The Kid from Hoboken

by Bill Bailey

  When I entered their office, four men were waiting for me. After introductions I was motioned to a chair, and I went over the episode again, venting my wrath at what the bastard had done to my mother. They showed much interest and sympathy, and as soon as I stopped talking one of the men said that after talking with me on the phone, they started to do some checking. They concluded that when I left the Pacific Coast to come east, I did not tell my draft board that I was making the move. If I mailed a notice, it never reached the board in time to abort their next step--turning the matter over to the FBI. An agent told me that a few thousand young people had been hired by the agency to do one thing only--to check up on, locate and harass men who were playing games with their draft boards and staying clear of the armed services.

  Since the young kids were now part of the FBI apparatus, they really thought they were FBI agents and most times ran amok as if they were chasing down saboteurs or spies, said the agent. This was not the only complaint that had been made about their flights of fancy and weird tactics. "Maybe some of them do deserve a kick in the ass or a club across the head with a broomstick," he said, "but please, Bill, not the way you want to do it, with a hatchet!" He promised that he would intercede and make sure that it never happened again. It never did.

  Chapter III: The War Years in New York, Part One

  The electioneering was over. The ballots were in. All that remained was to count the ballots declare the winner. It was a nice day in New York City on December 7th. A movie was showing at the Paramount on Broadway. It was supposed to be a super-duper anti-Nazi movie. I decided to take it in. I needed the relaxation after weeks of election campaigning.

  While I was deeply absorbed in the movie, the screen went black. Boos and jeers and stomping of feet sounded throughout the theater. Within a few seconds, a voice sounded over the loudspeaker: "Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt the program at this time to bring you a report from our nation's capitol. It has been reported that less than an hour ago warplanes launched from a Japanese carrier bombed the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. The report states that many ships have been sunk and hundreds of lives have been lost in this sneak attack. We have been advised to relay this message to all members of the armed forces--return immediately to your units for further orders. We shall now return to our program."

  A terrible feeling of emptiness hit my stomach. I had shared the feeling with many of my left-wing friends that we would be knee-deep in the European war sooner than expected. But the Japanese were another matter. Some of their high-ranking statesmen were in Washington at the moment negotiating some matters with our Secretary of State, Sumner Wells. No, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a complete surprise. There were no more pretenses about war, nor about our responsibilities. We were up to our ears in it on all fronts. The Hitler-Mussolini-Hirohito anti-comintern pact was being put into operation by its third partner.

  In the Pacific Ocean, our ships were ordered to seek refuge. Vessels now in various American ports were ordered into available shipyards to be fitted with both machine guns and heavy artillery pieces, powerful enough to destroy a submarine by a direct hit or at least give the ship and crew a fighting chance.

  Life rafts were secured on the fore and aft rigging and life boats give extra equipment. The wheel house received some extra protection with cement blocks. The Lazaret was made into an ammo locker and the after housing on the poop decks were turned into a fo'c's'le for the gunnery crews which all ships were being quickly furnished with. A number of other features were added to the average ship to make it as safe as possible to survive at sea.

  It was a new ballgame now. The election results put me in office by a whopping majority over two opponents, one a devoted right-winger who was forever boasting to the San Pedro membership of the union that he was in favor of organizing a group of American Legion veterans to march down the waterfront and drive all left-wingers out of town. The other opponent, the old New York port agent, was lazy and useless. But, hell, they were small potatoes now.

  The job was now taking on new importance. No longer was it a job confined to protecting our engine room members against the money-hungry, union-hating ship owners, as well as protecting the integrity of the union. It was now a job demanding a higher sense of responsibility--one of seeing to it that the hundreds of new ships entering the merchant marine were manned by competent seamen who could deliver men and equipment necessary to win the war. These men and goods would have to be delivered across oceans teeming with enemy submarines.

  Days passed quickly. I found myself opening the union office at six in the morning and closing it at eight or nine in the evening. Work was piling up. It seemed trivial to spend time fighting over a little beef like the number of ashtrays doled out in the messroom or some small infringement against our working conditions. The main issue as most saw it was to get the ships properly manned and shoved off to sea. It became an everyday sight to see two or three dozen ships, fully loaded, laying at anchor along the Hudson River, waiting for crews to take them to sea.

  Every member of our union was working. We were now relying on a government-operated recruiting school that turned out young men as "qualified" seamen after two weeks of training. They were handed a slip to report to different union halls for ship assignments. The majority of ships we were starting to crew up were vessels assigned to us from the War Shipping Administration. They were known as Liberty ships--five-hatch, slow-moving vessels of some 12-13 knots maximum speed, driven by 2500 horsepower reciprocating engines.

  They came from blueprints and shipyards of Henry J. Kaiser. A simply-built vessel, it was put together in prefabricated sections made in factories across the country and put in place by the welding torch. In the First World War, the job of the torch was the long, tedious job of the riveting gun, a harder, slower, and more costly procedure. One set of blueprints was used in the hundred or so shipyards that sprang up across the country. So efficient was the construction of the Liberty vessel that it became a badge of honor as to how quickly a shipbuilding crew, working around the clock, could put one together. One shipyard took 30 days from keel-laying to her assignment for sea duty. And the competition to beat that record would go on.

  Of the youngsters that came through my union, I would say that 95 percent of them were bursting with enthusiasm as they accepted their assignment slip and raced out the front door to grab their gear and board their ship. Most looked at it as a new and daring adventure in their young lives and a means to make their mark in the effort to win the war. I don't imagine many at this stage gave much thought to the dangers they were about to come face to face with.

  The dangers were many, but they were compounded by the very nature of the exercise of my craft in the engine room and boiler room. Located at least three stories below the main deck, they represented a terrifying trap in the event of a torpedo attack, even more so if the torpedo hit the engine room. The narrow steel ladder from the floor plates to the safety of the main deck offered a poor source of escape in a panic situation.

  Yet, in spite of these potential dangers or odds against survival, men answered the bell which signified the time to relieve the watch below. It was a job someone had to do. To the seaman, his job was important to the war effort and contained as many dangers as the jobs of the aviator, foot soldier, or any other person giving his or her all to win the war. My job wasn't by any means confined to just manning the ships and settling some contractual beefs that arose from time to time. Many conferences took place between the War Shipping Administration, governed by Rear Admiral Land, union representatives, shipowners, and often members of Congress.

  A call one morning from Admiral Land's office in Washington to come to a conference the following morning in Washington offered me my first flight on an aircraft, a twin-engine plane that seated about 50 passengers. In that period of our history, most transportation such as planes or railroad Pullmans were not easy to come by. A priority clearance that guaranteed you space
on the plane or train had to be obtained. There was always the bus if you cared to wait in a line most often stacked with enough eager riders to fill several buses.

  It was a simple procedure handled from the Admiral's office. His staff called the airline and reserved a certain number of seats, so many for each union. Of course they did not come free. The unions paid their own way. It was an interesting flight. We were ordered to keep all shades drawn on the windows while landing and taking off. I made the trip sitting next to my old and dear friend "Blackie" Meyers, vice-president of the National Maritime Union.

  We took our designated seats in a room filled mostly with military men. The gold braid on their uniforms could have re-plated the White House dome in glittering yellow. It was a quietly-conducted and dignified meeting to determine what to do to save lives of seamen who might come under attack.

  I remembered what one of the young survivors of a torpedo attack reported to me after he was rescued from being adrift ten days on a life raft. He lost several fingers and toes from frostbite and exposure. I reported at this conference that had the life raft medical kit contained some rubbing oil to prevent frostbite, he might still have all his fingers and toes. There were several other matters close to the same line that I raised as well. All issues, no matter how insignificant they may have appeared, were well-received. Those requiring action were, in most cases, acted on quickly. All in all, that meeting and the meetings to come were fruitful and had the best interests of the seamen in mind.

  Chapter IV: The Expendable

  A strange experience came my way one day. A young, Hawaiian-born Japanese fireman came into my office with tears in his eyes. He explained that he just had his seamen's papers taken away from him and he could not ship anymore. The reason? He was a Japanese-American, and he had a police record in the Hawaiian Islands. While growing up in Honolulu, he was arrested at age 13 for stealing a neighbor's bicycle. He was sentenced to two weeks at the reform school. Most of the Japanese on the Pacific Coast were now confined behind barbed wire because the government had convinced itself that it could no longer trust the Japanese, American-born or otherwise; it wanted to do the same to this seaman. But they were finding it hard to do. He had just arrived back in the country from Gibraltar a week earlier. His vessel, loaded with munitions, was blown up from under him when an enemy bomber made a direct hit on his ship. He and ten other crew members were the only ones that survived the attack.

  The Navy brass knew they had a bum case on their hands trying to ship this seaman off to a concentration camp with a seagoing record like his, so they came up with the childhood caper of stealing a neighbor's bike. When he told me the story I really got pissed off. I got on the phone and called Naval Intelligence and insisted on a face-to-face meeting to get this youngster vindicated and back to sea.

  We sat in a small room with five big wheels, loaded down with authority--campaign ribbons and gold stripes. No rank was less than that of captain. Some papers were pulled out of a folder. My friend's name was read off, some vital statistics touched on, and then his police record and the disposition of the case. I found it difficult to contain myself. "Are you telling me that because he stole a bike from a neighbor for what one must assume was a joy ride, and after he spent two weeks in a reform school, you're proposing to strip him of his livelihood and his citizenship? Hell, I could go aboard any American ship and I would guarantee that at least one in every three crew members has some sort of police record, be it for petty larceny, boozing up, or being evicted from some flophouse because they couldn't meet the rent. Yet you pick on this poor kid because he took a ride on a neighbor's bike. How insane! Are you aware that his last ship was blown up and sunk in Gibraltar harbor a few weeks ago? And, by the way, he's been back in this country one week and already he's looking for another ship. Now, to me, that's dedication."

  "Well, Mr. Bailey," said the spokesman, "we have our commitment to our country to administer what is in the best interest of all, and it is our judgment that having him employed on American vessels is not in the country's best interest. He will be free to seek work elsewhere, but not on board our ships."

  "Are you telling me, sir, that our country's interest would be in some sort of danger if this man were to resume following his occupation of shipping?" I asked.

  The reply came back swiftly. "Yes, that's it. We consider his presence on an American ship a danger."

  I looked at my friend; his face was ashen. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He was fighting to hold them back. If he felt bad, I was equally miserable. For a moment, I questioned my own attitude. Did I charge too far, too fast, too adamantly? Could I have negotiated this beef another way and maybe obtained better results? I looked at the panelists bearing the gold braid who had the authority to make life-dealing decisions for the industry. Four of the five would not even look at me, but one did. I detected a feeling of sorrow, of sympathy for my side. It was what Clarence Darrow always looked for, that one small slit of sun fighting to break through the dark clouds. It was my one big hope and the last possible effort I could make to save the situation. I decided to go all out.

  "Well, if you say he's a danger to our country, just turning him loose as you propose is no solution nor is it in the best interest of our country. Therefore, as an American who loves his country as ardently as anyone in this room, I ask you to take him out and shoot him as the best form of protecting this country." My companion looked at me with a tinge of horror on his face. The military spokesman, annoyed, replied, "That's unthinkable. That's absurd, and not the issue."

  "But it is the issue," I replied. "On the one hand you say he is a danger on board our ships and a danger to the security of the country, but on the other you don't seem to care where he would go to work, just so long as it's not on American ships. So you're willing to take this American-born youngster, wrest away his means of livelihood, and then throw this so-called bomb into the laps of the unsuspecting American people. The seamen I speak for have another view of this man. They say that any man who has the guts to haul a shipload of ammunition across the ocean dodging a wolfpack of Nazi submarines and reaching his destination only to be sunk by an enemy plane, be hauled out of the water after two hours of dog paddling, and then come home and insist upon being shipped out again, is the kind of shipmate they understand and feel proud to sail with. They also feel that if it's his destiny to die in this war, then by all means let him die by the hands of the enemy while he is fighting for our best interest, instead of, as you propose, dying by disgrace and humiliation because his family could not afford to buy him a bicycle when he was a kid. No, gentlemen, my membership--which as you well know are out there in the forefront delivering the goods--feel very strongly about this case, so strong that I am prepared to take it to the newspapers and to Mr. Roosevelt's office. I'm asking you to reconsider your decision."

  My friend's face lit up like a Christmas tree. He was pleased with my remarks. The officer I wanted most to impress turned abruptly when I looked his way. He asked his fellow officers for a caucus. They quickly excused themselves and walked out of the room.

  "Well," I said to my friend, "at least we tried, didn't we?" He leaned over closer to me. "You didn't mean it when you said I should be taken out and shot, did you?"

  "Of course not," I quickly assured him. "It was just another way of getting across a point. Now I think we have a better chance, how much I don't know."

  It was ten minutes before they came back into the room. All five men faced us. There was a calmness in the voice of the spokesman. "Mr. Bailey," he said, "we may have left you with the wrong impression, and we are sorry if that is the case. It is obvious to us that this case means a lot to your organization, to the young man in question and to you personally. In our group we do have differing opinions on this case, but we are of one opinion that we must all take responsibility for our action. Do you have enough confidence in this man that you would trust your life to him?"

  Oh boy, I said to myself. We have a winn
er here, or at least pretty close to a winner. I looked at the officer who I surmised was on my side. There was a warm glow on his face. I almost got the feeling that he was communicating, "Well, I agree with some of your ideas and I told my associates we should reach some compromise with you."

  "It's a good question, sir, and I'd like to answer it in the following way. I value my life, like you and you and anyone else. I trust my life wholeheartedly in the hands of this individual. On top of that trust, I would also be the first to volunteer to hang him if that trust is ever violated. That day, sir, I know will never come. If it will please the gentlemen at this session, yes, I take full responsibility for this man's actions. That, I swear to you."

  "All right, then, I place this man in your hands and hope for the best. He can go back to sea. And as for you, Mr. Bailey, you certainly live up to your reputation of doing the best for your membership."

  I shook hands with all the gold braid and departed as quietly as I had arrived. We had won the beef. We walked the five blocks to the union hall. All the time my friend heaped praise on me for getting him back his right to go to sea. I had only done what my job required--to represent him in the best possible way. I really didn't deserve all that fine praise, but once in a while it was nice to hear.

  A few days later I shook hands with him and said goodbye as he signed on a ship that was to join a convoy of ships bound for the Russian port of Murmansk. I never saw him again.

  Chapter V: Dancing on Broadway

  I was contacted by some Broadway entertainers who wanted to establish a Stage Door Canteen strictly for merchant seamen, patterned after the now famous Hollywood canteen. I attended the meeting they arranged to go over some of the details. At first I was leery of the setup. I had that old paranoid feeling that some religious missionaries were out to "save" the heathen seamen. I was sure it would end up like many other well-intentioned endeavors--another means of slugging you over the head with the Bible. It turned out I was wrong.