SECRET AGENT MAN

The military trained me to perform a secret assignment. Now, I'm ready to spill the beans. 02/26/216

SECRET AGENT MAN

One week after being inducted I boarded a Pullman troop train with a few hundred other soldiers, headed for an unknown destination to begin basic training. My heart pounded with excitement upon seeing the Mississippi River the following night as the train rolled noisily across a bridge into St. Louis, having never been farther west than Fort Dix before this time.

Two nights later, at 3 a.m., the train crawled into some god-forsaken desolate military camp. Bedraggled, the new draftees got off and lined up. An officer read out our marching orders. A cheer went up. We learned that we were now in the Army Air Force, stationed at Sheppard Field near Wichita Falls, Texas. Most of us thought we had died and gone to heaven. I had visions of becoming a hot-shot pilot, wearing wings and sporting a crushed flight hat. That dream ended quickly. The war had ended and the army did not need to train inductees to become pilots, or for that matter, navigators, bombardiers, or machine gunners. They intended to train us for less glamorous assignments.

Basic training lasted three months. I found if far less rigorous than my boyhood camping days. Most of the non-commissioned officers who trained us were anxiously waiting their discharge, and they were not much interested in teaching us military conduct or anything else. I found myself in a Boy Scout army.

For the most part, we marched around the camp. We took all sorts of tests, as the army tried to determine what to do with us afterwards. Army chow tasted fine, but the highly-chlorinated drinking water gagged me. Despite having to pull KP a few times, basic training offered little physical challenge. I enjoyed the camaraderie of my new friends.

Near the completion of our training, the army allowed us to go into town one weekend. A horde of teen-age boys overran Wichita Falls, trying to become men overnight. Combat would have been less stressful.

My weapons training lasted one day. I qualified as a Marksman on the M-1 Carbine rifle, but failed to master the submachine gun. The instructor said, “Squeeze the trigger gently.” I tried. Brrrrup. All 25 of my rounds went off in one wild burst, completely missing the target, as my arms jerked up to the right. Whenever I see a gangster movie in which hoodlums fire such weapons, I wonder who trained them to shoot the damn things.

In my final week of training, the army selected me to become a Cryptographic Technician. I had no clear understanding of what this entailed, but it sounded like good duty to me. Others in my barrack were chosen to train as Ground Control Radar Operators, Meteorologists, Control Tower Operators, and Radio Operators. In early December, a troop train carried me to Scott Field, Illinois, located 35 miles east of St. Louis, to begin the next phase of my military career.

It did not start too promisingly. Upon my arrival, the army announced a plan to furlough as many soldiers as possible over the Christmas season, dependent upon when you entered the service. I qualified by a narrow margin and bought a train ticket to take me home. But with each passing day, the cutoff date changed. At the last possible moment, the army canceled my leave. To make matters worse, they assigned me to guard the Cryptographic Training building even though I lacked clearance to enter its interior. What a way to run the army.

One ray of sunshine fell. I obtained a three-day pass and spent Christmas at the home of a lovely couple in Alton, Illinois, who were awaiting the return of their son from overseas. This marked the first time I spent this holiday away from my family. This lovely couple made it a memorable experience for me.

Before my crypto training could begin, I had to be able to type 20 words per minutes. The army had a great system for teaching men this skill. Members of the Woman’s Army Corps taught the classes in a large room where manual typewriters, paper and instruction books were placed on tables. Students sat on benches. A large banner hung from the rafters, displaying the keyboard arrangement and the initial fingering positions.

The doors closed precisely at 8 a.m. and two formidable looking ladies appeared. One barked out, “Open the instruction book. Insert a piece of paper into the roller. Place your fingers on the keyboard as shown on the banner. Start typing.” We were now all on our own. We typed away, eight hours a day, five days a week, following the guidelines in the instruction book. From time to time, one of the instructors would offer help. On Friday afternoon, they conducted tests to determine our progress. The army used only upper-case for all its typed documents, which eliminated the need to learn how to use the shift key.

By the end of my third week in this class, my typing speed exceeded 20 wpm. During that time, my Secret security clearance came thorough. I could now begin learning how to be a Cryptographic Technician. One soldier in my typing class (Ed Franke) had moved around the country frequently before the war which delayed his obtaining clearance. Months passed and still no clearance came through. By the time it arrived, he could type 120 wpm, faster than the instructors

I could not fathom why the army had drafted Ed, a man in his early thirties, married, and father of two children, but I’m glad they did. Using his own personal car, he often drove me and others to spend weekends in Alton, Illinois. This little town on the edge of the Mississippi had a great USO club. The local girls treated us as returning war heroes instead of raw recruits.  

On one occasions, Ed drove me and three others to Chicago. On the way home, his car skidded when he missed an exit and tried to turn at the last moment. The car made a complete circle, scaring the bejabbers out of me. The three guys sleeping in the back seat woke up, wondering what was going on. I would have hated to die in a car crash months after the war ended.

Whether we went to Alton, Chicago or St. Louis, my friends and I always found girls to date. One Saturday, while attending a movie in St. Louis, my three pals and our four dates did not follow me to the other side of the balcony where empty seats abounded. Instead, they waved me back. “That’s the colored section” they informed me. Such blatant discrimination shocked me. This practice did not exist in my upbringing, my first introduction to segregation.

That winter set records for freezing weather. The Mississippi froze upriver, near Alton. An army overcoat weighs a ton, but it provided great warmth. Standing at the St. Louis depot, waiting to take a bus back to camp, my diet expanded to include bowls of piping hot chili, something my mother never cooked.

On a memorable Friday night, in the company of some barracks pals at a very seedy dive in East St. Louis, one of them poured beer over the head of another customer, precipitating a brawl right out of a movie. I ran for my life. The population of that town had few white citizens. They did not take kindly to having some white teen age boys in uniform mess up their joints. .  

The military required few new cryptographers at this time, only eight in my training class. We learned how to operate a code machine that looked just like a teletype. The instructor warned us never to reveal its name: SIGABA. Highly classified at the time, even though the war had ended, one can now read all about it on Google.

After completing my six weeks of training in February 1946, the army transferred me to Langley Field, Virginia to await duty assignment. My travel orders allowed me 22 days delay en route which I spent at home. My parents told me about the day the FBI came to question them some months earlier.

I explained, “Oh, they needed to check on me before I could become a Cryptographic Technician.”  

“What will you do in this job?”

Since I had no idea, I responded, “It’s a secret.”

When my leave ended, I reported to Langley to await further orders. Numerous other soldiers assembled there, a major staging area for the air force. Over the ensuing months, lists of personnel scheduled for assignment would be posted, prompting an outpouring of rumors that this particular group would be sent to air bases in Europe . . . or the South Pacific . . . or the Caribbean . . . or the moon. No one ever knew.

It really didn’t matter where my so-called permanent assignment might take me. My prior experience of decoding messages using a Little Orphan Annie code ring had prepared me for this task.

Her message always read: Drink Ovaltine.

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