Maru—Maru is the Japanese word for circle and is attached to the names of all the Japanese merchant ships. Carrying “everything for a new way of life” for the islanders, Goldie Maru “came to be regarded as a mother to the half-forgotten island sleeping far off the trans-Pacific shipping lanes.”3
Sometime early in Gold Star’s tenure in Guam, the Navy sent the ship to the Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, where carpenters fabricated small mahogany-paneled staterooms on the midship section of the vessel, which became first-class passenger accommodations. Forward, on the port side of the upper deck, the yard workers built the captain’s quarters. Furnished in “Victorian elegance,” with rattan chairs and “colorful Chinese rugs,” the quarters had eleven double-hung windows that provided an exceptional amount of light for the commanding officer. Similar quarters on the starboard side housed the governor commandant of Guam when he decided to take a cruise with his family. At this time, the governor was a U.S. Navy captain. Near the stern of Gold Star, the Navy established a sick bay, along with a dozen second-class cabins, including a modern barbershop. The ship’s yacht-like paneled interiors and accommodations for fifty passengers moved Goldie Maru into a more genteel status among naval ships.4
Nominally, Gold Star served within the Asiatic Fleet; however, the vessel operated as the station ship of Guam, and this isolated it from the even more isolated Asiatic Fleet. The administration for the ship came directly from Washington, D.C., and sailors could not transfer between Gold Star and the Asiatic Fleet, “nor did [Gold Star] operate in conjunction with [the Asiatic Fleet].” Two other Navy vessels also moored at Guam during McKenna’s time—the oiler Robert L. Barnes (AO 14) and Penguin (AM 33), a mine sweeper—but they did not have the reputation of the much larger Gold Star.5
First ships can sometimes become a distant memory for career sailors, but McKenna retained his impressions. Gold Star was the perfect assignment for him; the ship remained vividly in the mind of the young man from the high desert of Idaho until his death.
1933
One of the first things McKenna wanted to know upon reporting to Gold Star was the location of his berth. In 1933 a sailor usually slept in a hammock, and the area assigned to Richard was in the compartment above the fire room. The heat from engineering combined with tropical temperatures and a lack of air conditioning made for terrible sleeping. McKenna would soon find different sleeping arrangements in his new ship.
Gold Star sailors could, if they wished, sleep in canvas cots scattered about the topside decks. During working hours, crew members secured the cots in a hold. After the working day, those wishing to sleep on deck broke out their cots and sought the right location to protect them from rain and spray during their sleep. Unlike for most enlisted crews throughout the Navy, rate and seniority did not count for choice of sleeping locations among those in Gold Star; they were on a first come, first served basis. McKenna observed a “lack of interpersonal aggression [on the part of the crew that set] the Gold Star apart from all other ships.”6
Another unusual feature of the ship’s routine was the first serving out of coffee in the morning. In the galley a large steam kettle—called a copper—full of coffee stood waiting. Certain men had large cups—actually beer steins—that they filled with coffee, sugar, and cream. These men shared their steins with four or five other sailors. Rate and seniority did not determine the groupings for this sharing of coffee. Sailors vied with each other to own the largest cup, even though Gold Star provided single cups. The single cups were used by new sailors who had yet to join a group. No other naval memoir or novel of this period discusses this act of sharing coffee.
Breakfast for the crew began at 0700 in the old-style twenty-man messes. In this long-practiced part of enlisted naval mealtime, the sailor selected as the mess cook of a particular group, or mess, of sailors went to the galley to receive food, which he then brought back for distribution at the mess’s designated table.
Work in port started at 0800. The sailors stopped at noon, and at 1300 two of the three duty sections had liberty, or time away from the ship not counted as leave. These sailors returned to the ship by a designated time. At sea, the deck force worked until 1600 and stood two-hour watches in a six- or seven-watch list. Because of the heat, McKenna, working in engineering, stood four-hour watches and had eight hours off throughout the day.
After work the sailors began the period of washing. Even though Gold Star had more freshwater than was normal on a fleet ship, most crew members practiced the old-fashioned method of using one bucket for cleaning themselves and their clothing. Today’s sailors often rail against taking “sea showers,” that is, briefly turning on the water, turning it off while soaping up, and turning it back on just long enough to rinse. The traditional bucket method is a far cry from sea showers and can be considered a lost naval art.
As McKenna drew his freshwater, a Jimmy Legs used a measured stick to ensure that the engineer didn’t draw too much. Richard then took his bucket into a large compartment with his shipmates. The problem with the bucket method “was to keep the limited volume of fresh water from getting soapy too soon.” First, he scooped up freshwater in his hand to brush his teeth and rinse his mouth. He rinsed his toothbrush in salt water and then washed it out in freshwater. Next, he had to shave. He rinsed his shaving brush and razor in salt water before “sloshing” them in freshwater. Then he lathered up and shaved, rinsing the razor with salt water. When he was finished, he rinsed himself with salt water and then freshwater to remove the lather.
Now McKenna was ready to bathe. In Gold Star he dipped a small hand towel into the bucket’s freshwater and sponged it over his body “to wet down.” He worked soap into a lather in the towel and used the towel used to scrub himself. He then rinsed the towel in salt water. Next, he wrung out the towel, dipped it into the remaining freshwater, and sponged off the salt. Finally, he wrung the towel dry and used it for drying off. Gold Star sailors preferred to use small towels rather than larger regulation ones, as the small ones were easier to dry out in the small clothing lockers. McKenna thought the crew preferred the smaller towels because of their experiences of bathing in Japan.
McKenna did all of his washing squatting over a bucket in a room crowded with other men doing the same thing. The sailors were so close together, there developed a saying: “You had to scrub three strange asses before you came to your own.” After they had bathed themselves, McKenna and his shipmates used the remaining freshwater to scrub their uniforms, again rinsing them with salt water. Although the ship had a laundry, it was too expensive for the enlisted men and was usually used only by officers, chief petty officers, and passengers.7
Before the cleaning-up ritual, Richard retrieved his canvas cot. The evening meal began at 1700, and movies started shortly after sunset on Number 4 Cargo Hatch. Lights out was around 2100. Unlike most Navy ships, Gold Star did not have a normal time for taps—lights out and no moving about the deck. The sailors could stay up as long as they wished.8
Gold Star offered little in the way of recreation for the sailor’s leisure time at sea, there being no radio or phonograph for the crew. Some sailors played cribbage and pinochle, and Acey-Deucey, a Navy variant of backgammon, was popular. Some deck sailors filled their leisure time by vying with each other to make intricate knots and by weaving belts and doing other “fancy work” for the ship. Engineering personnel hammered out rings and bracelets. When the ship was anchored, many sailors tried their hand at fishing. Few Gold Star sailors wrote or received letters.9
At the top of McKenna’s personal priorities when he first settled into his new ship was finding Gold Star’s library. The library turned out to be a small bookcase of two shelves in the corner of the crew’s compartment. It was the perfect height for the mess cooks to set their coffee pots on. The bookcase had locked glass doors and contained only three books. They were The Snow Man, which Richard took to be a novel; Bowditch’s Practical Navigator; and volume 2 of The Collected Letters of Lafcadio Hearn. When the newly arrived McKenna asked older shipmates if the single bookcase was the entire library, he was told that “it used to be clear full” before “guys left ’em laying around