PAUL
NUSBAUM IS SUITABLY IMPRESSED
By Don Gardner
Back in the days
of CW the author tells how...l..
From a “boot” Radioman to becoming an experienced
watchstander didn’t take long in Bermuda. Traffic flowed fairly heavily between
the Fifth District at Norfolk and Air Station Bermuda, from routine movement
reports, weather observations we stole from the ‘merchies,’ and administrative
messages, to message to rebroadcast SOS messages following an automatic alarm.
On the nights we had to
scramble an aircraft for an intercept with LT Defreest as patrol plane
commander, I loved sending ‘Defreest’ by CW. Norfolk would always ask for a
repeat of that name because of the many ‘dits’ in it. A Dutch ship I loved to
copy OBS message from was the SS EEMDYJK. Norfolk had trouble copying that,
too.
It could get damn
exciting at times; other times the watch routine could be extremely boring, and
it was those periods when things went wrong.
One evening RMC Lane had the OOD watch and
mentioned that we needed a copy of an ALCOAST or ALDIST message. I pointed out
we could get a copy from Norfolk Radio by asking. Lane also wanted to check out
our tape recorder, which we had just received and were using to record the
night Search and Rescue drills between our aircraft and the standby SAR Cutter.
“’Don,
tell them to put it on their tape machine and send it at 45 wpm’.
‘OK,
Chief’. The operator at Norfolk seemed to be proficient, so I sent a brief
service message to him with this request; he said he would call back later. We
figured he had to type the message on tape to run through the keyer first,
which would take about five minutes. While sending to Norfolk, I used my hand
key and sent fairly slowly, lulling Norfolk into thinking he was going to run
me off the air.
‘Chief,
Norfolk is calling!’ Lane put the tape machine to record on fast speed and gave
me the sign.
Norfolk
explained the keyer was broken and said he would send it on his ‘bug’. We said
OK. What the hell, we would play it back on slow speed anyway—neither Lane nor
myself bothered to try to type the message as it was transmitted.
A
few minutes of high-speed code followed and at the end, I reached over to the
hand key and ‘rogered’ for the message at my best slow speed. ‘Wow’, the
operator sent.
Lane
and I played the recorder and copied the message except for one part, which
Norfolk had fumbled over and we couldn’t make out. Regrettably I had to ask
Norfolk to repeat those two words, blowing my image I thought.
By the time RM2 Paul
Nusbaum came to Bermuda, my wife had returned to Boston to take care of her
parents who were sick; I was due to rotate back to the states within a month or
so and it wouldn’t be too hard for us to separate briefly. Barracks living
wasn’t that bad according to the standards of those days. I mean, our barracks
had been condemned before the Coast Guard came to Bermuda, but about everything
the Coast Guard had had been condemned by the Navy anyway. One of our PBMs was
spotted by a Navy flier once, who said he had flown it during WW II.
Paul was a unique
individual. He could stand a midwatch, have 48 hours off for liberty, then stay
up the entire two days without getting any sleep. Me? I was worn out after a
mid.
Many
nights Paul and I would ride into Hamilton, me on the pillion seat, and eat ice
cream after an evening watch. Paul could not waste time sleeping. I left
Bermuda and said goodbye to Paul, never dreaming of seeing him again.
I
worked him on a CG circuit months later from San Diego when the conditions were
right. Several years later I had orders to CG Headquarters and wrote Paul, who
now lived in Baltimore. My orders were delayed however and would have been
cancelled except that Malcolm Simmons in the communications centre knew me when
I was at Norfolk Radio, fresh from Radio School, and got my orders delayed for
a few months rather than cancelled outright.
Eventually
my wife and I and our new son arrived at Arlington where Malcolm had an
apartment all ready reserved for us. We settled in rapidly and I called Paul in
Baltimore to let him know I had arrived. Paul advised he had called
Headquarters a few months before and someone had told him there was an RM1
Donald Gardner at the Radio Station in Arlington. Paul drove out there from
Baltimore and was stopped at the gate, where he told them he came to visit Don
Gardner.
In
a few minutes ambling up to the gate came a figure who asked Paul what he
wanted with him.
‘Who
are you?” Paul asked.
‘Don
Gardner’ was the reply.
Paul
shook his head and left, wondering about the names.
I
explained it all to him. My orders had been delayed—and there was an RM1 Don Gardner at Arlington!
The
same thing happened when I went to the GRESHAM
and an RMC from the district office came to Alameda to meet me. I told him
there was a person with the same name and rate who was from Florida, but I
think he got out.
My
wife and I went to Baltimore to visit Paul and his wife one Sunday. Paul was
really into checkers and beat my butt each time. I really appreciated the
aggressive way he began each game by putting a checker where I could jump, but
Paul would then jump that one plus several more—usually beating me in record
time.
Just
before my wife and I were leaving, Paul reminisced about Bermuda. ‘Don, when I
went to Bermuda I wanted to meet you especially. You see, one night you asked
me to send you a long message on the automatic keyer but I had to send it on my
‘bug’. You copied that message so easily and the neat way you “rogered” for it
was impressive.’
‘Uh,
Paul, remember that tape recorder in the radio room?’ I confessed it all to
Paul. As they say in the CIA, I blew my cover.
Paul
was unimpressed.