Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Coming through the Panama Canal that August they “swung around the hook”6 for three days before entering the Gatun Locks, in the lake that forms part of the Canal. King knew about the embarrassing incident last time through, when Berrien had allowed Lexington’s freeboard to scrape the lights off the side of the lock. He had a reputation to protect, as a crack shiphandler. He waited for almost dead calm water to enter and used a Navy tug rather than the usual Canal tug. Hoover was overseeing the starboard wing, Heinlein on duty as Junior Officer of the Watch. Hoover’s naturally sour disposition, coupled with the tight transit and the knowledge that King was observing, brought out the worst of his very sharp tongue. He verbally flayed the Chief Boatswain who was skippering the Navy tug. When they were through, King quietly took Hoover’s megaphone and invited the tug captain aboard for coffee. Hoover’s face flamed red. Heinlein understood what had just happened: quietly and without a reprimand, King had just reminded Hoover that the most senior job on this planet was the captain—any captain—of a vessel under way. Heinlein began to get an inkling of the incredible amount of technique he could learn from King.

  When they got to their new home port in Long Beach, the routine changed again. Curiously, although Lexington was very stable at sea, she would roll up to thirty degrees in Long Beach Harbor. Her length almost exactly matched the gentle swells in the harbor—the same coincidence of natural period that caused the Tacoma Narrows Bridge—“Galloping Gertie”—to shake itself to pieces in 1940.

  King took a house in Long Beach and moved his family there from Annapolis. Elinor had agreed to obtain a divorce, and Heinlein was effectively a bachelor again; he resumed dating one of King’s daughters. The fact that she was now his CO’s daughter did weigh against her, but she was pretty and vivacious and fun to be around—and Heinlein needed a partner for the demanding social schedule of King’s Lexington.7 Ships’ officers were expected to participate in the social life of the city, and the ship routinely gave formal balls, as well.

  King was a very different person ashore and off-duty than he was on duty. Ashore he was friendly and cordial, with a natural warmth of expansive personality. On duty, he seemed … lonely.8 He obviously chose that for himself, not inviting fraternization—in fact, only once in two years did King ever address a social, rather than business, remark to Heinlein while on duty. “I think (sheer guesswork) that he judged it to be better for the ship for its commanding officer to hold himself aloof, remote from all those he commanded.” 9 If that’s what Lexington needed to come up to her potential, that was just what he would give her. King had an ironclad sense of duty. It was an inspiring example for a young naval officer who could see it, and King’s manner fit exactly with Heinlein’s old habits of driving himself more than he drove his subordinates. But King managed to do it, to get 110 percent out of his men, without alienating them. Heinlein had more to learn from King than shipboard procedure and tricks of positioning in formation. He paid close attention to every interaction and spent the next two years studying King as a model and mentor.10 And with King his real schooling in Navy began—schooling in the management and shaping of men, psychological sculpture of the most delicate and complex kind.

  Heinlein also took the opportunity in Long Beach to stock up on reading material—books and magazines. Amazing Stories had just started a serial by E. E. “Doc” Smith—“Skylark III”—in August. This was a sequel to “Skylark of Space,” which had appeared while Heinlein was still a midshipman. “Skylark III” was even more engrossing. He risked taking the second installment one midwatch and reading it with one eye on the gauges.

  He also confided to Cal Laning his decision to divorce Elinor after she would not join him in Greenwich Village. Their personal relationship had gone from bad to worse. Every contact with her was unpleasant, toxic:

  Barrett—I am delighted to hear from you. You may well have wondered at my conduct. It was partially emotional reaction not anger at you, although I cursed your stupidity. Well, Barrett, you remain my one true contact, I think. The truth is, I was attempting to handle a difficult situation with an hysterical woman, and am still concerned with it. I must get rid of Elinor. She is poisonous, like mistletoe. She is the most tumblebug of tumblebugs and desires nothing quite so sincerely … .

  I shall get rid of her presently and in so doing get rid of my family, Kansas City, and all that that implies.11

  He had finally accepted that it just wasn’t working and wasn’t ever going to work. Divorce was the only answer.

  As a practical matter, Robert would let Elinor start the proceedings (though he could certainly have sued for divorce on grounds of adultery). A man could more easily bear the loss of reputation that came with a divorce in 1930.

  In September, Lexington sailed to San Francisco for some time in dry dock at Hunters Point. As they were docking, stem over the sill, Heinlein took a call reporting a fire in one of the ammunition magazines. He sounded the General Alarm and reported it to King, who kept his eyes locked on the bow and simply said to him in an ordinary tone of voice, “Take care of it.”

  Heinlein was startled and terrified at the responsibility King had suddenly dumped in his lap—but he also knew King was doing the correct thing; his responsibility lay with the docking, and his professional behavior depended on his moral values. They put out the fire, but he also learned a long-term lesson from King: that is how you handled moral conflicts. “It is only necessary to know what your moral standards are, and why, and then have the guts to carry out the answers.”12 When you know what is important, you can make the right choices about what you must attend to and when.

  About this time, another of Heinlein’s classmates, Clayton McCauley, rejoined Lexington’s flight squadron, fresh out of flight school at Pensacola, and all the pilots who had reported in at the same time last June were back together. Heinlein knew them all, of course: Buddy Scoles was his best friend on the ship, except possibly for Bob Clark, and Scoles was the only one who shared Heinlein’s passion for rockets and spaceflight. Scoles and he shared the science-fiction magazines and talked about interplanetary rockets on board the Navy’s most expensive, most high-tech vessel run by the latest computers—and then Buddy Scoles, Denbo,13 McCauley, and the rest went out in canvas-winged mosquitoes.

  Lexington carried many types of aircraft—typically eighty to ninety at a time, depending on the models that were assigned to her. Some were land-based planes; others were amphibious, charged with rescuing any of the land-based planes that went into the water, as happened occasionally. Very little aircraft research and design was done specifically for the military in those days; the civilian market drove the design, with the military using and adapting civilian designs.

  The plane Heinlein was most familiar with was the Martin T4M—a new, canvas-winged Torpedo bomber biplane with a top speed of ninety knots. Landing these planes was tricky at best—Heinlein later called the process a “controlled crash.”14 The basic method involved a pilot standing on the deck with “wigwag” signal flags, telling the pilot his height and pitch of approach. The airborne pilot dropped speed to about twenty knots relative to the deck and came in. A metal hook on the plane caught an “arresting wire” stretched across the deck. Tension in the wire would slow the plane, very smoothly, to a stop with an even, uniform deceleration, and then the wire released as the plane stopped and moved automatically back into its rest position.

  If all went well.

  Twice while King had Lexington, a pilot came in too low and dropped the plane into the sea—or the sea had reached up and grabbed it, which comes to the same thing. The swells could be treacherous. But King lost no pilots. Nor were the pilots reprimanded. There were no instruments at all in the airplanes of 1930, and the ocean swells, which can cut a plane’s relative altitude from plus to minus in seconds, often could not be seen from the flight deck. It was a nerve-racking, gut-grabbing, unavoidable hazard of the job. A pilot’s first carrier landing was always traumatic, and baby pilots often earn
ed “diaper diplomas” if their bladders cut loose when they discovered they had made it down alive.

  Night landings were worse.

  During the off-hours, Heinlein was still making engineering sketches of the ship’s systems. Over the summer his marks were uniformly good to excellent, but the change of quarter brought him under a new department. Now he was expected to know how to fix the ship’s systems he had been sketching and even suggest reengineering improvements. One of his supervising officers, T. B. Thompson, made his first caustic comments in Heinlein’s sketchbook on September 16, 1930: “Examined. Perfunctory. Last assignment is not so thorough as the first. Average mark 3.0”—and then below that “seen 22 September 30,” signed E.J.K.—Captain King. Heinlein would have to work harder to keep up his marks. He had received a flat 4.0 rating in all respects for his first quarter under King, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Perhaps Heinlein’s less-than-perfect study efforts that fall can be attributed to domestic stress at long distance: Elinor had finally filed for divorce in October in the Jackson County (Missouri) Circuit Court, citing abandonment and cruelty.15 The matter was heard on October 15, 1930, Elinor and her attorney appearing. Robert was at sea, so he was represented only by his attorney from Harding, Murphy & Tucker.16 The court’s minute order dated October 15, 1930, granted Elinor her petition for divorce and returned her maiden name to her. She was assessed the costs of the proceedings—but the court ordered Robert to make the actual payment.17 There is no indication that this is an interlocutory decree; the whole matter is handled in this one set of documents.18

  Heinlein pulled up his socks and soldiered on: his engineering sketchbook up to December shows a balance of approving comments by ERJ (otherwise unidentified) and very negative comments by T. B. Thompson, punctuated by “perfunctory” and “disappointing.” Thompson’s comments gradually improved—grudgingly. King left no comments in the sketchbook—and Heinlein’s fitness reports continued a flat 4.0.

  Thompson’s down on Heinlein might not have been personal; there was trouble on the bridge, and the watchstanders were all tense. Merrill Comstock’s tour as Lexington’s navigator was up, and King was not satisfied—very not satisfied—with Comstock’s replacement. When King noticed too much difference (for shiphandling purposes) between the logged positions and the navigator’s daily fixes, he quietly began taking some sights himself. Seeing the captain’s fixes entered in the log just once would probably send the navigator to his cabin to write the one-line request for “any ship, any station” that would get immediate attention from the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BuPers). This was repeated three times until King was satisfied with his fourth replacement navigator, Commander Deems.

  Heinlein was given more and broader miscellaneous duties this quarter. As ship’s Aide, he was put in charge of Lexington’s internal newspaper, The Observer . Exec. Hoover’s name was on the masthead as editor, but, Heinlein found, Hoover did not so much “edit” as merely censor the text, to assure that the paper only reported good news.19 This forced Heinlein to extend his grapevine throughout the ship for enough news to fill the paper. If his grapevine failed, he would have to write uncredited filler. In addition to news items of local (shipboard) interest, Heinlein was assigned to write “The Weekly Retrospect” (sometimes titled “News of the Week”), a continuing “department” of The Observer that always contained a few paragraphs summarizing the week’s events. For the most part, these regular columns are unremarkable as the early work-product of an accomplished writer—except that they show a self-conscious grappling with the conventions of “society” reporting of the time. Most of the prose is strictly utilitarian, but from time to time a suggestion of Heinlein’s later, more polished prose rings out, as in the observation that concludes his August 8, 1931, column, complaining about having to get up early: “In any case a man who arises late will never be shot at sunrise.”20 This earlier column is typical:

  “Events of the Week”:

  This week has been almost exclusively devoted to recreation, recuperation, and rest. We anchored off Panama City early Saturday following the completion of Fleet Problem XII … .

  The three holidays were put to good use. All hands were rather weary after the strenuous mimic war and a little relaxation was in order. Ashore we found a great many tars and jollies from His Majesty’s Ship Nelson. The spirit of good fellowship that existed between our own men and those of the Royal Navy was something pleasant to see. Little or no friction was evident whereas mixed groups of Britishers and Americans could be seen chumming together at every corner and every bar. We are very happy to have our cousins with us. For those who did not care for the ephemeral delights of shore-going in the tropics, swimming parties were organized every day this week … . For a real thrill equal to parachute jumping or dodging quick tempered husbands, we recommend putting your trust in a rubber tube and going down to see the fishes … .

  H.M.S. Nelson is now at the dock near the fleet landing just beyond the “Texas.” She is quite different from our ships in many respects. Her severe box-like lines and clear upper decks combined with her huge size and great free board give her a formidable fortress-like appearance. The unusual arrangement of all turrets forward and the bridge abaft of midships give her an unique silhouette … .

  Please note again that all the turrets are forward. These Britishers intend to face the enemy, not run.

  We have had some fun guessing at the British rating badges. The officers are easy to guess, being about the same as our own. The Petty Officer marks are more complicated. It appears that all petty officers except the most junior, wear that outfit similar to our commissioned officer’s white service. The commissioned officers wear a double-breasted coat. Those chevrons on the men in the round hats and square collars signify good conduct not rank. The present writer won’t swear to the accuracy of the above paragraph, but he was so informed by a man with twelve years service in the Royal Navy, practically a boot by their standards. Go aboard her. It is well worth the trouble. She has the prettiest and smartest paintwork in the world. She is in every way a trim ship to please the heart of a sailor .21

  Lexington had her annual repair session in Bremerton, Washington, in December 1930. The ship stopped at San Francisco on the way north for two weeks of R & R, most of which was taken up by an unfortunate incident ashore. At a welcoming party for the Lexington officers, the wife of one of the aviators had died during a struggle to avoid rape. The Navy did not have jurisdiction—it was a civilian matter—but Captain King convened a court of inquiry ashore, taking Hoover with him and leaving his new navigator, Commander Deems, wearing three hats: Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, and Navigator. Since Heinlein knew all the ship’s routines from his days working in the Executive Office, he would have to stay on board as Deems’s Aide. The trial proceeded quietly, and the records were sealed, so Heinlein never did learn how it turned out.

  On the approach to Bremerton, Bob Clark quietly passed him the word: if he wanted to see something interesting he should show up on the bridge as they approached the Narrows. This was King’s first time through that tricky approach—and apparently his first time in Puget Sound. Curious, Heinlein studied the plot. It was dazzling: the passage was so tight in spots that “our Lady Lex really should have been hinged in the middle.”22

  Heinlein grabbed a spot on the flag bridge where he could see the navigator at about the same angle of view as the Captain had. On this occasion, King took the conn himself; when the ship came through without touching, there was a long sigh—soft but very audible, as it came from so many.

  King did not seem to hear it. He relieved the exec, turned the conn back to the navigator, went to his fold-down seat on the port (flight deck) wing, sat down and simulated a passenger enjoying the pleasant sight of a scenic channel .23

  Very Wet Stuff of him.

  Heinlein had been in Seattle the previous winter, when Lexington was supplying power for Tacoma, but now he was going to be there long
enough really to get acquainted with the city. The Junior Officer Mess again clubbed together to rent a house and made some interesting alterations: they got a keg of whiskey installed in the attic and replumbed the house so that the liquor flowed in the taps. That was making whoopee, Navy style. He also learned to homebrew beer, which was legal (when done for personal use) even under Prohibition.

  He found Seattle as open and bawdy in some ways as Kansas City.

  I recall one occasion, in what was then Seattle’s second-best hotel (not the Olympic), when a young lady (who had possibly had a bit to drink) came wandering out of a booth in the dining room dressed in high heels and a sleepy smile. No real fuss was made about it; the waiter just shooed her back into her booth (the “two warm spoons” technique)—nor did the other diners make any fuss … . I did recognize her, I had met her socially on another occasion. Her family was wealthy and lived on the “right” hill in Seattle .24

  A bit of the Wild West lumber town still clung to Seattle in the 1920s and 1930s, and the cultural shaking up of the country’s first sexual revolution of the twentieth century suited it—and suited Heinlein as well:

  Shucks, I can testify that at least several of the sorority houses at the University of Washington had each a room on the ground floor where the lights were never lighted, where there were plenty of sofas, and the most the house mother ever did was to come to the door and announce the time at curfew on week nights—not at all on week ends .25

  With the new year, the Chief Gunner was transferred out of Lexington, and Ensign Heinlein became the de facto chief Fire Control Officer. He would be transferred formally from the Communications Department to the Gunnery Department in July. In February 1931, though, the fleet held a war game off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, and he shuttled around between departments, at one point even being detached from the ship. On the second day of the exercise, Lexington was ordered toward the Galapagos Islands and out of the main action. King was irritated by the diversion—but belowdecks the more experienced sailors were delighted, for this side trip would allow them some unscheduled fun initiating the new guys (“Pollywogs”) in a King Neptune’s court, a kind of oceangoing Carnivale traditionally held whenever a ship crosses the equator.