AMERICAN SHIP CREWS TRAIN IN BUDDHIST TEMPLE

New Oriental Building Used To Train Merchant Seamen

In a new Buddhist Temple at 1427 Main St., which was nearing completion when the Nipponese attacked Pearl Harbor, young Americans are receiving their final training for positions aboard American ships in war service.

The building, of Oriental architecture seldom seen except in the Far East, has been leased by the United States Maritime Service for use as a graduate station for men entering the American Merchant Marine.

Sixty young men who are graduates of Maritime Service training stations at Catalina Island, Calif., Sheep's Head Bay, N.Y., and St. Petersburg, Fla., yesterday were quartered at the graduate station where they are being given the finishing touches in a training which will prepare them for berths aboard ships carrying men and supplies to the war zones. They range in ages from 17 ½ to 25 years, although men up to 36 years of age are accepted at the Maritime Service training stations.

While awaiting assignment [aboard] ships as ordinary seamen, firemen, oilers, water tenders, mess men are given lifeboat instruction, marline and rope splicing training and attend classes where they are given additional instruction to prepare them for jobs on deep-sea ships.

All have lifeboat certificates, awarded after an intensive schooling at the training stations. Later they will attend swimming classes.

When the Seattle graduate station is completed, recreation and entertainment will be provided. A library, reading and writing room and a canteen will be part of the station.

There are 100 bunks in the main dormitory, a mess hall, a galley presided over by four Chinese cooks, a store room and offices and quarters for officers. The station has capacity for 120 men.

As they are needed aboard ships in the Seattle area, the men will be shipped out by the Recruitment and Manning Organization of the War Shipping Administration.

Lieut. J.W. Rudrauff, United States Maritime Service, who operated the graduate station at Portland, Or., is in charge of the Seattle station as commanding officer. His staff includes chief boatswain's mate Frank Rodecker, champion aquaplane racer of Hermosa Beach, Calif.

Rodecker was the winner of aquaplane races between Catalina Island and Hermosa Beach before the war. The races started at Catalina Island and covered a 42-mile course. Rodecker was champion from 1934 until 1940.

The staff at the station also includes two storekeepers, three yeomen, a boatswain's mate second class, a coxswain and two seamen, first class.

The station will serve as a reservoir of graduate seafaring men and will supply crews for ships coming from the yards in the Puget Sound area. The men are paid while awaiting assignment aboard merchant marine ships and receive food and lodging.