Lost At Sea

March 23, 1952

Lost at sea

"Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935), starring Charles Laughton and Clark Cable

Hi Norma,

This is your seasick man again. Well, I'm not exactly seasick, but I'm not far from it.

We're in the worst storm I've ever seen. This tub is pitching all over the sea. We were working all morning tying down the planes to keep them form rolling overside.

We've been out for 23 days this time and I'm getting ready to go back in port again. I don't know just how the captain feels about it, but usually anything that "old man" can do to make life miserable for his men, he'll do it. Did you ever read "Mutiny On The Bounty?" The Bounty was a ship that had a captain who was so bad that the crew mutinied and we're beginning to compare our captain to with him. In other words, our "old man" stinks.

So, my Red Wings done clinched the National Hockey League pennant, "eh?" I was sure they would win, but I didn't think they would do it so soon. 

I really made out on mail today. I got five letters. I even got one from my mother and sister.

So, you always wanted to go to a nightclub, "eh?" Well, they are O.K., but you soon tire of them, at least I do. I guess I wasn't meant to be a playboy HA.

Some people can wake up with those headaches every morning, but not me. When I get out of the Navy, I'll stop drinking. Maybe even before. 

Well, Norm, I've got to sign off, almost sack time. 

Answer soon.

Love, 

Jim

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Short And Sweet

March 18, 1952

Sea of Japan

Bob-Lo Island, a Detroit-area amusement park and summer tradition for nearly 100 years

Hi Norma,

How's the cutest, most lovable gal I know?

We're refueling today and I got a letter from you written March 4th. I got three the last refueling day written the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of March, so it looks like you're writing more than me, but believe me, I would write more if I had time. 

I got lucky a couple of days ago. I bought a chance on a raffle and won a rifle. I don't know what to do it with it. I don't need a gun over here, so I guess I'll raffle it off myself. HA  

So, the Red Wings are still in first place, "eh?" I would give almost anything to see them play. Also, I would like to see the Tigers play baseball.  [Editor's note: Maybe not. The Detroit Tigers' 1952 season would be one for the record books: the worst losing season in the franchise history (50-104).  It was a record that stood for more than 50 years and was finally broken in 2003 (43-119).]

I hear that Harold T______ is getting married or, in fact, I guess he is already married. Do you know him? I don't know his wife but I hear she is pretty good looking.

I guess it won't be much longer until all the beaches and amusement parks will be open. I hope I get home before they close. I always have more fun at an amusement park than just about anyplace else.

Well, good looking, this one is short and sweet, but I've got to stop anyway.

Answer soon.

Love, 

Jim

P.S. I almost forgot, I'm sending some pictures we took on the flight deck. 

[Editor's note: Knowing that Norma saved Jim's letters for more than 50 years, divided in packets by year, arranged in chronological order, and each year bound with a silk ribbon, it's probably not hard to take a leap and assume Norma saved a lot. She had the heart of an archivist and carried an Instamatic or a Polaroid or a Point and Shoot with her as long as I can remember.  After Norma died and I was faced with sorting through her things, I found a bedroom dresser drawer filled to the top with snapshots. It was daunting. Going through those photographs and cataloging them is a longterm project of mine since I've inherited the Archivist Gene (and am a librarian by trade).

I have a vague memory from elementary school days of rummaging through snapshots of my dad's ship, the Valley Forge, and these were probably the pictures Jim sent to Norma in this letter. I have yet to come across them in the boxes of files from their house that are stored in my basement, waiting for me to excavate.  Like Norma, Jim never threw out a piece of paper on which he had scribbled a random poem or an idea for an editorial.

All of this to say that the librarian in me would love to include Jim's actual pictures (primary source documents, in my lingo) but they're not available.  At least, not yet.]

Click on this link to read the next letter. 

The Cradle Of Charms

March 17, 1952

Somewhere in Korea

Detroit Parking Cop, outside the Michigan Theatre in 1952, as he tickets a car

Hi Norma,

Well, I haven't written to you in four days, but at least I'm not as tired as I was the last time I wrote, so maybe this one will be more sensible.

I got three letters from you last mail call day. I hope I do it again tomorrow. 

I should write to you more often than I do, but I'm so tired when we quit flying at night all I can do is shower and fall into bed.

The weather is getting better all the time. I don't have to wear but two pairs of pants, one shirt, one sweater and a foul weather jacket to keep warm. HA  You can imagine what I had to wear when it was cold.

Have my letters been sounding homesick lately? I'm sorry, I didn't mean for them to. When I start to feeling sorry for myself, I try to think that our pilots and the guys in the Army and Marines over on the beach are getting it a lot tougher than me, so maybe I'm not having it so bad after all.

I'm glad the Red Wings are in first place. I sure would like to see them play.

So, you finally got all the spaghetti? I'm glad. I guess you're not Italian after all.

When I come home, I'll show you how to park a car in six easy lessons. Of course, each lesson takes 2 or 3 days. 

Excuse the [spelling] mistakes, maybe I'm more tired than I thought I was.

How easy it is to park a car depends on where you want to park. Downtown isn't so easy, too many other cars in the way, but if you're parking in a lovers' lane or someplace like that, well, it isn't very hard at all. HA   At least that's what I've been told.

And if you'll give me a big enough kiss, I'll show you how to park in both places.

We got that record, "Little White Cloud That Cried" by Johnny Raye.  The song is O.K., but the singer "stinks." If it were by Patti Page or Doris Day, it would be pretty good. I've also heard "Any Time" and "Slow Poke." [Editor's note: these two songs were recorded by Helen O'Connell and both were on the Billboard Top Ten list for February, 1952.]

We also have "Give Me More Of Your Kisses," but it's by some "hillbilly" who can't sing at all.  [That would be Lefty Frizzell.]

Yes, I'll be able to vote, I think. We should be in the States on election day.

We had some bad luck today. The squadron commander of V.F. 111, a jet squadron, was killed today. He was a commander named Baslee, one of the nicest officers I've ever met. Everyone liked him, but when you're getting shot at, I suppose bullets don't respect anybody. It was an anti-aircraft battery that hit him. He knew he was hit so hard that his jet would never pull out of the dive, so he piled his plane up right on top of the gun that hit him with three bombs still on it. It don't suppose that gun emplacement will ever get anybody else.

But it hurts like "hell" to lose a guy like him.

[Click on this link for a declassified document from the commander of the USS Valley Forge, detailing events the ship encountered from March 3 - April 4, 1952 and describes the actions of Lt. Commander Baslee, who was awarded The Purple Heart posthumously.]

Norm, I started this last night and could have mailed it then if I could have finished it, but the "Reds" didn't want me to. About the time I started, some enemy planes started snooping around and we had to go up on deck just in case they came too close. But that's the trouble, they don't come within gun range. They just fly close enough for the radar to pick them up. That gets the captain all bothered, so he can't go down to his room and he thinks if he can't go rest that no one else should.

So, we stayed at a ready condition until 10:30 last night after getting up at 3:30 in the morning.

But enough of my worries. Let's talk about something better, like you, you Cradle of Charms. "Corny, eh?" I sure would like to see you, I'm about to forget what you look like. How about sending me a picture of yourself, one that I can pin up on my locker door, O.K? 

Well, Norm, I've got to sign off this time or pretty soon this will be a book.

Answer soon.

Love, 

Jim 

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Saving Buck Rogers

March 10, 1952

Monday night

Some of Jim's crew members maintaining machine guns.

Hi Norma, 

What's new? "Nutting" over here. it's always the same. 

I'm sorry to hear that you have a cold. This makes two or three for you this winter, doesn't it? You must be unlucky.

But I've been lucky.  All through the bad weather I never did have a cold.

The weather us getting better all the time, but it still isn't warm enough.

I think the big "wheels" have finally decided to win the war instead of talking the "gooks" out of it because we've been flying like "hell" for the last three days. 

Where we used to fly 70 or 80 sorties per day, now we're flying a hundred or more. 

Those top ten tunes you wrote about are new to me. I've never heard of any of them, except "Tell Me Why." 

We have that record, "I Can't Help It" by Hank Williams. 

In case you didn't notice, my pen is all "fouled up." I loaned it to one of the guys this morning and he used some sort of ink that wasn't good for it. I think now it is about washed out though. 

About that clipping you sent. Since you've read it in the paper, I'll you what happened.

The was an A.D. (Attack Douglas) "guppie," which means it was equipped with radar and sonar gear and used mostly for hunting submarines. And when a sub is found, some other plane moves in and kills it.

I know the pilot pretty well. We call him "Buck" Rogers and he is one of the best we have. There are very few pilots who could have gotten it off the water. In fact, the air officer passed the word that a plane was in the water. It was dark (about 4:00 in the morning) and snowing, so nobody could see there hand in front of their face. We turned on the crash lamps but about five minutes later, he radioed back that he was O.K.

The reason it all happened was because of a faulty holdback on the catapult. We had him set up on the "lot," ready to send off and his engine was supposed to be turning up to 45 hundred RPMs, but when it got to 23 hundred RPMs, the holdback broke and off he went. And believe me, we we were "sweating" for awhile.

[Editor's note: Click on this link for a declassified internal Naval document detailing the accident, which took place February 2, 1952 and is described in "Part 2, Chronological Order of Events." "Buck" Rogers' real name was Lt. Commander W. H. Rogers.]

Rogers was a lieutenant at the time, but when he came back, they made him Lieutenant Commander. The admiral said any pilot who could do that deserved another rate, so he got it.

Norma, I started this letter about 4 days ago, but I didn't get to mail it or finish it if I had had a chance to mail it.

It is 10:15 now, we got came off the flight deck. We've been flying since 4:00 this morning.

Norm, I'm so tired I can't hardly see the paper I'm writing. We've been flying 18 hours per day since the 3rd of March, but tomorrow is refueling day and maybe we can get some rest. That is, if the "Gooks" don't come over and cheat us out of that.

Norm, 70 knots isn't the temperature, it's the speed of the wind. If the ship is going 30 MPH and the wind is blowing 50 knots across the bow, that would equal 70 knots of wind, or velocity, and it is pretty much a gale. In fact, you're pretty lucky if you can stand up in it.

No, they don't keep the mail on board until we enter port. It goes off on refueling days, which is every 4 to 10 days.

So, you got three letters from me and want to kiss me for it, "eh?" Well, just hang on until I get home.

Well, Norm, I've got to sign off before I fall off this seat.

Answer soon.

Love, 

Jim

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Sodas At The Westwood

March 4, 1952

Off the coast of Korea

Drugstore soda fountain, Detroit. ©Robert Frank 1955.

Hi Norma,

"Whatcha got cookin'?"  

Well, I promised I would write some more tonight, so here goes.

We're back in Korea again, and, thank goodness, the weather is warmer but now it rains all the time. But one good thing, we don't have to shovel rain off the flight deck.

We have a boy on here that I feel sorry for. A week or so ago, he showed me a letter from his wife. It didn't read like a letter from a wife to her husband. It was more like some friend to friend letter; that was what had him worried. And today, he got a letter from one of his buddies telling him his wife was chasing around with just about every man in town. 

Now the kid is all "shook-up." He can't work or keep his mind on anything but his troubles at home. They just had a baby a couple of weeks before he left the States, too.

That's why I couldn't be married while I'm in the service. "Oh," well, it's nothing to me, but I still "feel" for the guy. 

There just isn't anything to talk about out here, but airplanes and I guess you're tired of hearing about them. When I come home, if anyone mentions airplanes to me, I'll kick their teeth in. At first I thought it would be really something to tell the folks back home about what went on over here, but if anybody tries to talk to me about this place, I'll tell them to read the newspapers. HA. 

Do you kids still go to Westwood pretty often? [Editor's note: It was an ice cream parlor located on Schaeffer Road near the Dearborn/Detroit border.] I used to go there at least once or twice a week. I liked the place. I got so familiar out there, I used to mix my very own sodas. 

Are you going to Canada again this summer? If you're there when I come home, I'll accept that invitation you gave me last summer and come up, but don't be running around in New York or some place like that. That's too far.

Did the Fletcher girls get O.K? I hope they did.

Norma, when I start writing short sentences like that, it's time to shut up.

Answer real soon.

Love, 

Jim

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Love From Now On

March 2, 1952

Yokosuka, Japan

Rayve print ad featuring Sally Forrest, ca. 1951

Hi Norma,

I just got your letter today and was real glad to hear from you. And if I don't answer it tonight, I don't know when I'll get a chance. We are pulling out tomorrow and I have a feeling this will be the roughest trip of all. With the weather beginning to break, we will probably start some sort of spring offensive and we will be flying day and night.

I will write every chance I get but I can't promise how often that will be.

I went to a movie tonight. We saw "Bannerline" with Sally Forrest. "Boy," is she a looker. I don't even remember who the male lead was. [Editor's note: It was Keefe Brasselle and who can blame Jim.]

"Honey," you don't wish I was home any more than I do. In fact, I would give my left arm and eye teeth to be there. HA. I think we are supposed to come home in June. That is only three months, not very long.

"Hey," you called yourself a "woman." I remember you as a girl, not a little girl, but one just before she becomes a woman. 

But maybe I've been gone longer than it seems to me.

If I had been at that banquet there wouldn't have been anything left. You should see me eat when we come into port. 

When they hear the Valley Forge is in town, all the restaurant owners take on a new supply of food just for me. 

Norma, they just sounded "taps," so I've got to sign off. I'll try to write again tomorrow.

Answer soon.

Love, 

Jim

[Editor's note: On the front of the envelope, Norma wrote "Love from now on," and "Honey."] 

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