Take my being at Eniwetok, for instance. I don't believe Success 98's Zig Ziglar, Hyrum Smith, or the other out-of-town experts could have empowered me to reach that coral atoll for Operation IVY as I did in the absence of all the independent circumstances pushing me in one direction and then another.
I recalled events which led to IVY: The escalating Korean War in 1950 was certainly a factor--and I couldn't have done much about that. I was 19 years of age, in good health, single, not in college or working in an industry critical to the war effort. My draft board was especially looking for people such as me to fill monthly quotas.
By October, Navy and Air Force enlistments has overwhelmed the facilities, and recruiting for them was capped. I was on a list for Air Force induction, but there was no immediate slot for me. It was a waiting game -- get a slot or get drafted. Then, in December, fate and circumstances favored me, and the Air Force sent word to report for induction on 9 January 1951. By chance, I had beaten the draft. And I let the Board know at once!
The road to Eniwetok commenced with a bus trip to Kansas City. Induction went quickly -- and soon the physical examination, paperwork and swearing-in were out of the way. Then, it was a short bus ride to Union Station for boarding a train to Lackland Air Force Base, where the rigors of basic training awaited.
As our train entered San Antonio in the pre-dawn hours of the second night, the cars carrying recruits were switched to Lackland around daybreak. Early as it was, Lackland bustled with thousands of new airmen. We were met with unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells and shouting drill instructors--all of it tending to make us forget why we'd enlisted in the first place. Nothing was quite the way we expected it to be. We were assigned tents with earthen floors and no heat. Ditches had been dug some distance for us as latrines. There was a 5 to 7 day backlog on issuing clothing. And the processing continued around the clock. I recall with disdain having been rousted out of my warm mattress cover (we had no blankets) at 2:00 a.m. to be marched several blocks to a warehouse where each of us were issued a pair of socks! And a weather front brought record cold with snow and ice that added to the heap of miseries and the indignations of basic training.
In a matter of weeks basic training was completed. By chance, the road next led to Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul--again by rail in cars filled with new airmen carrying technical training assignments. Ostensibly, our aptitudes, attitudes and skills were matched to Air Force needs; but fate was sending most of us for training in jobs we hadn't asked to have. I was destined to be trained as a weather observer, but I'd asked for work in air traffic control or in communications.
The delay getting a class assignment was another surprise. The glut of enlistees had caused a waiting list for class scheduling, and the time was to be passed with K.P., coal shoveling, C.Q, grounds maintenance, and stints as a "runner" for various offices at CAFB. Finally, a place for me opened in a 6:00 a.m. to noon class (bad timing for a confirmed sleepyhead), and it commenced an early morning ritual that would set the course to a career that I would never have selected on my own. Even a blind hog sometimes finds an acorn!
It took 16 weeks to reach graduation. And it seemed as if everyone's first assignment was more adventuresome than mine. Amarillo Air Force Base, Texas! I didn't have a particular place in mind, but the high plains of the Texas Panhandle wasn't one I'd hoped to get. The Greyhound bus ride to Amarillo ended about midnight, as the driver slowed to a stop by a tiny wooden guard shack alongside Route 66 and announced, "...Amarillo Air Force Base." In the distance I could see runway lights and the faint outlines of structures I
later learned were buildings for the civilian airport (AAFB was a joint-user of the runways). City lights of Amarillo could be seen on the horizon. The guard checked my orders, and summoned a driver by telephone to take me to my quarters.
Amarillo Air Force Base was in the early process of being reactivated for Korean War duty. It had been a W.W.II training field, mothballed, and not yet ready for action. The hangers were filled with wheat in storage; many buildings were under construction, including a weather station; and civilian workers far outnumbered military people. The half-dozen assigned to the weather detachment included one from my class at Chanute, and his hometown was Happy, Texas, nearby. All of us were given minor tasks to perform at the civilian Weather Bureau office until our own place of business was completed.
Thanksgiving brought a surprise: orders to report for duty at 31st Weather Squadron, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. The year was turning out to be filled with unexpected twists for the Missouri farm boy--now turned 20-- and all of it circumstantial.
Christmas observance came early, by necessity. The date to be at Camp Stoneman, California set the time for leaving home at mid-December; and celebrations were strained and bittersweet. Mock Motors, a Kansas City automobile brokerage firm, advertised for someone to drive a car to San Francisco just then; and, by chance, they offered a 1951 ivory over green Oldsmobile 98 two-door hardtop, which I secured for the trip. With a liberal allowance of time and mileage, I was to have first-class transportation--and all I needed to provide was the driving and the fuel.
Next, I telephoned Willis Young, a weather observer classmate from Chanute, who lived in Wichita. Willie was on the same orders for Hawaii, and he was pleased to share the trip with me. Together, we headed for San Francisco by the warmest, safe-from-snow route our time would allow. Driving west and south from Wichita, we reached the "Mother Road" (Route 66) at Amarillo. Later, in Tucumcari, we paused to eat and refresh. The mood in the highway diner was somber, and it wasn't until we asked for water that we learned why. The waitress explained that, just hours before, the city's water tower had collapsed, and there had been deaths and injuries--and the water shortage was critical.
Then, in Arizona, we drove south to Phoenix and into the warmth of the southwest desert. Here, with pleasure, we shed the midwest winter garments and donned T-shirts and cotton trousers. How good it was! For the first time in our lives we "felt" a subtropical desert in winter. Giddily, we walked in an orange grove; we gawked in awe at rows of date palms; and, after that, we did our best to be "cool" and sophisticated.
Reaching California at Blythe, we found far more miles between the settlements than we had imagined. Finally, we came to Indio. Then, Palm Springs. And at San Bernardino, we recognized that Hollywood was within our grasp. Once there, we tried unsuccessfully to locate an uncle of Willie's who had "...something to do with making movies." Undaunted, we set about our own self-guided tour that included the glitzy places and boulevards we'd heard about. From Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, we took Highways I and 101 to San Francisco. Then, a drive around the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge closed the trip before we deposited the Olds and made a last-minute dash for the Port of Debarkation.
Processing went quickly, and on the afternoon of December 23, we sailed aboard the D.C. Shanks past Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. By the day after Christmas, we'd reached warmer temperatures and calmer waters. It was a Christmas to remember— or, forget! In five days we reached Hawaii.
The realization of my own naivete' came after being assigned to lodging in the transient barracks. Suddenly, I was aware that being in the 31st Weather Squadron might include duty at one of it's many detachments scattered across the Pacific. Sure enough, it wasn't long until Willie and me were enroute to Kwajalein--a six day journey aboard the troop carrier Aultman. We were seasoned mariners after the five days to Hawaii, and time passed slowly.
Kwajalein--site of fierce conflict in W.W.II, was one of the places a cousin saw action aboard the USS Saratoga. Now, it remained stripped of most coconut palms, it's beaches littered with broken war materials bulldozed to the waterline after the battle, and a Japanese pillbox sat idle alongside the R-Shack. Weather work did not last long for Willie and me at Kwajalein. It was a Navy base (beans for breakfast one day a week), and the two services agreed on a transfer of weather duties. In the shuffle, Harry Mosher and Hank Roznik went lo Eniwetok; I went to Weather Central at Hickam AFB; and I lost track of Willie.
Work at Weather Central was good duty. Schedules allowed ample free time; I lived in the historic main barracks that still bore the marks of tracers fired from Zeros in Pearl Harbor's attack; and I ate in the central mess hall targeted by the Japanese at breakfast time that December 7th. Remembering Pearl Harbor wasn't just a slogan. After a few months of making weather observations, plotting maps and adiabatic charts, and preparing flight folders, I was reassigned to Eniwetok, and the opportunity to help "make" history.
From August 1952 through March 1953, our efforts were in support of testing nuclear weapons. The arms race was on! Oppenheimer had failed to convince the country that a race for the biggest bomb would lead to economic and moral brankruptcy, and Teller rallied leaders to his argument for developing the super weapon. Consequently, on November 1, 1952, the United States tested the world's first thermonuclear device--the hydrogen bomb--with incredible yield.
Although MlKE's historical and political significance should be legendary, few seem interested today. Those who were there viewed the event from a first-hand perspective, and tend to believe that world history might have included a W.W.III by now if the U.S. hadn't been first. We'll never know, of course, but it is a proud realization to know that, if being first in developing a hydrogen bomb did help avert another war, I was part of making it work!
I don't regret having missed "Success 1998," and there are places I'd rather spend the money it would have cost to attend -- even at $49. It seems unlikely those "platform motivators" could have empowered me to be where I was when I was by self-determination -- or, to have avoided it. I'm happier thinking and marveling at the way it happened in the absence of manipulation by me. My memory has a wondrous storehouse of people's faces, little incidents, places I've been, and images I would have missed if I'd been in control. I have a file nobody else has. No one will ever have another like it again. Other people have helped make me what I am. And I'm going right on imagining that the job we did helped prevent a nuclear holocaust. Could anyone have planned better than that?
(Triple Nickel Nine was the aircraft number of a MATS C-54 used for "turnaround" duty between Honolulu and the Marshall Islands. It brought fresh food, mail and replacements. And it developed a reputation for being a maintenance nightmare. Some of us rode that plane one way or the other.)
Donald Whitman
E-Mail: Donwhitman1@aol.com
Kansas City, 1998
