in 1914 wrote to his hometown newspaper, “If some state would only start a movement to compel naval officers to treat the enlisted men like human beings and not like dogs . . . that state would earn the thanks and gratitude of over 60,000 enlisted men.” Not all comments came from within the naval establishment. One high school principal wrote Daniels that he would not send any student into the Navy, adding, “When will the officers of the Navy abandon the poppycock assumption of social superiority? I will not tolerate the old feudal constitution of the Navy in which officers are lords and the sailors villains.” Daniels brushed aside these letters as “an exceptional case and pointed to the Navy’s reenlistment rate as evidence that most sailors were fairly treated and happy.” Harrod noted Daniels’ significance “lay not in establishing dramatically new programs [for the enlisted force] but in emphasizing and publicizing concern for the enlisted force.” Daniels died in 1948.9
Changes in the Navy—then and now—can move quickly. Richard McKenna’s naval career illustrates, however, that no matter how rapidly the naval establishment reshaped itself, reforms moved at a slower speed at the enlisted level.10
Apprentice Seaman 2nd Class McKenna reported to boot camp on 4 September 1931 to begin learning about the Navy. The testing given McKenna showed he scored in the top 7 percent in almost every category, even clerical. Interestingly, McKenna “hated the water during [boot camp] training” and never learned to swim.11
Upon the successful completion of boot camp, McKenna received orders to Naval Hospital Corps training school on 4 January 1932. He completed the school on 2 April 1932 with an overall mark of 3.92 out of a possible 4.0. With this training McKenna became a hospital technician in the service’s medical field; his career field thus changed to hospital corpsman apprentice 2nd class.12
McKenna’s first assignment after naval school took him to the naval hospital at Bremerton, Washington, on 13 April 1932. A bluejacket receives periodic evaluations from senior petty officers and officers, earning ratings from 0.0 to 4.0, with 4.0 being the highest possible score. During McKenna’s years at Naval Hospital Bremerton, he was evaluated for proficiency in his rating, ability as a leader of men, and conduct. By 13 December Richard’s marks in proficiency in rate stood at a respectable 3.5, his marks in leadership were 3.0—not too surprising for a sailor just beginning in his career—and his marks in conduct were 4.0. For advancement in rate, the Navy required enlisted sailors to take and pass a naval correspondence course that focused largely on the theoretical material needed for advancement in each grade in a rate. By 1 December 1932 McKenna had completed his course for hospital corpsman apprentice 1st class with a mark of 3.61 out of a possible 4.0.13
McKenna’s service record after five months at the naval hospital at Bremerton contains a letter from HA2 Roy Frederick Lindberry. Lindberry, who was stationed at the Mare Island naval hospital, near Vallejo, California, requested a mutual exchange of duty with McKenna. In a mutual exchange of duty, two sailors within the same rating and pay grade seek an exchange of duty stations and pay for their own travel. (The sailors must have the approval of both commanding officers.) Lindberry wanted the exchange of duty because the Bremerton hospital was closer to his home. McKenna probably wished to be nearer to a larger city and, perhaps to expedite the request, said his home was San Francisco. The mutual exchange was approved and McKenna reported to Mare Island on 17 October 1932.14
Throughout his career in the Navy and thereafter, it seems, McKenna did not throw any paper away. At some point he assembled much of the ephemera gathered in his career into two scrapbooks. Included with the material for this first period of McKenna’s service is an unidentified newspaper clipping announcing Richard’s selection to “attend hospital corps training school.” The scrapbook for Richard’s time at Naval Hospital Bremerton, near Seattle, Washington, reveals a card for the Owl Billiards, at 1510 ½ Third Avenue in Seattle, advertising billiards, cards, and lunch. There is also a medical slip showing an examination of McKenna and a diagnosis of “Staff [staph].” The Mare Island hospital duty is represented in his scrapbook by a round-trip ferry ticket from Vallejo, California, to San Francisco. The duty in both naval hospitals provided the thing he most appreciated: the availability of public libraries.15
Hospital Corpsman Apprentice 2nd Class McKenna on 16 May 1933 changed his career field to fireman 3rd class, an entry level for the enlisted engineering branch of the service, and transferred to the Navy receiving ship (station) at San Francisco for further transfer. This was a major move—from the cool, quiet, antiseptic conditions of a hospital to the noisy, hot, oily, greasy, dangerous engine room of a ship.16 Nothing in McKenna’s service record indicates the reasons for this change. In The Sons of Martha, the unfinished autobiographical novel McKenna was writing at the time of his death, however, he hints that he changed his rating because of the Depression. When a shipmate asks the protagonist in the novel, Reed Kinburn, why he switched to engineering, Kinburn says he had no choice in the matter. President Roosevelt had closed the naval hospitals to veterans and thus made a surplus of hospital corpsmen apprentices. The Navy, according to Kinburn, gave those affected three choices: change to seaman, change to fireman, or take a special order discharge. Given the economy, Kinburn (McKenna) chose engineering. Furthermore, Kinburn mentioned he had joined the Navy to go to sea, not spend time in hospitals, and he had submitted letters for a change in his rating and a transfer to sea. This latter reason seems more in line with McKenna’s persona.17
The Great Depression, which had caused McKenna to join the Navy, also affected the armed forces’ pay and promotions. In 1933 Congress cut all federal employees’ salaries by 15 percent. At the time McKenna drew thirty-six dollars per month, less the 15 percent. Whether because of public outcry or improvements in the economy, Congress restored 10 percent of the reduction in 1934 and the remaining 5 percent in 1935.18
McKenna eventually received orders to transfer from Receiving Ship San Francisco to USS Gold Star at Guam. He awaited the arrival of the troopship USS Chaumont (AP 5) to make his way slowly across the Pacific Ocean.
During World War I the U.S. government created a large number of emergency shipyards with the American International Shipbuilding Corporation, located at Hog Island, Pennsylvania (Hog Island was also the site of one of seventeen of these yards on the East Coast). The government used the same system of emergency shipyards during World War II. Chaumont began as hull number 671 at Hog Island. Its keel was laid on 18 November 1918, and it was launched in 1920. Originally scheduled for the U.S. Army Transport Service, it became the Navy’s Chaumont on 3 November 1921. The ship was named for the site of the General Headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force in France in World War I and for Le Ray de Chaumont, a French citizen who contributed to the American Revolution by purchasing, outfitting, and supplying American ships in French ports. Chaumont had been a good friend and confidant of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.
Chaumont displaced 8,300 tons, measured 448 feet in length, and had a draft of 26 feet 5 inches. It made 14 knots (16 miles per hour) and had a single propeller. The ship had a permanent complement of 286 and sported four 3-inch guns as armament.
During the unrest in China in the twenties and thirties, the transport moved U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Forces to the Middle Kingdom. Usually, however, Chaumont plodded its way throughout the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific, moving naval personnel, their wives and children, congressional committees on inspection tours, and cargo to and from destinations as wide-ranging as Bermuda, Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, and Shanghai.19
McKenna awaited Chaumont, scheduled for arrival in two months, on Goat Island—now called Yerba Buena Island—in San Francisco Bay. The naval facility had a small library, but sailors in transit could not check out the volumes. For McKenna, who described himself as “hopelessly addicted to reading,” the waiting period brought about a “serious problem.” He recalled he had taken out an allotment to send