other activities while in his home port.
By 11 November 1933 Guamanian stevedores had loaded more cargo into the holds of Gold Star from lighters. As the ship was moored to a buoy in the harbor, freight was loaded into shallow draft barges, brought out to the ship, and transferred into the ship’s cargo holds. In the maritime world this process is known as lightering. When Gold Star returned to Guam and moored to the mooring buoy, stevedores moved the cargo from the ship to barges, and the lighters transported the material to shore for further unloading.
Gold Star departed Apra Harbor, this time en route to Manila. The normal complement of health-cruise passengers, minus the Guam militia, was on board. Gold Star remained in Manila for one week. While in Manila Mac went ashore and located a used-book store, where he purchased two books illustrating his eclectic reading habits. One volume, for $2.75, contained tables for logarithms, and the other volume was a Spanish-language book he sent to the Spanish professor he had had at the College of Idaho.25
Gold Star departed for the Crown Colony of Hong Kong and moored to a buoy on Sunday, 26 November. The ship, whenever possible, used a buoy to save money on dockage fees. On 1 December Gold Star departed for Yokohoma, Japan.
Yokohama was the favorite port of Gold Star sailors, and the ship invariably touched there on each of its many visits to Japan. The city’s location, with railroad connections, made easy access to many other cities: Tokyo, for example, is approximately seventeen miles (twenty-seven kilometers) from the port. McKenna found the easygoing ways of Gold Star life both beneficial and problematic. The crew of Goldie Maru received generous liberty in Yokohama. Whereas most sailors in the fleet were granted time ashore every other day at 1600, Gold Star divided the sailors up into three sections and allowed two sections ashore at a time, beginning at 1300. This arrangement was hard on Mac’s fourteen dollars.
With Gold Star moored to a buoy at Yokohama, liberty boats ran from the ship to shore and back. Mac and his shipmates went ashore with officers, passengers, and enlisted men in the same craft. McKenna wore dress whites in the summer in foreign ports. At this time, dress whites had a dark collar and cuffs, with white stripes on the cuffs. After they had arrived at the pier, the people from the boat broke up into smaller groups, taking taxis or walking to the various parts of Yokohama. On his first liberty Mac explored the port. He picked up pamphlets and cards for everything from bars to drug stores. One such information sheet advertised the Pacific Ballroom at 157 Yamashita-Cho, Frank Sato, “proprietor.” According to the sheet, the ballroom was “one of the latest style dance hall in city port of Yokohama, and is the ideal rendezvous for spending your hours ashore. . . . After a long voyage you will find here a pleasant and happy atmosphere and appreciate a happy welcome, the most splended [sic] and paular [sic] music that awaits you in this dance hall.”26
Gold Star departed Yokohama after a week in the port and arrived back at Guam on 20 December, thus ending the underway time for 1933. All passengers left the ship.27
For a young man who wanted to travel, observe his surroundings, and meet fascinating people, Richard McKenna’s first assignment outside the United States could have been scripted by a screenwriter. His home port was at an island that few people in the United States knew anything about, plus the ship’s deployments allowed Mac to see the Philippines, China, and Japan. The future seemed promising for McKenna.
1934
The year 1934 at first did not go well for McKenna. Cleaning firesides was not the only detail foisted on those who had yet to reach petty officer status. Another onerous duty to initiate a new bluejacket was mess cooking. Mac attended the chief petty officer’s mess and the general mess from 1 January to 31 March 1934. This was not an assignment given as punishment but a detail given to all beginning-level sailors. As one of the newer engineers, it was simply Mac’s time.28
Nine days after McKenna reported to the galley, Gold Star again departed Guam, this time for Hawaii. Thirteen days later, the ship moored at the coaling pier at Pearl Harbor. After receiving coal and other cargo, the ship moored to Pier 5A in Honolulu. In Honolulu a seaman 1st class was brought back on board the ship by the Shore Patrol for fighting and intoxication at the Casino Dance Hall. Mac managed to visit the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, devoted to the history, arts, and culture of the Hawaiian people. However, there is no doubt McKenna probably also had a few drinks with his shipmates.
On the last day in January 1934, Gold Star departed Hawaii for Guam and arrived at its home port the second week in February. After mooring, passengers departed and stevedores began the hard work of offloading coal and other cargo.
On 3 March, with new cargo and another roster of passengers, including Captain Alexander’s wife, two adult daughters, and their servants, Gold Star departed for Manila. The ship anchored off the Cavite Navy Yard on Friday, 9 March. There work was undertaken on the ship before it moved to Pier 3 in Manila to unload cargo and receive more cargo, some for naval activities in Shanghai. While Gold Star was in Manila, four women passengers were transported by launch from the ship to shore. The launch collided with a “sugar barge,” and the passengers received “cuts and bruises”; one woman suffered “a fracture” and a laceration to her scalp.
During this period in the Philippines, Mac found his favorite used-book store in Manila and bought several books, including a one-volume work of Lucius Apuleius’ The Golden Asse (the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety), Titus Petronius Arbiter’s The Satyricon (another Latin novel), and Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (a Greek novel from AD 2). Mac’s interest in classical texts may have been born from his brief exposure to them during college.29
While Mac perused the used-book store, a Gold Star shipmate fell from a window at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and received “a contusion and cuts.” The fall caused him to be absent over leave (AOL), an offense not as serious as AWOL. Not surprisingly, an investigation showed that the sailor had been under the influence of liquor.30
With repairs completed and cargo finally stowed, Gold Star departed Manila for Shanghai on 15 March and anchored off the Dollar Steam Ship Line area on 21 March. Chinese stevedores began the hard work of unloading cargo and then loading new cargoes of cement and sugar into the ship.
In Mac’s scrapbook is a sketch map, drawn with a pencil on a torn sheet of lined paper, that marks the location of the Cathy Hotel at the intersection of Shanghai’s Bund (waterfront) and the busy shopping street of Nanking (Nanjing) Road. (The refurbished Cathy Hotel still sits at the intersection but now is called Fairmont Peace Hotel.) The sketch has two Xs on Nanking Road showing the location of two bookstores: the Chinese American Publishing Company at 78 Nanking Road and the American Book Shop at 160 Nanking Road. On this visit to Shanghai, Mac bought a copy of Pan in the Parlour for $5.00 on 22 March 1934.31
To better understand McKenna’s purchases, one must first understand the money in China, for money was one of the main reasons for the popularity of the China Station. Most of the silver was drained out of China at the end of the nineteenth century, as a result of the opium trade, and it was replaced by silver dollars minted in Mexico. The silver dollars were not reminted but circulated as is and prices were quoted in “dollars mex.” Some Chinese found it profitable to split these silver dollars lengthwise, scoop out most of the silver, and then refill and seal the coins with lead—which was known as a “three-piece mex.” Most shop owners would bounce a coin off a hard surface and listen for the proper ring, known as “dinging,” before accepting a coin.
By the 1930s the silver Mexican dollar had largely disappeared. The official basic unit of Chinese currency, the yuan, inherited the name “mex.” In other words, a price given in dollars mex in the 1930s is equivalent to the price in yuan. Other coins were called “small money” and consisted of copper and silver. The value of both copper and silver coins fluctuated from day to day. Paper money, called “big money,” was made up of currency from various sources and never seemed to be withdrawn from circulation owing to wear. Denominations