This is about two ladies I met in a hospital X-ray waiting room.
I have spent a lot of time in hospital waiting areas over the last ten years or so. Some people I've met are quiet in their own thoughts and others enjoy a conversation. I have been both.
This day, about four years ago, I had taken my wife for some X-rays at our local hospital.
Two elderly ladies came in and sat quietly. I knew they were sisters the moment I saw them. They communicated among themselves with little conversation, mostly just a nod or other movement. What little I heard them speak seemed to be with a German accent.
I decided to say 'hello' to them. After a few exchanges of greeting, I asked "Are you ladies German?"
One sister said that they weren't German, but Dutch.
"Oh," I replied, "you are from Holland or The Netherlands"
"No, we're are of Dutch ancestry, but have lived there a little or visited some," one of the sisters explained.
"I was born on the island of Java and my sister was born in Singapore."
Her sister was called into the X-ray room as I continued my conversation with the other. I was intrigued by her soft, polite manner.
"Were you there during WWII?" I asked.
In January of 1942 the Japanese had invaded what was known as The Netherlands Indies. Java and the other islands were rich in rubber and oil that the Japanese needed for their war effort.
A combined fleet of allied ships were defeated in February of 1942 and the Japanese occupied the Indies until they surrendered in 1945.
"Yes, my sister and I were interned in a civilian camp during the war. We were young, but I remember the scarce food, little clean water, sickness and very little medicine. And of course, the ever changing attitude of the guards. Sometimes they were nice enough and other times they were harsh and brutal. I think they were embarrassed by having to guard women and children instead of fighting."
"But our greatest fear," she continued, "was that the war would continue as we grew into our teens. We then would have been shipped to 'pleasure camps' for the Japanese soldiers.
The months and years went by, always in fear."
After the war was over, a movement began against the Dutch. Finally in late 1949, Indonesia was granted its independence.
But I have never forgotten the two sisters. I could have spent hours talking to them. They had seen and experienced so much in their life time, these ladies of grace and dignity sitting beside me in a small waiting room in Texas.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Adak & "Spanish Eyes"
I won't bore you with details about the 'worst weather on the planet', but as a travel tip, don't make it your 1st or 200th choice, by my observation.
Our barracks, as I said before, were warm enough, but outside was a frozen wasteland. Ok, I repeat myself.
You can never ever figure when it's night or day up there. (It's either dark all the time or low light all the time..) But the wind and snow and fog are constant.
Anyway, one 'evening', I had the dubious job of 'duty driver', which meant I got to deliver the crews to their planes, and later their box lunches from the galley, if it was functional, etc, after working working all 'night' to make those same planes ready for a 11 or 12 hour patrol. No recovery if a plane went down in that frozen water. We never lost a plane, but another story will get into that.
The only vehicle we had was an old, old panel truck. It must have been indestructible, because we had no good roads, just a general path with less snow than the rest of the landscape. It ran through the worst weather, allowing for a Texas boy to learn how not to run off into a snowbank.
This particular evening, I had to take the 'tank', the panel truck, and deliver the next day's flight schedules, etc to the Officer's Club on the other side of the island.
Now, Adak had a serious shortage of women. There was a small contingent of nurses and even a few school teachers that ran a small school for kids's whose parents were stupid enough to be stationed there for a year. A woman on Adak was a link to the real world.
Anyway, our barracks were full of frozen guys that worked twenty hours a day in fur parkas, or so it seemed. We dressed in Navy issue fur clothing and such to work out in it. That evening, I
drove the old truck to the other side of the island to the Officer's Club. I walked into the Officer's Club to deliver the next day's schedule...I had to find a certain officer to deliver the schedule to...I found him and he ordered me away in less than 10 seconds. I wasn't dressed appropriately for the Officer's Club.
But the Club, geeze, was fantastic.
From us enlisted guy's that had an awful rec room with broken vinyl chairs playing awful repeats of awful movies, they had a 90 foot wooden bar with bartenders in suits and women, real women..the officers were dressed in sport jackets and the ladies were like our wives and girl friends, dressed to the 'nines', except our's were 6000 miles away.
But the kicker of it all was the music. A singer at a piano was playing 'Spanish Eyes" as the officers and the ladies endured Adak's torments, a thousand miles away from our barracks. I don't know if I love or hate that song, but it was a world away from where I lived, 2 miles away.
In the room I shared with 5 others guys, we had three old, old country 'LP's...we played them all day, the younger or lower ranked enlisted guys lived in what we called the 'animal dorm' Their music was '60's rock, which I hated at the time. (I later became a big fan of Janis).
Just another Adak story. More to come, if you're interested..
Thanks..
Our barracks, as I said before, were warm enough, but outside was a frozen wasteland. Ok, I repeat myself.
You can never ever figure when it's night or day up there. (It's either dark all the time or low light all the time..) But the wind and snow and fog are constant.
Anyway, one 'evening', I had the dubious job of 'duty driver', which meant I got to deliver the crews to their planes, and later their box lunches from the galley, if it was functional, etc, after working working all 'night' to make those same planes ready for a 11 or 12 hour patrol. No recovery if a plane went down in that frozen water. We never lost a plane, but another story will get into that.
The only vehicle we had was an old, old panel truck. It must have been indestructible, because we had no good roads, just a general path with less snow than the rest of the landscape. It ran through the worst weather, allowing for a Texas boy to learn how not to run off into a snowbank.
This particular evening, I had to take the 'tank', the panel truck, and deliver the next day's flight schedules, etc to the Officer's Club on the other side of the island.
Now, Adak had a serious shortage of women. There was a small contingent of nurses and even a few school teachers that ran a small school for kids's whose parents were stupid enough to be stationed there for a year. A woman on Adak was a link to the real world.
Anyway, our barracks were full of frozen guys that worked twenty hours a day in fur parkas, or so it seemed. We dressed in Navy issue fur clothing and such to work out in it. That evening, I
drove the old truck to the other side of the island to the Officer's Club. I walked into the Officer's Club to deliver the next day's schedule...I had to find a certain officer to deliver the schedule to...I found him and he ordered me away in less than 10 seconds. I wasn't dressed appropriately for the Officer's Club.
But the Club, geeze, was fantastic.
From us enlisted guy's that had an awful rec room with broken vinyl chairs playing awful repeats of awful movies, they had a 90 foot wooden bar with bartenders in suits and women, real women..the officers were dressed in sport jackets and the ladies were like our wives and girl friends, dressed to the 'nines', except our's were 6000 miles away.
But the kicker of it all was the music. A singer at a piano was playing 'Spanish Eyes" as the officers and the ladies endured Adak's torments, a thousand miles away from our barracks. I don't know if I love or hate that song, but it was a world away from where I lived, 2 miles away.
In the room I shared with 5 others guys, we had three old, old country 'LP's...we played them all day, the younger or lower ranked enlisted guys lived in what we called the 'animal dorm' Their music was '60's rock, which I hated at the time. (I later became a big fan of Janis).
Just another Adak story. More to come, if you're interested..
Thanks..
Friday, January 8, 2010
Adak, End of the World.
This is one of many Navy stories I'll pass along from time to time.
You that are lucky have never heard of Adak. Some of you have seen the 'crab fishing' series on satellite TV..well, Adak is 500 or 700 miles further west of where they fish or crab...awful weather. We were a lot closer to Siberia than we were to Alaska..
Anyway, I got there in early 1968. Looking out the window of our plane after a very long ride, my first impression was that I was so far from Texas that I could never get back again. I was almost right.
No trees, just tundra grass. Adak is about the 3rd island from the end of the Aleutian chain. Dismal doesn't come close to a description.
We had 9 patrol planes, searching for Russian subs and monitoring all other vessels, mostly Japanese fish processing ships.
We found two Russian 'Whiskey' subs, diesel boats in the far north Pacific and one nuclear sub under the polar ice cap. A fair number of fish-factories and such, but flying conditions were horrible.
In WWII, the Japanese invaded and occupied Attu and Kiska, just west of us, but Adak was never invaded. We used to walk from our barraks to the hanger to work. One place we had to walk had good stepping stones, until we found out they were WWII land mines. Defused, they said, but all the others scattered about were still functional. Just another day in Adak.
After about 2 months, a loud commotion came thru the barracks..."So & So is down in the head,(bathroom) and cutting his wrists..."
Lot'sa guys went to help...this guy was sitting in his underwear, crying and sawing on his wrists with his dull work knife. Lots of care and concern was given....two months later, another guy repeated the show...this one was offered a sharper knife...
Depression, awful weather and constant work will wear some down. A normal day was snow, fog, 50+ wind...
Our small hanger held 3 planes at most, usually we had to push work stands out thru 12" of snow and work with a flashlight under our arm. I worked graveyards, 11:00pm till 7:00am, but we got a lot of work done because most officers were not around.
Our barracks were warm, that much I'll say...but the 'recreation room' was a bunch of broken vinyl chairs that showed movies like 'Red Tomahawk' over and over.
An old, very old, cargo ship brought supplies to the island on a 2 or 3 week schedule, mainly when we saw it coming, we knew it was there.
Our galley (food fixing place) lost the ability to function for a few weeks..so we ate 1954 issued C-rations...dried eggs from the '50's were just a delight...except when I went to our galley for breakfast and the first dozen eggs they put on the griddle turned green on hitting the grill....it's hard to eat that next one after seeing that...but it's not an option if they serve it to you...
Oh well....Adak was Adak...I have a lot's more stories if anyone wants to hear them..like the time...well, later..
Thanks for your time.
You that are lucky have never heard of Adak. Some of you have seen the 'crab fishing' series on satellite TV..well, Adak is 500 or 700 miles further west of where they fish or crab...awful weather. We were a lot closer to Siberia than we were to Alaska..
Anyway, I got there in early 1968. Looking out the window of our plane after a very long ride, my first impression was that I was so far from Texas that I could never get back again. I was almost right.
No trees, just tundra grass. Adak is about the 3rd island from the end of the Aleutian chain. Dismal doesn't come close to a description.
We had 9 patrol planes, searching for Russian subs and monitoring all other vessels, mostly Japanese fish processing ships.
We found two Russian 'Whiskey' subs, diesel boats in the far north Pacific and one nuclear sub under the polar ice cap. A fair number of fish-factories and such, but flying conditions were horrible.
In WWII, the Japanese invaded and occupied Attu and Kiska, just west of us, but Adak was never invaded. We used to walk from our barraks to the hanger to work. One place we had to walk had good stepping stones, until we found out they were WWII land mines. Defused, they said, but all the others scattered about were still functional. Just another day in Adak.
After about 2 months, a loud commotion came thru the barracks..."So & So is down in the head,(bathroom) and cutting his wrists..."
Lot'sa guys went to help...this guy was sitting in his underwear, crying and sawing on his wrists with his dull work knife. Lots of care and concern was given....two months later, another guy repeated the show...this one was offered a sharper knife...
Depression, awful weather and constant work will wear some down. A normal day was snow, fog, 50+ wind...
Our small hanger held 3 planes at most, usually we had to push work stands out thru 12" of snow and work with a flashlight under our arm. I worked graveyards, 11:00pm till 7:00am, but we got a lot of work done because most officers were not around.
Our barracks were warm, that much I'll say...but the 'recreation room' was a bunch of broken vinyl chairs that showed movies like 'Red Tomahawk' over and over.
An old, very old, cargo ship brought supplies to the island on a 2 or 3 week schedule, mainly when we saw it coming, we knew it was there.
Our galley (food fixing place) lost the ability to function for a few weeks..so we ate 1954 issued C-rations...dried eggs from the '50's were just a delight...except when I went to our galley for breakfast and the first dozen eggs they put on the griddle turned green on hitting the grill....it's hard to eat that next one after seeing that...but it's not an option if they serve it to you...
Oh well....Adak was Adak...I have a lot's more stories if anyone wants to hear them..like the time...well, later..
Thanks for your time.
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