Memories of a WWII Submariner: From Boot Camp to the USS Chub (SS-329)
MAY 11, 2018Seventeen-year-old Tom Wheeler volunteered for the Navy after he graduated from high school in Augusta, Georgia. The photo below was taken in 1943 at the end of boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois.
My father, Tom Wheeler (1926-2014), was a World War II submariner. He volunteered for the Navy in the summer of 1943, right after he graduated from high school. Because he was only 17, he had to have parental permission to enlist. His parents agreed because he was going to be drafted on his 18th birthday anyway.
In 2007, Tom self-published a memoir entitled Waltzing Mathilda on the Beach of Bali Bali about his experiences in the Pacific Theater during the war. It was his way of sharing with his children and grandchildren the people and events that shaped his life and, in many ways, our own.
Boot Camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center
As a new recruit in 1943, Tom traveled from his hometown of Augusta, Georgia to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois. In his memoir, he described his arrival at Great Lakes with three other recruits:
The four of us arrived in Chicago after dark and were met by two shore patrolmen and taken to a restaurant where we ate supper. Afterwards, we got on the El (elevated railroad) and went out to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. The next morning, I went through the process of indoctrination, which consisted of being issued uniforms and being told how totally unworthy I was for the distinction of being a member of the Navy. We walked in formation from one check-in station to the other. The “old salts”, who had been there little more than a week, taunted us by telling us where the doctor was going to inject the square needle. This information increased our anxiety to near hysteria. It was only a joke, but we were too naive to know better.
Submarine School
Tom always told his children that he volunteered for the submarine service because he wasn’t a strong swimmer. This is how he explained it:
Boot camp lasted about six weeks. The most unanticipated obstacle during boot camp was my inability to swim. This had never occurred to me as problematic. But, suddenly, I found myself on the edge of an Olympic-sized swimming pool being told to jump in and swim to the other end. The whole company jumped in except me. Suddenly, I found myself standing alone at the end of the pool, terror stricken. I was told to report to the chief of the pool, who, with a look of disbelief, assigned me to a swimming instructor. I was never able to master the distance with a conventional swimming technique, but in my sixth week, I swam the length of the pool on my back and qualified for boot leave.
After boot camp, Tom volunteered for diesel mechanics school and then submarine school.
After diesel school, I chose submarine school for three reasons: 1) I couldn’t swim well 2) people assigned to submarines received hazardous duty pay 3) and, if a sub was sunk, swimming would not be a problem.
The USS Lagarto (SS-371) and the USS Chub (SS-329)
At the end of submarine school, Tom and several of his close friends were assigned to the commissioning crew of the USS Lagarto, SS-371. Due to a medical misdiagnosis, he was reassigned to the commissioning crew of the USS Chub, SS-329. He served as a motor machinist mate (MoMM2C) on the Chub in the Pacific Fleet from late 1944 until the end of the war.
The Lagarto went on Silent Patrol on 3 May 1945, when it was sunk by the Japanese minelayer Hatsutaka. Its remains were discovered off the coast of Thailand in 2005.
Sources
“History of the USS Chub, SS-329“, Submarine War Patrol Reports: SS-329, USS Chub Submarine War Patrol Report, database and images, Historical Naval Ships Association, no date (http://www.hnsa.org/resources/manuals-documents/submarine-war-patrol-reports/ : accessed 31 May 2018); citing US Department of Defense, NPPSO – Naval District Washington, Microfilm Section, reel F-108, AR-116-78, NAVEXOS 3968, 10 June 1978, microfilm p. 3 of 138.
Wheeler, Thomas E., Waltzing Matilda on the Beach of Bali Bali (Pensacola, FL: Thomas E. Wheeler, Cmdr., USN Retired, 2011: 2007).–Notes: Quoted excerpts are from pp. 16-17 and p. 19.