Going Unit) barracks for two weeks. Boy! Was this some experience? The men were coming in and going out every day to their assigned duty stations and nothing to do but hang around. They were to keep their bunk in order and keep the heads clean. I enforced this rule, which made a lot of guys mad. 

I lived in a single room at forward end of the barracks. One morning when I came out of my room, there was a cartoon stuck on the outside of my door. It had a man with very broad shoulders and a very skinny lower body and legs, with a whip in one hand. At the top it read "Barrel-chested Fason" and at the bottom it read "I'll work you'se guys 26 hours a day and 8 days a week". I kept it all these years but now can't find it. I may have given it to one of my children. 


Now it's off to school I go. It was a great relief to get away from OGU. Another petty officer and I, was put in charge of one of the school unit barracks and lived in a single room at the forward end (this was one perk we had). We had about 60 students bunked in our barracks, some of them not quite dry behind the ears and missed their mommies. 

There were a few rules in the barracks one of them being lights out at 9:PM. The first night there were Pillow fights and all kinds of loud noises long after lights out so the other petty officer (don't remember his name - I've always had a problem with names) went out and told them to knock it off and go to sleep. The next night I went out and told them they had 1 week to shape up or be punished. I posted a note on the bulletin board to that effect. 

When the week was up the same old thing after lights out. I woke them up at midnight, got them dressed told them to grab their sea bags and form up outside. There were no lockers in the barracks, everything was stored in their sea bag. I marched the men around the parade grounds two times with their sea bags on their shoulders. The C O of the unit was waiting for us. He told me when I was finished marching them he would like to talk to them. I said, "Sir, I think they've had enough." He had his talk with them and we all went back to bed. I know it was mean of me but you had to keep control and it worked very well. The next night 10 minutes past lights out you could hear a pin drop on the barracks floor.

The classrooms were well equipped with teaching aids and instruction books; we also had a large lab. Room with all kinds of electrical equipment. We used the lab one-day a week for hands on training. I taught basic math, electrical theory and in the lab. I taught them how to operate and troubleshoot the equipment. I must have done a good job because several of my students wrote letters to me saying how much it helped them in their navy assigned jobs.

Just before each class graduated a notice was posted on the class room bulletin board for volunteers for submarine duty. I enjoyed the instructing part of my assigned duties but the other part wasn't to my liking. I had to march them to the mess hall, paymaster - almost everywhere they went. It was here a march, there a march, everywhere a march, march.

Every Saturday we had an inspection of men and barracks. If you had the best inspection you won the Rooster Award and allowed to go on liberty. My group won it several times. I don't know why it was called Rooster, maybe because you could fly the coop and go on liberty. That was the only way you could get off base liberty. Once a month I had shore patrol duty on the weekend either in Geneva or Rochester N.Y.

When I joined the navy I expected to be assigned to sea duty on a ship and see some action. After a couple of months as instructor I got bored and turned in a request for transfer to submarine school to my CO. After about three weeks, I hadn't heard anything so I went to his office to ask about it. He said "Fason, (reached over and took the papers out of his inbox) "every week I take your request from the bottom of the stack, dust it off, read it and put it right back in the bottom of my inbox." This didn't sit to well with me.

At times I showed safety movies to civilians at an ammunitions depot across the road from the base and a few other facilities near by. I had to get the projector and film from the commander's office. One day when I went to get the movie gear I noticed on his bulletin board a notice wanting EMs for submarine school. I asked him if I could volunteer and he said, "you sure can." He told his yeoman to make out the request form for me and send it off to BuPers in Washington D.C.. Three weeks later I received my orders to report to New London Sub School. My CO, a LT, wasn't very happy I went over his head but there was nothing he could do about it.

Richard B. Fason, USS Queenfish SS393, EM3c, 11/1942 - 9/1943


If you have any comments for the author, he can be reached at lulamay@email.msn.com 

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