The excitement of finishing boot training and the thought of a great train ride
to a new location for a school or ship assignment had been heavy at boot camp
in San Diego. To those of us who rode a Navy Bus to the Balboa Park Zoo to get
ready for gunnery training in the same town, it was a great letdown. There were
not even any permanent quarters for us, just a hastily built barracks and bath
house. Meals were trucked in to us. We were like the rest of the animals caged
there.

We rode a bus to and from the San Diego Destroyer Base for our gunnery training.
There was not even a staff of people, just one single Boatswains Mate second
class as the sole instructor. The only guns they had to train us on were a
very old four inch fifty, a 50 caliber water cooled machine gun and a 30 caliber
machine gun.

We were given mimeographed copies of the four inch fifty deck gun manual and it soon
became obvious that the instructor was more interested in us learning the names
of the parts of the gun than he was in teaching us how to fire it. The gun was
a relic of World War I and in very poor condition. We were rotated to the various
positions of pointer, trainer, first loader, second loader, hot shellman and gun
captain, but we never actually fired the gun. The gun was so corroded that at
times it was all you could do to point or train the gun. It took more muscle
than brains, for sure.

We went to the Destroyer Base every day for about two weeks, wrestling with the
four inch gun and staring at the machine guns while the instructor read us a
manual I was convinced he had never read before and had little idea what it all
meant.

Finally, we were taken by bus to a very old destroyer to put in practice what we
had learned. We discovered the destroyer did not have a four inch gun. Instead, it
had a Spanish American era three inch 23 1/2 gun. This gun was designed to be 
broken down into pieces and loaded on mules to transport it across land and then
reassembled for firing.

The combination of a three inch bore and a short 70 inch barrel resulted in an
unbelievable impact when it was fired. Every time it was fired it felt like you
had been hit in the face with a boxing glove. When it was my turn to fire it, I
fired and blood started gushing from my nose. I fired it again, somewhat
apprehensively, and the gunnery officer assigned to us started yelling that I
had flinched and tried to wash me out of gunnery school. His superior just
laughed and said, "Hell, so did I and my nose was not bleeding."

Then it was back to the Destroyer Base the following day for our final day
and testing. The test consisted of naming the parts of the four inch gun. The
instructor had the student being tested stand on the dock with his back to the
bay and name the parts he pointed to and then give the names of the parts
making it up. When a student did not satisfy the instructor, he put his hand
on the student's chest and pushed him in the bay. Well, I could not swim due
to my body having zero flotation and I got worried. I eased to the back of
the line and started memorizing those parts as fast as I could read. I
have never forgotten those names, right down to the Whelen Interruptive
Rotating Screw Plug locking pin retaining spring. I passed the test without 
being drowned.

I think we all knew that the three week training on guns was totally useless
and none of us were prepared to fire a gun in the Armed Guard. Nevertheless,
we were sent to Treasure Island to await assignment to our first ship.

I was assigned to the SS Charles M Hall exactly 7 weeks after I left the
recruiting office headed for boot training and the ship had a five inch
fifty bag gun, which none of the Armed Guards assigned had ever heard of,
including the Boatswain Mate assigned because no Gunners Mates were
available.

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