Long before the Golden Gate Bridge this strait existed. We know the history of the gate, it's naming and why we find it important today. But here you can listen to stories from people who have interracted with it over time. You can hear what they thought, and in some cases how they felt. What stories of the Golden Gate will you make?
Plane over Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archive, GOGA 35301
"All of a sudden, the tower called downstairs and said -gave the aircraft number, and I forget what it was now -said, 'The airplane just went under the Bridge.' I said, 'You got to be kidding!'" - Iva Young
Iva Young
Interview with Iva Young discussing various experiences in the military between 1964 and 1968.
Haller: (001) [My name is] Stephen Haller, Park Historian for Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and I am here at the Maritime Museum Library in Fort Mason on June 14, 1995, with Iva Young. Iva is retired First Sergeant in the United States Army, and was the Flight Operations Sergeant at Crissy Army Airfield from 1964 to 1968. We are taping this interview for the archives of Golden Gate National Recreation Area; and Iva, I understand that I have your permission to make this recording, and for the National Park Service to retain all literary property rights to this recording. Is that correct?
Young: (006) That's correct, Steve.
Haller: (009) Well, thanks very much for being here today. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Why don't we start out by telling a little bit about yourself and your family background and youth. Can you do that for us?
Young: (012) Sure. Uh, I was born and raised on a farm back in Wisconsin, and come from a background of farm families. My great -my great -my grandparents as it were came from Germany and settled in the homesite which was our homesite for years and years and years. I went to high school in my home town, small community, one high school class, consisted of eight girls and one boy. If you think that wasn't an interesting class!
Haller: (016) I can well imagine! [Laughter]
Young: (018) [Laughter] Anyway, finished high school. I worked for a few years, and I had decided right after I got out of school that I was interested in going into the Army. 'Course, going to high school during the World War II days, and my folks always made sure that the kids were up to date on the news and this type of thing - I guess that makes me a news junkie to this day - but I was always interested in this. However, in that day and age, women had to be 21 to get in the service, so I had to wait 2-1/2 years.
Haller: (025) So, what day and age was that when you joined the Army?
Young: (026) So, I was 21, in '50 -early on in '50.
Haller: (026) 1950.
Young: (027) And, uh, joined up, didn't have to have the permission of anybody, I'm a legal citizen now, I can do what I want ... But anyway, I joined up, went to Fort Lee, Virginia, which was at that time the basic training assignment, and took my basic training. Stayed there for a while on an assignment; went to Fort Meade, Maryland. I always have been interested in transportation, that's been another factor in my whole career. So, I got in the motor pool, drove - everywhere -loved every minute of it, worked my way up through the ranks in the motor pool. Then I went overseas to France, to Orleans, and got into Transportation and Movements, movements of personnel and supplies and all that kind of good stuff. It was a very interesting tour. My first time out of the country, and it was quite an experience to go to France. Coming from a German background, this was … this was an eye-opener. It was a good duty. Left there, came back to the States, to New York. I was stationed in Brooklyn Army Terminal, right in the heart of New York. And meantime, I had re-enlisted twice. Stayed in New York, worked at the Brooklyn Army Terminal for quite a length of time, and then I spent a short tour as an Army representative in the Air Force at McGuire Air Force Base. I was there about a year. I then went back overseas to Stuttgart, Germany. More Transportation. There I picked up another rank and I was an NCO in the Movements and Control Office in Stuttgart, for the – Southern German Command. Again, a very interesting tour. I loved to go there, and I go back every once in a while when I have a chance. Left Germany, and come out to the Presidio. Initially, I was assigned to the XVth Corps, which at that time was - oh, like the Reserve, oversight of the Reserve Command. I got here and there were some changes made in assignments.
Haller: (056) So you got to the Presidio in 1964?
Young: (057) Yes. I got to the Presidio in 1964.
Haller: (057) How do you feel that your service career was influenced by the fact that you were a woman? How did that affect it?
Young: (059) As far as my duties?
Haller: (060) Were you limited? Did you feel limited in your assignments? Did you feel …
Young: (061) I didn't feel limited in assignment, because I was doing every place I ever went I was always doing what I wanted to do. There were many more restrictions on women in the service at that point in time, even up until the ... oh my goodness, even into the '70s there were still restrictions. It's pretty lenient now, there are only just a few MOSs or activities that women cannot serve in, mainly combat, and even that's beginning to ease off.
Haller: (068) Uh huh. Now, "MOS" is "Military Occupation Specialty"?
Young: (069) Military Occupational Specialty. So, as far as being a woman in the service after World War II, there were still a lot of women there; and in fact, during the Korean build up and just before I retired, there was - the Women's service - Women's Army Corps service, that is - was good sized.
Haller: (074) Were the outfits that you were in, these transportation outfits, integrated in terms of the sexes then?
Young: (076) I always was with a mixed unit. The billeting was always separate. It wasn't until just a few years ago that they made billeting co-ed. We were always billeted separately. For example, when I was in Germany, the women were quartered with the ... well, I think it was the 75th Station Hospital when I was first there. And probably had one of the finest buildings built in the United States Army for our billets. It was fantastic. That made the whole assignment for me. It was beautiful. An 11-story building, looked out over the city of Stuttgart. It was pretty nice. We were just attached there; I was not in the Hospital, per se, I was just attached there for billeting, because women had to be billeted together, they couldn't be billeted separately, or co-ed. So, that would be the main factor. Otherwise, all of the units were always together, man and woman. I worked almost always with men, and as I went up through the ranks, I had men working for me - some fantastic guys. I worked for some fantastic guys.
Haller: (091) Did you feel ... it sounds like ... you feel that your career and the work that you were able to do was just judged on the basis of merit? Is that a correct assumption?
Young: (094) That's right. That's right. You also have to remember - I'm not exactly the ... what do I want to call it -The - "Queen-of-the- Army" - not exactly. – I’m a little bit on the rough side, being a farm kid; I know how to work and I know how to take command and I know how to give command. Like I said, a person can make or break their own, but for myself, I never had any problems.
Haller: (099) It sounds like you were able to fit right in, and you were really cut out for it.
Young: (101) It was my life. I loved it. I really did. It isn’t everybody who can do it. But I enjoyed it.
Haller: (102) How did you get into the aviation branch? And tell me, what kind of Military Occupational Specialty was that?
Young: (104) Well, I can't give you the numbers any more, because I can't remember them ...
Haller: (105) That's not ...
Young: (105) ...and they've changed a lot since then, but Army Aviation which -not to confuse it with Air Force - Army Aviation was in fact a rather small complex and a small part of the United States Army at that point in time, and then later built up as Korea became big; and Vietnam, of course - that was the thing, Vietnam. The jobs involved here were operations; training; maintenance, of course. Here at the Presidio, we did all our own maintenance except for upper echelon maintenance. It was all done right here on site. Traffic Control Dispatch, administrative - there always has to be administrative help somewhere - somebody has to do the typing.
Haller: (116) Was Army Aviation considered a separate corps - arm of the service - or was it part of the Transportation corps?
Young: (117) Initially, it was integrated in other parts of the Army, and I can't recall exactly how it went now ... at one time, it was part of Artillery, as I recall, and Transportation, and then Aviation became its own separate entity. And this was particularly good for the officers, because this put them in a branch, and they didn't have to contend - or they didn't have to compete - with other branches. As far as the enlisted, it was helpful, too, because we now had special MOS's that earmarked us as being aviation trained.
Haller: (126) And now, that had been the case during the time period when you were at Crissy Field. So, how did you come to be assigned to Crissy Field? Was that just one of the mysteries of the Army bureaucracy?
Young: (128) No, that was one of the few times when I probably maneuvered a little bit on my own. I was here at the Presidio in Transportation – worked right here, just down the street from where you are there, for a long time. I was excess, surplus to the Transportation office and I had decided, “Ah, I gotta get out of this.” Our office was right there at the end of the runway. I used to sit there at lunch time and watch the airplanes and helicopters. So I put in for Flight Operations training. And got it. Which was probably one of the very few times I got what I really wanted. Went to Fort Rucker, which was the center of Army Aviation, did my training, and came back. And when I got back here to the Presidio, which was Post Presidio at that time, there was an opening in Sixth Army Aviation Flight Detachment and I walked right into it. Bingo. Just like that. Great.
Haller: (143) Was it normal to be assigned to stateside duties after a tour of duty in Germany?
Young: (144) Oh, yeah.
Haller: (144) Or a couple of tours ...
Young: (145) As a general rule, once you are overseas--as a general rule now--you usually come stateside.
Haller: (147) So that's how you ended up at the Presidio ...
Young: (147) I ended up at the Presidio on a normal assignment with a different corps, and then was later transferred over to the Post itself, and then I was excess, and that's when I said, "No, I gotta do something different," and that's how I got here.
Haller: (150) What was Operations training? What did it cover?
Young: (150) Dispatching. Dispatching of aircraft, handling of records, radio communications…oh, maintaining equipment. Records and dispatching of aircraft, maintaining records of aircraft is a full-time job. Depending on the operation, somebody has to be there all the time, you see. You had to be on your toes. You had to work with the maintenance people. I stayed in Operations then for some time, and then a position opened up with the Flight Detachment for Flight Simulator Training. I put in for it – got it! Went back to Fort Rucker – that was a long session. That was a long, rough session, but good fun – enjoyable. Difficult, but enjoyable. I came back out here to Presidio – I was still assigned – still assigned to Flight Detachment. Came right back out here. And then we got back into the Flight Simulator Trainer. We had a blue box here for a long, long time that they didn’t use very much. They didn’t have anybody to use it.
Haller: (168 )What's the blue box?
Young: (169) The Link Trainer. I started doing some training – refresher training… and then there was… Well, there’s always a problem with personnel in the United States Army – I don’t care where they are. One day, you’ll have 15 people – 15 too many people, and the next day you’ll have 10 – you’re short 10. And this is what happened over in Operations. All of a sudden the Flight Operations sergeant and one of the dispatchers was gone -nobody was corning in, and I was back over in Operations, and then kinda fluctuated between the two positions. And then I got one of my own dispatchers and got him off to school. He came back to Training, and I stayed right there in Operations.
Haller: (181) Now, the trainer, this Link Trainer was in Building 639? The Flight Operations building?
Young: (182) Well, the building was ... the little building behind the hangar. It’s still there. I know it’s still there. It was attached to the hangar.
Haller: (184) In the same building as the Operations?
Young: (185) No, it was the hangar.
Haller: (185) Oh, attached to the hangar. Okay…
Young: (185) It was a little building in the back ...
Haller: (186) It's called Building 641.
Young: (187) I can't remember the numbers now. Yeah, it was numbered a separate building, I know that; but it was attached to the hangar, you could go through the hangar. That's where it was.
Haller: (189 ) And the hangar we're talking about now, just for the sake of clarity, is the one near the Operations building, and near the Flight Tower, correct? [ ed note: reference to "hangar" is to Building 640]
Young: (192) The tower was on the east end, the Flight Operations and the Company building was the low, onestory building that went toward the hangar. The hangar set just a little bit off - offset a little bit from the Operations, and behind that was this attached building, that you're calling 641 ... which is where this Link Trainer was.
Haller: (198) What does the Link come from in your training? Is that someone's name?
Young: (199) That's the manufacturer. And I ... what's the word I want to use? The gentleman who developed this particular system - this is long, long, long before there was electronics as we know it in this day and age; most of it was mechanical. It was a real neat little outfit to work with. I enjoyed working with it.
Haller: (204) Now, this is essentially a flight simulator ...
Young: (205) A flight simulator.
Haller: (205) Okay. So, the point is to familiarize someone with what it's like to be behind the controls of an aircraft before they actually leave the ground?
Young: (208) Well, it's used in training, in aviation flight training and basic flight training. But also bear in mind that the new ones now are just like airplanes in this day and age -they're just exactly like an airplane. That wasn't quite that way. You had to use a little imagination. But what we used it for here at Crissy was continuous training for people that instrument train. Remember, the aviators here are all trained -most of them have combat, most of them have been to 'Nam, and many of them had been through the War – through World War II. So, flying was nothing. They could fly the livin’ dickens out of just about anything they were qualified to fly. But, there were times when you needed refresher this or a new system was being worked on, or we were setting up a new approach in an area and we'd crank it in and say, "Well, let's try it out." They didn't fly instruments all the time -although there was instrument flying getting out of here most of the time. So, if you don’t fly that much, you tend to get a little rusty. The basis for it was just to keep people fresh.
Haller: (228) Basically, it's a compart ... it's like the cockpit of an aircraft, correct?
Young: (229) The Link was, like I said, it took a little imagination, but you got the basic feel. The Link could be used either open -the top could be open, and you could just watch the instruments you're working with, the instruments in front of you -the Link had a joystick -control stick -it didn't have a wheel to control it. Then, for real, honest-to-goodness instrument work, it had a sliding top on it. You could close it up and you're encased in there, just as if you were in the clouds. And now, from there on in you go fly, and watching it down here was what we used to call the "bug" -a little electrical unit that was attached to the simulator and sat on a table about the size of this desk -this is a standard size desk we're looking at -and it had a glass top, another glass top, with maps of different areas, or you could slide maps under it. And you would take the aviator into the cockpit and say, "Okay, we're gonna go from point here to point there, and I'm gonna give you some instruction as you go along." And then I'd close the top, and they're in the clouds. And away we'd go.
Haller: (248) And they maneuvered it using the joystick …
Young: (249) They maneuvered it by the instruments they were looking at, and I'm watching; or I'm giving instructions. I acted as a controller, for example.
Haller: (250) ... and you're getting a read-out on this ...
Young: (251) ... and I'm watching the read-out as they do it.
Haller: (252) ... got it ...
Young: (252) ... enjoyable - I enjoyed it.
Haller: (252) Were you ever trained to fly? Did you ever fly?
Young: (253) I flew ... I had a private license at one time, but I have an eye condition which, as I got older, got worse. Women were not authorized to fly military aircraft at that point. That's just in the last - what? - ten years, twelve years maybe. So, there was no way, although there were times when ... I took the stick a few times. [Laughter]
Haller: (260) Did you?
Young: (260) Oh, yeah. And so, we weren’t allowed to fly military airplanes of any kind. It was a no-no.
Haller: (263) You talked about some of the typical things you were trained to do, and I assume that translates then over into those were the typical duties that you performed at Crissy Field?
Young: (267) Hmm hmm .
Haller: (267) Maintenance, records of aircraft ...
Young: (268) Flight Operations.
Haller: (268) To me that means you'd be up there in the control tower?
Young: (270) Uh, could be. I was a trained controller – not at that time. I had my certificate later.
Haller: (272) So, Operations is not the same as flight controller ...
Young: (272) Not necessarily the same ... There's two - break it down this way: We had a tower and we had controllers most of the time. We were strictly a VFR tower; that is, there was no giving instructions for instrument flight weather ... that ... we couldn't do that, because we just didn't have the facilities; particularly, when you're sitting down here in the middle of San Francisco, looking out over the Bay, with the Bridge behind you - you gotta do what we called "VFR" - "visual flight readings." It was just there to ... it wasn't just there ... it was there to give advice, to assist and observe and watch aircraft come and depart, departing and returning. Now, that could also be handled without a control tower. You can handle that downstairs on the lower level in the Operations. The dispatchers were all trained to ... to give advice, give aircraft advisories, give aviation advisories - the winds, what's the weather today? What's it look like? Any traffic in the area? Etc., etc., etc. We could do that without seeing the aircraft. This is what they call an "advisory." And we did that many, many times. Because the tower was not always open twenty-four hours a day--we never had that many people. So, we used to call it our own control tower down below. We had a window that would swing out so you looked out at the runway ... [Laughter] So, that was the part of Operations that has to be manned, as a general rule, 24 hours a day, depending upon how much activity you have. Another function was scheduling flights. Flight Detachment was there as a support - that's what it is. It supports-or did--it supports ... the commands in this area. That includes all the facilities on the Presidio, which were tenants. The Sixth Army, of course, was the major command, and that's what the Flight Detachment was, it was the Sixth Army Flight Detachment at that time. And, so, scheduling was a big thing. We had a scheduling board up there on the wall that was ... probably, let's see if I can remember now - ten feet long and about four or five feet high where we kept all our flights scheduled. What it amounts to is, here's a mission that somebody wants to go to Timbuktu, we've got to determine what type of aircraft we need -how many passengers there’s gonna be determines the aircraft or the cargo ... Who do I have who can fly this? Am I going to have this aircraft ready to go ... That's why we had to coordinate with maintenance very closely. That was a big factor, a big part of the job. Another big part of the job was maintaining records, aviator's records. They didn't maintain their own. They aren't--the operations crew maintain their flight records and that could get kind of detailed, The Army's changed their systems a lot, but most of it was working with forms covering certain phases of flying - the visual flying, instrument flying, maintenance, co-pilot, pilot, their positions in the aircraft, and it was recorded with a stubby pencil. It was an everyday job.
Haller: (330) Describe the kinds of missions that were typical at Crissy Field, or any unusually interesting ones, for that matter.
Young: (333) Well, the main mission, of course, was support to the General Commander.
Haller: (335) Who would be doing what?
Young: (335) Who would be going anywhere in the Sixth Army area, or wherever else the Commander would require him to be. That was our main function, was to take the Commander and his staff wherever they wanted to go, wherever they needed to go ... The mission was also to support other functions. Most of these were passengers ... we did mostly passenger trips. We carried some cargo. We supported EOD, in which ... uh yeah ... bomb disposal came here, was here at Sixth Army, here at the Presidio ...
Haller: (347) "EOD" is "Emergency Ordinance Disposal"?
Young: (348) “Emergency Ordinance Disposal”. That was a rather interesting function. And this was in the days before there was so much fuss about movement of arms and weapons across the country. A lot of the weapons were moved across the country by train. And when you ... railroads, when the trains would be up in the mountains, the EODs of the various areas ... for example, there's one here in Presidio; there'd be one in Fort Lewis; there'd be one in Fort Carson; and various and sundry places. They would be on alert during the movement of this particular train or load or whatever it might be. We were then on alert to have available a certain aircraft and two pilots always had to be ready to go. And we had to pull out a couple of times and make some flights to some outlying areas up in the mountains and at certain airports, wherever they had the trouble. Nothing serious thank goodness, nothing blew up, but it's scary when you get that call in the middle of the night saying, "Okay, let's go -hey, guys, let's go!" So that meant that we always had to have a dispatcher available; maintenance had to be available; two pilots had to be available -that was minimum.
Haller: (374) And, obviously, aircraft ...
Young: (376) Aircraft always had to be ready. And the airplane would depend upon what particular area you were going into, what fuel you had to carry with you. They would know that. Sometimes we had to go out with two, depending on how much equipment they had to carry with them.
Haller: (380) At one point you discussed that, as the Vietnam conflict began to build up, that Crissy Field was used more and more for trans-shipment of wounded from Travis Air Force Base to Letterman Hospital. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Young: (387) That's right! That was a big mission. Heartbreaking mission sometimes, but very rewarding. The wounded coming out of Vietnam -very briefly, would need to come through Japan through Honolulu, or through Hawaii, and then fly ... and then they'd be flown into an area nearest their homes, generally, depending on their wounds, of course. The flights would go into Travis - the Air Force flights, Medivac flights -would go into Travis, and then for patients coming down to Letterman, depending on the condition of the patient -we didn't move all of them. But if it's a patient that needed to be here quickly, or could not stand that long trip in an ambulance or a bus, or whatever, then we would fly up and get 'em. We started out initially with an Otter, which is a single engine, heavy airplane made by DeHavilland – big ol’ Otter. And it could carry slings – it was big enough that we could put slings in there – slings…uh, what do I want to call ‘em?
Haller: (411) Stretchers?
Young: (412) Stretchers! We'd sling hangers ... uh, string stretchers in there. Uh, we used that one for quite a while. As I can recall, we probably used that Otter every part of the year, and that was the only plane that could ... the only we had at that time that could take stretchers. It was kind of neat -the crew chief on that plane, he took care of that like a ... like a little baby. This was a fixed-wing plane, now, a tail-dragger, a fixed-wing. And he even took the little hubs on the front wheel and the two rear and painted them white and put red crosses on 'em. That was kind of neat, seeing that thing rolling up. People knew what that was, too, when they saw that rascal flying along. That caught everybody's attention.
Haller: (428) There's a picture of an Otter in the photo collection that you donated, so I remember it well.
Young: (430) Um hmm, um hmm ... And that might be "Quad-deuce" -that was the one tail number that I remember. That tail number was -I forget the first number, I think it was five. Two-two-two-two. We used to call it "Quaddeuce" -that's what we called it, I recall ... [Laughter]
Haller: (435) Great. Great.
Young: (436) But that was the one that we used for Medivac. But then, as time went on, helicopters became available, the 'Nam thing was standing down to a sense ... New helicopters were corning into the system, so the Flight Detachment -the Executive Flight Detachment in D.C., the Pentagon -got H-34's that had been used there, and they were being ... those aircraft were being replaced by the Hueys. The Hueys were then corning into the system. So, the H-34's was being moved out into the field and lo and behold we got one, that first one that came out here, specifically for that purpose, to transport patients and stretchers, particularly who were on stretchers, on the H-34's. That was what we used. I used to ... one little gimmick here -one little thing that used to bother me sometimes -I never mentioned this to any of the patients, and I talked to several of the patients after they got home, but I can imagine this Otter ... I can imagine this wounded GI lying on a stretcher, he’s just arrived at Travis in, usually a jet, with all kinds of service – nurses and all this good stuff. And they wheel him off that jet and take him over here to this little ol', single-engine Otter -you know, that must be -that must have been a shock! [Laughter.) I was always afraid to ask them if that was a fact. But, that had to be a shock. But we always got 'em here!
Haller: (471) What other effects did the Vietnam conflict have on you or your colleagues, or the soldiers that you knew in your operations? How did it go in those years?
Young: (477) Well, I suppose you think ... now, you think about what's happened as far as the Vietnam veterans are concerned, sort of the bad rap many of them are getting. Some of the guys coming back were ... were a little uh -I don't know what the word I want to use is ... First of all, some of them were a little apprehensive coming back from a combat zone into an environment where there were women. Some of the guys were working for me. Some of the fellahs didn't seem to mind at all. The aviators, of course, they had a mission when they were over there -and some interesting stories come back with these guys ... One of the warrant officers I worked with there, W-4, lives up here in Petaluma now. He was shot down twice that I know of. And ended up with a broken back, and nobody knew it for a long, long time, until he got back here in the States. Pretty bad shape, tough guy, real sweet. Big ol' teddy bear, but he thought he was tough. Oh, the guys talk amongst themselves, of course. When they got back here, the younger ones had a little bit of the culture shock, simply because when they got back here they didn't have Hueys. We didn't have Hueys in Flight Detachment for a long, long time.
End of Side One
Young: (001 )But the Hueys were earmarked for combat unit training, like Benning, and Bliss and places like that, and of course, for Vietnam. So, most of the younger aviators ... [tape turned over]
Haller: (004) ... and the young veterans corning back home to something of a culture shock, from coming from what I guess you call "hot" aircraft to some of the antiques?
Young: (007) Little bit older ones that we had here.
Haller: (007) So what were the ... what aircraft were highly thought of? What did you like to fly? What were the typical aircraft, I guess? What did you like to fly? What were the dogs?
Young: (010) Well, I don't know as any of them were really "dogs" -a dog in an aircraft is like a dog in a car. There's a certain model somewhere along the line that will always be a dog, I don't care what ... its brothers and sisters can all sit beside it and be great, and there will be one in that bunch; it always happens. But, during Vietnam, 'course the Huey came to be used that was the ultimate, at that time, for the Army. Then the Chinook, the twin-engine rotor, not "Shakey" but the Chinook H-47 was rather sophisticated -at its time, it was sophisticated as far as Army aircraft was concerned. These are helicopters ... of course, the intent all along, basically, was that the Army was to stay with helicopters -that was to be the mission -pick up troops, transport troops, move troops, Medivacs and supplies. The fixed-wing part of the Army, that's how Army aviation started out of course, was with fixedwing. The little “bird dog”, which was used as an observe during World War II, over in Europe.
Haller: (026) What was before the bird dog?
Young: (026) The 0-1 ... uh, for the life of me, I can't think of the name ... Piper made one. There was two or three of them ...
Haller: (029) [Unintelligible]
Young: (029) ... it's a little tandem two-seater, a pilot and a passenger. Tandem, single-engine, little guy, lots of windows on the side, used for observation.
Haller: (031) Which is what the "O" was for ...
Young: (031) Yeah. Then the Army picked up several of the U- 6's--the Beaver--which, again, is another DeHavilland, smaller than the Otter, same principal idea, but just smaller. A good cargo plane. I liked them. I liked the Beaver. I got some bootleg time with them. It was good -well, small and pokey -but it was a good airplane. DeHavilland makes a good airplane.
Haller: (037) That's sort of an interesting connection for me, because the classic airplane of the early years at Crissy Field was also a DeHavilland, it was the DH-4 ...
Young: (039) Oh, yes.
Haller: (039) I remember your saying that in the later years of Crissy Army Airfield, the DeHavilland was pretty typical and highly thought of, also.
Young: (041) DeHavilland - the Army also bought from DeHavilland the Caribou, which was the big, twin-engine cargo plane that now the Air Force has, those that are left. A good-sized plane – that was the one that had a big, sloping tail on it. Cargo plane. Had a drop ramp.
Haller: (044) That type was never used at Crissy Field, was it?
Young: (045) We didn't have 'em - they weren't assigned to us, but there was quite a story to this - to the Caribou, if we have time to go into that.
Haller: (046) No, tell me the story.
Young: In the - '65 or '66 - I think it was '65, there was, in the winter, there were some terrible, terrible floods up north, in Ukiah, Eureka, Fortuna, and up in that area. Those people were just inundated with terrible storms. And so, Sixth Army Flight Detachment was tasked to get up there and help. And, again, all we had at that point was observation helicopters - we did have observation helicopters, not the OH-6 ..• I'm losing my train of thought here ... Anyway, we didn't have helicopters to use for heavy lift or transport or anything more than one passenger, so we were using fixed- wing. The Otter was used extensively for that. We also had Beeches, U-8s, went back and forth ... bearing in mind that the U-8, the Beech twin-engine, always had to have a pretty fair runway. It was not a rough use airplane. We used the Otter a lot. I can remember when one of our captains that flew in somewhere in the Fortuna area in the Otter, ol' QuadDeuce, and put that rascal down in a canyon where there was a family, a handicapped family, were down in this canyon and couldn't get out. The roads were out, all the bridges were washed out, the mud was sliding, and he put that Otter in there, picked this family up, and flew it out of there. And people might not have believed it, but I saw the dirt and mud and sticks sticking out of the end of the wings when he come back with it, so, he did. (Unintelligible] ... that's quite a trip. But, meantime, we had a mission to get as much supplies and this type of thing up there as we could possibly get - help to get supplies - the Caribou is twin-engine, heavy lift, fixed-wing, as I was just mentioning, was in the system at that time, and it was ... most of them were on the East Coast, I think, Benning, or someplace out in there, so the Army tasked whatever facility that was to fly two Caribou out here and support us - help the Sixth Army support the mission up in the north. We knew the Caribou were coming in this particular day, they were coming across the south, and we had gotten word that they were going to stay overnight up in Fort Ord. It was getting late in the day. Crissy is not the best place to come into at night if you are not familiar with it, obviously. So, that was the last word we had. Then my dispatcher called me later in the evening and said, "You better get down here, this one Caribou wants to fly in." So, I went down, and sure enough, he was over at Oakland -they landed in Oakland. I said, "No, you stay right there, and I'll send a car over for you." We had billets already set up for 'em here at Presidio. "No, no," he says, "I'll bring it in -I've been there before." And I -yeah, I remembered -sort of remembered him then. His name had jolted me earlier, and I said, "I should know this guy." But I didn't at the time. Well, anyway, who am I to tell him he can't -tell him it was unsafe? It really wasn't unsafe, if he followed instructions. To make a long story short, he took off from Oakland. Oakland called us and said, "He's on his way." Right. We picked him up by radio -my dispatcher talked to him, told him exactly what he wanted him to do, where he wanted him to go and turn so that he'd come down and see Crissy. All the lights were on. Also, remember, Crissy sits right here alongside the Bay, right? And it also runs parallel to the highway, the viaduct, the overpass ...
Haller: (098) That's right.
Young: (099) Well, my dispatcher was doing his usual hanging out the window, looking for this Caribou. There's no way we're going to miss seeing this Caribou -he's big. It's got big, double lights which we didn't have on any of our planes. Finally, the dispatcher turns to me and says, "Sarge, I can't see him." "Well, ask him where he is." And he says, "I'm lined up with the runway."
Haller: (104) Oh, no.
Young: (105) I started to take the mike, and I said, "No, you tell him just go around. I want him to go out over the Bridge and come on around so we can see him." Well, he did -he listened -it suddenly dawned on him -I think he realized, "Hey, hey, I'm over the highway and not lined up with the runway." That scared the tar out of me.
Haller: (109) So ...
Young: (109) So I was shaky for about an hour after that one.
Haller: (110) So, this guy was trying to land on Doyle Drive!
Young: (110) Yeah, he was going to do Doyle Drive pancake right there!
Haller: (111) That's some story!
Young: (112) Oh, yeah, that had both - my dispatcher was a real sharp guy, but he was really shook up over that. Anyway, we got the plane out and got him over the Bridge, and got him turned around so we could see him, so we could watch him as he turned. And I did know him - he had been there before. But my boss wasn't too happy the next day. He was not too happy. Yes, Caribous went out of there on a regular - a Caribou can do a lot. A Caribou is like a C-5. If you've ever watched a C-5 land on a short field - it's unbelievable. But a Caribou can - you can equate it in that sense. People couldn't believe that big Caribou sitting out there on the runway.
Haller: (121) Hm hm. Do you remember the designation of the Caribou?
Young: (122) Caribou was CD-7, I believe. CD-7? Or was that the Air Force version of it? I know it was CD-7 at one time or another.
Haller: (124) That's fair enough.
Young: (125) The Air Force changed a lot of the designations when they took over [unintelligible].
Haller: (126) Just trying to get it - nothing crossreferenced ...
Young: [Unintelligible]
Haller: (127) Do you recall any other particularly memorable incidents that happened at Crissy Field?
Young: (128) Oh, yeah, there was a lot of 'em.
Haller: (128) Well, tell me some of 'em.
Young: (129) If we had a bunch of people sitting here, you'd hear stories that wouldn't quit. The old war stories, army stories. One of them I have never forgotten was, our executive officer at the time, a major, and a real sweet guy. Used to live up here where I live now - they've- moved since I have … But, a good aviator, and this one morning - one of the other missions that we had, one of the other units that we supported, was the veterinary office. They're the people that go out and inspect farms, because the Army buys meat, chickens, butter ...
Haller: (137) Okay ...
Young: (137) ... you know, all that good stuff, at various farms all around the country. So, one of our missions was to take some of the veterinary guys to these hidden towns where we'd go up and land and somebody would meet 'em, they'd go out and inspect the farm and come back - they'd probably spend a day inspecting different places. Anyway, that's what this mission was this particular day. And, it was a single pilot job that day. It was beautiful weather, one of those rare, rare, rare days when you could see the Farallons forever -you know, from almost off the Bridge. So, anyway, they're getting ready to go and the veterinarian came and got on board, the tower was open, so I wasn't paying attention -none of us was paying attention to the aircraft -that's the tower's job to get 'em out of there. All of a sudden, the tower called downstairs and said -gave the aircraft number, and I forget what it was now -said, "The airplane just went under the Bridge." I said, "You got to be kidding!" I got off my mike, "What are you talking about?" He said, "He just flew under the Bridge!" I said, “All right. Keep an eye on him. Look through our binoculars and make sure you’re watching him to make sure if he comes up.” We don’t know where he is. Once he got under the Bridge we had no idea where he was, because we couldn’t see him. And there was no radio contact at all. I went and got the boss right away. He came back. It was the XO, I don't think he was the CO at the time, ... stood there a few minutes, and the tower said, "I see him." And they were starting to climb, and now they were out beyond the - the headlands out there. So, he was going to Fortuna or someplace up in that area, so he was going to go out there and make a right turn and go north. So he did. Still no communications. Wouldn't answer the phone. Wouldn't answer the mikes, wouldn't answer the radio. So the Old Man says, "Get me an airplane and a pilot, right now." So we did. We got an airplane ready in a couple or three shakes, got another pilot, and the Old Man and this other pilot got on and away he went - swoosh -headed for Fortuna. And they never did catch up with him. When they landed, they found the airplane there, and the major got in the other airplane, and one of the other guys brought the Flight back. He didn’t fly for a while. That was forbidden. That was absolutely forbidden. First of all, it was against FAA regulations. But the major told him some months later - in fact, he was an ROTC instructor here in San Francisco for a long time - he's a native. And I saw him one day, here in the city, and he said, "That was an urge that I had and I was gonna do it, come hell or high water, and I did." He retired. I don't know whether it affected his ratings or not. He retired ... it was enough to get everybody excited, I'll tell you that!
Haller: (180) So, he did it just for the thrill of going under the Bridge.
Young: (180) Basically, that's what he did, yeah. Even helicopters, as far as the Army was concerned, the Sixth Army had put out that helicopters will not go under that Bridge. They will not go under it. We had the Navy - used to come up here a lot from San Diego to do their little R and R in the reserves, come up here in their helicopters, and they'd land here and stay overnight.
Haller: (186) They would?
Young: (186) RON "Remain Overnight," that sort of thing. They used to do that on a regular basis. Tell them, say, "No1 no." "Well, what are you gonna do about it?" Say, "That's not FAA regulations." Helicopters ca1!'t fly underneath there. But, the Navy - these Navy guys would take off and they'd get all in formation, get a big formation out here in the middle of the Bay, and all of a sudden, yeeoow - heading back to San Diego.
Haller: (192) Well, they still do it when a carrier comes in, they'll still fly under the Bridge sometimes.
Young: (192) I know that. Yeah.
Haller: (195) So, how about memorable characters of Crissy Field? Any particular people stand in your mind besides the good major there?
Young: (197) Well, I don't know. Most of the time there were only three or four women there. I had a couple of dispatchers. We had an administrative clerk named Katy. But, I don't know, it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. I don't recall anybody in particular. There was that major's incident - it wasn't related to a character, it was just something he wanted to do.
Haller: (205) Yeah.
Young: (205) And he did. The Sixth Army commander would go on flight missions. He flew all the time, along with all the Sixth Army officers up at the headquarters. He had friends up in the north country, Washington. Used to get a big kick out of it -he'd be up there for two or three days on an inspection trip and then he'd come back in the fall of the year, with about six, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty boxes of fresh apples. That used to be fun.
Haller: (215) That's great!
Young: (216) Yeah, he'd load up the back end, bring it back. I was off one time with a trip, we brought a truckload of apples down [unintelligible]. Great, great fun. Oh, we had another little incident that hit the news and it was an interesting news factor -Lear, John Lear -I think it's John Lear -the elderly gentleman that developed -developed and built the Lear jet, he's since died some years back, but his son was also in business with him and files, One weekend, we had an air show here at Crissy, I don't remember now what year it was. But anyway, we had an air show -lot of antique aircraft came in, other Army aircraft came in. We had a real nice attendance that day. It was one of those days when the fog rolls in just to the Bridge - covers the Bridge -but the field was clear. Rest of the base was clear. Anyway -and by the way, communications were [unintelligible] direct contact with Bay approach [unintelligible] also Oakland. During the air show, of course, the field was closed. No plane activity at all, it was a static type display. Got a call from Oakland to say that we had an emergency out over the ocean -there was a Cessna 310, which is a twin-engine, somewhat similar to the U8 the Army had. A civilian Cessna 310 had lost an engine, some distance out. It was fully loaded and was a ferry flight. One pilot was carrying this plane to Honolulu or Japan or someplace, and lost an engine. It was full of fuel – it was a flying bomb – and they’re trying to get him back to San Francisco. He’s on his way back to San Francisco. The Coast Guard had gone out to meet him already, and were already starting to come in. So, Oakland was calling us, "How's the weather there?" They were going to try to bring this plane in for a - if necessary -to land him on the ocean. On the Ocean highway out there on the ocean side -at that time -it was ...
Haller: (256) The Great Highway ...
Young: (250) Yeah, the Great Highway. At that time, it didn't have a lot of the obstacles on it that they have now. That's what they were planning on doing, but the fog was there. The fog was bad. "Crissy, what's your field like?" I said, "Well, we're clear. The Bridge is covered -I can't see the deck, but I know that it's clear on me." He said, "You got an air show." I said, "Yeah." He said, "How soon can you clear the people off the runway?" I said, "We can do that -that's no problem. Be prepared -why not?" So, we called the guys in, got 'em all briefed as to what they had to do. "If I hit the siren out here, you just take the trucks and go up and down the runway and get these people away as far as you can, 'cause this guy is gonna try to land." Turned out, this was young Bill -Bill Lear is the name -turned out, this was young Bill, the old man's son. And, so now we turned the radios on and now we're listening, we can monitor this thing. And they're getting closer, and they're getting closer and they're getting closer. He's right down on the water, he's flying just above the waves, he's hanging on with that single engine. And all of a sudden, under the Bridge comes the Coast Guard helicopter, and H-series. That guy was honking that helicopter so bad, so fast, that it was almost on its nose -he was going just as fast as he could go to keep ahead of the Cessna. And right behind that – right behind the helicopter comes the Cessna. He’s still skimming right along the water. He’s still running, so they said, “Okay, we’re gonna try to get him to Hamilton. The problem is making that long, loopy turn – and they had to get him over another bridge. So, they made it. They got him home. No sweat. Of course we didn't have to clear the field or anything, but it was an interesting afternoon. Very interesting. We went up to look at that airplane the next day up at Hamilton, and it was setting there with a big hole through one engine nacelle the jug went through. Oil all over the place. And salt! You could just walk up and peel the salt off the body, that's how close to the water he was.
Haller: (286) You referred to the helicopter coming in under the Bridge and "harding" it?
Young: (287) Honking - honking it.
Haller: (288) What does that mean?
Young: (288) Well, he had it full power – as much power as he could possibly put on that plane. As a result, it has a tendency to keep the nose down, on that particular model.
Haller: (291) I see.
Young: (291) That's a phrase you use. Full on power.
Haller: (293) You think you could walk us through a typical flight cycle? I mean, what would happen when a flight -when you have a flight scheduled and then - how would that go? Would you roll something out of the hangar, or would they be lined up on the flight line and just walk us through that process.
Young: (297) Well, first you get the schedule. "Can we do this? Do we have the capability?" "Yes." Fine. Now, what is the purpose of the mission? I'm sorry -you have a mission -what is the mission? How many people? Is it cargo? Where are we going? Who's involved? How many codes? Codes ... codes is something I haven't mentioned yet. The VIP types were coded. Codes 3, 4, 5, 6 and on up. Or the other way around, depending on their rank. That was the first -the first decision: "Can we handle this mission?" "Yes, we can handle this mission." Okay, now we have to set the schedule -"What aircraft do we have? What kind of an aircraft do we need? Is it going to be available?” Okay. It’s available. The flight leaves tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock, set it up on the board. “Who’s due to go on a flight like this?” Depends on how far it is, whether it’s overnight. “Who’s qualified? Who do we have there?” Somebody might be on leave; somebody might be sick with the flu or something; somebody might be on a mission, not even around; so, pick out the pilots. Call Maintenance, "We need this aircraft so-and-so, can it be ready?" "Yep. It'll be ready." Now, Maintenance gets to work to make sure that aircraft is ready to leave at 8 o'clock the next morning. At 6:30 or so, the maintenance people are there, take the aircraft, pull it out, put it over right across the highway -remember, it had to go across the highway from the hangar ...
Haller: (325) That's Mason Street.
Young: (325) It had to go across the highway. Pull it out there and get it ready, get it all ready to go.
Haller: (327) Pulled it out?
Young: (328) Had to be pulled out.
Haller: (328) By …?
Young: (328) By tug ...
Haller: (329) Tractors?
Young: (329) Tractors ... Tugs …
Haller: (329) Tug ...
Young: You're ready to go. Dispatcher's ready. Now, pilots come in. It's their job now to preflight the aircraft, make sure it's ready. They do the final preflight. They have to file the flight plan, and where it's gonna go. They have to determine the weather; what route they can take; what route will FAA say you can have; and so on and so forth. They drew the flight plan. Fill it out and get all the different information. And they'd come back to the dispatcher and give him - or her - the flight plan, and they prepared to get ready to go. Dispatcher's job, now, if it's an IFR flight, the dispatcher's job, now, is to go to - in this case, not to Flight Service, but to the Departure Center, and say, give all the pertinent information that's needed so that FAA can build a hole for that plane to get into ...
Haller: (347) What's an "IFR" flight?
Young: (348) Instrument Flight Rules [unintelligible] Weather Rules ... Or, if it's necessary to do an IFR flight. A lot of times, with high codes, ranking individuals, they will fly on Instrument Rules, regardless of what the weather is, 'cause that's positive control of air traffic. Fly visual, you can fly any of the airways you want, as long as you're observing and watching. You're on your own .. The flight is followed by a Flight Service Station, where it's flagged, but it's not always under positive control. And that's about it ...
Haller: (359) Now, the aircraft at this point is where? The flight line is sort of across Mason Street.
Young: (361) Setting right at the gate. The gate - you probably never have seen the gate ...
Haller: (363) Well, the gate's along the fence, but it's not the same fence, I think, that was there. Across Mason Street from the ... the Operations ...
Young: (365) Operations. You know where that unloading ramp is?
Haller: (367) Yes.
Young: (367) Okay, it was just to the left of there.
Haller: (368) Got it. Great.
Young: (368) And the airplane would be sitting right there.
Haller: (369) And you refer to that as the "flight line"?
Young: (370) That's the flight line.
Haller: (370) Which is just the area where the aircraft are ... Okay.
Young: (372) Most of the aircraft were kept out there all the time. Were tied down out there. We didn't have room in the hangar.
Haller: (374) For what?
Young: (375) The VIP aircraft were usually kept in the hangar. Or, if there was a lot of maintenance going on, sometimes even those aircraft had to be tied down outside. We just didn't have room.
Haller: (377) I've come across information that the Reserves used a different hangar down at the - the 200 Series. Is that correct?
Young: (380) There was a building down there. Used to be an old Forest station. And it was big enough - had hangars - hangars! - had bays in it, where we used to put trucks in there. And the Reserves had a couple of helicopters -for the life of me, I can't remember what they were ... and they had them in there, or they had them tied down on the outside. Yeah, that was a Reserve and, I think 15th Corps had aircraft down there, too. When 15th Corps was ...
Haller: (390) But that was basically the hangar and the office area for their outfit ...
Young: (392) Uh hmm. That was their whole operation, their whole aviation operation was right there in that building …
Haller: (393) But they, of course, used you - your officer of communications ...
Young: (394) Communications. They used our communications, they filed flight plans through us and …
Haller: (397) Controls ...
Young: (397) We did their controls before taking off ...
Haller: (397) Got it. Okay, so the plane takes off … the plane leaves the flight line and, what, taxis …
Young: (400) Taxis down, gets ready ...
Haller: (402) ... down to the east end ...
Young: (401) Well, whichever end ...
Haller: (402) Whichever one ... depending on ...
Young: (402) ... depending on when ... 99% of the time it was on the east end, because you were going to take off over the Bridge.
Haller: (403) Okay. That’s fine …
Young: (404) Not over the Bridge, but south of the Bridge. That's another story.
Haller: (406) Okay, you can tell that, too ...
Young: [Laughs] Now, the next step, of course, is the pilot is gonna be there -he comes back on the radio to dispatch and says "I'm ready to go." Dispatch, in the meantime, has gotten back in contact with Departure and says, "Yeah, we're ready to go." Departure says that they say okay. Departure will come back and give them either the same flight plan they just filed -will transmit that same flight plan as filed -and/or they will give them any changes that Flight Services -that uh, Departure -wants.
Haller: (416) Departure is ...
Young: (417) In Oakland.
Haller: (417) In Oakland. Oh, I see ...
Young: (418) Now, that could be done either with a dispatcher or our tower. Our tower does nothing any different than our dispatchers. They are just there to give advisories and to watch, and so on and so forth. We cannot put an airplane up in the air simply because, firstly, there's no flight plan. Especially ... you've got to be controlled by the whole half of this whole United States ...
Haller: (426) Got it. Okay.
Young: (427) So, anyway, they get the flight plan, the dispatcher and/or the tower - controller - transmits back to the pilot your flight plan, and you're ready to go. Pilot says, "I got it." Puts the coals to it and takes off. As soon as he's off the ground and clear, Dispatch calls or the tower calls back to Oakland and says, "Flight so-and-so is off at - whatever time it was.”
Haller: (435) Now, in the early days of Crissy Field, the planes would get airborne and they'd make a right and they'd jerk over the Coast Guard Station. But by this point, you just sort of pulled back on the stick or the yoke, is that correct? And you'd sort of head straight over the hills?
Young: (441) There was a certain spot ... there was a certain spot between the houses up there on the hill and the south tower.
Haller: (443) Got it.
Young: (443) And that changed later ... Some mornings ... There's all kinds of extenuating circumstances here that you can spend hours talking about ...
Haller: (446) Sure.
Young: (446) That changed somewhat later because we had an incident that could have been very, very serious. There was a twin-engine U-8 taking off one morning on a flight - I don't remember what it was about or anything - of all days, it was April Fool's Day that morning. The flight took off across to the west, made its usual offturn between the house and the Bridge, and was gone - went on its mission.
Haller: (456) So ... basically, you went right over the toll plaza.
Young: (457) Toll plaza - right.
Haller: (457) Okay.
Young: (458) A few seconds later, a car comes screaming into the Dispatch window there - the door - and a gentleman jumps out of the car, runs in all huffing and puffing and out of breath, "That airplane just took off and it dropped a wheel - or something!" [Unintelligible] I said, “Contact him and see if they’re okay and if everything’s all right.” “Yeah, we’re fine.” “Anything drop that you know of?” “No.” I asked them to come back, turn around and come back here. So I questioned this guy. At first, I thought it was a big April Fool's joke, 'cause as I say, it was April Fool's Day, and I started to doubt him. And I turned around and looked at -my boss was there -one of the warrant officers was right there at that same time, you know, and he and I looked at one another, and he said, "Bring him back. Get him to fly over and let's see what's going on." So, we got on the phone right away and called the tower -called the toll booth. Sergeant's headquarters out there at the toll booth, you know where the sergeant's are, where the observation ...
Haller: (483) Yes ...
Young: (484) They didn't know of anything, but somebody came in as they -one of my guys was talking to the booth people -and said, "Something fell off that airplane!" Well, okay, the plane comes back; called Maintenance right away and the Maintenance sergeant came over and the Maintenance officer came over. Plane comes back around, we had him do a low fly and gear up and gear down, two or three times. And then they turned inside the Bridge. By this time, we didn't know what the hell was going on. Nothing wrong with the gear, but the Maintenance NCO was a very good friend of mine, took our binoculars and went out on the runaway, ran over by the Bay, and stood there and watched him and he comes back and says, "Augmenter tubes are gone." Augmenter tubes are exhaust tubes about this big, and about this long -for the sake of the tape, it's about two feet long maybe, and maybe B, 10 or 12 inches at its widest point, it tapers. It’s off the exhaust. And it was gone, it was missing. It was up there somewhere. So, right away, they sent – we sent two of our vehicles up there with all the troops we could get. Get up there and start looking. And of course, we worked at the mike; but the officers went up there right away and started coordinating with these people. We found it, over there, you know, in that embankment [unintelligible] ...
End of Recording
Building the Bridge
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA 8669
"I hate that! Absolutely hate that bridge ruining my beautiful Golden Gate!" - Madeline Chase
Madeline Chase
Interview with Madeline Chase, whose father and uncle worked on the Presidio and lived in the Fort Point area between 1917 and 1933.
Martini: It’s Friday, June 6th, 2003, and this is an oral history interview with Miss Madeline Chase. We’re carrying this out at her house at 1714 24th Avenue in San Francisco. My name is John Martini. I’m a historian-consultant working for the National Park Service. This oral history is being done for the Park Archives at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and, Miss Chase, you know this is going to be part of the collection and people can use this and listen to it. And you give up your copyright?
Chase: Right.
Martini: Great. Let’s start at the very beginning. Can you give me your full name?
Chase: Madeline Elizabeth Chase.
Martini: And when and where were you born?
Chase: I was born in what we now call the Marina, April 14th, 1915.
Martini: 1915—right during the Fair?
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Um hum.
Chase: My mother couldn’t go because she was pregnant [both laugh].
Martini: So your father worked at the Presidio—was he in the military or was he a civilian?
Chase: Civilian employee.
Martini: Civilian employee. When did he start at the Presidio?
Chase: I don’t know. I have material but I don’t think it indicates that.
Martini: Um hum. And what kind of work did he do?
Chase: His brother, Louis, who was also there was—I don’t like to use the word “superintendent” but I can’t think of anything else. And I think my father was called “foreman.”
Martini: Foreman?
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Doing what type of—construction? Or—
Chase: They did whatever needed to be done that the military couldn’t do. And that included, I guess, carpentry. I think principally with those weapons and the batteries.
Martini: The Coast Artillery.
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Okay.
Chase: Sixth Coast Artillery. Can you blot out some of this?
Martini: We can change anything you’d like.
Chase: Oh, okay. I hate to sound so—
Martini: But that’s right. That’s their name. It was the 6th Coast Artillery.
Chase: Yeah but I don’t if it was when they started.
Martini: It was, I think, the 66th Company of Coast Artillery. It had a slightly different name—they kept changing.
Chase: That card that I showed you—maybe that would say on it. Does that say…
Martini: We’re looking at a postcard and—
Chase: Engineer’s Office.
Martini: Engineer’s Office—yes. And he mailed this from Corregidor in 1911.
Chase: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah--he was there two years.
Martini: So he’d been working for the Army well before you were born.
Chase: Indeed. Yes.
Martini: Now--did you have any brothers or sisters?
Chase: I have one sister who’s terribly ill mentally.
Martini: What’s her name?
Chase: Dorothy.
Martini: Dorothy.
Chase: Her name is Banter (??) now—Dorothy Chase Banter.
Martini: And what were your parents’ names?
Chase: Alexander Joseph Albert Chase and Eileen Rice.
Martini: Okay. When you were living in the City, at some point you actually moved onto the Presidio.
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Yeah?
Chase: Yeah—it comes back to me. I was born in 1915 and we living in the Marina. My sister was born 1917 in that house.
Martini: The house at Fort Scott.
Chase: Yeah. Yeah. Because we were not entitled to medical, dental, or commissaries. So my both my father and mother had their own doctor and their own dentist outside of the Post.
Martini: That’s cause you guys weren’t military and you weren’t covered by--
Chase: Exactly.
Martini: Okay. Then how did they even get to move onto the Presidio?
Chase: Well, that I don’t know. Whether Uncle Lou was there previously and got his brother in I can’t tell you. They had only grade school education but it seemed to me that they were smart. They could do anything. Honestly, it was amazing. But I think their principal work was to take care of these big batteries and these guns that were in there.
It was many, many years, when Dorothy and I were probably in our teens or a little bit younger, on a Saturday afternoon my mother was going to something to which we weren’t invited. So she said, “You stay home with your father.” And he said, “I have to work until noon.” And we went to the batteries and he said here until noon.” But it was in the batteries, what we called the batteries--those--west of the bridge.
Martini: The big concrete?
Chase: Yes. Yes.
Martini: People called them bunkers but batteries is their real name.
Chase: It seemed to me their principal—but I may be way off base—their principal duty was to keep those in working order. God knows why—nobody ever bombed us in the history of San Francisco [both laugh].
Martini: So they—I think the terminology they used would have been like ordnance—
Chase: Ordnance—that rings a bell, yeah.
Martini: Let me go back to your house for a bit. Where exactly was your house located?
Chase: Well, you know, it’s still dirt road and it’s dreadful now. You know the road that goes down to the brick wall—
Martini: To Fort Point.
Chase: Then the other paved road goes past the aviators’ quarters. Between those two roads there’s a dirt road. It has a white barrier across it now. It’s still a dirt road. The first house--Uncle Lou’s house--was built for the Colonel of Engineers. I used to know his name--I can’t think of it…
Martini: Was it Mandell?
Chase: No.
Martini: Alexander?
Chase: No. It was built for him but he lived there for less than a year when he retired and moved to France and nobody heard from him after that. This is word of mouth, you know, and I’m old and, when I heard these stories, I was a kid.
Martini: That’s okay.
Chase: In front of that house, closer to the water, was our house, which was built for his office—for the Colonel’s office.
Martini: Okay.
Chase: This.
Martini: Yes. We’re looking at a picture. In the lower left-hand corner, it has the number “592” and it’s dated September 18, 1910. A little hipped roof building. Yeah.
Chase: Well, anyway, that’s where we lived because, when the Colonel left, they didn’t use it as an office apparently. When my parents moved in— Dorothy was born in ’17 so it was before that cause she was born in that house.
Martini: So at the start of World War I or so you were in there.
Chase: Yes. Yeah, I guess.
Martini: For reference, for anyone listening to the tape, the roads you described: the road that goes down to the Fort, that’s what we call Long Avenue.
Chase: Exactly.
Martini: And the aviators’ house--________ that you use that; no one calls them those any more—that’s the row of old pilots’ quarters on Lincoln Boulevard.
Chase: Lincoln. I should know—Lincoln is down, and Washington is up. But I don’t go up Washington because, as I say, I’m not too good on hills.
Martini: There’s nothing left of your house now, is there?
Chase: No. They’ve torn both of those houses--both structures--down.
Martini: You say the road’s terrible. It’s changed from when you living out there?
Chase: Well, I don’t like ________ and I don’t like going in alone. But I went in on Sunday cause there are lots of people on Sunday—a month ago--and, of course, the structure’s have been gone. But it looks to me that they’re preparing to make a road right through to the bridge, all stacks of soil and walls and stuff. I was heartbroken. See those trees--I’ve known them all my life. I’ve known those trees. We played in them and our houses—I guess as kids we appreciated it but, my God—I’d sell my eye-teeth [both laugh] and anything else to live there but they don’t want eye-teeth [interviewer laughs].
Martini: That’s something I have on my list. What was it like living out there? It was kind of remote, wasn’t it? In the 1910s and 20s…
Chase: Oh, indeed, it was remote. Indeed. Now you mentioned transportation--shall I talk about that? My father had a car. In fact, we had two cars. It was the strangest situation: If we wanted to build a garage, you just built a garage for your car. I don’t know if they got permission or where they got the material. But we did it, Uncle Lou did it and he did it for his son who traveled from there to Polytechnic High School, driving—he must have been fifteen or sixteen years old and he was driving. Well, anyway—what else was I going to…
Martini: How did you get out there?
Chase: Oh—there was an Army bus. And when I think of this miserable one bus line that I had—when I think of that bus line-- It drove from, you know, the bachelor quarters were the aviators—that’s where it terminated. It went up Lincoln, turned where the General’s quarters are, and then there are commissioned officers’ quarters—went down there, passed the post x before it got there. Then it came down that road where I sit when I’m tired when I’m walking and went to the Presidio what we call the car line, half hour between—15 minutes trip each way so it was a half hour that you waited at either end. Never once in all the years that we lived there was it ever late or broken or anything. You cannot depend on that—well that’s—you’re not interested in... It was a great big dark red bus that I don’t know the make and Mike was the driver. He eventually married one of the teachers at the old Winfield Scott School. Never once! I don’t know how they ran but we used to go to Seal Stadium in the night--with my mother, of course--and walk in this lonely, dark road, no lighting… Never. I think of that when I wait a half hour or an hour for the 71 bus. Never broke down. Well, that’s as much, I guess, as I can tell you about the bus.
Martini: You said it would stop right in front of the bachelor officers’ quarters—
Chase: Yeah. And turned around there and then went back up Long.
Martini: Yeah. I think that’s what/when they call/ed Lincoln Hall or something [unintelligible]--
Chase: I don’t know—
Martini: With the columns in front—
Chase: Yeah. Well, it was where you have military living. You have quarters for the bachelors.
Martini: Um hum. So your closest neighbors would have been those pilots in those houses right up the hill, huh?
Chase: Well, we lived in the red house and Uncle Lou—
Martini: Oh, right--I’m sorry. Your next-door neighbors. Yeah.
Chase: Well, now, nobody ever mentions this and it was almost mysterious: As you go in this road, there was a house—I think it was yellow. People did live in there but we never once saw them and if you went in in the night, there were lights in there. I’ve heard that they were soldiers but they must not have had any children. It was the strangest thing. And then many, many, many, many years later when I went in the entrance up at Lyon and Pacific Avenue, I walked this beautiful walk. I walked down there and do you know there was another house quarters in there. I just recently thought maybe they were woods and they wanted somebody living there. I don’t know. But it was the strangest thing to have those wooden frame houses—push that aside [unintelligible—interviewee, distracted by something in the room, speaks to the interviewer]
Martini: It’s alright…
Chase: Each in isolated—and never, never once. The milkman would go in and leave milk there. Oh, I told you I was going to talk much. A graystone. about this big there. And there was another one where my mother would say, “Aunt Mildred’s coming over next week (or tomorrow).” And Dorothy and I would sit out on this brick stone and it’s still there. Little gray and white stones. A nice little place where we sat. And there’s was one—well, I’m talking too much and I’m digressing.
Martini: No, this is what—we want to know what life was like out there at that time—
Chase: Well, we didn’t, as I said, we didn’t have any commissaries, no medical or dental, so it meant my mother would have to go to what we call the Marina or my father the wharf or favored the Richmond. He drove—my mother didn’t drive. And that was kinda hard going because we—well, it wasn’t because we depended on the bus and it was entirely dependable and reliable. But then you got your car line and you had always either the D or the E car, sometimes both. Excellent service.
Martini: Okay. So this was a free bus? A free Army bus?
Chase: No. We had bus tickets. And my father always got them at the post office. I don’t know adults paid. I’d ride with an adult but he had to pay. Maybe a nickel or a dime or something.
Martini: You’d mentioned in one of your visits about you used to go down to that lighthouse keeper’s houses?
Chase: Yes. Oh—did you ever see those?
Martini: I remember them but they were torn down before I started to work.
Chase: Well, that was a sacrilege. Mr. Cobb (??) was the keeper. His was on the ground, right down there. No electricity. When we moved, it still didn’t have electricity. The first assistant was Mr. Jordan. And Mr. Mc Kay (??) was the second assistant. Mr. McKay--we didn’t know it at the time but he was ill and we didn’t know that he had cancer. Do you know that they had a bridge up there on the hill that went to the top of the red brick fort where the lighthouse was? And the damned idiots tore down that lighthouse. I get so angry! Now, here’s Mr. McKay—he had the third watch, midnight to eight, an ill man. The wind and the fog on the footbridge—that high up, going over there. I just adored those people. And Mr. Cobb and Mr. Jordan too. Apparently lighthouse people are interesting. Channel 9—they showed a couple of times—fascinating! Well, anyway—there were steps down to what we call down below where the morning paper was delivered and the afternoon one and the Army kids brought it to our house. But my father or uncle bought nice boxes so Mr. Cobb and Mr. Jordan would be able to put their paper in (unintelligible). It was such a heavenly place to be.
Martini: Now Mr. Cobb--
Chase: First—he was the keeper.
Martini: He lived in the big single house down—
Chase: Yes. Yes.
Martini: Yeah. Now Mr. Jordan and Mr. McKay—they lived up on top of the hill? In the (unintelligible).
Chase: Yes. Yes.
Martini: Yeah. And the McKay girls—
Chase: Yes. Now you can go down there in an automobile.
Martini: Right.
Chase: They didn’t—they had a chute--C-H-U-T-E--for the garbage and for the, well, garbage because they couldn’t get up there. I don’t know how they got their fuel, because they had fireplaces. They had fireplaces in the bedrooms. They were magnificent [pounding sound for emphasis] houses!
Martini: I was told when I started in 1972 that those houses had been torn down simply because the Army had taken them over when the lighthouse left and they couldn’t get anyone to live in them because of the noise from the bridge and people dropping things—
Chase: Oh.
Martini: So they were torn down in the Sixties.
Chase: I forgot. The Army did take them over. You see, I forgot. McKay’s—do you (unintelligible) walk over with those—I hate that! Absolutely hate that bridge ruining my beautiful Golden Gate!
Martini: Yeah. It totally changed everything when the bridge was built.
Chase: Well, you know, we would sit on the porch and watch the sun go down. One time--I was just a small kid--my father and his brother knew a lot of people from Harbor View. I’m digressing but I think this is interesting. And they knew a man who was captain of a sailor, a sailing ship. And they would go up to Alaska yearly to get salmon. And they knew Captain Saline and I heard Uncle saying, “That’s the last time we’ll see a ship going out into sails.” Their parents—my father’s parents or his grandparents—were—I should write a book--their ship went down in the South Pacific. I’ve got it here. Well, anyway—you don’t want to hear it. Or do you?
Martini: Yeah. We’ll come back to that later. Yeah. Go back to the red brick fort. Did you ever go in there?
Chase: Yes, we did. And sometimes it was quite dirty and I didn’t like it in there. And my sister and the McKay kids went up into the lighthouse. I’m afraid of heights and I’m sorry now I didn’t. But they did. And we played baseball.
Martini: What’d you play?
Chase: Baseball.
Martini: Baseball?
Chase: On the ground.
Martini: In the fort?
Chase: Yeah. However, when I say baseball, we didn’t have nine [laughing], much less eighteen. Girls and boys. Roy Cobb was Mr. Cobb’s youngest son but he was a lot older than we were. The McKays, in addition to Joe and Louise, had three sons but they were so small. But I was the pitcher. Now I want to be a catcher. But, anyway [both laughing], we played in there, yes. Right on the floor.
Martini: What was happening in there? Was anyone living in it or was (unintelligible)--?
Chase: No. No, no. Not then. I understand that people did live in it. Sorry I can’t tell you more about that but--whether it was wartime or what--but there were people who--but it was long before we went in but I don’t know who or what had happened.
Martini: Okay. They used it off and on over the years.
Chase: Oh, did they?
Martini: Yeah. In your time I think it pretty much a warehouse, something—
Chase: No. It seemed to me to be, with the exception of the lighthouse--cause we would wander around in there and I was never terribly comfortable. But in my time, from 1917 to ’33--you see, I was there on the day my sister was born with all the doctors coming from Lombard or someplace—Union—so she arrived before he did-- But anyway, I know that I lived there probably from ’16 to ’33.
Martini: ’16 to ’33—you would have been there right when they started to build the bridge.
Chase: Oh, indeed we were. And Louise and Joe and I and my sister would take great big pieces of mud, cod mud as big as we could get it, and put it on the steps of their field office when they went home because we were hating to see that bridge being built.
Martini: Really?
Chase: They had the field office right on the ground there and we just hated to have them build that bridge and on my land!
Martini: I’m gettin’ the impression you felt kind of possessive about ________ at Fort Scott.
Chase: Oh, I still do. My trees are there [interviewer laughs]. When the men are there, you know, doing the right thing, trimming trees, I say--they laugh at me now—“Why are you cutting down my trees? I’ve known these trees since I was four years old,” which I do.
Martini: Ah. From the photos that I’ve seen, the trees got a lot bigger, though, since the early days.
Chase: Oh, yes, yes.
Martini: It’s a forest in there now.
Chase: Yes. However, I read that—which I don’t think doesn’t seem to be true—eucalyptus trees have short roots and they tip over. I’ve never seen one fall over.
Martini: Takes a high wind.
Chase: Ah…
Martini: You remember about six or seven years ago we had that horrible storm that blew through and a bunch of trees fell over in the Presidio--
Chase: Oh, really?
Martini: And a house collapsed above Baker Beach—the foundations washed out? I think it was ’95 or ’96. Yeah, they lost a couple of hundred trees over night in the Presidio.
Chase: Is that true? You see, I guess I remember--which is true of old age--things that happened a long time ago. But if you ask me what day it is today, well I know it because you’re here--otherwise I might not.
Martini: Of course, the Golden Gate Bridge we’re always fascinated with. I know it kinda ruined the Golden Gate but when did you first start to hear that they were going to build a bridge and what did you hear?
Chase: You know, I can’t be sure of that. Maybe I just didn’t accept it or maybe I didn’t read—we took two newspapers—maybe I just didn’t read them. But when they actually got their historic building, I was absolutely crushed. And I think it’s ugly. It’s—who is interested in brilliant orange steel? And I know they had to have orange and I knew it had to be steel. Have you read that plaque, which I have read many times, about not—Giannini actually coming through with the money because Strauss couldn’t get enough money to build it. So he sold—he was trying to float loans, which nobody would buy and Giannini said, “Well how long will it last?” And Mr. Strauss said, “Forever.” If I had heard him, I’d have strangled him [interviewer laughs]. That’s all written down but I have read it many times in many places.
Martini: You moved out right when the bridge was just starting to get going then.
Chase: Yes, yes we did. We left in 1933.
Martini: Was that related to the bridge or the changes?
Chase: No, no. Uncle Lou was over—cause he was more than 69—so he was more than retirement age.
Martini: Wow.
Chase: And my father was close to it. And they were too old for what they were doing. They were big, heavy men, as you could tell from these pictures. And they were just past it. Uncle Lou’s son, Malcolm—Lou Malcolm--took over but he took what they say, had a drinking problem and he just lost out on what would have been, you know, a really beautiful situation, as far as I was concerned. He got our house and I do know but I can’t think of the name who got Uncle Lou’s house. And that was a lovely—well, it was built for the Colonel. Two fireplaces [interviewee clears throat], a dining room and an eating room—each had fireplace and, of course, we both had wood and coal stoves—there was no gas for us.
Martini: Did you have electricity?
Chase: Yeah, yeah. My mother every summer would go with Dorothy and me to the Russian River with her family. When we came home, my father had always done something nice for us. And Dorothy and I each had twin beds and he had put in a--cause we were readers--each had our own electric light over our beds. He could do anything. I mean, and they seemed to have permission. As I said, if they wanted a garage built—he built a shed with electricity for the washing machine, for the woodshed cause we had wood and coal, and then storing canned food. And that’s separate. A building entirely separate. If you want it, build it. I don’t know how they did that.
Martini: There’s an expression in the government that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission. So sometimes people just do things.
Chase: Oh, that’s interesting.
Martini: Also, too—not being military, you know, being civilians, there probably was less attention paid than if you were in military quarters.
Chase: Nobody ever--it was really an astounding thing for anyone to get in there. Once in a while, if the fleet came in, people would come to see the fleet come in.
Martini: So you didn’t get a lot of tourists running around looking at the—
Chase: No. That would get--ladies in the afternoon when you had chauffeur-driven cars you know from Pacific Heights. The chauffeur would drive them. It was a rare, rare place. I mean, nobody—well, they didn’t know it was there, I guess--a dirt road and, I don’t know. But we never, never saw anyone. It was sheer heaven. When I die, I’m not going anyplace as good as that [both laugh].
Martini: Right below you, right below your house, the cluster of buildings now where they have the Warming Hut with the little bookstore in it and the fishing pier—
Chase: I got ya, yeah.
Martini: What was that area?
Chase: They used those buildings for whatever reason—well, one of them, the end one closest to the bridge and to the brick fort, had an open fire so there must have been whatever you do to melt—
Martini: Like a blacksmith type of forge?
Chase: Exactly. Because we cooked crabs. They owned a little row boat, which they hung under the boar and they’d--which I guess now is illegal--leave the row boat there and, at the end of the day, pick up the crabs. And they would cook—my mother would say, “Al, get all the crabs you want. But I’m not going to cook them up here.” You have to have a great big thing—a roaring fire. So they cooked the crabs on that thing.
Martini: So you’re describing the building that’s now like the Ranger’s Office down (unintelligible).
Chase: Yes. Yes. Yes. Now the other building where you have the coffee shop was also their building. And the barn was where Uncle Lou had his office, his desk—
Martini: And the barn—is that still standing?
Chase: Yes. It’s the one at the far end, the other end, the opposite end as far away as you can get. I think there are three buildings and they used all three of them. This one still had the horses’ names above when we were kids.
Martini: I’m sorry—is that building still standing today?
Chase: Yeah. Yeah.
Martini: Is that the one that has the bookstore in it?
Chase: No. The bookstore is the one in the middle, isn’t it?
Martini: I think it’s the one on the end now but there’s--.
Chase: No. No. I was there because I walk early in the morning and I couldn’t get in because they weren’t open. But I saw it’s a bookstore and it’s sort of a coffee shop.
Martini: That’s it.
Chase: That’s the one. Then the other one where they had this open fire and then the barn. You went in and you made a sharp right--there was a fence all around—it wasn’t a barn in our time but you could see it had been a barn cause the stalls were there and the names of the horses were there. And then Uncle Lou had his desk and his office in the front end of that barn.
Martini: Okay. So he had a separate office just for doing his work for the—
Chase: Indeed. He hired extra people when he needed them. They were all laborers as far as I could see.
Martini: You’re doing fine. This is great!
Chase: Well, I talk—you only have an hour to do-- See there he is and these are the men—
Martini: This is a photograph showing a bunch of men doing construction work with Point Bonita in the background. Oh, that’s Uncle Lou—
Chase: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martini: The big guy on the left.
Chase: Yeah. And my father was about ten pounds lighter and one or two inches shorter. That’s my father and my mother. That’s me. There! Our garage was here but I remember that thing. Well, anyway…
Martini: I’ll tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to turn the tape over and then I really want to talk about those batteries.
Chase: Well, we used to have picnics up there—
Martini: Hold on!
[End of Tape 1, Side 1]
[Tape 1, Side 2]
Martini: This is Side 2. Tell me more about your dad and your uncle working on the batteries. Specifically, did you get to go with them?
Chase: Yes. Yes. This was the time—and these batteries were—you know the road that comes in from the Richmond District?
Martini: Twenty-fifth Avenue?
Chase: Yes. This is the time my mother was invited to something on a Saturday—a Saturday. So Dorothy and I—my father worked until noon. And he said, “Now there’s not going to be anything here for you to play with.” Staying there for a half hour was like an eternity but we ran around there--I don’t know what my father was doing there but he worked half day on Saturday and he said, “You will be here.” So that was understood. But what he was doing there, I don’t know. Did you have live electricity in those batteries at that time?
Martini: They did.
Chase: Well, that must have been what he was doing—
Martini: There’s a picture of a big, like, power born in here (unintelligible) that was in the main power plant.
Chase: Well, they kept them alive, as I said, for all these people who were bombing us [both laugh].
Martini: Waiting, right?
Chase: All I know is that we were in there. It seems to me there was—you know, we were little kids and there was a wall of something that might, as I think back on it, electricity—yes, yes. But that’s the only time we were in any of them. There were occasions when Dorothy and I used to go for picnics up there all the time, but not to that one—to the ones that are still there. I walk around it but I don’t like heights so I don’t go up on top of them. But that was a dangerous place--you could fall right off.
Martini: All those cliffs could— Were there a lot of soldiers running around Fort Scott?
Chase: Well, they might be in the bus sometimes but we were never aware of them, particularly. We didn’t get—well, we went to grammar school and to Galileo but we used the military bus. We did have a school bus to take us to grammar school. But I’m sure we saw soldiers but I can’t—we didn’t—The Nagels who lived on the staff line—Master Sargent Nagel—his son just died (unintelligible)—my uncle is buried on the Presidio. My father—my uncle and his wife died out there in that house, the big white house, with TB. And, at that time, the doctors were saying (unintelligible) out there in the fog, out there is like cheese. Anyway, she got TB and she died but, she got buried in the Presidio so Uncle Lou was with her now. But my father and mother didn’t get space because, if you requested it, you couldn’t have somebody who’s at Holy Cross. You would have loved my father. He was--both of them--fascinating, interesting, delightful men!
Martini: Did--the big batteries up at Fort Scott—they ever fire those guns?
Chase: No. No. They did have a gun when they lowered the flag but it wasn’t on the batteries. It was—well, I know exactly where it is—I don’t know if it’s still there or not. But I can’t—you know where the General’s house is?
Martini: At Fort Scott?
Chase: Yeah.
Martini: Yeah?
Chase: Way down at the end of that they would fire—in the morning also, I think, at 8 o’clock and at 4:30 in the afternoon—
Martini: That’s right.
Chase: And, you know, my mother’s china—she had nice china—would be dancing around and some broke [both laughing].
Martini: What about the rest of the Presidio? Did you go exploring all over the place?
Chase: No. We were entitled to swim at the Y on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 5. That’s the only—no commissaries, nothing. But we—well, of course, that was the Y, not the Army.
Martini: Um hum.
Chase: So we did that. But, other than that--well the tennis courts, I guess, were limited to the commissioned officers.
Martini: On the Main Post, where the Officers’ Club is and all today—
Chase: Well, we went to Mass at the chapel and that’s a sinful thing, not to have that chapel still-- I went, after we moved over here. I bought a Volkswagen, which I sold almost immediately because I thought I’d be put in jail. So I’d walk, I’d get off at the bridge and walk. But it’s closed.
Martini: The Chapel of Our Lady, next to the—yeah.
Chase: Yeah. Yeah. Dorothy—well, no, she got her First Communion over at Letterman because Father Baily, he was pretty good ________ but sometimes he didn’t show up. And there was another chaplain but eventually—well, then, we moved over here and we went to St. Anne’s. Did you ever see that chapel before they—
Martini: Yeah, I went to a wedding there.
Chase: God! Why did they ever—those memorial windows—Dorothy and I were little and these people had the dates on (unintelligible). They took out all those beautiful stained glass memorial windows. How could they do that?
Martini: I think some of them belonged to the Army and the Army took a lot of their stuff when they left.
Chase: Oh.
Martini: To use other places. That’s why they took a lot of artifacts, a lot of things because they were U. S. Army property, they weren’t the Presidio property.
Chase: Got you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martini: I hope somebody uses that little chapel--it’s a great little building.
Chase: Well, I can only go ________ go around here. I have St. Anne’s and one way over there. And I walk—
Martini: That’s nice. You walk all over the place. I’ve gotta ask: What’s your biggest impression of all the changes at the Presidio since you were a little girl?
Chase: I’m absolutely crushed and heartbroken.
Martini: Yeah? What’s the biggest change?
Chase: Well, where we lived is, you know, what we knew most. But it’s commercial now, which it has--I understand this and I’m glad that we’ve got it, but—and I see all these hoards—why are all these people on my property here [both laugh]? All these horrible hills—
Martini: They love it for the same reason you love it.
Chase: I know.
Martini: Makes you wonder where they come from though.
Chase: Oh, indeed. Hikers—why are they going in my road? I will tell you and I know, I know that they’re doing the best they can. One morning--I still go out there to do my postage—but I was walking from the Post Office up, cause there’s a bus stop there at the Officers’ Club. I think this building was put up during World War II because I think—now I could be away off base—that during the war—since there were so many people working there—the Muni would go in there but I can’t see that. But anyway, it looks like a waiting room—it’s all open, it’s about as big as this room—maybe not this big, has windows, it’s all open—no doors. And there was a man, and I think he was a black man, lying on the table. I didn’t stop and I couldn’t care what race, what color—people’s color—I don’t believe in that—and he had all this baggage around him and he was sound asleep. That sorta frightened me and, more recently, when I was walking—I generally don’t walk back to this graveyard—I walk in to and catch the bus going back ________ . There was a man asleep across that white barrier to our dirt road.
Martini: Yeah.
Chase: So I don’t go in there at alone and I know nothing has ever happened. I did report this other man who probably was totally harmless. But it just didn’t look right. So I walked up to the—well, I was going there anyway—to the Visitors’ Office and told them and they sent someone over to get him. He was just probably a transient, homeless, tired--just like I am—sleepin—and why not?
Martini: It’s kinda scary, though, I guess.
Chase: It didn’t look right.
Martini: I came up with a whole checklist of places around the Presidio. I just kinda wanted to mention some names and see if you remember visiting them or what you could tell me about them.
Chase: If I know ‘em, sure.
Martini: Did you ever go down to Baker Beach—Baker’s Beach, I think you called it?
Chase: We did, indeed, and I wonder--cause Fort Baker and Baker’s Beach—anyway that’s—
Martini: Named after different people.
Chase: Yeah. We didn’t--we rode by but the McKay’s and Dorothy and I, we never actually went there. But, in order to get to the Richmond District, my father always went that way.
Martini: That way—yeah. Across from Baker Beach, there used to be—remember the big balloon hangar? The was a balloon for many years—like a blimp.
Chase: You mean at Fort Baker?
Martini: Baker Beach—yeah, right up near the exit to the Presidio.
Chase: I can’t say I remember that. You know, for the time that they were getting our house in order, we lived—it was probably six months or maybe the rest of the year, anyway—at Fort Baker.
Martini: At Fort Baker? On the other side of—
Chase: Yes—but I really don’t remember it. I know we had chickens [both laugh].
Martini: And what about the stables, down where they are now.
Chase: Until they had Crissy Field, we never went down there. Did you know that that road down and up from Crissy Field was a two car road at one time? Smaller cars and wider [both laughing]-- “Down Crissy,” or “Don’t go down Crissy.”--we’d always say that to my father--in an automobile. But we never walked down there—no.
Martini: And Crissy Field—that must’ve been a real hoppin’ place in those days. Things were takin’ right out of your house.
Chase: They were. I barely—you know, that big hill that’s a parking lot now that’s facing those empty quarters that’s a parking lot?
Martini: Yes, the dirt part--we call that the battery east parking lot.
Chase: Oh. When I was a young kid, I went up there—there was barbed wire fence but we had a steep—I think I dug the devil myself to get up there—now whether there was a vegetable garden first or wildflowers first, I don’t know. But I would go up there--cause I’m still a gardener--and get fields of poppies and that pink flower that I never see any more and have never seen anyplace else. And now it’s a parking lot. I cry when I pass that path. Arms full! There was a foot path from—there was a barbed wire fence facing the aviators’ quarters and all this hill. And occasionally Dorothy and I would play in there. Seems to me somehow we got from there to their hill but I—yes, you could walk up to the batteries and then from the batteries down to their houses. Yeah, it comes back to me. My God, we were lucky to have lived there! And as kids we just took it—this was ours and we took it for granted, you know.
Martini: Do you remember the airplanes at Crissy Field?
Chase: Yes. I do. I hated them. I still do [both laugh]. Well, I flew from here to New York and from here to Italy and England. But I hate airplanes. My God, if you’re going anywhere, walk and see what you can see [both laugh].
Martini: You go to the Presidio all the time. What do you think of the change at Crissy Field from the way it was, say, ten years ago when it was _________ concrete and barracks buildings to the way it is now?
Chase: Well, you know, much as I hate anything new and modern, I’m delighted. I’m happy that they are keeping it nice. It’s beautifully painted. As I say, they trimmed the trees—I haven’t gone this week—this kind of weather’s kind of hard on me— When you walk there—maybe it was last week, there isn’t a spot on the streets. Everything is immaculate. Well, of course, I know that the people that took over first are gone—
Martini: Rangers.
Chase: Rangers—they are gone, aren’t they?
Martini: Well, there aren’t as many of us as anymore. We’re in a very small area. Yeah—it’s not the Trust ________ most of the space.
Chase: Yeah. You know, when I was going out from here to the coast, to the chapel, there was a woman--I suspect she was a retired nun but I have no idea—I don’t know what I was going to tell you about her. Well, anyway, she would read part of the Mass, you know, at the chapel—I don’t know if she lives on Baker Street now—oh, I think she subscribes to me for the newspaper that I get because I’ve never taken up a subscription. She’s a charming, elegant lady, tall, slender, beautiful carriage. I don’t know how she makes a living because nobody’s ever old as I am but she’s not young [interviewer laughs].
Martini: You talk about taking street cars and the car stop was across from Letterman—
Chase: Exactly.
Martini: The D car.
Chase: D and E. The E was a little car that was in the middle. Do you know that little car?
Martini: I never saw one but I’ve read so many books. It’s the cute little one. I think it ran to the ferry.
Chase: Well, probably they both did. The D went out Greenwich, up Van Ness, down Geary, cause that’s how we got to the Emporium, when my mother shopped. The other little car was made, I guess, just for the run because, not the steep hills up to Pacific Heights but those lower hills—it ran there, on Union. And, from where, I don’t know where it went—from there—unless, if we were going to Galileo, we’d take it till the car was there.
Martini: You mentioned that’s where you went to high school.
Chase: Yeah.
Martini: And for grammar school?
Chase: We went both my mother and all of her sisters went to the Winfield Scott School. It was on Lombard between Baker and Divisidero, because we walked to the car line from there to get home on the—no, I’m telling you a lie. The school bus brought us home from Winfield Scott School.
Martini: Did it go all the way into the Presidio?
Chase: It picked us up outside on the dirt road.
Martini: Not bad.
Chase: No. It was good. We had a dog, Jerry—oh, I loved Jerry.
Martini: Your dog?
Chase: Well, it was Uncle Lou’s dog but, you know, it lived anywhere.
Martini: Do you remember—at the car stop—do you remember there was a photographer’s studio?
Chase: Yes, there was. There was. And I wouldn’t have remembered unless you had told me.
Martini: Do you remember anything about the studio or the man that ran it?
Chase: I knew a man ran it but I guess—
Martini: I know his name was Mr. Givens. G-I-V-E-N-S.
Chase: I wouldn’t have known. I just—it was there. You see, we waited there for the bus. Isn’t that interesting—there must be a lot of other stuff that I don’t remember.
Martini: On one side would’ve been his studio and across the street was, of course, big Letterman Hospital.
Chase: Yes, indeed. Again I’m digressing—my mother’s brother was wounded badly in World War I and I went in alone—I guess I was five or six years old—to see Uncle Peter. And I can remember in Letterman rows and rows and rows of beds and cots. And there was Uncle Peter, and all the men looking at this little girl alone and he was delighted to have seen me. I must’ve been going to Winfield Scott School. You start school at seven, don’t you?
Martini: I think so, yeah. That area of the Presidio—that’s very distant from where you lived. It’s almost like another part of the City.
Chase: Indeed. But, we walked it frequently. Yeah—both ways. I don’t know whether we just missed the bus or what. But maybe we didn’t have any tickets, I don’t know, cause my father went up to the PX, I think, to get—we had to have bus tickets to use that. Cause you paid. But this is separate from the truck that we went—
Martini: Got you. Right.
Chase: To school in the truck.
Martini: Was there any—like, when you went to school—like, class system because—
Chase: Oh, indeed.
Martini: Oh, yeah?
Chase: Winfield Scott School only went to the sixth grade. Why, I can’t tell you. Then--and I don’t know why they did this because there was a choice of several schools and I feel that the school bus must have gone to them—but we went up to the Grant School and, when you say “class,” that’s what I mean because those were what we called rich kids and they were and we weren’t. Actually, we were quite comfortable because you had no rent and, I guess, we paid electricity and phone bills but we weren’t poor but we weren’t like these kids of the Grant and some of them were really nasty.
Martini: Probably from Pacific Heights, huh?
Chase: Yeah. Well, Pacific and Broadway run this way and Baker and the other—And it was a big treat if we walked down that road, which, as I say, I walked it ten or fifteen years ago just for fun, and I saw this yellow house in that forest.
Martini: That forest—
Chase: Maybe it was twenty years ago cause I retired at 55. I felt that--and I don’t regret it—I would get a better pension but I’m not complaining.
Martini: When you were talking about the kids at the school—was it because you lived at the Presidio?
Chase: No.
Martini: Or it was just that--
Chase: Well, I guess it was. What did they call us? Army brats. You see, they didn’t even know [interviewer laughs] that we weren’t in the Army. But then it was Depression so I don’t know—some of the wealthy kids went there. I’m sure many of them went to private schools. But they just didn’t like us. The teachers recognized too that we might’ve been-- I’m a big opera fan and this teacher, Virginia Rider--my mother and her sisters had the same teachers that we had at Winfield Scott and at Grant—she brought in her—this Virginia Rider, there were two sisters there—showed her the cape that she wore to the opera—one does that got to do with anything? I thought it was—at that time, I was amazed because I look back on it now, Dorothy and I when we were only students--I still go; in fact, tomorrow I see La Cenerentola--but we stood, bought standing room tickets for a dollar when we were old enough to do this and there she was, in the green velvet wrap sitting there. Listen, I think that’s an amazing story, [laughing] not for your records but, I mean, it was…
Martini: How did you like Galileo High School?
Chase: Oh, fine. Great. I loved it. I had great teachers. I had ________, of course, and _________ working to get the grades to get to State Teacher’s-- I think they called it normal—but the year I graduated was the year my father and Uncle Lou were out. So I never got any more education. Great teachers--I remember them. I felt that what they taught me, except for geometry—I never could catch on to that [both laugh]…
Martini: So what happened when you moved out of the Presidio in ’33? Where did you all go?
Chase: Here.
Martini: This house?
Chase: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve lived here since August 2nd. My father wrote it down, but some idiot erased it down in the basement—August 2nd, 1933. We didn’t recognize it at the time but he was getting lung cancer and he died.
Martini: So in a couple of months, you’ll have been here seventy years. Wow!
Chase: Seventy—yes. August. Can you believe that?
Martini: It’s a long time! This must be one of the few houses in the Sunset District that’s still owned by the same family from the--
Chase: Oh, I think so. There’s all new-- Well, I have once cousin, my mother’s sister’s daughter, lives down on 27th Avenue—not near. I’m the oldest living cousin. And it’s so sad—there was no ________ street, no bus line ________, trying to get on it.
Martini: But why did your dad decide to buy all the way out here?
Chase: Well, that’s an interesting story. He and his brother had each bought a lot, not adjoining, in the Richmond, with the understanding when they retired—I guess they could’ve built their house. They weren’t licensed carpenters but I think they could have. But I guess they didn’t need that to build. Well, you know, my mother comes from an Irish background and I—it’s not a point that I admire, particularly—clans. Her mother was living on the—which is still there—a flat on Third Avenue, right near the park. And all of her daughters who were married lived here. “I want to live near them.” My mother said that. So they sold the lot and bought this house, which is fine—I like this old house. I’m thinking of selling it and moving into a family center. But I’m so sorry that we didn’t move into the Richmond, you know, but my mother said, “No, I want to live near my mother.” It’s not an attractive trait, I think, of the Irish although my father’s mother was Irish also.
Martini: It’s to keep the families together.
Chase: Yeah, yeah. And they’re always quarreling and, this is a rotten thing to say, but I didn’t like my grandmother. She sat in the window, making fun of people in the street. I can’t stand that [interviewer laughs]! All day, sitting in the window, and her daughters waiting on her, hand and-- You’re going to hate me.
Martini: No I’m not. This is great! Now, I’ve got to ask you: Were your dad and mother and your uncle—were they from San Francisco also?
Chase: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Martini: So how long has your family been here?
Chase: Well, my father’s—I didn’t know whether to tell you this or not—my father’s father came from Nantucket. His Irish wife, she was a different kind of lady, although I didn’t know it. He had the second largest dairy right at Baker and Beach, in what was Cow Hollow.
Martini: Cow Hollow, yeah.
Chase: I guess all ranches have a man to take care of the milking cattle. He would graze the cattle in the Presidio every day and I used to know his name but I never met him. That was part of his job, working in the dairy. I don’t know whether it was fifty cents a day, fifty cents a month or a dollar but I have those figures in mind. One day he came home and he only had ninety-nine of the cows. So his mother sent Louis—Louis—back to find the cow, which he did. And, you know, I’ve been trying [finger snapping sound] to think of the weeds--he got lost, cause he was only five or six or seven years old—which still grows there. Darn it, I wanted to remember that. But he left Cow Hollow so, I don’t know what point this happened, well they lost the biggest customer, which was a commercial bakery. But I don’t know for sure whether the ranch failed or whether they were just being bought up. But the City wanted to make street work and sidewalks and my father and mother—my parents—didn’t have the money to do it. So it was only Uncle Lou—there were five kids in their family, four boys and one girl but they died—neither he or Uncle Lou had the money to do the street work so they sold the lot. If they had hung onto it for ten years, we would have been wealthy, I guess.
Martini: What was the intersection again?
Chase: Baker and Beach. You know, the oldest house there, Al Herman were there close friends. Al Herman had a beer garden right there and he was the first one to build a house that wasn’t a kind of a--I don’t want to use the word “shack” because my parents—my father’s family--lived on the ranch.
Martini: Um hum. Now, in 1915, they moved onto the Presidio.
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Were they displaced by construction of the fair [Pan Pacific International Exposition], by any chance?
Chase: No, no. The fair, I think, was City. It was a San Francisco City fair. I have a pocketknife that my father bought at the fair [chuckles]. He wasn’t a walker and they would pass free and they’d go to the fair and they’d go here, go there and look at these candies, said he’d walked for ten miles--which was probably a mile— he said, “All I saw was a lot of candies.” They were big men and they sat down. Well, my father had rheumatism badly. Uncle Lou didn’t. They were the most charming, delightful, interesting people I’ve ever known in my life. They were--
Martini: They must have been really close friends as well as brothers.
Chase: Oh, blood brothers—four boys and Nell, their one sister. She kept house for them. She eventually married and moved. The other two brothers I didn’t know. My father was the youngest of five children. Uncle Lou was the oldest. But I knew him cause that’s where we were. But they were extraordinary men and they would help you and they were well known.
Martini: I think it says a lot that the Army somehow invited them to live on post—
Chase: I never understood that. I should’ve asked a lot more questions. No use thinking of that now.
Martini: You must have a lot of memories of old San Francisco too before the war.
Chase: Oh, I do. I do. When I go to town now—well, I haven’t been to town this year—after I took care of my mother, shortly after I retired—
Martini: A couple of the areas that I kinda wanted to bring up that are now part of the park—like did you ever go to like Sutros? And--
Chase: To swim, yeah.
Martini: To swim? Yeah, cause Uncle Lou’s daughter, Evelyn, drove a car. She and Malcolm each had a car. Uncle Lou had, I think, two—as I say, ‘Just build a garage, ‘ and you get a car. So we’d go to Sutros to swim. Yes. Now that was kind of a treat—she would drive us. However, we could swim, as I say, at—maybe that was after Evelyn married that we could swim at the Y.
Martini: That’s probably—probably got you in there. What do you remember of Sutros?
Chase: Huge! Huge! And many different pools—warm and hot and cold. Yeah—that’s all that I can remember but I know we used to go there and swim—yeah. And my sister was a good swimmer. I didn’t even enjoy it. I guess we went cause it was the thing to do or something, I don’t know.
Martini: So, while you were living on the Presidio, you’d always go to town. What kind of things did you do when you went—what, downtown?
Chase: Oh, yeah. As I say, take the D car, it went right along Geary. My mother always walked down Powell to the Emporium. And Hales Brothers, too. You know where they were on Market Street. My God, when you look at Market Street now-- But anyway, when we came home, in addition to bathrooms on the car line in the Presidio, you could buy ice cream or sit there and have ice cream, which is, I guess, what we did. And cigarettes. Anywhere, there was a little store there. I don’t know how long it stayed open and then, as I say, the bathrooms were there. Right there, you’d walk up some cement steps, 3 or 4 or 5, up to the cars. The D car made a big turn, which was fun, and waited--you got there before the bus was due and it was never late. You’d just sit there and wait. Magazines—they sold magazines.
Martini: I think it’s still there. I think it’s now—
Chase: It is. Exactly.
Martini: I think it’s the rental office for the Presidio Trust or something.
Chase: Well, it’s been many/different things. I have gone in once in a while—not recently--to ask about stuff. And they tell me where to go. I don’t know I was there last but they’ve taken, you know, the last—
[Tape stops]
[End of Tape 1, Side 2]
[Tape 2, Side 1]
Martini: This is Tape Two of the Madeline Chase interview. We were talking about the hillside up above your house and the little brick tunnels that used to be up there.
Chase: Yes. Yeah.
Martini: What did you call that area?
Chase: Mounds, cause they looked like mounds. And, you know, we were small kids. If we ran in there, it was dark in there. It wasn’t for ammunition?
Martini: [Interviewer apparently nodded.]
Chase: Ahh.
Martini: Old ammunition magazines.
Chase: Well, I’ll be darned. They’re still there, you know. Cause they had doors that swung and, if any kid got in there and some other kid closed the doors, it would be horrendous. But now they’ve taken the little doors off. But we played around there—wildflowers, as I said, everything just-- And then, back of those, you know, I was thinking that’s where my uncle had chickens and stuff but it’s too far away from where the house was. But we played there all the time.
Martini: What did you call the housing area just up near—
Chase: Lancaster. Battery Lancaster.
Martini: And there were houses there?
Chase: They were dreadful houses. It was shameful. They obviously, obviously had wood, but in front of them was this sort of material, thinner than leather. They were gray. Probably--it was windy, terribly windy up on that hill--probably kept the wind out. It was (unintelligible) look good. They were dreadful, dreadful looking (unintelligible).
Martini: Like tar paper? Was that—
Chase: Well, they were gray.
Martini: So that they were wood but they were covered with fabric?
Chase: Well, yes. There must’ve been a wooden foundation and there were only probably four on each side or maybe five on each side but Dorothy Smith’s father was a sergeant—they lived there. There was a family with several youngsters--the Buteen’s--lived there. We used to play baseball in that street and they had a thing for basket— We had baseball with fewer than nine people [both laugh]. Oh, I wish I had kept in touch with people. Now, the Nagels—Mr. Nagel was master sergeant. I guess that’s a non-commissioned officer—is that what a master sergeant is?
Martini: Pretty high ranking, yeah.
Chase: Well, he was an electrician and his daughter, Margaret, and I went to school with-- Margaret, ________, and I were the same age. And Dorothy, my sister, was the same age as Jo—Josephine, that is. Margaret’s brother was older—he went to West Point. He had a dreadful accident—I don’t know, you may want to cut this part out. Anyway, coming back from West Point, I’m afraid he was driving a car and one of the kids was killed. But at--then he was washed out at West Point. During the war, he went—but I’d lost touch with him finally (??). But he just died recently and he made Colonel--
Martini: Did he?
Chase: So the war (unintelligible) him.
Martini: When you were talking about that area up there, that was—
Chase: Slaprun, they called that Slaprun.
Martini: Okay. That was enlisted soldiers living up in that--as opposed to officers—living in the Lancaster area.
Chase: No, I think that they were, probably never got higher than sergaent. Where the Nagels lived were master sargents and that’s—
Martini: Where were the Nagels?
Chase: You know, when I walk to the bridge, I walk along the wall. And there’s a bench right there on the highway but not on the street. And I sit there and rest. There’s a road that comes down back of that bench.
Martini: Yes.
Chase: And that’s where they lived, up there.
Martini: Okay.
Chase: After we moved, they built new quarters for them and they were very nice—electric refrigerators and a lot of stuff. So they, I guess, were as close to being commissioned officers as you could get, without—
Martini: The nice Fort Scott area, ________ across the _______. On the Presidio, it sounds like there was a real class stuff—
Chase: Oh, definitely.
Martini: Yeah?
Chase: Oh, I think there still—and I understand there has to be. But I think it’s relaxed a great deal, you know. But, in order to have command, you’ve got to have this understanding that you’re a general and you have—what is it called--you know your ranks—buck sargent? You know your ranks--
Martini: Or private first class.
Chase: Yes.
Martini: Yeah. Did you ever get a chance to go into the aviators’ houses across the street?
Chase No. We drove by them all the time on the bus going to school, going to town. Course we were there before they were built.
Martini: Right.
Chase: And it was just a field of flowers and, when I walk by there and all this dust and stuff [laughs]. I walk down. I get off the bridge and walk down along to the Presidio. I always ride home. One day, I had to walk because the Muni had broken down and they didn’t have the little—those marvelous little—
Martini: Presidio shuttle bus?
Chase: Yeah. You know, one Sunday it was early and that man drove me to places where I hadn’t been in the Presidio. Apparently, the Jewish people are redoing their building and they’ve rented a huge building up there. Do you know where that is?
Martini: Yeah--
Chase: I’ve never been up there—
Martini: The Public Service Hospital.
Chase: Yes. Yes. I had never been there. They’re charming people. They’re knowledgeable about what they do. They drive beautifully.
Martini: The drivers on the bus?
Chase: Yeah. And they have these—and, when I think, ‘Get out of this bus and get into the Muni bus.’ [Both laugh.]
Martini: Yeah—I see it going around the Presidio and they look almost lonely. I bet they’re happy to have you as a passenger.
Chase: I guess on weekends they have me.
Martini: Oh, yeah—
Chase: I find for walking—if you walk along the lawn, there’s no sidewalk. I did go when they were having Mass out there but I try to avoid it. Also, I found out I have some kind of a health problem—I’m allergic to something…
Martini: So now what’s your route—take the Muni to the toll plaza?
Chase: No, I have to transfer. You have to get across the Golden Gate Park. And that 19th Avenue and Lincoln Way—well, if you want to commit suicide, there’s where to go [interviewer laughs]. And, then—I’m old and I don’t see very well and I don’t wear glasses—but the letters this big will tell you where these buses are going—two different routes. However, they both go to the bridge. I’m a morning person. I like to go fairly early. People going to work think, “What is that old woman doing out of the house when I’m trying to get to work?” Lately, fewer of them go to the bridge. They stop at California Street—they stop before that even. It’s hard. As old as I am--my doctor says walk and I just love to go out there. As I say, I would sell my eyeteeth to live there.
Martini: So, when you finally make it to the toll plaza—
Chase: [Laughs] Then I walk.
Martini: What route do you take?
Chase: Well, I go down Long, walk down Long [cuckoo clock can be heard “chiming” in background], stay on that past the cemetery because I’m going to—well, I don’t every day, I don’t go to the post office--but I go in there and I said, “We used to have box twenty-one, Presidio.” And he says, “It’s still there.” [Interviewer laughs.] Well, it’s a whole new building. You know, we used to call it a jail and they called it a “holding center,” which it was—that building. And I think the post office was in a separate building from the jail. [Interviewer apparently nodding.] I thought so--yeah.
Martini: Yeah, they moved it there, I think, after the war or something.
Chase: Yeah. They made a lot of changes during the war. Yeah, they did, which is understandable.
Martini: That building was the guardhouse.
Chase: Yes! We called it the jail.
Martini: That’s what its main job was, yeah.
Chase: Yeah, yeah.
Martini: Yeah. And there was a little hospital just down the street, that’s now where the Army museum used to be. That was a hospital for the soldiers on the post. They had their own hospital separate from Letterman.
Chase: I didn’t know that. Was that during my time there?
Martini: Um hum. Took a while to refigure it out. Letterman was its own Army post, inside the Presidio.
Chase: I’ll bet. Yeah, yeah.
Martini: Had its own commanding officer…
Chase: Is that true?
Martini: Yeah.
Chase: The history of the Presidio—I mean, with the Spanish and the—what was the family who lived in the Officers’ Club—Conseuello, Con—I know it—oh, the street’s named for her, for her family: Moraga and the other one.
Martini: I’m blank. You know that the Presidio was founded right about where your friends’ houses were—the lighthouse keepers.
Chase: Yeah.
Martini: That’s where they raised a cross to found San Francisco.
Chase: Yes.
Martini: It was too windy there, so they moved—
Chase: Well, and it’s still windy. You know, there used to be a nice little awning in front of the two keepers’--well, I guess Mr. Cobb on the main street, their house had an awning. They were beautifully kept houses. But it was windy up there. God almighty!
Martini: Do you remember when they started to build the bridge?
Chase: Yeah, I do.
Martini: Did they move those two houses up on top of the hill?
Chase: No.
Martini: Did they have to move them? Because the bridge was awful close.
Chase: No. You know, there’s no way to get up there in an automobile. The Cobb’s and, I guess, the Jordan’s too had cars but they kept the cars down on the flat road attached to the house. I-I am kind of lost—all I remember is going on that bridge, which I never liked to do and I think it was (unintelligible)
Martini: (unintelligible)
Chase: Midnight, though [interviewer laughs]. But it was always, always windy up there. Now I remember the chute they had for their garbage.
Martini: To get it down the hill—
Chase: Yes. Yeah. They had privileges at the Post X. We didn’t.
Martini: Because they were—that’s interesting.
Chase: It is.
Martini: They were government employees, weren’t they?
Chase: Yeah. Yes, they were.
Martini: Yeah, but they were—instead of contractors. Yeah, because your family was in an odd position. They weren’t really civilians but they weren’t on the payroll.
Chase: No. No. We were lucky. We were lucky to have lived there. Dorothy and I were—and, as little kids, we just took it for granted. We moved in, this was the way things were, you know.
Martini: Now, short of removing the Golden Gate Bridge—[laughing] that’s not going to happen—
Chase: It isn’t?
Martini: No, sorry [interviewee laughs]. What would you like to see happen out there in the area where your old house was to tell the story of--?
Chase: Well, I would like to see it just naturally, without anything there. Just trees and grass and wildflowers—iris. God, yeah, iris used to grow there. I got one and [interviewer chuckles] and it’s really bloomed this year in my backyard. Just as it was. I mean, if there was some kind of—which I know there would never be--something to indicate that there were civilians living there and what they did and what their names were but that, you know, that’s a pipe dream that will never be.
Martini: How does you show it?
Chase: Well, you never know. I’m always interested in the--you know the man who went into World War I and lived on the post in his--
Martini: Pershing.
Chase: Yeah, yeah. I’m always interested in reading about that. He wasn’t at all hap--he was miserable, actually, I read recently. He couldn’t get—in France—he couldn’t get enough men and the young men they were sending he said, “They’re not soldiers. They’re nuts/not--” And they weren’t. I’m sure they weren’t sufficiently trained. I don’t know where I read that but I just read it recently.
Martini: He would have been very, very young but the Presidio was just full of these young guys who were poorly trained.
Chase: Yeah, yeah.
Martini: No one was ready for it.
Martini: I’m kind of mad at the government and the Army. When you think--I happen to have a friend, a man who was a lieutenant in World War II. And he was wounded. And, like all the others who were wounded in the war, they were promised lifetime hospitalization. Now there is hospitalization but—he’s my age—if you’re old and sick, you going to go to Los Angeles to go to a hospital? I don’t think so. And they also took away—and they were promised a lifetime—commissaries, post exchange. I really think that is dirty pool. Many of those men volunteered. How did they do that? You’re going to find out I’m a real miserable old woman. I just found out—it was Clinton but I’m not sure that it was—ask anybody over whatever the age of social security. In other words, they come here to this country—they do have to become citizens—they get more social security than I get. And they took it away from me—you know, that was just deducted from paychecks (??).
Martini: Oh, right (unintelligible)--
Chase: And I pay taxes on it and they don’t and they’re getting $700. How do you explain that?
Martini: It’s a--
Chase: Don’t put that in your record—they’ll throw me into jail [both laugh]!
Martini: So--this has been great! This has been a great interview!
Chase: Well, I don’t know.
Martini: Thank you.
Chase: You know, as I say, I don’t drink coffee. But if you’d like a cup of tea, I would because I’m talked out!
Martini: Well, let’s have one. Thanks much, Ms. Chase.
Chase: I’m delighted to talk. My cousins aren’t remotely interested. And I’ve got a whole lot of cousins. There’s--my sister is but, as I say, she’s (unintelligible).
Martini: End of tape.
[End of Tape 2, Side 1]
The Golden Gate Strait
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA 35263
"One night, it was real early after Pearl Harbor, there was a blackout of course, we had sonar for tracking. We were tracking a submarine that was approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. Our big worry was it one of our own or was it an enemy submarine." - Jack Lehmkuhl
Jack R. Lehmkuhl
Interview with Jack R. Lehmkhul, who was a Colonel in the army in the 1930's and 40's. The discussion covers time in CCC camps and interaction between military and civilian life in and around the Golden Gate. Interview takes place in a restaurant.
Jack: 00:07 1933 I got a telegram directing me to report for duty on the first of May. So anyways, I reported on the third. They built the first CCC up in Park Meadows on the big old flat road going into Yosemite. They had five camps in Yosemite and the got transferred in the business to get [inaudible 00:00:27] in Fresno. I stayed with that post til 1939 and decided to get back into civilian life. It just lasted a year and I got called back in in the spring of 1940.
Brian: 00:42 I see, spring of 1940. Right to harbor defenses?
Jack: 00:45 Pardon me?
Brian: 00:46 Right to harbor defenses?
Jack: 00:47 Yeah so then I was there in 1941 then on until General Stockton and I left in 1942 and went to Texas, that was the end at Fort Scott. Those were interesting years. I have a few, I think, interesting experiences that happened. On the first blackout after Pearl Harbor, my biggest problem was trying to get the lights turned off on the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything else was black and that thing was sitting there with all the lights on as an invitation to bomb it. I had to phone all over. I had to phone somewhere in Hayward, somewhere in Santa Rosa. There are more jurisdictions mixed up with that thing. So we made an arrangement immediately that I would have a phone and I would alert them if we were in a green state or yellow state. In 20 minutes I would turn off all the lights. It worked out fine.
Another one was in the spring of 1941 we had a maneuver where theoretically paratroopers were dropped on the Presidio Golf Course. The purpose of it was to see if we as harbor defense could defend our own rear, which obviously we couldn't. Our commission was to shoot at battle ships coming in. So the result was in the War Plan they put a provision that in the event of hostilities at the time of infantry, or not personnel, to set up a perimeter defense to defend our rear. I was up in the command post and about 3:00 in the morning this lieutenant colonel came up and identified himself and said he would set up this perimeter defense and there was a machine gun nest at each corner of our command post, our command post looked right out to Golden Gate. So as soon as it was dawn, I went out and there were three men with a machine gun. The three men, they were all Japanese. Of course we were all a little trigger happy at that time so I made a call to General Stockton and they were taken off. But they were just as loyal as anybody else. That's another crazy thing that happened.
Then another time, one real stormy night, we had of course the harbor defense had all the way from Fort Funston on the south and Fort Cronkhite in the North. We had observers down as far as Half Moon Bay and almost up to Drake's Bay. Got a report that there were signals being flashed out to sea. Well it turned out that up in the top of those towers of the Golden Gate Bridge there was a red signal that flashed as an interval. There were some homes up on the Marin side, called Wolfback Ridge, it was going in one window and being reflected out another window. It looked like signals going out to sea so we had to send somebody to check that thing out.
One night, it was real early after Pearl Harbor, there was a blackout. Of course we had sonar for tracking. We were tracking a submarine that was approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. Our big worry was it one of our own or was it an enemy submarine. Again, I was going all over trying to identify it. This blackout came and somebody down at the Presidio decided they'd be a hero and they pulled the master switch. We couldn't communicate and we lost track of the submarine and everything. We didn't know. Our big worry was that it might have come on in the Golden Gate. Laying on the bottom, there was a net gate that extended all the way from Marin County clear across to St. Francis Yacht Club that we controlled. So we were a little bit worried. Much to our astonishment, the only gun that we had that fired into the bay was a little three inch cannon that was over at Fort Baker that have never even been activated. But anyway, it turned out that nothing came of that.
Brian: 05:27 So that was during one of the early blackouts?
Jack: 05:30 Yes, one of the early blackouts. We were tracking, of course sonar was top secret in those days. Turned out that nothing came of it but we were worried for a few days what was going to happen.
Another thing that's just kind of amusing that you probably know, when you put on camouflage, you have to change it with the seasons. So General Stockton said we better get ahold of a plane somehow and get over on our set up and seconds. So, we started up at Cronkhite in an old color driven observation plane. We checked everything out so this pilot said "The minute we get through down at Funston, I'm going to get right down on the deck and come in that way because these guys are pretty trigger happy." Which we were in those days. So he got right down on the deck and we made the turn right by Mile Rock Lighthouse. Just a short time before, we'd extended a great big line out to the Mile Rock Lighthouse to give us information on any activity because the fog had come in and we couldn't see. We were always afraid of motor torpedo boats will come dashing in.
So anyway, we ran right into that thing. I swear, that plane came to a complete stop. I was looking down at those rocks thinking it's going to be an awful cold swim in from there. We limped in under the Golden Gate Bridge and made an emergency landing at Crissy Field.
Brian: 07:05 Oh my goodness. So you're saying the line was above the water?
Jack: 07:09 Yeah, it was an overhead-
Brian: 07:10 Oh I see.
Jack: 07:10 A big telephone line and everything else. It'd only been in there a week or so. The pilot didn't know about it and I didn't think about it.
Brian: 07:10 Okay, well that must have been pretty frightening. I mean, so close to the water you couldn't-
Jack: 07:10 I say it was an old time plane anyway. It was really a very interesting for all us. It was funny, before this happened he was flying so low I was like Jesus, he's going to scrape some of those rocks that are out there. But anyway, that's the whole set up. That's about all we know, to give you background.
Brian: 07:49 Oh that's fine. So HDSF had control of the Golden Gate Bridge as far as the blackouts and turning on the lights?
Jack: 07:57 Blackouts and that sort of thing. You have to give them some warning or there could be quite a pileup of all that if you just put that thing in darkness.
Brian: 08:06 I see, I see. So HDSF must have had control of the area along the water? Was that it? I guess it was close to the Forts.
Jack: 08:15 More or less.
Brian: 08:16 Yeah.
Jack: 08:16 Of course our mission, like I say, was to shoot the artillery guns out of there at any enemy. We have a few antiaircraft guns but very few. It was not the extent of it. I have a book right there, if you can reach that.
Brian: 08:34 Oh this thing?
Jack: 08:35 Yeah. After things were going along, things got pretty calmed down. When you came in there as a new officer, you'd had to hunt so many damn places to get information of what it was you wanted to do. So in the middle of the night, I got all the information together. This is the original copy of everything together. So when you reported to duty, you read through that and you knew just about everything that was going on.
Brian: 08:35 Yes.
Jack: 09:16 [crosstalk 00:09:16]
Brian: 09:16 Oh yeah, I hadn't seen this before. This is very important.
Jack: 09:23 Just at the time I was getting it ready was about when General Stockton and I got transferred to Texas.
Brian: 09:30 I see.
Jack: 09:32 But that other book that's going alongside it, see we went into a big antiaircraft training summit and I ran into the same problem that's in there. So I wrote that book and that's one of the reasons I got that contributed to getting that Legion of Merit decoration. Also later the Bronze Star. So both of those books, the one there especially, that was it for 26 weeks training center. Every hour for 26 weeks was covered in that and what you should be doing day and night. It has no relationship to Fort Scott.
Brian: 10:20 This has a lot of vital information. In fact, the type of information that I could use in this book. I mean this was done at the time so it's got to be the most accurate of all.
Jack: 10:34 Back in the peace time days, the Army number one weren't given enough funds to fire their guns.
Brian: 10:42 That's right.
Jack: 10:44 Coastal artillery, most coastal artillery in San Francisco is called the Honolulu of the coast artillery. Usually you would escort to Oregon or up to Washington or way out in the boondocks. There's not a great deal to do. So they drifted into sort of a ennui that they didn't keep things up to date.
Brian: 11:04 Yes. So then once war came-
Jack: 11:10 So I just finally put all this stuff together so if there was a new officer coming he could do what was expected to be done and when and where and so forth.
Brian: 11:28 Is there ... I mean I don't mean to ask this in disrespect, but-
Jack: 11:34 I don't know if that would be of any interest to you-
Brian: 11:37 It's of absolute interest to me.
Jack: 11:39 Would you like to borrow it?
Brian: 11:40 I would like to borrow it. I mean, I realize this is your heirloom, this is something that is very valuable for you and your family.
Jack: 11:50 Well that's the initial working copy.
Brian: 11:55 Yeah.
Jack: 11:55 We finally printed whatever it was in.
Brian: 12:00 But I'd feel a heavy responsibility for borrowing it but I would like to borrow this book.
Jack: 12:10 Well you're welcome to. It just sits on a closet shelf here.
Brian: 12:14 Oh I see. Somehow I feel compelled to leave you a check for a major amount of money just in case somehow my house caught on fire or something.
Jack: 12:21 Well, don't worry about that. That has no monetary value as far as in that case.
Brian: 12:28 Oh but it has historical value.
Jack: 12:29 That's right.
Brian: 12:31 It has real historical value. Wow, it will take me days to pore through this and get the information out of this book. But it's the best bit of information I've come across so far. It would really help to make things really accurate.
Jack: 12:51 Well why don't we go down to lunch now because I'm starving-
Brian: 13:00 Okay.
Recorded in a restaurant (background noise reduced)
[crosstalk 00:13:00]
Jack: 13:00 Chain of command.
Brian: 13:00 Yes.
Jack: 13:04 It's funny, everybody knows about General MacArthur but very people ever heard of General Richardson. Actually, MacArthur had that little command, I call it little geographically, down in the Southwest Pacific. We had the entire Pacific Ocean from the United States to and including Asia. Another ironic thing, General Nimitz, Captain Nimitz had a Naval ROTC field at the University of California just like the Army had theirs. So I went out to [USFO 00:13:49] and he had Nimitz in command of everything of the whole Pacific. So I used to have to go every day to his staff meetings and come back and bring my General Richardson up to date on what was expected. He never knew me but I knew who he was.
I actually never saw a shot fired in action as far as the whole war. One time, we got a report that the entire Japanese fleet was X number of miles off show following the flank speed. This older general who's son had been up in the Bataan march, was of course upset about his son and also nervous. I sat down and figured out from the data I had where they were and the times, et cetera. I finally got him calmed down to the place where Colonel, if this is true, which I'm sure it is not, the Japanese fleet would be going through Reno right about now. There were several reports like that.
Brian: 13:04 Yes, yes.
Jack: 15:04 it turned out that no PBY was doing the reconnaissance work. Sent a message to indicate [crosstalk 00:15:20] a fishing boat and they didn't answer. Then he came and reported to the commander. By the time it got to Washington it was the whole Japanese fleet.
Brian: 15:28 Yes. That was a fellow by the name of Colonel Baldwin was his name, that you had tried to calm down.
Jack: 15:37 That's right.
Brian: 15:42 But he wasn't in command of any of the tactical units. Wasn't he in supply at that time?
Jack: 15:47 No, there was another battalion or something that came in there, it was part of the bigger corps, he was the commander of that. It was more of a field artillery than actually coastal. Again, they were in connection with the defense of our rear. I think they had other round missions.
Brian: 16:16 But he had no authority to get the harbor defenses to actually come up to alert?
Jack: 16:26 They put him, see we had this command post which was manned 24 hours a day. Of course because of seniority he was there. I was actually running the show but he was the commanding officer. He had his old chair and he'd tell me what he wanted done. After a while it became so routine it was almost like the Japanese were never going to get through our shores. That's about the time General Stockton and I-
Brian: 17:00 I see.
Jack: 17:00 See the coast artillery became obsolete the day Pearl Harbor happened. That's why we immediately went to antiaircraft training. Our first place was Camp Wallace in Texas, training replacements. We were not training a division or a battalion or whatever. You were X, Y, Z, number of [Crosstalk] we were training the men who were going to take their place, [crosstalk] Virginia and Georgia, there we were training actual antiaircraft units. We'd go out with the whole crew. [crosstalk 00:17:45]
Brian: 17:53 The harbor defense command post, that also had Navy personnel-
Jack: 17:58 Well I was going to get to that.
Brian: 18:01 Oh.
Jack: 18:02 We were at the harbor, harbor defense command. Then when they got the Navy, they sent a naval detachment so we had actually two head people at harbor defense command which was our mission and the harbor [inaudible 00:18:39] control post. Those were two commands that worked all at the same time. Ironically, the Naval officer, I'd always said the Navy could never function without coffee. The first thing they sent up was a big coffee maker before they sent any machinery to operate. We always joked about it. The senior officer on duty for the Navy would go to bed and I couldn't. I'd be up all night. This one chap was an Annapolis graduate and had [crosstalk]. I had an intercom, of course, and he had one right by his bed so about 3:00 in the morning I'd buzz in. I'd say "Joe, don't bother waking up. There's not a damn thing happening."
Brian: 19:39 Did you ever get written up in the Golden Gate Guardian?
Jack: 19:43 Pardon me?
Brian: 19:43 Did they ever do an article or anything about you in the-
Jack: 19:45 Not to my knowledge.
There was one other officer, they made a movie about him with Robert Redford. He and I built the first CCC camp together. We were both second lieutenant. He went back to Fort Scott and then he was sent to Sacramento. He was in district headquarters in Sacramento. He headed up, he was in what they used to call the War Department before it became the Department of Defense. Told him to make a study, I've forgotten what the science was. Remember the Germans had that special force outfit? I forgot what they called them. The lightning jobs, they went in fast and come out, they were trying to develop ... General MacArthur and several other top generals met him. I've forgotten. Anyway, he came back and he was given a job to make a study of how to set up this special force. It started looking for somebody to command. They were supposed to be able to make one of their actual mission plans to make a parachute drop in Berchtesgaden and kidnap Hitler.
Brian: 19:45 Oh I see.
Jack: 21:41 And crazy other things. So anyway, they were looking around for someone to command that. Several generals all of a sudden developed medical problems and retired. So they said Fredericks you've made this study, you do it. So he had the special service. One of his missions that he got mixed up in was when the Germans had that Mount Messina up in Italy. He was there and he said, well they had about 8% casualties but he got the men and they were dog tired. They're sitting up there shooting right down our throat. One interesting little side light, when you're operating in a muddy condition and you have a muzzle cover up your guns. The damn muzzle guns we had were so inadequate that by the time you were target locked and you got the damn thing off it was gone.
So Fredricks had this special force. Mark Clotz was the next eschalon. So Fredricks ordered I don't know how many cases of whiskey but it was the first time that liquor had ever been distributed to troops because [inaudible 00:22:55] so tired and morale was so low I figured that would work. They also had I don't know how many million condoms. Put the rubber right over the barrel, shoot right through it. Put another one on. I actually saw this letter from General Clark to General Fredricks, "What the hell are you doing up there fighting, fucking or drinking?" A letter between two generals.
Brian: 23:26 Yeah, I guess they did the movie but there was a book that came out about it first.
Jack: 23:48 Yeah, book first. Visited with him after the war and I said here you get this dream command, he had a [inaudible 00:23:48], he said "You're the guy that doesn't exist." What do you mean? "There's an expression that there's no such thing as an indispensable. I asked for you three times, every time the report would come back that he's indispensable and can't be transferred. So I'd probably be dead if I didn't hold this outfit.
Brian: 24:12 Yeah, well could be. So you never knew that he had been asking for you?
Jack: 24:21 Well I kind of assumed that he would. But there were situations where if they want you some place else you didn't have much to say about it.
Brian: 24:40 Do you know if he ever got to, if he lived long enough to see the film that came out about him with William Holden?
Jack: 24:40 I've seen the movie.
Brian: 24:48 Yeah, but do you think he had? Because he's not alive anymore.
Jack: 25:00 Back in Fort Scott and for a while he was down in Hollywood supervising the making of the film. So I'm sure he saw the finished product.
Brian: 25:10 He should have felt honor that he got William Holden to play his part. I mean that's ...
Jack: 25:13 Yeah, one time, trying to think what the occasion was, there was a play called The Drunkard at the Palace Hotel. My wife, for my anniversary, Bob and his wife invited us to join them at the Palace Hotel to see The Drunkard. I'd become very close friends. So I go and that first CC Camp was the first shipment we got. We were expecting heavy timbers to put in the foundation for screen doors and moving paper let's cut some trees down. So they actually started out cutting trees before they got their supplies set up.
Brian: 26:25 The people that came into the CCC camp, how much of military training were they given? What was the regimen that they-
Jack: 26:36 I'll tell you. We got together when we were stationed at Fort Barry for a few, couple of weeks before we went out. I was teaching these fellas right face and left face, just so I could move them on in training and stuff. Staff guard was running around stop, stop. The driver came down and said lieutenant and major so and so wants you to report to him. So I go up and report. This is when there was some rumors that the CCC was the secret army being mobilized. He says I want you to teach them right face and left face because of this situation. So we couldn't get anything having to do with direct training.
However it did work out in the timeframe that an awful lot of them became officers and were invited to officer training school.
Brian: 26:36 Oh I see, you mean the people that came in to CCC-
Jack: 27:32 A lot of college graduates and everything else. They were out of a job [crosstalk 00:27:41]
Brian: 27:41 That's right.
Jack: 27:50 As a matter of fact, one of the CCC chaps that I had, now the name has left me, is now the head of the Chamber of Commerce for San Francisco, it's right out my mind now.
Brian: 28:05 But you couldn't give them orders, whatever time they had to wake up. I mean you couldn't drag them out of bed or any of that?
Jack: 28:13 Oh yeah, that was administrative. If we were in a National Forest, the Forest Service did, they were the ones that took them out to do these various jobs. If you were in the Parks Service range, our job was to feed them, house them, take care of them medically and that sort of thing.
Brian: 28:13 I see.
Jack: 28:27 So we was outside the building every morning to make sure they were all there. [crosstalk 00:28:48]. So we bathed them, housed them, fed them.
Brian: 28:58 Was this the secret army that certain people thought that FDR wanted to set up?
Jack: 29:02 No, the European people, England was almost the war at that time. Shortly thereafter it did break out.
Brian: 29:02 Oh I see, I understand.
Jack: 29:02 Then the of course our relationship with the Japanese was pretty strained.
Brian: 29:02 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack: 29:15 See it was supposed to be run by the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor, at the last minute, realized they didn't have the logistic ability to be out in the cold and et cetera, so that's why it was dropped in the Army's lap on 24 hours notice.
Brian: 29:58 When was the Civilian Conservation Corps ended?
Jack: 30:02 Well nationally, yes. There's still in California some-
Brian: 30:02 Yes.
Jack: 30:05 But national institution, oh I guess about 1939 or 40 wasn't it? Again, at that time there was the Thomason Act, if you remember, with that group of officers. They were really then realizing that eventually they were going to [crosstalk 00:30:40].
Brian: 30:49 Before the Thomason Act I would imagine most of the officers in the Army were West Pointers were they?
Jack: 30:52 Well yes. However, there were a few, like I remember one Major who was in command of the CCC of the Fresno district. He was a calvary officer and had been an enlisted man. He had taken certain courses. But there were very few in comparison to the way it is now.
I think it was Mustangs if I remember correctly.
Brian: 31:12 The what?
Jack: 31:12 If you were not a West Point graduate you were a Mustang as opposed to a cadet or whatever they called it.
Brian: 31:56 Somebody else that I had talked to had mentioned to me that when reserve officers and Thomason Act people started coming in, the West Point regulars, the officers were given temporary rank of captain or something like that to keep them above the-
Jack: 32:14 Well we had a funny situation that evolved after the war. Probably I was a first lieutenant by the time I went. I almost immediately became a captain in the timeframe of the reserve officers. Then, when war was eminent, they called for bosuns throughout the service. There were three of us reserve officers and there were three or four West Point graduates. General Stockton mixed up on who got promoted when, just the mechanics of it. He sent our three and the three West Pointers and the mechanics of the reserve set up operated faster so they ranked us as captains and we ranked them as majors.
Brian: 33:17 I see.
[crosstalk 00:33:17]
Jack: 33:17 We all had separate jobs. But there was a certain-
Brian: 33:17 Yes.
Jack: 33:25 Mainly the wife was the one that resented it. I know one wife was talking to my wife and said I'm going to take my rank to so and so. You don't have any rank. Your husband has rank but you don't have any.
Brian: 33:25 Yeah.
Jack: 33:42 It got so big it really didn't make any -
Brian: 33:49 Oh here's something I wanted to ask you. You helped General Stockton draft the notice that went out to call all HDSF personnel back on December 7th.
Jack: 34:00 That's right. We just started sending telegrams and telephone calls. Some of them were actually on trains. When they got to their destination they were given a telegram, get to a phone, sergeant so and so I'm on my way back. They just came dribbling in. A lot of them, I think a few of them just came back without any orders at all.
Brian: 34:23 I see. But there was a public, a message that was released to newspaper and radio that you had come up with.
Jack: 34:32 That's right.
Brian: 34:33 Yes. Somebody told me that he just came down from the Washington Monument back in Washington DC and he heard this thing asking for HDSF personnel. He thought oh that's strange, all the way across the other part of the country, this one message comes out. Did you help draft the-
Jack: 34:55 Yeah me and Colonel and another officer, there were about five of us. We decided, well the general decided of course and made the recommendation.
Brian: 35:15 Did the harbor defenses have any public relations office that would deal with any reporters or newspapers?
Jack: 35:22 Oh they may have later on but not at that stage.
Brian: 35:22 I see.
Jack: 35:33 The antiaircraft command headquarters, under another general, very good friend of General Stockton's. Anyway, they were stationed in Richmond, Virginia, all the antiaircraft training center. Actually, we went overboard on training too many aircraft [crosstalk 00:36:01] our Air Force is entirely different. The planes are so damn fast that antiaircraft was like trying to shoot a BB gun. They got much more sophisticated type weapons, guided missiles. But that's what the antiaircraft command evolved into, the guided missile. But that technology is far removed.
Brian: 35:33 Yeah.
Jack: 36:37 My biggest job was planning the invasion of Japan which, thank god, didn't happen.
Brian: 36:41 Yes I know.
Jack: 36:43 That would have been the worst. We studied weather conditions as far back as weather had been recorded. Then we added another several months on to that. Right where the biggest concentration of invading troops had been assembled to go ashore had the worst hurricane they've had in history.
Brian: 36:43 That year?
Jack: 36:43 That day.
Brian: 36:43 Oh that day? Okay.
Jack: 37:00 They were involved in it. As a matter of fact, some of them were beginning to come in the biggest problem is that it stopped the flow that's why I stayed in. I couldn't come home, you know with that points system. I did it from home before Pearl Harbor had happened actually. I mean, not Pearl Harbor, before the invasion. But I stayed out there in December, after the war was over because I was so damn busy trying to stop the flow of supplies and personnel and everything else. It was all in motion.
Brian: 37:00 Yes.
Jack: 37:00 We lost two cruisers and three destroyers, never even had time to get off an SOS. They just apparently capsized and sank.
Brian: 37:00 Oh, during the storm?
Jack: 37:00 Yeah. You can imagine with all those troops and [MSTs 00:37:00] and all the small landing craft.
Brian: 37:00 Yeah. So when you came back after World War II did you stay in the Army long after that?
Jack: 37:00 Well I kept my reserve commission active. I had 30 years of service in 1961.
Brian: 37:00 Oh okay.
Jack: 38:20 In 1961 I was 51 years old. I had reached the age bracket. Do you want to order some dessert?
Brian: 37:00 Oh okay, I'll have some.
Speaker 3: 37:00 I brought your dessert already. I thought you ordered-
Brian: 36:59 Oh yes, I had the fruit cup. That's fine.
Speaker 3: 36:59 But if you'd like something else-
Brian: 36:59 Oh no, this is fine.
Jack: 37:00 Do you have any utensils left to eat that thing?
Brian: 37:17 I've got one.
Jack: 37:17 Yeah I was assigned to the Sixth Army under reserve status. Then I got called back to duty. Then I went to the every two week meeting, kept my [inaudible 00:39:18].
Brian: 37:41 Yes. You never ran across a Captain Calvin Chin through that time did you? He was Sixth Army and reserve status around the Bay Area, my father, during the 50s.
Jack: 39:29 You never know.
When General Lamb became chief of staff, my wife and I, we spent a couple of weeks with him and his wife. I wouldn't have that job with all the money. The [inaudible 00:39:59] you can multiply it by about a thousand. At 7:15 the General will be at so and so. At 7:28 he'll be at so and so. At 8:10 he'll be at so and so.
Brian: 39:29 Yeah.
Jack: 40:10 And that was his schedule 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you stop and think about the poor president has to do it all ... You're a constituent, he has to take five minutes to shake hands.
Brian: 40:29 I know. [crosstalk 00:40:29]
I guess that's why they have people telling them what they have to do at that moment.
Jack: 40:36 That's right.
Brian: 40:40 They probably don't know what's about to happen next. Somebody has to be taking care of us.
Jack: 40:45 A funny side light, we were playing golf one day, General Lamb as Chief of Staff, the acting General, a Commandant of the Marine Corps and myself. So I'm driving one of the golf carts and Fred was ahead of me driving the other. The three par hole, we hit our shots and then you went down a ravine, up a hill to get up to the green. So as I said it's the general, me and the commandant in the Marine Corps. I'm driving and everybody is looking over at the green as we're approaching our balls. Fred stopped and I crashed into him. I almost removed two thirds of the armed forces right there. We all laughed about it.
Brian: 41:35 Yes. I mean there was nobody, some aide following them with a little black case with whatever codes that are inside the-
Jack: 41:51 No.
Brian: 41:51 Okay.
Jack: 42:02 [crosstalk 00:42:02] General Stockton was a senior brigadier general. So he was always [inaudible 00:42:06]. We had to make an inspection down south. We stopped, we had 155 GPS just one run at Carpenteria or something like that. So we stopped one morning and inspected it. General Stockton said there would be a better place for it somewhere else so they ordered it moved. That same afternoon, after it was moved, the Japanese lobbed one shell in there just to let us know that they knew it had been moved. This is also before it [crosstalk 00:42:42] my wife and I.
Brian: 42:02 I see.
Mine Depot at Fort Point
Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives, GOGA 35301
"These mines would be planted outside the gate, and every so often we would pick them up and bring them ashore to Fort Scott, or Fort Baker, or even over on Treasure Island, they would re-work them, they would scale them and paint them, and look over the firing mechanism and all of that, and then we would take them back out again." - Rudy Palihnich
Rudy Palihnich
Interview with Rudy Palihnich discussing army and civilian life in the Golden Gate as a mine planter from 1941 to 1946
All right. You were on the Spurgin. When did you join the service?
Rudy: Actually, November 3, 1941.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: From New Jersey, and [00:00:30] then went into basic training, and from basic training, I was transferred to a mine planter, Baird, in Boston Harbor.
There, I worked as ... I was a trainee, and probably because my knowledge of engineering and so on, before long, I was made a permanent member of the crew. I was in the training [00:01:00] crew for the new planters that were being built at the time.
I advanced from training into permanent member of the crew, then the instructor for boiler room personnel and then instructor for engine room personnel. And then I submitted an application for appointment as engineering boss on the planters, and that was denied on the grounds that I was [00:01:30] performing valuable service to the war effort, and that my services are very valuable as an instructor, but to submit this application again at the expiration of the training program, so that's what I did.
Chin: Okay.
Rudy: We were training the last crew for the Spurgin. Spurgin was the 14th of the 16 new [00:02:00] mine planters being built. I was sent ... By that time I was a technical sergeant, and I was sent to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where the mine planters were built. Well, when I got there, I was assigned to the mine planter, Maybach, and while in Point Pleasant, standing by for completion of the Maybach, [00:02:30] I got my appointment as engineering boss warrant officer, and engineer for the mine planter, and transferred to the Spurgin.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: And then when the Spurgin was completed, I went with it to Panama, and after about six months in Panama, on both sides of the canal, we came up to San Francisco to be converted into a cable layer. [00:03:00] Well, we got here, and it seems that nobody knew anything about us, in San Francisco, and we just laid around for about two, couple of months. And then they decided ... Since no one knew anything about us being made into a cable layer, that we continue our ... In the mine fields around San Francisco.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: And we've been there from 19 ... Well about early '43 [00:03:30] until the end of the war.
Chin: I see. Now, when the ship came up to San Francisco, were there any other mine planters already attached to the harbor defenses?
Rudy: Yes, there was the Mills, which was sister ship of the Spurgin, and the Niles, the Niles was a different type of a ship, diesel engine powered, and she was ... There was always [00:04:00] problems with her, she was very seldom ready to go out, so that's why they decided to make us a mine planter for the San Francisco area, because the Niles was always broken down. But that Niles is ... Looking at it, is a beautiful looking ship, looked more like a yacht than a mine planter.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: So anyway, we became a permanent mine planter for this area here.
Chin: [00:04:30] So was there enough work for two mine planters?
Rudy: Oh yeah, more than enough. I believe we had 19 mine groups to maintain, and these groups consisted of, I believe, 13 mines in each group. These mines would be planted [00:05:00] outside the gate, and every so often we would pick them up and bring them ashore to Fort Scott, or Fort Baker, or even over on Treasure Island, they would re-work them, they would scale them and paint them, and look over the firing mechanism and all of that, and then we would take them back out again.
Chin: Yes. [00:05:30] When you would bring them up for maintenance, how many at a time would they bring in?
Rudy: Oh, it depends. If it's for regular maintenance we could put in a whole group, 19 mines.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: If it was for regular maintenance. If it was not, if it was one of the mines was malfunctioning or so, well, then we would just select that one that was malfunctioned and bring it up.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: As [00:06:00] I said, we would bring them in to either one of these. There was a mine battery at Fort Scott, you know where Fort Scott is?
Chin: Oh yes.
Rudy: And Fort Baker.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: And we usually docked across the ... Over in Sausalito, there was a mine dock specially built for the mine planters. The mines were taken up in Fort Baker, or Fort Scott, as I said.
Chin: Okay, so you would take [00:06:30] the mines from wherever they were picked up, and you bring them to Fort Scott or Fort Baker, and leave them there to be repaired, and then you'd permanently dock in Sausalito.
Rudy: Yeah, we did not carry a mine planting crew. The mine planting crew was based ashore. We only operated the ship for them.
Chin: That's right. Yes. I think I should tell you that you're the first person that I've [00:07:00] talked to that has the experience and the knowledge of the mine fields and the mine planters, so far in this project, so this is pretty exciting for me. And all the things that you're saying is a lot of the things that I've read in theory, but I'm seeing that these things actually happened right at the harbor defenses in San Francisco.
Rudy: That's how I remembered. I was five years in the Army, of that five years was only about three or [00:07:30] four months that I wasn't on a mine planter, most of the rest was on a mine planter.
Chin: Very good.
Rudy: In Boston Harbor, or shipyards, or here in San Francisco.
Chin: Now, when the mines were planted, do you remember generally the procedure that used in planting these, the mines?
Rudy: Well, these mines were controlled mines, they were not dropped at random. They were [00:08:00] dropped in a plotted position. When they were dropped in that position, then a cable from that mine would run out to what we called a distribution box. It would be connected to the distribution box, and the whole 19 mines in this field would be connected by cables connecting to the distribution box. And then one cable from the distribution box [00:08:30] to shore.
Now, we had another boat that worked with us, and that was what we called the L boat, L, the letter L, now why that designation, I don't know, but anyway, that was the designation of the boat. This L boat would go out there before we would get there and find the distribution box, pick it up on their deck. [00:09:00] And then we would plant the mine, and then run over the cable to this L boat, and the L boat would then connect the mine cable to the distribution box. And then when the whole minefield, or mine group was planted, then the L boat would drop the distribution box down to the bottom.
Chin: I see. Now then, wasn't there some [00:09:30] cable that they'd have to bring back to shore somewhere? That would be picked up?
Rudy: Cable?
Chin: Yeah, the connection that would go to shore and then eventually to the mining casemate.
Rudy: Yes. But I mean, I don't think we did anything like that. I don't remember. I remember doing a cable job, midway between here and Honolulu, there was a cable break and we went out there, grappled for it, and found it, and brought [00:10:00] it on deck and repaired the problem.
And this may be of interest, that we had for protection, we had a blimp circling overhead, and two Navy destroyers circling around us to keep ... I don't think it was so much for safety, it was for giving away the location of the cable. Keep all the ships away from there.
Chin: I see. So, the ship did [00:10:30] function sometimes as a cable ship then?
Rudy: Yes, oh yeah. We had the ... I forgot now what it was, about a couple of miles of cable onboard.
Chin: Was that the only time that it went out into the open ocean to do any such work?
Rudy: Well, open ocean is ... Minefields was in the open ocean.
Chin: Well, I guess I mean far away from the ...
Rudy: That's the only one that I remember. It was about midway between here and Honolulu.
Chin: I see. [00:11:00] Speaking of the open ocean, do you remember generally how far into shore, and sort of geographically where the minefields were in relation to the Golden Gate and the shoreline?
Rudy: I would say it was about four miles or so, running from approximately ... Are you familiar with San Francisco?
Chin: Oh yes, that's where I'm from.
Rudy: Oh, you're from here?
Chin: Oh yes.
Rudy: I thought he gave the ... That you're from Los Angeles.
Chin: That's correct. Well, I have to live down [00:11:30] in Los Angeles for now, but I'm from San Francisco.
Rudy: I see. Well, roughly the minefields ran from approximately where the zoo is, you know where the zoo is?
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: Well about a mile off, out into the sea, from the zoo.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: And then in circle. From the zoo, further out to sea, over Golden ... [00:12:00] Circling the entrance to the Golden Gate, and out over the potato patch, you know where that is?
Chin: Oh yes.
Rudy: Potato patch, and over to a beach over in Marin County, I can't think of the name of the beach, but it's something like that, it was sort of an arc around ... It wasn't a straight line say, from Golden, from [inaudible 00:12:24] to Marin County, it was sort of an arch going out to sea. So I would say it was [00:12:30] Point Lobos in San Francisco, I would say was about 10 miles out.
Chin: I see. The depths out there are not as deep as some people would imagine, are they? It's fairly shallow.
Rudy: Oh no, quite deep.
Chin: It is?
Rudy: Near shore it's not very deep. But, out in the ocean it's several hundred feet.
Chin: Oh is it?
Rudy: [00:13:00] These mines were not floating mines, they weren't buoyant, they were on the bottom, ground mines.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: Originally, when I was first in the harbor defenses of Boston, we were planting buoyant mines. They floated about 14 feet below the surface, and they were anchored to the bottom. But in the early part of 1943, they came out with these ground mines that would go right down to the bottom. [00:13:30] They didn't need an anchor or anything because their own weight ... I think they weighed something like 3 tons, so their own weight was the anchor.
Chin: So these were right on the bottom of the ocean floor there?
Rudy: Yes, uh-huh.
Chin: But it was supposed to have enough blasting power to be able to ...
Rudy: Yeah, well they were something like 3 tons of blasting power.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: And we had, on several occasions we ran [00:14:00] across this field as for firing, sort of experimental, they would fire the mines. We would tow a target. And when the target would get over the minefield they would explode it, and we would be a mile or so away from the target, it was like [inaudible 00:14:23].
Chin: I see. So anything closer would rupture the hull. I see.
Rudy: [00:14:30] Quite potent.
Chin: Were the mines from some sort of optical siting from the shore somewhere?
Rudy: No, they had a cable to shore, to a casemate, and they had ... They could be fired from shore at will. Now, in the inclement weather, such as [00:15:00] cloudy, or foggy, weather at night, they would put a charge or something like 500 volts on the cable and it took 512 volts to explode the mine. So, with 500 volts charge on the mine, the magnetic effect of the ship going over it would generate the additional 12 volts to explode [00:15:30] it. But if there was no charge on it, any ship could go over it without any problem.
Chin: Okay. Now, when they picked up 19 of these mines to be repaired, would they be afraid that they'd be leaving a gap in the ...
Rudy: Well no, as mines were picked up, the others would be put down.
Chin: I see, oh I see, okay. So they always had a set to just put right in as the others were taken out.
Rudy: Oh sure.
Chin: How many [00:16:00] hours, or how much time did it take to do say, your average group of 13 mines?
Rudy: How long would it take to put 19 mines?
Chin: Yeah.
Rudy: All day.
Chin: Ah, all day. Yes.
Rudy: I don't remember exactly, but I know it took a long time. Actually, my position was not anything with the mines, I was engineering boss there, so I was in charge of the engine room.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: That's [00:16:30] what I remember.
Chin: Were there any times that the mine planter would be used for towing targets for sea coast artillery? I mean, targets for guns?
Rudy: Yes, yes, we did that too. This may be of interest to you; in 1945, I don't remember the ... Early '45 or late '44, there was a troop ship that ran aground on the Farallon Islands. I don't know if you've ever [00:17:00] heard of this.
Chin: I've heard of it, but maybe you have more details.
Rudy: It was a [inaudible 00:17:04] converted into a troop ship. Henry Berg, something like that.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: And we were tied to the dock at Sausalito. And about 4 o'clock in the morning we got the word that the ship is aground up there, to go out there and see what we can do for it. [00:17:30] Well, I happened to be the officer of the day, that particular night, so I immediately got the engine ready, we called the captain and the chief engineer lived in Mill Valley, or Kentfield, or something in that area. We informed him of the request, so I got the engine ready, and when they came aboard, we took off, only with part of [00:18:00] the crew onboard.
And we went out there, and this again, I will tell you something that if you know anything about it, you will have a different opinion of this. We went out there, and our skipper who was Captain Carlson, was one of the best ship handlers that I have ever seen, and I've been at sea for a good many years. He worked his way right up close to the [00:18:30] transport and took on the survivors. There were other ships, Navy ships which stood out further, about a mile or so out to sea from us. But anyway, we got loaded with the survivors, and we brought them on to Treasure Island. Then we went out and picked up another load of them. And that afternoon, in the paper, was [00:19:00] that the Coast Guard saved the troops and brought two loads of them to Treasure Island.
Chin: Well, how did the ... Well, I guess the reporters usually mix up a story pretty good.
Rudy: Well, yeah, you know, who knows about mine planters. Coast Guard. I don't know. But anyway, that was important.
Chin: I will get it right in the book, because yes, somebody else mentioned that story, but not from your angle, so this will work [00:19:30] fine, it'll round it out.
So you went out there during the nighttime, and then worked until the next day bringing people.
Rudy: We were ... Well let's see, we got the word at about 4 o'clock in the morning. And then it took about an hour or so before we got ready, and before the skipper and [inaudible 00:19:51] came on board, so we must have left Sausalito about 5 o'clock. And Farallons are what, about 20 [00:20:00] ...
Chin: 25 miles.
Rudy: 29 miles from here, from Sausalito, so it might taken us two hours to get there, so let's say 7 o'clock in the morning we got there. And then we picked up a load and it took a while. It took a while though, because they were going off into life boats and motor boats and everything they had. In fact, on the last trip, we even took [00:20:30] a couple of life boats with us, there was nobody else left on board, so we took a couple of the lifeboats.
Chin: I see. So you made two trips out there.
Rudy: Two trips, yes. It was our first trip, took half a day until we got them all onboard. And believe me, they were a mess, because there was oil floating on the surface, and they had to get into a lifeboat through the water, swim to the lifeboat, [00:21:00] and they came on board, the mine planter, it was a mess after that.
Chin: Was the ship hung up on some rocks?
Rudy: Yeah, it was hung on a rock, it couldn't get off. And then I believe, about three days later, it broke in two. And it was on the western side of the islands.
Chin: Was it partially [00:21:30] submerged when you got there, or was it taking-
Rudy: No, no, it was riding high.
Chin: I see, but they had a hole in the hull somewhere?
Rudy: Yeah, they got ... They ran on the rock and then they couldn't get off the rock. They didn't go down in the water then, it was high in the water, but they know they couldn't get off because the rock came right through the bottom. And three days later the heavy seas just broke it in two, in several pieces, and she sunk.
Chin: I was told [00:22:00] that some group responsible for saving the whatever, got a commendation for it. Now, maybe it was the Coast Guard, but ...
Rudy: No, we didn't get no commendation.
Chin: Yeah, you don't remember any Army units getting anything like that?
Rudy: No, no, I don't. That's the first I ever heard of.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: But I know there was many other Naval vessels out there, but I said earlier, they were a mile out, they didn't get near the ship.
Chin: Was your mine planter the only [00:22:30] one that got that close?
Rudy: Yes.
Chin: Yeah, I think that name of the skipper is W.O. Carlson?
Rudy: Yes.
Chin: Yes. I have a photo of him, so this is a good chance for me to put that one in the book under that particular topic.
Rudy: He was an excellent ship handler. He was a German, not German but Norwegian, born in Norway. I guess he was running along the rugged Norway coast from childhood. [00:23:00] An excellent ship handler. I have nothing but highest regards for him.
Chin: I see. Let's see now, as far as the type of officers on board, I understand that the way these mine planters operated was that there was sort of Naval type of system of ranking for the people who ran the ship and then there was sort of a more Army type of ranking for the detail that actually did the planting of the mines, wasn't [00:23:30] there?
Rudy: Now, let's talk about ship's crew now. Ship's crew was coast artillery men, they were in uniform in the coast artillery, that's the crew. The officers were not in the coast artillery, they were in the mine planter service, that's a special service that didn't belong to coast artillery or anyone else, it was the mine planter service. So the officers [00:24:00] wore a regular Army uniform, and they were all warrant officers, either chief warrant or junior warrant. And on the sleeve they had the stripes comparable to the Merchant Marines. Third engineer, and third officer had one stripe, and the second engineer and second officer had two stripes, and first, [00:24:30] three, and the captain and chief engineer four stripes. And then the deck officer, above the stripes, had the gold anchor, and the engineering officers had a gold propeller over the stripes.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: Which, that's the only officers that had then any stripes on the sleeves, other than, I believe, the Army officers that graduated from West Point, I believe they [00:25:00] had one stripe to indicate that they were West Pointers.
Chin: I see. So you were a member of the mine planter service then.
Rudy: I was a member of the mine planter service. And the crew was the coast artillery. And the commanding officer was the coast artillery. Now, unless you are familiar with the difference between commanding officer and the captain.
Chin: [00:25:30] Now, that's the tricky problem that I was gonna ask you if you didn't already start to explain. So you can ...
Rudy: Well, the ship was a ship, but in addition to ship being a ship, it was also a coast artillery battery, part of the coast artillery. So the commanding officer was the coast artillery. The captain was the captain of the ship. Now, the commanding [00:26:00] officer would receive the orders from the coast artillery, where to go, where to be, when to be, and so on. But the captain decides how to get there, and which route to take, and what to avoid, what not to avoid. The commanding officer had no authority to tell the captain take this route to get there, that's faster than another route. That was up to the captain of the ship. [00:26:30] But the commanding officer was in charge of the ship as an Army battery, not as a ship.
Chin: Okay. So then he would be in charge of the coast artillery crew aboard.
Rudy: The unit of the coast artillery.
Chin: Yes, yes.
Rudy: The captain was in charge of the ship as a ship.
Chin: Yes, so what type of commands would [00:27:00] the officer, not the captain, be giving when they were out there planting the mines? What was his duty?
Rudy: No, he had nothing to say.
Chin: Oh.
Rudy: No, he would just give the orders to the captain, where the command from shore asked them to go to this group of mines and do this, or go to this one and do that. And then our captain would get there, he would get to a position on his own, according to his knowledge and so on. It was entirely up to the captain of the [00:27:30] ship.
Chin: So the captain of the ship would also be in command of the crew that put the mines in the water and hauled them out of the water then.
Rudy: How to put them down, and how to bring them up, it was in the jurisdiction of the captain. But which mine to go to, and so on, that was the decision of the commanding officer.
Chin: I see. So basically, the commanding officer really, there wasn't much for him to do as far as the operation.
Rudy: No. All he did was play cribbage [00:28:00] with anybody that was off duty.
Chin: I see. Hmm.
Rudy: That's how I remember it.
Chin: Well, I would imagine then, they probably put a very junior type officer, maybe a second lieutenant on something like that.
Rudy: No, he was usually a captain.
Chin: Really? Oh, so then he would be the captain in charge of the battery.
Rudy: That's right, captain in charge of the battery.
Chin: Wow.
Rudy: Chief warrant officer was the captain of the ship.
Chin: Well, you've explained it thoroughly, I'll just have to hear my tape a couple of times and make sure I've absorbed that.
Rudy: It's [00:28:30] kind of confusing.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: If you're not familiar with it.
Chin: Yes. Were there any times when they would take, I don't know, maybe a commanding general or some commanding officers out to watch what was going on, anything like that?
Rudy: Yeah, we had those people to come out and see the mines, how we worked and so on. We had dignitaries on board, military of course, I don't remember [00:29:00] any civilian dignitaries. But military, commanding general, Colonel Roundtree, I remember his name, he was commanding general of the Fort Scott, we took him out many times.
Chin: You weren't there when they had a big tour for the Minister of War, Brazil, was there [00:29:30] anything? Do you remember anything like that?
Rudy: No.
Chin: Okay, maybe you got there after that all happened.
Rudy: No, I don't know that.
Chin: I understand the food was very good aboard ship.
Rudy: Well yes, food was good, and the reason food was good, that we were ... Army didn't supply us with the food, we were given money for rations. And being at sea, we were given one [00:30:00] and a half rations. That's what all military personnel at sea got one and a half rations. And then we could buy our own, whenever we saw fit. And if we had a good mess sergeant, well then, he would go, he knew his way around, and he would go to Fort Scott or Treasure Island, or anywhere, any military installation, and buy the cheapest food, not cheapest, but I most economical, and as a result, [00:30:30] it always worked in our favor, so the food was excellent.
Chin: Yes. So lived aboard the ship.
Rudy: Oh yes.
Chin: Yeah. There were no permanent barracks on shore that were assigned to the crews of the mine planters.
Rudy: No, no, only the mine crew, as I said, the mine main crew, they were shore people. They would only come on board when we had mines to lay.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: Otherwise, the whole ship's crew [00:31:00] lived on the ship.
Chin: Let's see, so sometimes you'd do something like towing targets, and then a cable laying job that one time. Were there any other things that weren't of the mine planting variety that might have been done?
Rudy: No, that's the only thing that I remember is the cable laying. No, that's about only the thing that I can remember.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: I mean, that's refers to a long time ago.
Chin: Oh I know, [00:31:30] that's what everybody says, who I've been talking to, but everybody seems to remember quite a bit after they talk a while, and you certainly have.
Do you remember anything passing over ... I don't think you probably would know about it, but maybe you might've seen it, the submarine net that they had stretched across?
Rudy: Yeah, sure.
Chin: I'm going to turn my tape over so I can start the other side, and then you could tell me what you [00:32:00] remember about-
Rudy: [inaudible 00:32:02] because that wasn't in our jurisdiction.
Chin: Oh, I know that, but that's information than anybody else has been able to give me, so just hang on there.
Rudy: All right.
Chin: [00:32:30] Okay.
Yes, the submarine net. Hello?
Rudy: Yes.
Chin: Yes, okay. So whatever you remember about the submarine net.
Rudy: I know submarine nets were manned by the Navy.
Chin: Okay.
Rudy: [00:33:00] Are you all right?
Chin: Yes. I'm fine.
Rudy: They were manned by the Navy crew. Navy had a net depot on well, it would be at the north side of Tiburon Peninsula. They had several net tenders that would man the net. And the net stretched from about a [00:33:30] little past Fort Scott, not quite inside of Fort Scott, I don't remember the exact point, but inside of Fort Scott, so that's why we never had to go through the net. And over to Angel Island, and then on Tiburon.
Chin: Oh, I see.
Rudy: That's where the net went. And there was a gate in the net that would be open during the day, and closed at night. And [00:34:00] only ... And closed in inclement weather and so on, or any kind of alarm or so, it would be closed. These two net tenders were right there on each end of the gate, so in case of an alarm or something, they would just close the gate and shut off the entrance to the harbor. But they were inside the harbor, not outside.
Chin: Yes. [00:34:30] So any ship that wanted to go that far, they'd have to go through the gate, that was the only place they could go through.
Rudy: That's right.
Chin: I see, so it must've been fairly wide then.
Rudy: It was open. We went into harbor many times, we never had to get it cleared, net clearance, during the day, when the gate was open. But once they closed it, then no.
Now I can give you something in connection with that, that happened to us in Boston [00:35:00] Harbor. We were out planting mines. You want to hear this?
Chin: Yes I do.
Rudy: This is pertaining to ...
Chin: Oh, it may help me in envisioning what might have gone on in San Francisco.
Rudy: We were out planting mines. We got the word, as well as all the ships in the area, to get in, they detected some submarines out there. And the battleship, [00:35:30] I believe was ... I can't think of the name now, but a battleship came in with a big hole in it, a hole, you could drive a bus through it, that was in the battle of [inaudible 00:35:44]. It was hit there, and had a big hole in it. Well this battleship came in, and as it came in, they closed the net. Well they came in faster than we could, they closed the net, and we were [00:36:00] outside. And that was it, so we stayed out there all the time.
Chin: Well couldn't they just reopen it again?
Rudy: No, no, once they closed it, it wouldn't re-open for anyone.
Chin: Oh, so you were just too late.
Rudy: We were just too late.
And just to give you another highlight of this. At the time, we had no armament on board the ship. In Boston [00:36:30] Harbor we had two 30 caliber machine guns, that was the only armor we had when the war started on December 7th. Then, several months later, we were given two 50 caliber machine guns, and we, the crew, whittled out of a log, something that looked like a five inch gun, and we would put it on a [inaudible 00:36:54], painted black, and put it on a [inaudible 00:36:57] to make it look like a five incher. And then [00:37:00] soon as we get into the harbor, we take it down so nobody sees that it's a fake gun.
Anyway, when we went on the new ship, the Spurgin, we took it out of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, that's where it was built. We went down to New Orleans, where they put the yardarms on it, and the gun. They gave us a French 75 mm gun, a manned gun. [00:37:30] Well, that was as useless as useless could be, because you couldn't follow as the ship rolled and pitched. So at sea, you couldn't elevate [inaudible 00:37:40] as fast as the ship was moving.
Chin: Oh, could you explain that again? They had the wheels on it, did you say?
Rudy: Well, the gun is made so you can elevate it, or [inaudible 00:37:53] it, or to spot the target. Well, at sea, that kind of gun [00:38:00] needs special equipment to be able to move it much, much faster than land guns.
Chin: Okay.
Rudy: So it you reel the ship to elevate it to a target, and the ship pitches a little bit, that changes the target there, you couldn't move the gun fast enough to compensate for the movement of the ship at sea.
Chin: Yes, that's right, okay.
Rudy: So it was more or less, nothing more than a [00:38:30] fake gun, as far as we were concerned.
Chin: I see. So they never mounted any other armament on them?
Rudy: Later on, they mounted regular ship guns.
Chin: Oh, so they had something more than machine guns on board then?
Rudy: Yeah, when we came out, we were given two machine guns, and this French 75 mm gun, but that was useless to us. But we put up with it for over a year or [00:39:00] so, before they gave us the regular gun.
Chin: Oh what type of a gun, five inch?
Rudy: I really don't know. I'm not a gunnery ...
Chin: Oh, no, no, that's all right. So, in other words, you sailed into San Francisco Bay with the French 75 on. I see.
Rudy: Yeah, that's all we had. And the two 50 caliber.
Chin: Yes. Well I guess the 50 calibers were probably more useful than that 75 could ever be.
Rudy: Unless the sea was perfectly [00:39:30] calm.
Chin: Well, maybe they wanted ... That was the salute gun or something.
Rudy: Well, I know it didn't make us feel very great. Chances are we couldn't have fought off a sub anyway, but at least it would feel better if you had a fighting chance. We didn't consider that was a fighting chance either.
Chin: No, I guess not.
Now, as far as general navigation in and out of the Golden Gate, during those days [00:40:00] in the war, all the ships that came and went, did they have to be registered or accounted for before they came and exited? Or do you remember how that worked?
Rudy: I really don't know. That's at a higher level than I was. I know from Sausalito, we went in and out with no problems, because it was outside the net. And we had an Army mission, so we more or less moved freely.
Chin: I wonder if that dock in [00:40:30] Sausalito is still there.
Rudy: No, no, it's not there. And in fact, if you go over that way on the way down to Sausalito, take the Alexander Avenue approach to the north end of Sausalito, you'll see a sewage plant, well, that's where that sewage plant is ... Dock was just outside the sewage plant. In fact you'll see wooden steps, I think they're still there. We put those wooden steps to get [00:41:00] from the ship up to the bus. We built that, the crew of the Spurgin.
Chin: So what did people do on shore leave? You go into Sausalito, or into San Francisco?
Rudy: Well I mean, some would go to San Francisco, some to Sausalito. See before, we had not even a path from the dock. There wasn't even a path to get up the hill to get a bus. So we, the crew, built those steps. I forgot now how many steps, [00:41:30] but there's a lot of them.
And then when that ship, the Berg, sunk, we got a motorboat and two lifeboats from it. And then we used that motorboat to run from the ship to Sausalito for leave and so on. And when we would go out, had an anchor there in that cove.
Chin: So all three of the planters were berthed there?
Rudy: [00:42:00] No, only two, the Mills and the Spurgin. But this Niles, they were always someplace else. They were in shipyards. I don't think they did any mines.
Chin: Well, that crew must have not been doing too much then?
Rudy: No, except, but the work they did in the engine room, and they cleaned the ship and so. I don't think I ever seen it out in [00:42:30] the minefields.
Chin: But your two ships didn't have to go out every day, or did you?
Rudy: Well, in nice weather there was always ... In fact, in foggy weather we wouldn't go out. But, otherwise yeah, there was always something to do.
Chin: Always something. Was it usually something to do with the mines. I mean they kept on-
Rudy: Oh always mines, yes. Either picking one up or connection to the distribution box would go wrong, and [00:43:00] the air boat would go ahead of us, pick it up, and then the mine crew would look it over. There was always something.
Chin: Okay. So I guess those mines, they were constantly being inspected.
Rudy: Oh yeah, continuously.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: In fact, I think there was a rule that it had to be picked up every six months.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: Now, the six months, it takes to pick up 19 groups of mines, it [00:43:30] took quite a while, and then pick them up and then take them back out again, and then search for problems with any other given mine, and it's a problem. Sometimes it would take us a day to find the mine, especially at the potato patch. The potato patch is shallow water there, and in this shallow water it's always rough, and it was difficult. That was the most difficult [00:44:00] spot we had, is the potato patch.
Chin: Okay. So sometimes the mines wouldn't be exactly where they were recorded as being at.
Rudy: Well, sometimes they wouldn't be there, but they would be there, but see, the weather, when the ship is rolling heavily, it's more delicate to find the cable, and to grapple for it, because the ship is moving so much. On a calm day, oh sure, they can go right there, to the spot, and grapple for it and find it. [00:44:30] But in heavy weather, they can be grappling near it, and the wave will move the ship from a location and then they're off.
Chin: I see, okay. Well when these mines were brought up after being down there for about six months, or so, were they encrusted with all sorts of stuff, or seaweed?
Rudy: Oh yeah, they have barnacles, even small octopuses on it.
Chin: Oh really?
Rudy: Yeah.
Chin: Was that a rare thing, or a lot of times.
Rudy: No, no, the small [00:45:00] ones, not the big ones, the small ones.
Chin: So they'd be just hanging on?
Rudy: Yeah. It was. With their suckers they could just attach themselves to the mines. They were small ones, so they didn't venture far away from where they were born.
Chin: Oh, I've got to mention that in the book, yes.
Somebody told me that on ... I guess maybe on Fort Scott, or Fort Baker, on the dock there, somebody had rigged up a [00:45:30] big box where people would put crabs into, that they'd pick up from the mine planters, or something.
Rudy: Oh, well, we did that. Sometimes there'd be a crab. We had even, around Sausalito, we would put a crab net down there and catch crabs, oh yeah.
Chin: So that was fairly common then.
Rudy: That was a common thing, yeah.
Chin: Would the ... Gee, I don't know. Would there be any fishing trips, using the ships at all?
Rudy: No.
Chin: [00:46:00] Okay.
Rudy: Not that I remember.
Chin: Yeah. So whenever you got the crabs out of the ocean was just because you put a-
Rudy: With the mine, or when we were alongside the dock, we would put a net down there and hope a crab comes into it. And then when we were out to sea, we would put a line from the stern, hoping to catch a fish. Not especially for fishing, no.
Chin: Many fish caught that way?
Rudy: You [00:46:30] mean off the stern?
Chin: Yeah.
Rudy: Oh yeah.
Chin: What the big ones? I mean, some of these gigantic cod fish that they drag up out there.
Rudy: Cod, and this snapper, a snapper a couple of times. They would always go for the big fish, so naturally the bait would be big, and the hook would be big, so they're not as plentiful. Didn't want to bother with the small fish.
Chin: Yes. The traffic, ship traffic and-
Rudy: [00:47:00] Yeah, oh yeah, it was busy and when we would work in the channel itself, we would have to alert the mine company ashore to keep [00:47:30] the traffic away from us until we got through it. And they would say how to slow down or so, or wait until we got out of the way.
Otherwise, see there's only two channels out the gate, the south and the main channel. So, if we were in the main channel then they would ask the ships not to come in at that time. But there was a lot of traffic.
Chin: [00:48:00] I'd heard at one time they were not having the Italian fishing boats from Fisherman's Wharf go out without being escorted. I don't know, did you-
Rudy: I don't think I can help you on that. I don't know.
Chin: Okay. Let's see, when did you leave the mine planting service?
Rudy: When I was discharged in '45, I believe it was July or August of '45.
Chin: And at that time the minefields were still intact?
Rudy: Yes, the [00:48:30] minefield was intact. Now, this something again, I don't whether it's worth you writing about it; but at the end of the war, as you may have read or heard, that the soldiers were discharged based on points they acquired. For every month of service they got a point or so. And then the orders would come down to release all the soldiers [00:49:00] with 90 points or more, or so on. And then a month or so later, it would be down 80 points and so on. But that did not apply to officers. If the officer was needed, they could declare them essential and they could keep him on as long as they wanted. Well that was the case with me. I had more than enough points to come out in the first wave of discharges, [00:49:30] but being that I was an officer, I was kept back.
And then they were releasing the crews, releasing the soldiers, that most of the time we didn't have enough crew to go out to the minefields. I was kept back in order to get the mines up. But, there for several months, we had not enough crew to use the ship.
Chin: But the [00:50:00] ship kept working anyway.
Rudy: Well, not very much. At times we couldn't go because we didn't have the crew.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: But whenever we assembled enough crew for the ship, and the mine crew, then we would go out, otherwise we would lay alongside the dock.
Chin: I see. So did you stay until the entire minefield was taken out?
Rudy: Yes. That was about July of '45. No, '46, what am I talking ... '46.
Chin: Oh, well then you certainly stayed in [00:50:30] way past your time then.
Rudy: Yeah.
Chin: Yeah. Were all the mines ... Did they have to blow some of them up to get rid of them?
Rudy: No, none of them were blown up to my knowledge. They were all picked up and they were brought back, as I said, either Fort Scott, Fort Baker, and some over on Treasure. Not Treasure Island, Goat Island.
Chin: Oh, Goat Island.
Rudy: On the south side, which is a [00:51:00] Coast Guard warehouse, or something like that now. That's where some of the equipment, not mines itself, but the equipment, cable and that was put over there. Probably because they couldn't handle everything at Fort Scott and Baker, so they took the overflow out there.
Chin: I see. So when you say Fort Scott, this is that mine wharf that's still out there by ...
Rudy: Yeah. It's still there.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: As I know.
Chin: [00:51:30] Yes.
Rudy: Fort Baker is still there too.
Chin: Yes, that's true. I guess some of the wharf is still there.
Rudy: Yeah, I think still there. I really haven't been in there, but I can see as I drive over the bridge, I can see there's a lot of yachts down there in the cove.
Chin: Yeah, that's where it is.
Were there other boats that ... I guess that's where all the L boats and things like that were docked?
Rudy: Yeah, in Fort Baker. They were in Fort Baker itself, and we were a little further closer to Sausalito.
Chin: [00:52:00] Yes. So you were around the other side of Fort Baker.
Rudy: Around the back, yeah.
Chin: Yeah, and went around.
Rudy: Yeah, if you were to drive over that way, down Alexander Avenue to Sausalito, just before you enter Sausalito, if you look down. In fact, as you go down towards Sausalito, there's a Y that goes back towards Fort Baker, right at that Y.
Chin: Oh, I see. So you would be-
Rudy: Right before you come to first house of Sausalito, and then you see [00:52:30] wooden steps going downhill.
Chin: I see. Did you ever take any photographs of that area, with your mine planters or anything? Did you have any photos?
Rudy: No, I don't think so.
Chin: Oh, okay. Well I think that-
Rudy: I have a picture of the Spurgin.
Chin: Oh do you? Was that a picture you took, or you've got ...
Rudy: I took it. I think this was ... I took it in [00:53:00] Cincinnati, of all places. As we were coming down the river from Point Pleasant, that was in the early part of '43, which had one of the worst floods they had on that river. So we left Point Pleasant and got down to Cincinnati, and then we couldn't get under the bridge. So even though the yardarms wasn't put on the ship, we still couldn't get under it, so we stayed there for [00:53:30] about 10 days, until the water receded, and then we got under there.
Then we went down to Louisville, then we couldn't get under the bridge at Louisville, and then we laid there several days. And then down to Cairo, and I think we stayed there a couple of days. And then once we got into the Mississippi, then it was clear sailing down to New Orleans.
Chin: And then you said you went through the Panama Canal to get up into the Pacific.
Rudy: No, we worked down there for about six months. We went through the Panama [00:54:00] Canal like a ferry service.
Chin: I see. The work down, was that sort of a shakedown, or training cruise?
Rudy: No, no, no.
Chin: You were actually working on the field, or something.
Rudy: No, we were working the field, because at that time they didn't have enough ... Normally there was a planter assigned to the Atlantic side and one to the Pacific side.
Chin: Of the canal.
Rudy: Of the canal.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: And I don't know what the problem was. See, we were [00:54:30] the 14th planter, so there were still two to be built after us. So that might have been before the two were completed that they used us down there. So we were going back and forth, do a few days on one side of the canal, and then a few days on the other.
Chin: Oh, by the way, was the class of planters that you were on, was that a bigger ship than the Niles, for instance?
Rudy: It was a little bigger than the Niles. And all the rest of them, they were really [00:55:00] old ships, like the Baird that I was on, that was built in, I believe, 1919. And the Ord, that was in harbor defenses of New York, I think that was built about 1909. Schofield down in, where, Chesapeake Bay, that was an older ship, I don't know just when it was built.
And the Army had, at that time, I don't think this fits into [00:55:30] your scheme of things here, but they had a cable layer named ... I can't think of its name now. But that cable layer was sold after the war to Greece, and I understand it's still running out there in Greece.
Chin: Well, I read that the Niles is still running up in Alaska or something, well, maybe it's not running, like you say, but it still belongs to somebody, that's what I read.
Rudy: I really [00:56:00] don't know, I lost track.
Chin: Well that's all right. Well I think that I ... I can't think of anymore questions. Oh, so after the service, you decide to stay in the Bay Area, or in San Francisco, is that what happened?
Rudy: No, I stayed in San Francisco, I went to work for the federal government in the appraisers building. And then after about [00:56:30] eight, nine months, I got itchy feet to go to sea again, so I went back to New York, where I worked before I went into service. And I worked on the Hudson River Bay Line. I don't know if you're familiar with that?
Chin: That's not one of those cruise-
Rudy: Yeah, it was-
Chin: It is.
Rudy: Excursion steamers that ran up to Albany.
Chin: Yeah, I didn't ever take that one, but I've been at the very mouth of it, looking way off into the distance. That [00:57:00] sounds like it'd be an interesting trip to go all the way up there.
Rudy: Yeah, but they're not going anymore.
Chin: Oh they're not?
Rudy: Those were the biggest steamers, inland steamers in the country. They were named after explorers like Henry Hudson, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton, Peter Stuyvesant. I went to work there, and I worked there for a couple of years, and then I ... The company was going to [00:57:30] be sold and absorbed by someone else, and I didn't feel that that would be best for me, under new management, so I left and came out to San Francisco again, and I went to work for Southern Pacific.
Chin: Oh, well that's a complete change, or did you work on one of their tugs or something?
Rudy: No, Southern Pacific, on the ferry.
Chin: Okay. They don't still run anything like that do they?
Rudy: No, no. But I went to work on the ferry Eureka, [00:58:00] the one that's a museum piece now.
Chin: Oh, I see. These weren't for loading any ... This is for transferring their passengers from one-
Rudy: Yes, and the railway express.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: No automobiles, no.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: Then after a couple of years there, I realized that Southern Pacific wasn't going to keep the ferries for too long, so I took the exam for the city and then when I got called, [00:58:30] I went to work for the city. And I went to work as a junior engineer. And I retired as Superintendent of the Performing Arts Center.
Chin: Oh I see. Now-
Rudy: You know where that is?
Chin: That must be down in the Civic Center somewhere.
Rudy: Yeah, well that's the Opera House and the Symphony Hall.
Chin: Oh okay, all right. Those are the names I know, I guess the name that you gave it-
Rudy: Well overall it's known as the Performing Arts Center, all three buildings are known as Performing Arts Center.
Chin: I see. Okay. [00:59:00] I guess only recently they start calling them that. Before, I'd never heard that one.
Rudy: Before they built the Symphony Hall, it was known as the War Memorial.
Chin: Yeah.
Rudy: The Opera House and the War Memorial reference building.
Chin: Yes. Oh, so you were ... Well of course you were in San Francisco when the UN Conference, when they had that.
Rudy: No. The UN Conference was in '45.
Chin: Yes.
Rudy: All right. I was still in the Army.
Chin: Yeah, I know.
Rudy: [00:59:30] And when that was going on, I was in uniform, and I still being in uniform, I couldn't walk on that side of the street, that's how heavily guarded that was.
Chin: Oh, so you're talking about at the War Memorial, Opera House and all that, you couldn't ...
Rudy: Yeah, I wasn't working there. I never even dreamed that I'd be ever working there. But then later on, when they had a 10th anniversary of the United Nations, they set up shop here for a whole month in San Francisco. [01:00:00] They brought their officers from New York to San Francisco, that would be in '55, and I was there, I was working there then.
Chin: Oh, okay.
Rudy: I was there during that time. And then I was there later on, but there was never anything as elaborate as that.
Chin: No, I guess not, that was a big event. So you actually walked by it, and you could see the gathering across the street.
Rudy: During the 10th anniversary.
Chin: Oh okay, but the first time.
Rudy: The original [01:00:30] one, no, I just know it was going on, but I wasn't working there, so I had nothing to do with that.
Chin: Okay, but you said that you were on the other side of the street, and you couldn't get any closer than that.
Rudy: That's right, yeah. I'm only saying that to emphasize how it was guarded.
Chin: Yes. Yeah, my book also includes quite a bit on sort of the history of San Francisco during the wartime, to sort of tie it in, to give some local flavor, so I'm interested in things like that. Any other, [01:01:00] anything that you remember that you might have done in San Francisco that might be of interest.
Rudy: Me personally?
Chin: Oh yeah. Or anything you saw, or I don't know. Some interesting things.
Rudy: I didn't do anything spectacular.
Chin: No, I don't mean anything spectacular, but just as you say, you were near the UN Conference, and there was heavy security. I haven't had any [01:01:30] information quite like that yet, so something like that will also figure into the story. I could just mention that there was heavy security.
Rudy: I can tell you about ... I was there during with the three presidents, coming to the Opera House.
Chin: This was when?
Rudy: Now, you put a question.
Chin: This sounds like it must've been after World War II.
Rudy: Oh yeah, after war, President Eisenhower was [01:02:00] there, let's see, President Carter, and let's see, who else, the Queen of England was in the Symphony Hall. So I was, for all of these dignitaries with their secret service that accompanies them, I was working with them, arranging for their security. So I was pretty much involved with them [01:02:30] as how to secure the building under their direction.
Chin: So you were the superintendent, or were in charge of the facilities.
Rudy: Yeah, the whole [inaudible 01:02:40] properties, yes.
Chin: So, did you get passes to attend all the operas and concerts?
Rudy: Well, not necessarily. I could always, I mean, anything that I wanted to see, I could get in. But you see the opera and the symphony is not a city [01:03:00] function. The building is city, I worked for the city, but they are a private organization, and they are tenants in the house. So even though we had a good rapport with them, and I could always get a pass, but I had no given right to, because they rent the house.
Chin: I see.
Rudy: Of course symphony and the opera, they rent the house at a much cheaper rate than someone else would, because [01:03:30] of something that's in the original trust. When those buildings were being built, they were built with mostly private donations, some city funds, I mean, for the construction of the building, but mostly private. And the symphony and the opera and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the American Legion, they all gave money towards construction of that. And for that, they [01:04:00] were given certain rights in those buildings, in the original charter.
Chin: I'd heard that the World War I collection of all the tank and of some artillery pieces, and all that stuff, that used to be out at the de Young Museum, ended up in the, I don't know, the War Memorial Opera House or something. Do you recall seeing anything like that in there?
Rudy: No. No, there's a replica of [01:04:30] the Liberty Bell, and there's a little museum of ... Army museum such as sabers of famous generals, and some handguns and rifles and so on, on the first floor of the reference building, that's all there is.
Chin: Oh.
Rudy: Not-
[silence 01:05:01]
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