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SPRITZ'S NAVY |
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| I had been at Purdue University taking a course in electronics. I was in the
Navy and had finished my basic training at Farragut, Idaho. The powers that be decided that I would make a good
electrician and so off to Purdue I had gone. While at Purdue a recruiter for the submarine service had come to ask for volunteers for service in the submarine fleet. With the promise of getting the best food in the Navy and getting an experience that could not be gotten elsewhere, I had signed up for training at the U.S. Submarine Training Base at New London, Connecticut. I don't know why I volunteered to this day. I had not really any previous interest in underwater warfare and knew very little about it. I guess that I was like all young men at that time in that we thought that we were immortal. Only the other guys were ever in danger in the situations of war. And so it was, that after finishing my training at Purdue, that I went home on a short leave. At the conclusion of the leave I boarded a train for a part of the country where I had never been. For that matter, I had never seen the ocean and this was going to be a thrill for me. The train took me to New York for the first stop. We were put up overnight at the Waldorf Astoria. That was also a big thrill to me, as that was the one hotel that I knew about from movies and radio shows. There I was staying at a famous hotel. The following morning we boarded a train for New London. The rail line followed the shore of Long Island sound and that was the first sight that I had of the ocean that I would be sailing on for the months to come. We arrived in New London and gathered on the platform of the station. Shortly a bus met us and we boarded it for the training station. The bus took a route across a bridge over the Thames River. From the high bridge there was a view of the Groton Ship Yards where many of the new submarines were being built. Submarines were like large fat logs floating along docks or in dry docks being built. It was a sight to see. After crossing the bridge, we turned left along a road that followed the Thames river bank to the north. After a few miles we were there. The New London Submarine Base, where most of the men that were to serve on submarines were trained. We were taken to incoming where we received billets. The buildings were typical wooden barracks that were so common during the war. The barracks were filled with double tiered bunks with enough space at the foot of each bunk to accommodate a standing locker. This was to be our home for the three months that we were to be trained. After getting settled in, we were assembled out on a small parade ground. We were all new volunteers for the submarine service and most of us were quite young. We stood in ranks and awaited whatever they had planned for us. Shortly there appeared a tall, thin Chief Torpedoman. He was dressed in his Navy Blues and had a row of hash marks up his right sleeve that seemed to go past his elbow. There was no expression of friendliness on his face. Cradled in his arms was a large black cat that he stroked from time to time. He took a long time sizing us up and looking us over. The expression on his face did not change. He put the cat down on the ground. I noticed that it stayed with its master and did not wander off. Then in a forceful voice, Chief Spritz began his welcoming speech that he must have given many times before. "You men have volunteered for service in the best part of this man's Navy. It is my job as Senior Chief of this facility to make sure that you have the best training possible. You will be kept very busy studying and training to become the pride of the Navy. You will do things that you never thought you could do. I am here to make sure that you get the best opportunity to survive your service to your country. This will be done by preparing you for anything that is possible to happen to you. We don't have a lot of time to get this job done so you will be expected to give all of yourselves to this task. "You have been tested and evaluated to some degree before being accepted into this service. You will now be tested even further and evaluated even further, to make sure that someone hasn't made a mistake in passing you on to me to make a submariner out of you. If you fail any of those tests and evaluations, you will be out of here within the week. That is the last time you will be able to fail in this effort. "This is a branch of the service where each person is dependent on the next. It has nothing to do with your rank. It has to do with your ability to be trained to do what you need to in cases of emergency. You will be expected to know every one of your shipmates' duties and be able to step in for him should it be necessary. That goes for the commissioned officers that will be assigned and for every rank that serves aboard the submarine that you will be on. "For the next couple of months you have been assigned to the area of responsibility that has been given to me. Training is what I am in charge of and I never fail at what I do. "There is one thing that you must be aware of. You have been assigned to me to train you. As of this moment, unless you fail the evaluations that we will administer, there are only two ways for you to end up over the next few months. One will be that you are trained to the standards that I set and you pass on to an assignment station in the submarine service. The other is that you will be in Portsmouth Prison. Those are the only two ways for you to go, now that you are assigned as my responsibilities. "There will be no slackers, screw-ups, or failures in this group. We know that we have the ability to train you and that will be the result of our efforts." Hearing this tall, dark complexioned man speak of the Portsmouth Prison made me shudder. I knew that I would not fail in the training, if only because my fear of being locked up. As a seventeen year old, the fear of god had been instilled in me. There was no way that I would screw up or fail. The next several months were busy. We studied the entire submarine. How it worked, why it worked, when it worked, and when it did not. We became acquainted with every electrical circuit, every hydraulic system, and every air system. We learned where every tank, valve, switch, and machine was on the typical submarine. We were given the experience of a practice escape from a depth of 90 feet. We practiced on simulators, learning to dive a submarine while still on dry ground. We were trained to be lookouts and to be able to know what we saw without ever going to sea. For a period of several months we were kept as busy as a person could be. There was no excuse for not doing an assignment or studying as required. All of the time, in the back of our minds was the declaration made by Chief Spritz, "There are only two ways to finish this training. You will be assigned to a submarine duty station or you will end up in Portsmouth Prison." Over the next couple of months we saw very little of Spritz. The only time that a person saw him is when you screwed up and went before him to take your dressing down. He ruled with an iron hand and you could only adjust to it. Chief Spritz held regular inspection of our quarters. Things had to be perfect or we did not get to go on our weekend liberty. The slightest thing out of order would cause him to cancel our liberty or at least delay it until things were in order. He walked through our quarters without comment and we either passed or we did not. There seemed to be no middle ground with this man. It was either right or it was wrong. It was months later that I became aware of what made this man so exacting. On a submarine there is little or no margin for error. The ocean is a very unforgiving element. When you make a mistake you get a response that can be fatal. Was it that Chief Spritz, knowing that there was no margin for error at sea, treated us in such a manner? Did he feel a responsibility towards us that made him personally mourn the loss of any of those who he trained? Did he get a feeling of failure when one of the submarines was lost in battle? We will never know what made this man tick, but what he did was felt and realized by all that he had been responsible for training. Chief Spritz was not a married man. Very little was known of him because he did not mingle with his wards. He remained a bit of a mystery to most of us. We only remembered our fear if we failed at anything we were expected to do. Maybe that is the way that he wanted it. After leaving the training at New London, Connecticut, I was assigned to a submarine. I had succeeded in not going to Portsmouth Prison. I had met the standard set by our mentor and task-master. I was one of his successes. Those of us that were trained by Chief Spritz recall him fondly and joke about his harshness and mean manner. It is with a great deal of pride that we have designated ourselves, "Spritz's Navy" and a patch has been designed for those of us to wear showing our pride in who trained us. I heard that Chief Spritz retired from the Navy sometime after the war. His later years were spent in a nursing home. I hope that he realized the impact that he had on so many young men. An impact that caused them to study harder and to realize the value of what they received under his guidance. |
Copyright © 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Glen Stinson & Mark Stinson