A Generous Slice of Navy Life, One Sailor's Story

One month shy of eighteen, my dad joined the U.S. Navy. His childhood background of farm labor and physical abuse helped fuel the decision to travel by bus to Macon, Georgia, where he and a couple of buddies, George Abood and H.C. McCormick, signed into the Navy in 1942.

Being underweight, Dad stuffed rocks into his trouser pockets to meet the weight requirements so he could enlist. It was February, just two months after the US had declared war on Japan following a brutal attack at Pearl Harbor. There was an air of patriotism and support for our military troops.

Along with his two high school classmates, he took the Southern Railroad to Portsmouth, Virginia then the ferry to Norfolk for boot camp. During the first two weeks the new recruits were administered shots, given dental exams, physical exams, had their clothes stenciled and began a rigorous calisthenics program as part of Platoon Unit 842.

Dad was a man with a stern countenance but when he smiled, it would light the room with brilliance. His life was a collection of roles played out over eighty-one years: brother; student; teacher; sailor; fisherman; Commander; beloved father; cherished husband; WWII Veteran, devoted Christian. He could be stern and rigid, at times aloof, domineering and strictly disciplined, patriotic, gentle, loving and even tender-hearted.

He was an avid reader who taught his children the value of books and the importance of good reading skills. In the early 1920s, as a young boy, Dad fell in love with the silver screen. Even into his eighties he would dedicate hours to watching and recording movies, then labeling and alphabetizing them on the shelves he built to hold them.

He lived the motto, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” designing his work area with specific places where each tool was to hang, an outline penciled carefully around each one.

He impressed on his children the value of discipline and hard work, the importance of honesty and loyalty and was an example of kindness and compassion to all living creatures.

No amount of words could adequately describe the character that was my Dad.

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Dad was a great story teller. The three of us kids would often sit on the hall stairs in an effort to stretch out bedtime. We would encourage him tell us stories about his father, born in 1880, who lived in the times of the horse and buggy, early settlements and raising crops. Granddad was also an inventor and held a few patents of his own design for farm equipment.

Dad was a quiet boy born in the Deep South to a physically abusive Mother. Her marriage to my grandfather turned her into a stepmother of seven children. Two of Dad's stepbrothers served in World War I. One child died of Typhoid fever as a toddler. Dad's step sister Leila was six months older than her eighteen year old stepmother; Granddad was forty. It was a favorite topic of gossip in the little town of Valdosta.

Grandad worked on the railroads as a Postman and later as a share cropper, insuring predictable outcomes from his tiring efforts: he would work from dawn until dusk everyday; his backbreaking labor would result in little income; and his success would rely upon the forces of nature.

After Boot Camp, enlisted men received a three day leave, during which Dad visited his step-sister in Washington D.C.. She worked at the Anchor Room Restaurant at The Annapolis Hotel, a favorite hang out for servicemen in the day.

When his new orders assigned him to a ship that had already left port, he hitched a ride on board another ship, a WWI Destroyer heading toward Russia. The ship would first travel through New Jersey to pick up ammunition, then ultimately head toward Key West, where he was assigned for duty. There he was to be a “Sound Man” and complete a five-week course which entailed spending the last ten days of class at sea practicing their new skills.

Dad discovered early that the more training you took the more pay you could earn. He set out on a determined program of schooling and enrolled for every class he could get. After completing the five-week Sound Course, he was selected to take a 10 week Sound Maintenance Course in how to repair, tune and maintain sonar equipment.

Later he enrolled in Flight School in Dallas, Texas. While he was learning to fly Piper Cubs and N3N Navy Peril craft at this 16 week course, the war was raging overseas. When a surprise Navigation Test caught many of the student pilots off guard, he washed out of flight school along with 49 others in his class.

Soon afterward he headed back to the danger zone.

He received orders to go to New Orleans for further assignment as a Temporary Prison Chaser Guard where he and 22 other Military Guards escorted 60 prisoners to Port Smith NH. Returning to New Orleans, he received new orders for Tampa, Florida aboard the Auxiliary Mine Sweeper, the USS Augury AM149, a new ship, which was to be put into commission after sea trials.

He was among the first crew aboard the new ship which was built at the Tampa Florida ship building facility. The ship’s “shake-down” cruise took them from Tampa to Norfolk VA, afterward, to the Panama Canal, then San Francisco, then to Hawaii. Nearing the Philippines, a new set of orders changed their destination to Kodiak AL for convoy duty. Their job was to escort Merchant ships back and forth from Alaska to ATTU – the Aleutian Islands.

Between escorts they served “Picket Duty”, or steaming continually in a Picket Square, their ship sailing for an hour in each direction, North-East-South-West until a square was completed, and again.

Mid 1945, he received orders for Okinawa to serve on a Mine Sweeper, in dangerous territory to be sure. Taking a troop transport from Seattle WA to Denver, the young Moore boarded a commercial flight to Dallas on a Braniff PBO Hudson with one pilot and one stewardess.

He was aboard the USS Augury on his twenty-first birthday, and served aboard for eighteen months until its decommissioning in July of 1945. At that time, he took a well-deserved 30 day leave in Texas where he met my mother and married her nine days later, a true war-time romance.

The USS Augury (AM 149) Allied Warship

The US Navy Minesweeper, Admiral Class, AM 149 Pennant

Built by Tampa Shipbuilding & Dry-dock Co. Inc. Tampa, FL, U.S.A.

Laid down 7 December 1942

Launched 23 February 1943

Commissioned 17 March 1943,

End Service 18 July 1945

Decommissioned 18 July 1945 at Cold Bay, Alaska and

transferred to Russia under terms of the lend-lease

Renamed T-524, scrapped in 1954 (not reported by Soviet Union)

Reclassified as a Fleet Minesweeper (Steel Hull), MSF-149, Feb 1955

Picture taken while docked at Kodiak, Alaska

Specifications: Displacement 650 t.; Length 184' 6"; Beam 33'; Draft 9' 9"; Speed 14.8 knots; Complement 104; Armament one 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, two twin 40mm gun mounts, one depth charge thrower (hedgehogs), two depth charge tracks; Propulsion two 1,710shp ALCO 539 diesel engines, Farrel-Birmingham single reduction gear, two shafts.

There were many other assignments over the next twenty plus years, leading this young man up the ranks from Apprentice Seaman to retire as a Lieutenant Commander in 1964.

A tribute to Commander Moore’s record of service may be found on the web site for the USS Rich where he remains a Plank Owner of the ship.