T Hahn 2

The famous surfing area was Waimea Bay to the north of Wailua where we lived. [Tom: We actually lived at Kawailoa Beach. Between us and the road to Haleiwa--Route 83--was an abandoned World War II auxiliary airstrip.]

The fire department had surfboards on the truck for rescues. The surf at Waimea Bay would not even break until the swells were 20 or so feet, and I believe the highest waves there, and surfed! were on the order of 45 feet or so. There are pictures of surfers there, the waves actually look like they are 100 feet high because the surfer looks so small. The waves would sometimes form a pipeline and surfers would disappear in one on the face. It is some of the largest surf in the world.
[Tom: One day while at that beach or passing there, there had been a drowning, so I took Chris and Betsy over to the body that there were working on to impress them of the danger of the waves--not to be taken lightly! The first time I tried snorkeling in the water off our beach I was slammed to the ocean floor and decided that that kind of sport was not for me. When I was young I was always in the water, but after four water incidents, three involving rescues, I not longer had that pleasure of being active in the water. One was at Blue Beach at Beaulieu near Villefranche, France (spelling?); one was at Kobe, Japan; and the other at a beach in northern Taiwan. Other tales for other days.]

The Luriline was a great ship! On the final leg of the trip back from the Philippines, from Hawaii to Travis Air Base in California, we rode in some turboprop plane and wasn't it about a 14 hour trip? The worst flight I've ever been on.
[Tom: Maybe not that long, but it seemed so, anyway. Perhaps I have a different perspective, having crossed the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic ocean in prop planes where each of the legs took a long time. One time later, while on TDY from NSA to Japan, when I went to get my plane for the Hawaii--Hickham Air Force Base)--to Tokyo, there were photographers and journalists taking photos as it just happened that when I came along I was the first jet passenger to make the trip! I forget the type of aircraft, but probably a military of contract version of the Boeing 707.]

The school was Waialua Elementary School. Went to Haleiwa High School for part of the 7th grade maybe? before going to Philippines. Won first prize in the story telling class there. Wrote poetry about WWII submarine adventures for music class, much to the surprise, and not displeasure, of the teacher there, who encouraged me.
[Tom: As mentioned, going to school there was a good experience. As I recall, there were cocoanut palms on the school grounds. Cocoanuts went commonly for five cents each.]

Wahiawa had a couple, a doctor and his wife, an Olympic gold medalist. The wife taught me to swim at the base pool, one on one, and gave the confidence to me that I needed to later do anything in the water. This may have been mom's idea, or yours? or both. I had a bad time with swim class at 4 corners elementary school in Silver Spring, just a few trips to a YMCA and mass, group instruction, no individual attention, and I couldn't swim until going to Hawaii. The husband doctor wrote a biology book, we had a copy for many years, after the divorce it was still on mom's bookshelf in Bethesda. What was his name, Holland? I think he was the station doctor maybe?
[Tom: They were an unusual couple, not your typical navy type. I don't remember the Olympic swimmer bit, but Chris would remember better than I. Their name was was Britton, Mel and Mary. One time we were having a lunch in Honolulu and she fainted at the table, but I think it was only a temporary condition. When he had served his obligatory time, they went to Dartmouth in New Hampshire, where I believe he was associated with the college. Later, when we were stationed at Winter Harbor, Maine, we went to visit there for a ski trip and stayed in a sort of small ski lodge with the beds in sort of a dormitory setup. Perhaps Chris and Betsy didn't go on that outing. I don't remembered what happened to them later. Both Chris and Betsy became excellent swimmers due to the training at Wahiawa and in the next tour at San Miguel.

We had an old 40's Packard that had no reverse gear, but otherwise was a great car.
[Tom: I bought a really old 8 or 10 cylinder Packard from Bob Curtin--I think it was, but not certain-- for $200. It had really been a great car in its time. I tried to change the spark plugs one time, but they were frozen in place. It ran so smoothly that a few times I accidentally left the car running as it really purred. One problem was that it didn't have a reverse gear. Once in a while I would forget and park head-in, so a couple of guyts would have to help me push it out to where I could get going. Do you remember that car? One time I was out in the sugar cane fields fishing at a pond and got stuck because of that. The car had a cracked winged window and I was afraid it wouldn't pass inspection. Because of the reverse gear thingy, I found a garage where I could drive in and then out straight through as I was afraid it wouldn't pass. I took it the garage of my Japanese-American neighbor. He saw the crack in the window and said he would fix it, which he did by taking a sledge hammer and breaking it out. I was speechless by his solution! He said the crack wouldn't pass but there was no requirement to have a window, or to have a reverse gear. I also bought a boat and motor from Curtin and kept it at a small lake near or at Wahiawa for a while before taking it home to Kawailoa Beach. It never worked out and I eventually sold it. I never heard anything about Bob Curtin after he left.

We went sports fishing a couple of times, never caught anything with me along, except, one time snagged a wooden sign, with the words "Peanut Pass" on it. One time we returned from a trip from Pearl Harbor, up the Kamehameha highway, stopped alongside the road, and watched with wonder the sight of a waterspout offshore, in a rain squall, that was lazily drinking its fill from the Pacific. It was still there when we got back in the car and continued home.
[Tom Comments: The "Peanut Pass" catch was caught on a tri sponsored by the Wailoa Fishing Club--I think that was the name. It was in contention for the tear for "The Most Unusual Catch," but lost out to a dead cow.]

I had some interesting boy scouts experiences there, experiences in the troop with the army style of camping, walks in the jungle ravine and through pineapple fields, with our Navy patrol, earned my scout hiking requirement for first class by walking up to the Kameya Maya pass and back down to Schoffield Barracks. And I did lots of reading, studying WWII Navy stuff and reading sci-fi from the base library, and dreaming of islands.
[Tom comments: The Boy Scout troop was at Schofield Barracks, not far to the west from the Navy Station. Being on an Army post, a lot of the leaders and events were patterned after army-style things. I had some minor job on a troop committee as I recall. I thin this is the lace where Chris told me being on a camping and hearing the legend of the "Crap Hand.", that ghostly hand that reached up and grabbed when as you sat on the seat of he latrine. Chris will have to affirm or deny the place, and perhaps even my memory of it.

One time there was a tidal wave alert, in the middle of the night, after the great Alaskan earthquake. We were evacuated from our beach home by local police and raced along the road to Haleiwa, then up the Kamehameha highway to Wahiawa where we watched the news for tracking of the possible wave. [Which never came.]

8/16/50	Crete	8/16/50	Second Med Cruise Relieved USS Salem CA-139
8/22/50	Gulf Juan, France	9/5/50
9/9/50	Tunis, N. A.	9/13/50
9/15/50	Oran, N. A.	9/19/50
9/22/50	Aranci Bay, Sardinia	9/25/50
9/27/50	Augusta, Sicily	9/30/50
10/3/50	Valetta, Malta	10/6/50
10/6/50	Augusta, Sicily	10/11/50
10/11/50	Messina, Sicily	10/14/50
10/19/50	Villefranche, France	10/30/50
11/4/50	Suda Bay, Crete	11/5/50
11/6/50	Rhodes, Greece	11/9/50
11/10/50	Athens, Greece	11/13/50
11/17/50	Taranto, Italy	11/20/50
11/25/50	Villefranche, France	12/4/50	Transferred Flag to Newport News CA-148