Faith of My Fathers Read Free Page B

appreciation of the performance.
    In today’s slang, he lived large. He was called Sid by his family and Slew by his fellow officers, for reasons I never learned. He liked to take his shoes off when he worked and walk around the office in his stocking feet. He smoked, swore, drank, and gambled at every opportunity he had. His profile in the 1943
Current Biography
described him as “one of the Navy’s best plain and fancy cussers.”
    Rear Admiral Howard Kuehl served on my grandfather’s staff as a young lieutenant during the campaign for the Solomon Islands, when my grandfather commanded all land-based aircraft in the South Pacific. In an article he wrote about his wartime experiences, he affectionately recounted an example of his boss’s colorful idiosyncrasies.
    In addition to his other duties, Kuehl served as the wine mess treasurer, an assignment that obliged him to maintain a meager inventory of liquor for the officers’ recreational use and to obtain from my grandfather and his staff officers adequate funds for that purpose. When an officer received transfer orders, he was entitled to a refund of his wine mess share. In September 1942, after my grandfather had received orders reassigning him to Washington, Kuehl visited him on the afternoon before his scheduled departure. Dutifully attempting to return my grandfather’s share of the kitty, he was momentarily taken aback when my grandfather ordered that it be returned “in kind.” Summoning considerable courage, Kuehl informed his boss that because liquid spirits were a precious commodity aboard ship it was an unofficial but scrupulously observed custom that an officer returning to the States would not take any with him. Assuming no further admonishment was necessary, Kuehl then handed over to my disgruntled grandfather the money owed to him.
    The next morning, my grandfather’s staff lined up at the gangway to shake his hand and bid him an affectionate farewell. When he reached his intrepid wine mess treasurer, he shot him a look of affected displeasure and said, “Kuehl, goddammit, you’re a crook.”
    My mother often recounts the occasions when her father-in-law would order her to accompany him on a long night of carousing in his favorite gambling den of the moment. He seemed to have one in every place he was stationed. He also managed to spend considerable time at horse tracks, where his enthusiasm for the sport was evident in the sums of money he spent to make it interesting. As commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS
Ranger,
he would order his yeoman into the first boat headed ashore whenever the
Ranger
came into home port, tasking him with the urgent business of placing his bets with the local bookie.
    A young ensign, William Smedberg, fresh from the Naval Academy, reported for duty to the USS
New Mexico,
where my grandfather was serving as executive officer. An hour after he arrived he was summoned to my grandfather’s cabin. Apparently, the ship’s home port hosted a rowing regatta among the officers and enlisted men of the various ships stationed there, and my grandfather, being a sporting man who enjoyed a good wager, had taken a keen interest in the event. He had examined Ensign Smedberg’s record at the Academy and discovered he had been coxswain on an Academy crew. Smedberg recounted their exchange:
    â€œYoung man, I understand that you were a coxswain at the Naval Academy?”
    â€œYes, sir, I was coxswain of the hundred-and-fifty-pound crew.”
    â€œWell, that’s good, because you’re going to be coxswain now of the officers’ crew and the enlisted crew. You’re to take them both out every morning we’re in port at five o’clock. And you’re to win both those races.”
    They won both races, making my grandfather a happy and somewhat more prosperous man. (Ensign Smedberg would eventually reach flag rank, serve as Superintendent of the Naval