by Larry Berman
In the aftermath of the election, Bud demonstrated his abiding respect for civilian authority over the military. “The election is over—the will of the people has been represented and so, we must buckle down to create our niche under the system we have selected.”64 Looking at events in Europe, he wrote, “I am more determined than ever to get over there and do my bit as soon as I get out of this hole. . . . Greece will go down for sure. But she will have taken a bite out of Italian power that isn’t easily sparred against England—all of which contributes to an ally—Time, time, time. Yes, I feel like I am going to do something for them someday.” In a letter to Saralee, Bud signed off with a doodle of Ensign ERZ, Jr., and the phrase “Z—Bring on yer G-D-Japs.”65
It was only a matter of time before Bud fell head over heels in love again. This time the object of his affection was Ann Austin, who worked for the chaplain and was the daughter of Commander Charles L. Austin, who was the officer in charge of the Midshipman store. Bud first met Ann when he went “stag” to the hop. “To show you how beautiful she is, the first date I could make with her is April—four months away. However second class summer is coming up. Wait to see if you don’t hear more about Ann Austin after four months are over.”
True enough, Bud soon found himself invited to dinner at the commander’s home. He proudly informed his dad that “all of mother’s preparations at those family dinners paid off.” He had demonstrated perfect manners and etiquette. He “also got approval of the colored servants.” The bond between Bud and his father is revealed in the details Bud shares about his date with Ann. “The mood was right, and I bent over to kiss her.” She stopped him, saying that a Second Classman considered her his girlfriend. Ann promised to break it off. “Dad, I have never in my life known a girl who reminded me so much as she did then of Mother as you described her in college days. I had thought such sweetness, such absolute 100% chastity had vanished with your generation. She wouldn’t let me kiss her until she considered herself free. And then I made a move which if I told anyone but you would win me the name sucker. I told her to wait. Under her influence I played absolutely square as I have never done before in this business of dating. I told her how suddenly I had changed on other occasions and that we must wait until I was sure—although I felt completely sure now. And I left that house ‘walking on air.’ I am still in the clouds. I tell you this and no one else. Please do not pass on this letter.”66
Bud was smitten with Ann. “I still find myself utterly unable to have a good time with any but the one girl—Ann Austin. . . . All this melancholy writing must seem very childish, Dad, and yet, it’s hard to rationalize the turmoil that can be created by falling in love. I want to be with her every minute, I hate to see her with anyone else, the whole future seems black, etc. . . . Here I am, at the peak of a rise in grades, I suddenly plunged head over heels in love. Believe me, Dad, this time it’s even worse than it was in my senior year at high school. If you thought I was dopey then, you should see me now. I can’t eat, sleep, and worse yet—I can’t study.”67
Bud caught one big break in pursuing Ann when he was selected to march in the inaugural parade, which he called the President’s Coronation. He and Ann arranged to meet afterward, taking advantage of a 10 p.m. liberty. That day, Bud was feeling quite ill with flulike symptoms but knew that if he went to the hospital, he would miss both the parade and a date with “the most beautiful of girls. I decided to beat the hospital out of the victim.” After marching for three hours in bitter cold, he went directly to the Mayflower Hotel. “I wish you could have been there. She is by far the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life—I am not exaggerating. She has black hair, dark brown eyes, gorgeous complexion and the sweetest smile you ever saw.” They ate, danced, and had a wonderful time until the party broke up and Bud headed back to the bus for Annapolis.68
In January 1941 Bud published a fascinating and foreboding article in the Log, a midshipman magazine. “The Greek Horiatis: A Timely Story of Modern Greece with a Smashing Surprise Element” was the fictional story of a Greek man, Themistocles, who during the invasion of Greece by the Italians, made the decision to blow up a wagon carrying munitions in order to stop the advancing Italian forces. The subtext for the story was that Themistocles’ son, Demetrios, was riding on the wagon that his father destroyed with his own weapon.69
The story is narrated in the voice of the author watching the events unfold. “Fascists had crossed the border and were steamrolling their way through everything. I saw Demetrios and his father . . . the greatness of bond between them.” The narrator heard the father saying, “I have reared my son to be a man. Then I heard a shot. The cart blew up in a bloody flame. The bridge, the car and the leading tank rent the air with a million pieces. The tanks were halted. The hole was plugged. The line remained intact. But Demetrios was dead. The thought struck me like a barb—Demetrios, the magnificent, the shepherd who talked and lived like an immortal. Gone were all his father’s hopes and dreams. Lost to him forever was the peacefulness of this valley and his dreams. Lost—the pride of Themistocles’s life.”
The wagon had been destroyed to keep the valley safe. Themistocles “was staring strangely down at the chaos below.” In his hands was a smoking rifle. “My son was a brave man,” Themistocles said quietly. And that is how the story written by Midshipman Bud Zumwalt ended. Years later Paul Stillwell accurately remarked in conversation with Admiral Zumwalt that the story had “an eerie, ironic parallel to the situation” involving Bud and his son Elmo.70 Bud agreed, but an equally compelling analogy could be made between Bud and his father Elmo, as they both prepared to go off to war.
Tularians gave Elmo a grand send-off before his departure for Fort Lewis, near Tacoma. “As a doctor, as a servant of your community, and as a dad, you have given us an ideal to cherish as long as we live,” wrote Bud. “When-if this mess clears up, get back to your community, your passing from the community is a loss that cannot be replaced and you owe it to them to return as soon as duty permits. God Bless you, Dad.”71
While in Washington, Elmo met Doris Streeter. In a letter dated September 21, 1941, to “those most dear to me,” Elmo wrote on the subject of “Family Affairs,” admitting that for the past two years he had been a restless man, what Bud had accurately described as “a derelict on the Ocean of Life.” Elmo’s army orders had provided relief “from a mental state which few saw and even I did not admit.” He was even considering remaining in the army in order to “escape a void I saw facing me if and when this service is over.” With his children embarking on their own journeys in life, “what was left for ‘the old man’? Little but memories and the empty house that had been home.” Elmo wanted those most dear to him to understand that since September 1939, when “Requiescat in Pace was pronounced in that place we had called home,” the street of the sycamores had been barren.
After these lonely days and longer nights, Doris had entered the picture. He described her as a petite, slender woman of forty-two, a divorcee with a seventeen-year-old child. She was quite poised and, like Elmo, “young” in spirit. They had been introduced through mutual friends, the Dugans, who described her as “pure gold fine loyal—a real friend.” Elmo reminded his children that as Frances was dying, she had said, “very calmly, very sanely (as I now see it) she urged me at some future time to re-establish a home. At the moment the thot [sic] was abhorrent. But as time has rolled on I find that her perception was no doubt far greater than mine. She could see the emptiness that life would bring—which I could not. Now, with all the reverence a man can have for the Memory of Her, I feel I can make another decision.”
Elmo did not want to remain alone for the next twenty or thirty years. He and Doris were going to marry. “So—with Doris and myself, we have had two people seared by Destiny’s hand, who may bridge a Chasm of Emptiness together, and perhaps find a Shang-ri-la, when we have crossed over.”
The news evoked mixed emotions from Bud. There was the “strange melancholy” in see
ing his father with another woman because of “the child’s reluctance to let go of the haunting melody of the past. It is his innate classification of his mother and father as one rather than two.” But who was Bud to oppose this union if it offered his father a chance at happiness? “I say sincerely, dad, that I do not oppose this change. I do not think it unwise. Per the contrary, in spite of that inner feeling of maladjustment, I realize that it is best for you. I do not feel it traitorous to the memory of Mother . . . before she died, she told me more than once that you would someday remarry. . . . She knew, she saw, in this matter as in all things, the true and inevitable. . . . She hoped it would be a sweet woman, seeking the same companionship, the same escape from loneliness, from the persecution of the poignant memories. Thank God it was. She knew then and she knows now that you can never love as you loved her. She approves and condones your choice.”
Showing insight and compassion, Bud wanted his father to know that he “must never feel that this choice has alienated me in any way, dad. Necessarily we will be unable to have quite the same closeness as before because the woman who is the bond that links us must be kept in the background of memories. But the love of a son for a father who has been his inspiration for 20 years, can never lessen. I wish you all the happiness you so richly deserve. Your life has been hard and you have followed a courageously stronger road. I hope with all my heart I may be like you.”
Elmo’s medical partner, L. E. Watke, wrote on October 7, 1941: “If you picked the gal she must be OK. . . . Your letter seemed to be in the vein of apology and justifying yourself for your decision, but why? It is your business, and besides, it doesn’t need justifying. It is your own happiness which is concerned and which you are entitled to. Jim is the only one that your anticipated adventure might have any effect upon that is to be particularly considered. When he first read your letter, I think it rather stunned him for a while, but he soon recovered. He apparently had not anticipated any such move, and it rather took him by surprise! I believe he thinks it OK but can’t quite envision anyone taking his mother’s place. Which of course is only a natural reaction, but I don’t feel he has any antagonistic feelings towards the matter and will probably like the idea once he gets used to it.”72
Scheduled to graduate in June 1942, Bud was concerned about his own—as well as his father’s—imminent deployment. “It has been written that everyone needs a faith. I have never developed a strong religious faith. Ever since I was old enough to toddle after you in the backyard of our H St. home, you have been my back and my faith. Now that I have become old enough to think seriously, that faith has only increased until, I think, were I to lose that anchor, my life would be as aimless as a derelict’s wanderings.”73
Bud and his classmates understood that the odds favored that they would be in the thick of things, because regular midshipmen were assigned to destroyers, and the reserves went to battleships, which Bud saw as “the less responsible jobs.” All of which meant that “we get the worst not if, but when. This next leave coming up may well be the last reunion for us warriors. I hope like hell I have the guts to take my medicine. I certainly don’t enjoy the thought of dying—but then again I wouldn’t want to be on the sidelines.”
Summer cruise had been canceled so that midshipmen could attend classes to make up the extra year. “The whole regiment of midshipmen talk and act like a battalion of doomed men. Not that there is any great dissatisfaction. It’s just that they all feel we will be at war soon—that they may well bear the brunt—the regular ensigns will get the death details. . . . As a result there is a great tendency to ‘live’ right now. . . . There is a growth in drinking, lovemaking, etc.—all the soldier boy pursuits are fast growing up. It’s hard to find a good logical reason for keeping yourself in line when you may be dead in a year. So far I’ve behaved—perhaps because of my affection for a decent girl—but very few of us do. All of this probably explains some of the melancholy you have observed in my letters.”
Elmo was so concerned about Bud’s mental state that he wrote the senior chaplain of the Naval Academy, William N. Thomas.74 In reply, the chaplain soothed an anxious father: “By this time I feel sure that you realize that the worry of your fine son was momentary, and that he is now on solid ground. . . . His letter to you concerning conditions in the regiment was no doubt true to his impression at the time, but I am quite sure that as a whole the spirit and the faith of the regiment are very high. You and I know what shocks young people are receiving in these uncertain times when even those of us who have gone through such times are not free from confusion.”75
Everything changed on December 7, 1941. “I had a date that day, and we were in violation of regulations drinking beer in the place where this young lady stayed. As I recall, there was another fellow and his date with us when we heard somebody shouting, ‘Turn on the radio! Turn on the radio!’ The broadcast was being repeated over and over again—just the very bare-bone details. So we all went trooping back to the Naval Academy promptly, knowing that was the thing to do.”76
With the attack on the homeland, attitudes changed. “We, of course, had already been speeded up and were on the fast track, so I don’t think there were many changes made in the academics. But suddenly everything took on a much more serious nature. There was no longer any fooling around when you were in a gunnery class. Perhaps far less motivation to study Spanish or mechanical drawing. But everybody really concentrating on the professional subjects, because you knew it could well end up meaning a question of life or death. So it was kind of ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ ”77
On the same day that the academy debate team lost to Harvard, Bud wrote his father that “Ann Austin pulled a fast one. I broke all my dates with her. We are through.” Bud did not remain alone very long, next setting his sights on Jane Carey, whom he met about a year before graduation at a dance, while she was dating another midshipman. Longtime friend Dave Bagley, who attended Rutherford Prep in Long Beach and the Naval Academy with Bud, recalled, “I often tell people that all his actions before the academy were deeply embedded in an interest in individuals—and often resulted in stealing other guy’s girls, including mine.”78
Bud and Jane dated regularly, and a few months before graduation, Bud proposed marriage. Bud was hoping that his father, brother, and sister would be able to attend June Week graduation festivities as well as his wedding, but Elmo was unable to secure military leave. Elmo requested that Chaplain Thomas speak on his behalf at the wedding. Bud needed money for his graduation ring as well as for a miniature or replica that traditionally went to the girl a midshipman expected to marry. “I remember that Mother left one ring for me and I am wondering what you would suggest. Should I have the stone from that ring set in my miniature or should I keep that intact and buy a new stone for the miniature. If I do buy a new one where will the money come from, etc.? Can you help me out?”79
Elmo agreed to Bud’s request by sending him Frances’s ring, which he gave to Jane. Family and friends soon received from Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lambert Carey of Philadelphia an announcement of the engagement of their daughter Jane to Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., midshipman, United States Navy. The wedding was scheduled for Saint Andrews Chapel in Annapolis on Friday afternoon, June 19, 1942, at 3:30 p.m., immediately after Bud’s graduation.
Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., graduated summa cum laude with one of the most demanding extracurricular loads of any midshipman in his class. He twice won the gold watch awarded at the public speaking contest80 and distinguished himself as a member of the four-person debating team representing Annapolis in intercollegiate competition during his sophomore year. His athletic interests were small-boat sailing, long-distance running, and marksmanship. During senior year, Bud had been promoted to regimental adjutant, giving him responsibility for training the entire regiment in competitive athletics and professional exercises. He supervised military security and, during parades of the regiment, led the midshipmen in preliminary maneuvers on Wo
rden Field before presenting them to the regimental commander. Bud relished the opportunity to lead as both company commander and later a regimental “Three Striper.”81
Professor of thermodynamics Leon S. Kintberger considered Bud an “outstanding student. His final standing in Thermodynamics was about eighteen in a class of six hundred and nineteen. I consider this record remarkable in view of the fact that his extracurricular activities at that time were not only extensive but also of a literary nature, indicating that his greatest interests were along that line. My analysis of his intellectual capacity is as follows: Outstanding powers of perception and logic coupled with excellent retentive capacity.”82
When Parson Thomas learned that Elmo would be unable to attend the graduation ceremonies, he wrote directly to Elmo, “It is not necessary to tell you that Bud has made a fine record at the Naval Academy. The confidence of the Academy has been shown by the responsibilities it has placed upon him. He will make an excellent naval officer, and if I live long enough I expect to see him at the top of his profession.”83
The graduation day speaker on June 19 was commander in chief, United States Fleet, and chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest J. King. Still recoiling from December 7, 1941, King addressed the challenges that lay ahead for the navy. He shared Churchill’s promise of a future marked by “blood, sweat and tears” and cautioned against interservice rivalries’ “narrow-minded jealousy” that might jeopardize the joint effort needed to defeat the enemy. “Machines are as nothing without the men who man them and give them life,” and “men are as nothing without morale.” King went on to define true military discipline as the “intelligent obedience of each for the effectiveness of all” and pointed out that “traditions, of themselves, are no more than testimonials to the successes of our predecessors” and that it was not enough for us merely to boast of tradition, but that we must “make some traditions ourselves.” King concluded that when the war was over, with victory, “We Americans—under the leadership of the President—will take steps to see to it that the ability of any person or any people to enslave others, physically or mentally or spiritually, shall be forever destroyed.”
