Navy Training Memory 1804

      I was thinking about this today. In November of 1964 I was in training at Barbers Point, Hawaii. I went to 3 aviation electronic maintenance schools for equipment that I never worked on. There was a 4th school that all pilots and air crews must go to, at that time it was called ‘Escape, Evasion, and Survival’ school. The 3 earlier schools were easy and the time in Hawaii was wonderful. We could go to Waikiki beach and stay overnight at the Fort Derussy recreation center right in the center of all the fancy hotels. While tourists were paying monster sums for an overnight stay, it cost us 50 cents per night. The green area on the beach near the center on the map of Waikiki beach is Fort Derussy.

      That 4th school was a tough one.
      We started out on the beach; (not what you are thinking now) this was an isolated beach on the north side of Oahu that seemed deserted. We spent 3 days there, with no food except for what we could catch. The surf was too strong to fish, so the only game we could catch were toads. Sharing 2 or 3 toads between a 6 man group did not go very far. The only plant matter to eat was seaweed, made into a soup that was terrible. On the 4th day we were shipped up into the mountains. There was no game there, I suppose that was because previous classes had caught and wiped the area out of its normal game. There was however, guava fruit. The trees were loaded to the point the branches were low to the ground. I know I was very hungry at that point after having an empty stomach for 3 days prior. I loaded up on that guava. It was delicious. The results of a near bushel basket of fruit, I leave to your imagination. I have never ate guava since then. We were issued old parachutes on the 5th day to rig individual shelters. The schedule called for marines (in enemy uniforms) to hunt us down as an enemy would do after a plane crash on that 6th day. On the 6th day we were required to go from our camp through a phalanx of marines to get to a safe area by sneaking through the the marine’s lines.
      The night before the 6th day we were all in our individual parachute shelters trying to get some sleep before the big event. That night a drenching downpour started around midnight. It did not take long for me to wake up soaking wet. I climbed out of my shelter and was standing in the rain when I heard a commotion nearby. The damn marines were rousting our guys and hauling them off earlier than the schedule called for. It was easy picking for them because the white silk parachutes were like a beacon for them to find. It was easy for me to slink away into the bush because I was already awake. The rest of the night the rain just made me miserable and I never got more than a few minutes sleep at a time.
      On the morning of the 6th day, the sun came out and the ground dried up fast. We were paired into 2 man teams to get through the marine barricades and reach the safe area where we were supposed to get a drink and some real food if we got there undetected. I was lucky enough to be paired with a marine air crew member who happened to be a Navajo. He took charge and we went through underbrush that a rabbit would have a difficult time going through. We made it past the safe area and came up on the far side where there were no marine guards. No one saw us and as we walked into the safe area, they were surprised anyone could do that. It mattered not, because they threw us into trucks and were treated just like the guys who were caught. We were all hauled down the mountain to the mock POW camp. What happened there is a whole different story.