The Golden Thirteen

by Dan Goldberg

  “But we were going to fool all of them,” Barnes remembered thinking, “because we were the foot in the door for the other blacks, and we were determined not to be the ones responsible for having the foot removed.”6

  Training began on Monday, two days after they were first told of their new assignments, and for the next two months, the men lived like lab mice caged for experimentation. They were prodded to see how they’d perform, with little regard for how they might feel or for what message segregated training conveyed to them or to the hundred thousand other black men in the Navy.7

  They were a diverse group. Frank Sublett and John Reagan were only twenty-three years old, fresh out of college. Dennis Nelson and Reginald Goodwin were thirty-six, men who had wives and professions prior to the war.

  Sam Barnes had grown up in a town relatively free of prejudice. James Hair had seen his brother-in-law lynched, wiped the blood from his head, and listened to him take his last breaths.

  Graham Martin had his master’s degree and White his law degree. Charles Lear had not made it past the tenth grade.8

  There were friends among the group. Barnes, Goodwin, and Mummy Williams had worked together in the selection office at Great Lakes. Cooper, Reagan, Sublett, and Dalton Baugh knew each other from their time at Hampton.

  And there were new faces. Hair had come from New York and Arbor, from Boston.

  But no cliques formed, and all the superficial differences faded quickly. They would not survive as sixteen individual men; they could only succeed as one unit.

  Sam Barnes kept thinking of the Three Musketeers: all for one, and one for all.9

  And if any one man tried to assert himself over the group, perhaps because he was older or had served longer, the others would remind him—sometimes gently, sometimes not—that no player was more important than the team.

  When Cooper suggested that he should march in front of other men because he was a chief petty officer and an instructor, Barnes shut him down. “Hell, don’t let them stripes go to your head,” he snapped. “I ain’t walking behind you. You’re one of us. Take that coat off, you look just like us.”10

  Barnes needed to say nothing more. Whatever differences they saw in one another—their backgrounds, their age, their education, their rating—the Navy didn’t see it. All the Navy saw was their black skin.

  They had to remember that.

  They were brothers, and they’d need to fight for every mile in this marathon, which would test them, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

  Suggestions were welcome. If consensus was reached, they’d move along, but no one gave orders and it would be futile to try.11

  Dennis Denmark Nelson II, the undisputed peacock of the group, was the man hardest to keep in line. It was said of Nelson that he could strut while sitting down. He took every paycheck straight to the bank and asked the teller for crisp, new dollar bills. A man of his stature would carry nothing but new money.

  Nelson would, as soon as he could, purchase every kind of uniform the Navy sold, complete with all the accoutrements. He even bought the cape, which might have looked ridiculous or ostentatious on anyone else, but it suited Nelson perfectly, for reasons no one could ever explain. His tie was always straight and his uniform always pressed.12 He loved the way his .45 looked at his side, and he’d tilt his hat jauntily, instead of wearing it straight as Navy regulations demanded, because he wanted a more dapper look.13

  Nelson was a sailor with Navy blue running in his veins. His father had worked for the Navy Department and his father-in-law, Charles Stewart, had been a seaman aboard the USS Maine when it was blown up in Havana Harbor.14

  Nelson’s brashness and alpha-male attitude had to be tamed in the winter of 1944, and when he failed to do it on his own, one of his compatriots was there to provide a little extra encouragement, warning that they’d lock him in the head if he didn’t pipe down and act like a teammate.

  Even as they rolled their eyes at Nelson’s antics, the other men grew to love him because they all knew that behind the pretty-boy facade—the perfectly pressed uniforms and the crisp new dollar bills—was a fiery intellect. Nelson, the “untiring” Boy Scout leader who had started Nashville’s first black troop, knew what he wanted and how he was going to get there. He was a human spark plug, a man who could activate things.15 Everyone knew, just knew, that Nelson was going to succeed.

  The other two senior citizens of the group were Goodwin and Williams, both of whom worked with Armstrong, and both of whom were among the first black yeomen in the Navy.

  Goodwin was reserved but had such bearing and presence that he made an instantly positive impression when he entered a room.16 Good looks, intelligence, and a sturdy build had endowed him with the kind of confidence associated with command.

  Some Navy men might look disheveled, especially when on liberty, but Goodwin, the social worker from Cincinnati, was always immaculate. His Clark Gable mustache was neatly trimmed every morning.17 And because he and Armstrong had worked together and developed a rapport, he felt at ease among those in the white power structure at Great Lakes in a way few black men did, acting at times as a liaison for the officer candidates.

  It was a valuable if not always appreciated quality. Barnes looked up to Goodwin, grateful for his help, whereas White thought of him as an Uncle Tom.18

  Goodwin was the member of the group most likely to remind his peers of the Navy’s rules, especially on decorum—whether they wanted him to or not. There was no frivolity in the Navy, and there would be no display of such from Goodwin, nor would he tolerate it from others. On duty meant on duty, no distractions. Clothes were to be kept straight and the ditty bag always ready.

  Hair one night suggested shooting dice, just something to break the monotony and blow off a little steam. They were sitting on the floor of Barracks 202, playing penny stakes, when Goodwin walked out of the head, saw what was going on, and started screaming.

  “Fellows, fellows, what’s going on here?” he demanded. “Look here. You are officers! Down there on your knees, shooting dice. Up, men! We will not have that as officers in the United States Navy. No! I cannot take this. Stop it, or I will report you.”19

  They knew he meant it, and that was the last time dice ever appeared in Barracks 202.

  Arbor was the antithesis of Goodwin, a loosey-goosey sailor with a penchant for running his mouth. He had a story for every situation, a quip for every occasion, and a joke for every tense moment. He seemed to possess a sixth sense, always knowing exactly when the men around him needed a pick-me-up or when they were starting to get on each other’s nerves. Just before the breaking point, Arbor would fire off a one-liner that invariably cleared the air and loosened the mood. Whatever they were so hot about a moment ago seemed a distant memory, especially if Phil Barnes started laughing. Barnes, no relation to Sam Barnes, had a big belly laugh as infectious as any virus, and soon everyone in the room was laughing. Arbor was the antidote to every poison, unforgettable to everyone he met no matter how many decades passed. He was self-aware enough to know that his mouth was both a strength and a weakness, endearing and enraging all at once. When he invariably stepped over the line, he was met with the same threats as Nelson: “Jesse, if you don’t shut up, we’re going to put you in the head and lock the door.”

  And like Nelson, he was embraced for his eccentricities. He didn’t take himself too seriously and downplayed a lot of his own skill, but he was a deep thinker. And because he was a quartermaster, he offered a lot more than laughs. He was invaluable in helping the group learn navigation and identifying aircraft.20

  Phil Barnes had a roly-poly physique and was self-conscious about his weight, which led to a bit of shyness in this group of physically imposing athletes.21 He packed 216 pounds onto his five-foot, eight-inch frame and carried a lot of weight in his face, giving him the appearance of an overgrown baby, though he had no trouble with the physical drills.

  Barnes possessed a contemplative soul. He trained racehorses,
loved the sea, and spoke of becoming an angler, a path for which his temperament was ideally suited—although, ironically, he struggled with seamanship.

  He had enlisted in the US Army Reserve Corps in 1931 and served for three years before taking a job as a bookbinder in the Government Printing Office in Washington, DC, where he worked until he enlisted in the Navy on Christmas Eve, 1942. He had spent most of 1943 at Hampton, first at the diesel school learning to be a shipfitter and then as an instructor.22

  Barnes was not the easiest man to know, but those who took the time to pierce his shell were rewarded with a sincere, loyal, hard-working friend. He had a finely honed, almost biblical, sense of justice. Break a rule or cut a corner in front of Phil Barnes, and he’d calmly explain, almost like a preacher, that “it’s just wrong for us to do this. It’s wrong for us to go this way, morally wrong. We just can’t afford to do it.”

  When tempers were at their hottest and Arbor’s one-liners failed to break the tension, it was Barnes who would say, “Gentlemen, let’s cool it. Remember what we are here for and what we decided to do and how we decided to do it.”23

  Sam Barnes, like Arbor, brought a sense of humor to the bunch, though his was far more dry. Unlike Arbor, he wasn’t constantly talking, but he would long be remembered for the moments of good-natured cheer he brought when men needed it most. Perhaps because of his teaching background, he was an exceptional listener. Have a problem? Talk to Sam Barnes. His stature was elevated when the other men learned he had graduated from Oberlin. Anyone with Oberlin on his diploma was no dummy.

  Cooper also relied on his teaching background to help his peers. He had an organized mind and a gift for conveying difficult material.

  Graham Martin saw officer candidate school much the same he way he saw his chance to play on the Great Lakes football team. He could certainly do as well as any white man, and so, he believed, could the men around him. If anybody was going to be the first black officer in the US Navy, it might as well be him. Why not, he thought. He was smart and well educated, tough and talented. He was fluent in German and French, and had a knack for solving equations. The football player from Indianapolis viewed this new challenge just like a contest on the gridiron: if you are going to be on this team, you’ve got to make the grade, he’d say. “You’ve got to make the grade on classroom work; you’ve got to make the grade out here in the field; you’ve got to make the grade, period, if you’re going to be on this team.”

  When morale was low, Martin was the no-nonsense coach, telling the men, “Let’s get our crap together here,” and accepting no excuse for lackluster performance.24

  Hair was one of the few who had spent considerable time at sea, having served for the better part of a year as a quartermaster aboard the USS Penobscot, a 122-foot-long, 415-ton harbor tugboat. Hair did most of the steering on that ship and had become quite adept at handling craft, as well as updating charts by noting the location of shipwrecks and new buoys. He was proud of his work at sea and often bragged that he had “more salt in my socks from washing them in seawater than all the rest of you guys put together.” He was chummy and talkative, but in a different way than the garrulous Arbor. He wasn’t trying to be the center of attention. He was an easy mixer, with a boyish and sometimes raunchy sense of humor. He liked to joke that his last assignment was to give short-arm inspections to a contingent of WAVES (the women’s naval reserve). Hair, like Phil Barnes, had an infectious laugh. When he found something amusing, he’d bend over at the waist and clap his hands, his whole body getting into the act.25

  Augustus Alves was the only other member who had spent extensive time at sea, owing to a stint in the merchant marine before the war began. Though not nearly as collegial as Hair, he was second to none when it came to seamanship, and the group would gather around the long table to learn the proper way to tie knots and fold equipment, a useful skill for men who would be penalized for even the slightest infractions.26

  Sublett, perhaps because he was the baby of the bunch, rarely volunteered an opinion, though he was eager to help when asked. A philatelist who loved animals, Sublett was himself a bit of an overgrown puppy: very friendly, open, and eager to please. His Hampton training had given him expertise in lathes, drill presses, milling machines, and shapers. He was a machinist’s mate, who could fix just about anything and relate to just about anyone.27

  At 5 feet, 7 inches and 130 pounds, William Sylvester White, whom everyone called Syl, was not nearly as physically imposing as the men around him, but his self-confidence and piercing intellect made him seem like a giant. Because he had entered the Navy only three months before, much of boot camp was fresh in his mind. He could remind his comrades of the basics they may have forgotten, and his time as an assistant US attorney made him a natural choice to explain Navy regulations and court-martial proceedings, which as officers they would be expected to master. He was quiet and analytical, almost withdrawn. He chose his words carefully, and when he spoke it was because he had something important to say.28

  Charles Lear, a hard-nosed chief petty officer, was born in Keokuk, Iowa, but had spent much of his adult life working in the fields and factories of Illinois and Missouri. He was the only one of the sixteen who had spent no time in college. Husky and square jawed, Lear was the kind of man for whom the Navy was love at first sight, the kind of sailor who at reveille was always first on deck.29

  Dalton Baugh was one of the more brainy of the bunch, beloved for his salt-of-the-earth, commonsense touch and plainspoken Midwestern vibe. He had an engineer’s temperament: Problems have solutions. They just need to be found. When the coursework seemed impossible to master and frustration built, Baugh’s logical approach guided the group to an answer. He’d stand up from his chair at the long table, his arms akimbo, processing the information, working it all over in his head. “What’s the situation here?” he’d calmly state. “Let’s look at it.” If the answer eluded him, he’d say, “We’ll see, we’ll see,” a sure sign that he was turning the problem over.30

  And if anyone was slacking, it was Baugh, with a baritone voice that never needed to be raised to be heard, who would say, “Oh, man, just stop this crap. We just can’t do this.”

  During those early months of 1944, when the burden appeared too great to bear, the pressure too intense to tolerate, and someone said, “Screw the whole thing, let’s just forget it,” or “The hell with it, this is just too damn much,” Baugh would stand and say, “You can’t do that, you can’t let that happen.”31

  Their days began at 6 a.m. Six mornings a week, they rose from their cots and donned an enlisted man’s uniform: undress blues—plain without white piping on the jumpers. Their pants were bell-bottoms, and they wore the standard Navy white hat.32

  Once dressed, the men marched to chow and were seated and eating by 6:30 a.m. After breakfast they lined up for muster and sick call, ready for the rigors of another day.

  On Monday and Wednesday mornings, the officer candidates drilled for four hours, until lunch. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, they took classes in seamanship, gunnery, navigation, naval law, and Navy regulations. On Saturdays there was a course in navigation, followed by an inspection of the barracks before lunch, and then a class in gunnery.

  There were quizzes most afternoons, followed by an hour of exercise. Thursday afternoons were devoted to drilling.

  Dinner was from 5 to 6 p.m. On Wednesdays, they were free for the rest of the evening, but every other night of the week was set aside for study.

  Lieutenant Paul Richmond, the Great Lakes officer who had been so impressed with Martin’s demeanor and abilities, designed the curriculum, which he based on the so-called “90-day wonder” program that was used for V-7 officer candidates. Richmond was a natural choice to head up the training program, having become the senior regimental officer at Camp Robert Smalls the previous summer when Donald Van Ness went to Washington to work with the Special Programs Unit.

  Richmond, himself only two years out of the
Naval Academy at Annapolis, gave the candidates an abbreviated version of what he had studied there. He taught navigation and assigned Benjamin Dutton’s classic textbook, Navigation and Nautical Astronomy, and George W. Mixter’s Primer of Navigation, which had been published to help yachtsmen, not train professional sailors. Richmond figured it’d be easier to learn from a basic primer, given the time constraints.

  The men were assigned about thirty pages to read before every lesson, which covered rules of the road and right of way at sea, piloting, the use of the sextants, the points of a compass, dead reckoning, and other basic topics. Some of the men had never seen a sextant before, so Richmond brought some from the main side to demonstrate how to take star sights.33

  Lieutenant Paul Perkins taught Fundamentals of Naval Service, using A. A. Ageton’s The Naval Officer’s Guide and Leland P. Lovette’s Naval Customs, Tradition and Usage as well as The Bluejacket’s Manual. Lieutenant W. I. Quattlebaum was the gunnery instructor, while Ensigns Joe Redwine Jr. and F. G. Headley taught aircraft and ship recognition, and seamanship, respectively.

  Martin felt that many of these teachers acted as if they thought they were gods trying to pass on wisdom to a hopelessly inferior group, who, with much patience, might learn a fraction of what was being taught. They didn’t seem all that interested in whether the men passed, failed, or learned anything at all. Sublett was certain that some of the teachers felt their efforts were a waste of time because no one expected black men to succeed.34

  There was a six-part lecture series on the current war in Europe, intended to “establish a pattern of the war for the indoctrinee.”35 The course was taught by officers from the War Orientation Office, who explained the causes of the war and analyzed current events. It was, essentially, a European history class. The men studied the nineteenth-century empires and conflicts that explained the rise of fascism and Adolf Hitler.