“This is home, and so big too.”
Pictures are also from Bill Bass’s time in Boot Camp in Great Lakes and elsewhere.
The U.S.S. Midway, my father’s ship, passes a smoking volcano while sailing across the Mediterranean, 1952. Home away from home, and far away indeed. The volcano is Mt. Vesuvius on the edge of Naples, Italy.
Bill Bass, U.S. Navy. 1948-1952. My Dad before he even met my Mother. These pictures survived my house burning down in March 2010 and thus some damage remains evident. Life is messy.
These picture frame glimpses of my late father, William Merritt Bass, known as Bill, from old fotos and papers recovered from my 2010 house fire. He served in the United States Navy from 1948 to 1952. Bill Bass started out, as did many new sailors, at the historic Recruit Training Command Center at Naval Station Great Lakes. This was boot camp, in the midst of a bitter cold winter, located on Lake Michigan, in the upper NE corner of Illinois between Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The majority of his Navy years, however, was spent upon the U.S.S. Midway, an legendary aircraft carrier rich in history. Born, raised, and educated in Virginia, Dad lived his entire life in his native Commonwealth except during his time in the military and when he was traveling. Dad was proud of his service to his country during the early Cold War.
Where my father went to Boot Camp at Camp Bonny in Great Lakes, Illinois, on Lake Michigan just south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1948.
Flip side of the above foto in Camp Bonny.
Those years seesawed between peace and conflict, and between prosperity and hard times. Proxy wars between the Soviet Union and the United States and their various allies raged around the globe including Indochina, Greece, Korea, Taiwan, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The terror of atomic weapons grew and grew and the mystery of UFOs deepened and spread. “Flying saucers” burst upon the scene in 1947 from Washington State to New Mexico, and swarmed over the American capital in 1952. Intermittent low-level violence was once again breaking out in various regions of the United States. Domestic upheavals ranged from the rise of anarchistic outlaw motorcycle gangs founded by disillusioned veterans of the Second World War to a resurgence of racial strife including lynchings and a growing, turbulent Black Civil Rights Movement championing nonviolence with ugly White backlash.
He was also glad to leave the military when his time was over. He stayed on the Midway to the end and left the Navy a Chief Petty Officer (E-7). Dad couldn’t wait to get back to the family farm out in the Virginia countryside. Most of his time aboard the U.S.S. Midway was spent working down in the boiler rooms as an engine mechanic. There he was likely exposed to asbestos, a carcinogenic toxin widely used in aircraft carriers back then for its superior fireproofing qualities. While he experienced many adventures and traveled to numerous countries while in the Navy, Daddy did admit he was angry at President Truman for freezing his enlistment for an extra year when he wanted to “get back to the farm,” altho he understood the reasons why as the Cold War heated up. He had also grown tired of constantly having to stop work to jump up and salute officers. Plus was fed up with peeling mountains of potatoes even tho doing so was a break from being down in the engine rooms. Nevertheless Bill Bass was adamant he was proud to serve his country in the Navy regardless of such discomforts and glad for the opportunities to see so much of the world.
In the midst of all this, however, my father continued to serve his nation, fell in love, and married my mother. He would eventually run the family dairy farm, was quick to implement cutting-edge farming techniques especially to reduce erosion and eradicate invasive plants, raised three children thru turbulent times, was active in his community, was among the first farmers to openly hire women to work on the farm beside men thus breaking a longstanding taboo, sang in his church choir where he was noted for his rich baritone voice, later became a deacon in the same church, encountered at least one UFO, once crawled out upon a frozen river to pull a deer he hunted off the ice, watched ball lightning shoot into the cowbarn and zoom around the barn along the metal piping knocking every cow down as it passed. He also smoked Camels, declared he rode a camel in North Africa while back in the Navy, and eventually switched to Marlboros. He got cancer from smoking, too. Dad survived scarlet fever and decades later a heart attack and bypass surgery. Bill Bass also loved hunting and fishing, long rambles across woods and fields, and enjoyed numerous family reunions and beach trips. He adored and fretted over his three children and several grandchildren even when he wasn’t obviously emotionally available. After a full life, he finally died from cancer in 2004, “still too young at 74,” according to the minister who presided over the funeral. Even so, for Bill Bass his Navy years remained among the high points of a intensely engaged life.
My father as a young man, new sailor.
Bill Bass “rolling clothes” for “final sea-bag inspection,” Tuesday 16 November 1948.
Flip side of the previous foto. The day of that date is a Tuesday.
Morning inspection guidelines for Boot Camp, 1948.
In my father’s own words as a young man new to the Navy…the back side of the previous picture.
Sailors training to fight fires in a shipboard environment, Boot Camp in Great Lakes. Wow…is that my Dad in the middle with his face turned out to his left? Sure does look like Bill Bass, & am not certain. Tough, messy, dangerous, and absolutely vital job, tho. 1948.
Ross Field Parade Grounds, Boot Camp 1948.
Dad clearly found things to appreciate and wonder at while undergoing training in Great Lakes.
Chow Time at Camp Bonny!
Dad clearly had a change of opinion here, LOL
Dad’s foto of DD-147, the U.S.S. Robert L. Wilson, a Gearing Class Destroyer named after a Medal of Honor recipient from the Second World War. Spring 1949. Look at ‘er go!
Words on the flip side: Dad wrote the top half, & mine’s on the bottom after doing some research on this esteemed warship.
Dad’s ship, the one he served on most of the time, sailing off the coast of Italy in 1950. Dad turned 20 years old in March of that year.
“This is home, and so big too.” Flip side of the same picture of the AC off Italy, 1950.
My Dad, picture left, & buddy Pop Parker drinking away in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Sunday 29 May 1949. Both were stationed aboard the U.S.S. Midway. By November they would be all the way up in the Arctic.
On the flip side of those two sailors “drunk in Gitmo…”
Dad at the Ruins of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. A different trip, this time in 1952. He’s about 22 years old here. His parents did not care for his well-groomed mustache. “When are you going to shave that caterpillar off your lip?” his stepmom would ask him whenever he went home on leave.
On the flip side…
Dad sailed aboard the Midway up into the Arctic Ocean during the Fall of 1949. Got out and walked around on the ice a bit. Wasn’t all flat. Had to scramble over pressure ridges. Kept a look out for polar bears. “What was it like being way up there?” I once asked. “Cold as shit!” he growled back. “And beautiful, too.”
Entering into the Catacombs in the Grotto beneath the Basilica of St. Paul’s, a Roman Catholic church dating from the Medieval Period in Rabat, Malta. Dad and fellow sailors toured these catacombs when the Midway stopped in port in the middle of the Mediterranean.
Yes, there were many skeletons resting down there underground in the island nation of Malta. Still are.
My Dad “holding up” the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, 1950.
There were still lots of work to do to keep this huge ship clean and running. Here one of Dad’s fellow warriors, name now unknown, cleaning deep down inside the Midway.
Warplanes on deck.
Livorno, Italy, with a mix of Roman & Medieval/Renaissance ruins plus ruins from the Second World War. Livorno’s a small port city on the Ligurian Sea on the coast of Tuscany.
Bill Bass cutting the hair of a fellow sailor named Ricci while aboard the U.S.S. Midway, 1952. He later cut my and my siblings’ hair for years when we were squirmy little kids.
Meanwhile halfway around the world, my mother, Dorothy Elizabeth Ussery, “Dot,” as a young woman age 18, almost 19, goofs off with her cousin Jenny and a mutual friend while holding a towel around herself. They worked during the Summer of 1950 at Lake Junaluska Lodge in the mountains of western North Carolina. My parents haven’t even met yet, but they would marry in three more years. My Mom would gag on cigarettes tho she’s fooling around with them here. Dad enjoyed them, tho. Twas 1950. Mom’s in the middle with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Cousin Jenny’s on picture right. Don’t know who’s on the left, but they’re clearly having a good time. This “Lodge” was probably the Lambuth Inn, built in 1921, part of the Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center that opened in 1913. The community there is associated with the United Methodist Church but open to guests from all over. Mom spoke often of her summers there on the lake on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains as among the highlights of her youth.
The U.S.S. Midway, circa 1950. On the back of the picture my father wrote, “William M. Bass, Home Sweet Home.” We remain proud of his service and accomplishments. Sorting, cleaning, and organizing these old fotos allowed us to discover and rediscover the lost history of an everyday Virginian serving in the American military during the Cold War.
More foto-essays will emerge as pictures and documents recovered from the 2010 house fire are cleaned off, sorted, organized, and scanned then copied here. Discolorations, streaks, charring, mottling, etc., reflect damage from the fire. The surviving fotos were initially cleaned off and underwent ozone room treatment by the staff of the salvage company based out near Maltby, WA. When they came upon Dad’s Navy pictures, they were in awe, they told me. They said salvaging these old pictures was an honor. Felt as if they were handling sacred objects from fellow citizens, many now long gone, who once served their country during turbulent times. May we find ways to come back together as a nation.
William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 28 February 2023
Saturday 4 March 2023
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Research Sources:
Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center, North Carolina: https://lakejunaluska.com.
NavSource Naval History: USS Robert L. Wilson (DD-847): https://www.navsource.org/archives/05/847.htm.
USS Midway Museum & History: https://www.midway.org/about-us/midway-history/.
Copyright © 2023 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.