important part of America’s War Plan Orange, a pre–World War II plan devised in case of war against Japan. Despite its strategic location, Congress failed to fortify the island.20
By the time McKenna reported to Gold Star in 1933, the Navy had governed Guam for more than three decades. Because the governor himself was a Navy man, “no navy man could come into Agana out of uniform, and [Capt. George A.] Alexander even ordered the natives to wear a coat and tie in Agana. . . . [H]e finally compromised on Sundays only.” Mac observed “older natives would get off the road and stand at attention, hat in hand, when a naval officer passed. . . . It was something they had learned under the Spaniards and they insisted on doing it.”21
From 1933 to 1937 McKenna found “only a couple of hundred Americans” on the island, “including Marines.” A “few narrow roads” could handle “only a dozen or so cars and trucks.”22
One of the traditions of naval service for a young sailor beginning an apprenticeship in enlisted engineering was being assigned the dirty and least desirable tasks. Higher-rated firemen and petty officers used this system to help them evaluate the work of the new firemen. One of the more unpleasant of these unenviable tasks involved the ship’s boilers. So that Gold Star’s Scotch boilers performed at peak efficiency, their insides required periodic chipping and cleaning of the carbon. Known as “cleaning firesides,” this task required firemen to enter through a narrow access hole and work at chipping and scraping in a dark claustrophobic environment. McKenna’s unfinished autobiographical novel, The Sons of Martha, contains a long section about cleaning firesides, a sure indication Mac performed the task at least once while serving as a fireman 3rd class in Gold Star, probably after he had returned from his first trip in 1933.23
McKenna learned from a senior fireman that he would start cleaning firesides the following day. The fireman told Mac to report for duty wearing his oldest white uniform and white hat, as they would be useless after he had finished with his assignment. McKenna asked if it was a dirty job.
“Hah! You got no idea! But it’s more than the dirt and it’s more than the work. It gets you another way the first time.” The fireman wanted to warn Mac, thinking it might be easier for him if he understood the work. “It gets inside you and underneath of you someway,” said the fireman. “The first time I cleaned firesides I thought I was gonna die in there.”
The senior fireman had not exaggerated. After the boiler’s tubes had been cleaned, McKenna had to enter his assigned section of the furnace (the furnace itself, of course, was turned off) through a small access hole into the combustion chamber. Mac found soot piled thigh deep in the chamber. For illumination he carried a small electric light that was pitifully inadequate. His work stirred up the soot, which covered him in blackness and made it almost impossible to see anything. The senior fireman had not softened the work’s effects on the sailor. The darkness, closeness, and soot seemed to penetrate Mac. He wanted to run. Instead he retched. Gaining control of himself, the new fireman began bagging the soot and sending it out the access way so that it could be moved away from the ship.
McKenna next turned to wire brushing the tubes. This was the most difficult task, as it required both chipping and scraping, much like removing paint. The sailor broke down the work into small squares. He fantasized that the squares were a new land, and he the explorer. In his mind the square patches of corrosion became a homestead. As each bit of the square of corrosion peeled away, the homestead was cleared of trees, the land was plowed, and crops were planted. Again, McKenna moved the scraper across the square. He now had built a fantasy log house and rail fences.
Finally finished with his labors, McKenna found himself “absolutely black.” His knees and elbows were rubbed raw, the “raw flesh . . . more black than red.”24
During his first year in Guam, Mac found some diversion ashore on the island. His scrapbook has a notice about an enlisted men’s dance on 24 October 1933 at the recreation hall of the Marine barracks in Guam. As there has always been friction between Marines and sailors, Mac may not have attended, but in any case, as time passed, McKenna eventually found other activities while in his home port.
By 11 November 1933 Guamanian stevedores had loaded more cargo into the holds of Gold Star from lighters. As the ship was moored to a buoy in the harbor, freight was loaded into shallow draft barges, brought out to the ship, and transferred into the ship’s cargo holds. In the maritime world this process is known as lightering. When Gold Star returned to Guam and moored to the mooring buoy, stevedores moved the cargo from the ship to barges, and the lighters transported the material to shore for further unloading.
Gold Star departed Apra Harbor, this time en route to Manila. The normal complement of health-cruise passengers, minus the Guam militia, was on board. Gold Star remained in Manila for one week. While in Manila Mac went ashore and located a used-book store, where he purchased two books illustrating his eclectic reading habits. One volume, for $2.75, contained tables for logarithms, and the other volume was a Spanish-language book he sent to the Spanish professor he had had at the College of Idaho.25
Gold Star departed for the Crown Colony of Hong Kong and moored to a buoy on Sunday, 26 November. The ship, whenever possible, used a buoy to save money on dockage fees. On 1 December Gold Star departed for Yokohoma, Japan.
Yokohama was the favorite port of Gold Star sailors, and the ship invariably touched there on each of its many visits to Japan. The city’s location, with railroad connections, made easy access to many other cities: Tokyo, for example, is approximately seventeen miles (twenty-seven kilometers) from the port. McKenna found the easygoing ways of Gold Star life both beneficial and problematic. The crew of Goldie Maru received generous liberty in Yokohama. Whereas most sailors in the fleet were granted time ashore every other day at 1600, Gold Star divided the sailors up into three sections and allowed two sections ashore at a time, beginning at 1300. This arrangement was hard on Mac’s fourteen dollars.
With Gold Star moored to a buoy at Yokohama, liberty boats ran from the ship to shore and back. Mac and his shipmates went ashore with officers, passengers, and enlisted men in the same craft. McKenna wore dress whites in the summer in foreign ports. At this time, dress whites had a dark collar and cuffs, with white stripes on the cuffs. After they had arrived at the pier, the people from the boat broke up into smaller groups, taking taxis or walking to the various parts of Yokohama. On his first liberty Mac explored the port. He picked up pamphlets and cards for everything from bars to drug stores. One such information sheet advertised the Pacific Ballroom at 157 Yamashita-Cho, Frank Sato, “proprietor.” According to the sheet, the ballroom was “one of the latest style dance hall in city port of Yokohama, and is the ideal rendezvous for spending your hours ashore. . . . After a long voyage you will find here a pleasant and happy atmosphere and appreciate a happy welcome, the most splended [sic] and paular [sic] music that awaits you in this dance hall.”26
Gold Star departed Yokohama after a week in the port and arrived back at Guam on 20 December, thus ending the underway time for 1933. All passengers left the ship.27
For a young man who wanted to travel, observe his surroundings, and meet fascinating people, Richard McKenna’s first assignment outside the United States could have been scripted by a screenwriter. His home port was at an island that few people in the United States knew anything about, plus the ship’s deployments allowed Mac to see the Philippines, China, and Japan. The future seemed promising for McKenna.
1934
The year 1934 at first did not go well for McKenna. Cleaning firesides was not the only detail foisted on those who had yet to reach petty officer status.
