<Begin Segment 23>

SF: So after you got your lieutenant's bars and were out of OCS, where did you go next?

JF: To Seattle.

SF: Then you went to the --

JF: Well, first of all, we took a course in, at Fort Monmouth in radio, radio communications. This, this was a time when we were just breaking away from using codes and using, and breaking into voice radio. I mean, it made a heck of a lot of difference because in the armored force, they figured a radio net that operated at ten words per minute was pretty good. Now, ten words a minutes is not very rapid communication. So we were, we were learning about voice radios and setting them up, and so forth. Mostly, they were line-of-sight radios. You had to be able to see the person you were, at least the general area where, where the person was that you were trying to communicate.

When I first went into the armored force, this tent mate of mine was just recovering from a motorcycle accident. He had slid along the road, and he'd just torn up all the skin on one side. He was a mess. His name was Johnson. He was a staff sergeant. What he was was a motorcycle messenger. And he had a stick about four feet long that he carried in the boot of his, he had a Tommy gun. He carried a stick in there with a clothespin on the end. And the officer would write a message and call him up, just wave him up, and he would stick his stick up like this while he's going along parallel with the, with the vehicle, and the officer would attach that message on his stick. He'd pull it in, see who it was going to. Well, maybe it was a commanding officer, and he was three-quarters of a mile up the road. So he'd just gun his motorcycle and pass it away.

Now, that was probably just as fast as the radio, although radio seemed to be faster, but actually it wasn't. So that's the kind of communication they had, which is pretty, pretty primitive really. But these guys were remarkable on their motorcycles, Johnson especially. He was one tough guy.

SF: So you got up to speed on voice communications, and then you went to Seattle. And that's when --

JF: Then we came to Seattle and joined the Alaska Communication System.

SF: And then after Alaska, then where did you go?

JF: I came back down from Alaska, mostly I was a message center officer up there. Came back down from Alaska, got married the same day, and in ten days I was to, my wife and I had ten nights together, not consecutive. And, but I had to report right away to Oakland, Oakland facility. I can't remember the name of it offhand. My wife went down to California with me and stayed. In those times, you could only stay in a hotel about two days in a row. And we shared a two-room hotel with a fellow who had been our best man in our wedding and another friend of mine who would come out to Seattle with me, signal officer. And then we moved to another hotel. And I think we moved three times in the short time I was there. And I, I had to get on a train and leave for Hampton Roads, where I got on the ship and went to Casablanca. So it was pretty sad, pretty sad time.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.