February 3, 2020 • 29 mins
The majority of the veterans we’ve heard from this season recall growing up in Great Depression poverty. Such is not the case with Robert Hanson, a Navy Lieutenant whose father found himself in an intriguing position of economic strength that helped Robert settle into Ivy League academia by the start of World War 2. But that doesn’t mean he was guaranteed safety or good eats when assigned to run PT 182 off of Morotai island - one of the motorized torpedo boats that would take on Japanese barges in some of the most dangerous fighting in the Pacific.
Did income and education make a difference in the end? Listen along as Robert guides us through Navy combat and island cuisine in this story of service and sacrifice. Find photos from this episode of Service and lots of nerdy details behind everything shared in this episode at Robert’s page at www.ServicePodcast.org, where you can also share your Service stories and leave messages for all of the veterans you hear on Service.
And we’re always sharing extra audio and nerdy food history on social media - we’re @servicepodcast on Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're tuning into service, Johnny, the strict private, first class
veteran stories of hunger and war. They joined a service.
Remember perel Harder, Remember Pearl Harbor, a production from My
Heart Radio. We used to just give these people the
food from our miss kits. You ain't what you could
get and be thankful. Well what you will get in
(00:24):
I'm your host, Jacqueline Raposo, And here is they think
the whole day long, all the markets not so good today.
From the World War two veterans we've been sitting with
so far this season, it might be easy to assume
that everyone struggles during the Great Depression. Have a good question.
(00:47):
Everybody was the subwar was five cents local breadles cents
five cents. We had a farmer's during depression, and appreciate
we never were like from school. We ate a variety
of fools that people nowadays never heard of, like chicken feet.
(01:08):
But would that assumption be true. Economists are comparing our
current income disparity with that of the Great Depression era,
and so that's what we're exploring today. How much poverty
or plenty affected how people lived, served and eight during
World War two and beyond. Today you swift time that
(01:34):
dropped down Tigre Frank from its song A Tale of
the Ticker commented on the fragility of the stock market
and its debut only one month before the crash in October,
three of the American workforce was unemployed, and those at
the bottom who kept their jobs. Most of the families
(01:56):
we've heard from the season saw their income dropped by
an average of To offset the humility of breadlines, penny
restaurants helped the hungriest with offerings like soup, bread, coffee,
and pork and beans for a penny. Apiece at the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, I meant Julip or
(02:17):
Tom Collins alone cost sixty five cents. Because this was
also the era of the Vanderbilts and the Rockefeller's business
magnets and demansion owners whose income dropped maybe four percent
during this time, the Gilded Hotel reopened at its Central
Park location in n throwing charity balls for thousands of
socialites and hosting eight course dinners for insurance tycoons, with
(02:40):
courses including sauteed artichokes, a scoffier style filet mignon, and
frozen chocolate bombs. On top of that, guests of means
could basically customize any dinner party they wanted. I found
one patron's letter to Chef Gabrielle to go politely, reflecting
upon the difficulties of the uncivilized market in his request
(03:00):
for caviare a piece to resistance of roast duck with
figs and almonds, dry old sherry and the best of cigars.
Today we spend time with a Navy lieutenant whose family
falls intriguingly in the middle of this income disparity, Robert Hansen. Now,
Robert shared that food is not something he thinks much about,
(03:22):
and so we're going to track his service story in
line with the food narratives of his fellow service members.
And what was happening on the greater stage. Robert's father
progressed from a blue collar job to becoming a professor,
and professors at prestigious universities kind of looked out during
this time. They barely saw a reduction in salary. Tenure
(03:42):
had just started to have pole and colleges navigating student
enrollment drops held on to top teachers to impress new recruits.
Driven home by a huge drop in the cost of living,
children like Robert grew up in relative comfort. This placed
him in a fortunate position in late ninety one. But
as we're learning about this period in history, nothing promises
(04:03):
smooth sailing when a country goes to war. And so
now from his home in Wolfboro, New Hampshire, but slow
and fit, and spend some time with Robert Hansen. My
(04:25):
name is Robert Hansen, and I was born on a
very famous day now eight fifteen, nineteen three, the day
the Japanese surrender. My dad came from a family that
come to the United States through Nova Scotia. He's a
very brilliant guy. He went to have a business school
(04:49):
that he started out in Cambridge, Bath. My mother was
born in Chicago. There were three boys and three years
of those family. I saw both stirring the depression. Here
was my dad a professor at the Harvard Business School
and m I t at that time Harvard financially and
(05:14):
everything said about it as wealthy as anybody comes. Mother
was able to kind of sit back with two days.
This was almost a fairy tale life. Dad was joy
so well. And our neighbors, many of them work are
the edge of Banqueptcy had gone down. Crupp people come
(05:35):
to the host and tried to figure out if there
was some way Dad could help. So he devoted a
lot of his spare time on this because he felt
so strongly. Most people don't understand how horrible it was.
As a result, he met a lot of people of
all kinds coming out of Europe, and some of them
(05:59):
came off to I was asleep when the explosion came.
The terrific force pitched me down on the floor. Immediately
there was a complete black I couldn't see to collect anything,
not even my life jacket. I just think they remember
hearing two detonations almost simultaneously. On September three, nine, the
(06:26):
British passenger ship Athenia left Liverpool heading to Montreal with
dred passengers, including five hundred Jewish refugees, four hundred plus
Canadian citizens, and three hundred from the US. That same evening,
German submarine Youth thirty fire two torpedoes at Athenia, and
one exploded into her port side at m The following morning,
(06:51):
Athenia sank Stern. First one hundred and twelve of those
aboard perished. Britain had declared war on Germany only hours
before Athenia was hit a response to Hitler's invasion of
Poland two days before get At the Nurnberg Trials years later,
(07:11):
the commander of that submarine would say hitting Athenia was
an honest mistake. Her port windows were dark and she
was sailing in a suspicious zig zag pattern, and so
he had thought her an armed auxiliary ship. But Athenia's
cloaked sailing style was intentional, because aggression doesn't come out
of nowhere. Right Jews were fleeing Europe ships had been
(07:34):
warned not to sail, and stateside, those in the know
had long been nervous about aggressive vessels treading near our
eastern shores. Those of means could do something about it.
The hands and family moved to up and coming Wolfboro,
New Hampshire during Robert's teen years, to avoid potential calamity
(07:55):
in Boston. That's where he would meet those Europeans resettling
in New England. He just mentioned. I loved athletes like
Austrian skier Hun Schneider and Yucca mccola, a Finnish Olympic
truck star who would then coach at Harvard with an
Ivy League father. And such connections Robert's future would seem
to be open wide before him, we had a ski
(08:22):
club in both pro I became quite a good scare
wants a racist locally, and when I graduated, I applied
to Darkness the boy. I was zipped right into Darkness.
I went to dark with as a freshman in nineteen
forty one. Everything was tense, but they dreamt of it.
(08:45):
If he happening. People that did with my father. It's
all these older people. December seventh, nineteen forty one, it
was a Sunday and a group of us decided that
we'd like to go to the Wound. We were active
the rich on the afternoon. I can't tell you now
the name of it, but when I came out of
(09:07):
the movie to town had erupted, especially with all the
fellows in school, A lot of them right there in
there practically packed up and left and listen. So here
I was not knowing what was going on, but I
knew I was going to be going. I knew I
(09:29):
wanted to go, but I knew I wanted to ski.
Three weeks after, I was at a Cannon Mountain with
the kids ski team and we had the bumpin all
to ourselves. I feel you hey, that have the whole
mountain to myself. I'm going to enjoy you. I enjoyed
(09:52):
it quarter of the way down. My thought is nebs.
Then I flew through the year fifty a t feet
and he hit a pine tree. When they exported me,
I had broken my patella in fibula. Here I was
(10:13):
with a broken leg, feeling sorry for myself. What's gonna happen?
As far as the Service was concerned, along game an
Army recruiter. He said, hey, we can help you out.
We can get you in the Mountain Troops. Whether he
is ski or not. We're gonna pick you own the
(10:34):
University of Answered where they've got an our ow TC.
So I started training for the Mountain Troops. We skied
against our president. The team was undefeated and lo would behold.
We beat present. We eat at the national championship. A
(10:55):
Navy recruiter shows up in New Hampshire. How would you
like to go to schools some more and ski for
the Navy. We send in your orders and you're going
to Middlebury College. They had just established apeach Well Navy program.
A lot of these college programs who were to save
the colleges because they were losing all their men and
(11:19):
some women going in the service. We were just like
college student. We ate in the vessels and every except
we were an active duty in the morning. Re believe
we have to get up to gown per informations, doing
stuff like that between classes. I went through the season
there and I was transferred to Columbia University Naval Midshipments School.
(11:46):
Mid shipment that means you've qualified to train to be
an office. I said, I want to go with the
t keyboards and I got picked for pe keyboard training
at Newport Rhode Island. All offices there. This was the
first third of untour. So now I get to San
(12:07):
Francisco Courts with brand new transport strip to Southwest Pacific.
We went across the equator and we landed in the
island off Australia. I was put on the small freighter
chugging up and down New Guineas coast through the islands.
(12:28):
I got on a better ship to the tip of
New Guinea and there was at boards quarter right away.
I was assigned as an executive officer on board PT two,
so we bet the skipper right away he had to
be running the boat. It was just like a dance.
(12:56):
Those college programs Robert was recruited for often involved public
relations like duties where the uniformed athletes would show their
stuff at eventsment to inspire patriotism and progress. He was
housed in brand new barracks on campus, stocked with amenities,
and overseen by two Chief Petty Officers. So what does
the shift to p TEA boats really mean for bob
(13:19):
our Coastguard gunners mate Frank Tavita left his attack transport ship,
the Samuel Chase, to help mana Higgins boat on d Day,
and Higgins boats were one of the two most common
styles of pets the Navy and Coastguard would employ through
the war and that major European offensive. The massive fleet
of flat bottomed boats like Frank's were thirty six ft long,
(13:39):
made of plywood with a steel ramp, and could pack
in around thirty six fully armed troops. Because they were small,
the value of PTE boats were initially underestimated. Outside of
these short, fast maneuvers, What could a tiny motorized torpedo
boat accomplish against massive destroyers and battleships? Right, It's exactly
because they were small, vast, and cheap to make or
(14:02):
I lose that PETS would become a mosquito like force
in the Pacific. After the break, we follow Robert through
some high speed combat. There you're listening to service veteran
(14:36):
stories of hunger and war from my heart radio. I'm
Jacqueline Proposo and we're here with Navy Lieutenant Robert Hansen
on PTO operating off of more Thai Island. More Thai
is one of the Maluku Islands, also known as the
Spice Islands, which we'll get into later, an archipelago of
the Indonesian Islands, with Papua New Guinea to the south
(14:58):
and the Philippines to the north. By our entry in
late nineteen forty one, Japan had occupied the majority of
these Central and Southeast Pacific islands, which threatened our ally
British colonized Australia and our ability to transport troops and
materials for invasions in Japan. Around the time Bob was
joining the fight, the Japanese had lost many battleships and
(15:21):
the capture and recapture of dozens of these islands, and
so they turned to transporting troops and supplies on barges
low dark vessels that were slow but could easily camouflage
when docked tight in shallow waters beside an island. They
weren't that big, but they could carry a lot. One
nineteen forty four intelligence report estimates one barge could carry
(15:43):
a day's rations for six thousand, two hundred Japanese soldiers,
and they were armored, which gave the p TEA boats
a run for their money the cousin contrast, Let's remember
that the p TEA boats were made out of wood mahogany. Usually,
their ability to act as radar was limited, and so
crew basically patrolled open waters looking for targets with binoculars.
(16:06):
And while the eighty foot el Co PTE two was
equipped with two torpedo launching racks of forty millimeter deck
gun and two anti aircraft guns. When they found a barge,
they would have to get really close to the enemy
to spray and then speed away, and they'd splinter if
they took on enemy fire. The crew under Navy Lieutenant
John F. Kennedy would notoriously swim eleven hours to safety
(16:30):
after their PT one O nine was shredded around the
Solomon Islands. So here we are with our lieutenant Hansen,
one of fourteen men on PTE two in Squadron eleven,
part of the Mosquito fleet, right across from Japanese occupied
Halmahara Island as four slips into nineteen forty five. At
(16:58):
that point they were six see thousands Japs further across
from us, and they were constantly trying to get over
in sabotage. Atnything of our stuff? Was it d at night?
You were busy running into these damn barges, and heaven
shoot them. You'd make a run because we could go
(17:26):
fat and they could not go fat. We were out
of this night patrol. We're making a run in the
dark like the Japanese that cloth to make us silhouetted.
So the tip and we've found a bard who were
making one's trying to stop the kill of whatever severer
(17:52):
was that the weird I was standing right next year
all of us are there, is said, have hit down,
and I grabbed form. He was bleak, and I was
as ship. I had to step in and I pushed
the problems right to see what had happened. We stopped
(18:13):
with the far off away. A couple of other guys
have been here. We didn't have doctors. We didn't have
anything on these small boats. And he said, the hell
of it. I'm going to give him back, but maybe
he'll live. I told the great iron man, give me
a course straight back to the base. How the boy,
(18:34):
the sun came up every We're going like hell, and
in the excitement you forgot to reach that was out there.
And I happened to look over the side nice and
holy shot, we haven't going forty five miles an hour.
Oh my god, we've been are here and the only
(18:54):
thing that saved us is the boat had gone from
fever flat. A little water to raise up. We need
to hit a m fing. We pulled into the base,
the dambulus everything and they flew about. Boats came over
and he says, we just had one fade jelly, it's
(19:17):
free of flour wounded. Congratulations, you are now the skipper
pt What did you do? As skipper? Bob would make
nightly strafing like runs on the barges for the remaining
months of the war. During the day, he'd play a
(19:37):
little on top of nailing wooden boards together to teach
men how to water ski. He'd get to know the
locals food wise, the tropical Molucas Islands are known for
their abundance of local fish, obviously, and they're growing of cocoa, coconuts,
canary nuts, and sego, the starchy pulp of a particular
palm trunk that dries into a flower or tapioca like
(19:59):
per rolls. This region of Indonesia was also dubbed the
Spice Islands for their wealth of nutmeg, so prized in
earlier centuries for its medicinal properties that wars were repeatedly
waged against the native islanders by Portuguese, English, and Dutch colonizers. Notoriously,
the British gave up neighboring Banda Island to the Dutch
(20:19):
in trade for Manhattan. That's how much nutmeg was worth
in sixteen seventy seven. But this doesn't exactly mean the
almost one point four million Navy personnel in the Pacific
at this time we're feasting on local delicacies, as we
heard in our episode with Chief Petty Officer William Walker,
who was overseeing supply holds onboard ship in the Pacific.
(20:40):
At the same time, bugs often infested flour during transport
the powdered eggs. All of our veterans remember hating extended
to the powdered potatoes sailors eight on Island cleverly renamed
as snow flaked potatoes on holiday menus milk was dehydrated
to the canned foods, which we've heard kept in rooving
(21:00):
over the course of the war would often arrive glazed
with an odor that didn't exactly inspire an appetite. Sea.
Russian innovation was not so progressed that it could guarantee
flavor and freshness against the Pacific's heat and humidity, and
so spam became a sailor's major meat staple, and eating
it sometimes three times a day meant a total one
(21:21):
million cans of the stuff circulated there through the war,
passed with those powdered eggs for breakfast, fried into sandwiches
stewed with tomato sauce. This is why, as everywhere anything
fresh or flash frozen was prized. While Navy ships had freezers,
pte boats barely had a galley kitchen, only enough space
(21:41):
to make the crew sandwiches and coffee. Really, and base
camps relied on what ships like Williams could barrel through
the dangerous waters to them. As we heard from our
Coastguard Gunner's mate Frank Tavita. If anyone was getting the
fresh stuff, it was the officers, and William remembers fresh
eggs and beer as special actions for when those with
particular brass came aboard. What does this all mean for
(22:05):
Lieutenant Hansen? The food I was getting, we were offsites.
We were eating like kids. None of us were starting
the opposite, and none of the enlisted windows. All right,
anything not frozen. We were getting a good, better and
(22:25):
different unfrozen can dates by the barrel road. We were
so used to it. Everybody else was eating it. The
food didn't bother me. But through this I'd love to
ride that page every time we got a chance to
get out and think the crew because they enjoyed it
and they loved the wall and try and beg from
(22:47):
the ship looking for the fresh stop. We were trying
to help the datives that were helping us, and they
were helping us all the time. Extra foods that we
would scrown, we'd give it away. In truth, most of
the time the guys who not give them frozen food,
they'd give them damned food. And the datas were typl
(23:08):
to get anything. Every time we were giving it to
the datas. I would get a chance to talk with them,
most of to speak a word of English. But what
fascinated me was all the mahogany card stuff. They always
had statues, alligators, the most beautiful carving. You couldn't believe it.
(23:33):
I couldn't believe it. These guys also were diving, and
they dove to depths. We couldn't think of diving too.
The dive for pearls. Who dive for food, They spearfish.
They did everything. I'd ate a couple of times just
to please them, and they knew it. They just plut cocoa.
(23:54):
That's what we drink, cocad and milk. We would treat
it at like kings. I tried to teach them the
same way, because they had no reason not to. Then,
one night of this nineteen forty fun we were in patrol.
(24:15):
O kid that goes out of the radio, Mr Hanson,
there's a broadcast. Are now right now? Effort issued in
a conditional surrender, so the war is over. I said,
you gotta be kidding. Get every god day, have a
piece of ammunition out. You've gotta fire everything we got's
(24:40):
never seen the fourth in your life the war is over.
Robert lingered after v J Day while they figured out
what to do with all of those pt boats. Then
a mischievous e wall escapade landed him on a out
home to the Pearl Harbor base. You can hear the
(25:02):
full clip of that caper on his page at Service
podcast dot org. From that point forward, his life was
filled with more serendipitous opportunities. While at the naval base
in Pearl Harbor, he got an interview with Vice Admiral
Charles Wellborn, who was looking for a new aid. Despite
wanting to get back to civilian freedom, Bob recognized the opportunity,
(25:25):
took the position, and spent the following year's shuttling government
personnel to Asia, participating in the Korean War and then
the Cuban Missile Crisis, which qualified him for service in Vietnam.
With a family of three children, he officially retired from
the Navy in n Throughout all of this, Who remembers
the keeping people down he witnessed in various social and
(25:48):
economic spheres. He says it would tick him off that
black men like William could only get positions of manual
labor in the Navy, and he spoken loudly about that
disparity whenever his service story has been and requested. Since
you can hear a little about that in part two
of our episode, Dad, I can't talk about it. While
at General Motors outside of Detroit, who remembers pointing out
(26:10):
to skeptical white people that the black men who made
up two thirds of the workforce there largely drove Cadillacs
because they made good money but couldn't buy homes or
land in that part of Michigan. Volunteering with the Red
Cross both in the Pacific and in Michigan, he fought
to get a black doctor on the all white board
of directors back in Wolfborow. Years later, he took a
(26:30):
local argument all the way to Washington to get their
town hall updated to code. With the Americans with the
Disabilities Act. Now ninety six years old, he's fighting for
elder care rights. Our two interviews were peppered with examples
of his challenging authority to uphold equal rights and his
speaking up angrily when such things were tossed in the
rubbish bin. This is also why Bob, like William, doesn't
(26:54):
care to talk that much about food. He's seen the
highbrow and the rancid and eats to live. A common
refrain from our greatest generation veterans is that they were
grateful to have food at all, and it's funny to
hear how their memories of military cuisine might be a
bit rose colored by time and such appreciation because Hormel
(27:15):
took a lot of backlash from g I's after their
overeating of spam. Evidently, the recipe packed into six pound
cans for the military was slightly different than the pork
shoulder and ham combo vacuum sealed into the twelve pounds
commercial version, and it didn't taste as good. Troops used
the grease from it to oil down weapons and shine
their hair. Consumption dropped significantly on the home front. Post war,
(27:39):
spam ceilings had long been hit and as well here
in upcoming seasons. The military would soon start working with
one hundred and sixty six private companies within a year
after the war ended to both better combat cuisine and
innovate convenience foods for the American kitchen. In our next episode,
Ray Boutwell, a Navy cook stationed in New Jersey, we'll
(28:00):
guide us through some of the progress already being tested
at Base Camp Stateside towards the end of the war.
Until then, you can find more about all the nerdy
stuff behind this episode at Bob's page at Service podcast
dot org, plus extra audio clips and photos on our
Instagram and Facebook. We are at Service podcast Service as
a production from My Heart Radio, where Gabrielle Collins is
(28:21):
our supervising producer and Christopher hasiotis our executive producer. I
produced and engineered this episode with help from historian, novelist
and former past Guard officer Mike Coal on the PT
Combat Sequences. Listen up from Mike returning to us later
this season. Thank you to Bob's daughter Debbie for her
help and Bill Walker Williams son for connecting us with
(28:42):
Bob for this episode. Check out Williams episode Service within
the Service for another gripping perspective on Navy life. Thank
you for listening. If you like what you hear, drop
us a review, come say hi on social or leave
our veterans a message at Service podcast dot org. We
love to pass on your thoughts and good wishes. Most
of all, thank you to those serving and those who
(29:04):
have served. H
You're tuning into service, Johnny, the strict private, first class
veteran stories of hunger and war. They joined a service.
Remember perel Harder, Remember Pearl Harbor, a production from My
Heart Radio. We used to just give these people the
food from our miss kits. You ain't what you could
get and be thankful. Well what you will get in
(00:24):
I'm your host, Jacqueline Raposo, And here is they think
the whole day long, all the markets not so good today.
From the World War two veterans we've been sitting with
so far this season, it might be easy to assume
that everyone struggles during the Great Depression. Have a good question.
(00:47):
Everybody was the subwar was five cents local breadles cents
five cents. We had a farmer's during depression, and appreciate
we never were like from school. We ate a variety
of fools that people nowadays never heard of, like chicken feet.
(01:08):
But would that assumption be true. Economists are comparing our
current income disparity with that of the Great Depression era,
and so that's what we're exploring today. How much poverty
or plenty affected how people lived, served and eight during
World War two and beyond. Today you swift time that
(01:34):
dropped down Tigre Frank from its song A Tale of
the Ticker commented on the fragility of the stock market
and its debut only one month before the crash in October,
three of the American workforce was unemployed, and those at
the bottom who kept their jobs. Most of the families
(01:56):
we've heard from the season saw their income dropped by
an average of To offset the humility of breadlines, penny
restaurants helped the hungriest with offerings like soup, bread, coffee,
and pork and beans for a penny. Apiece at the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, I meant Julip or
(02:17):
Tom Collins alone cost sixty five cents. Because this was
also the era of the Vanderbilts and the Rockefeller's business
magnets and demansion owners whose income dropped maybe four percent
during this time, the Gilded Hotel reopened at its Central
Park location in n throwing charity balls for thousands of
socialites and hosting eight course dinners for insurance tycoons, with
(02:40):
courses including sauteed artichokes, a scoffier style filet mignon, and
frozen chocolate bombs. On top of that, guests of means
could basically customize any dinner party they wanted. I found
one patron's letter to Chef Gabrielle to go politely, reflecting
upon the difficulties of the uncivilized market in his request
(03:00):
for caviare a piece to resistance of roast duck with
figs and almonds, dry old sherry and the best of cigars.
Today we spend time with a Navy lieutenant whose family
falls intriguingly in the middle of this income disparity, Robert Hansen. Now,
Robert shared that food is not something he thinks much about,
(03:22):
and so we're going to track his service story in
line with the food narratives of his fellow service members.
And what was happening on the greater stage. Robert's father
progressed from a blue collar job to becoming a professor,
and professors at prestigious universities kind of looked out during
this time. They barely saw a reduction in salary. Tenure
(03:42):
had just started to have pole and colleges navigating student
enrollment drops held on to top teachers to impress new recruits.
Driven home by a huge drop in the cost of living,
children like Robert grew up in relative comfort. This placed
him in a fortunate position in late ninety one. But
as we're learning about this period in history, nothing promises
(04:03):
smooth sailing when a country goes to war. And so
now from his home in Wolfboro, New Hampshire, but slow
and fit, and spend some time with Robert Hansen. My
(04:25):
name is Robert Hansen, and I was born on a
very famous day now eight fifteen, nineteen three, the day
the Japanese surrender. My dad came from a family that
come to the United States through Nova Scotia. He's a
very brilliant guy. He went to have a business school
(04:49):
that he started out in Cambridge, Bath. My mother was
born in Chicago. There were three boys and three years
of those family. I saw both stirring the depression. Here
was my dad a professor at the Harvard Business School
and m I t at that time Harvard financially and
(05:14):
everything said about it as wealthy as anybody comes. Mother
was able to kind of sit back with two days.
This was almost a fairy tale life. Dad was joy
so well. And our neighbors, many of them work are
the edge of Banqueptcy had gone down. Crupp people come
(05:35):
to the host and tried to figure out if there
was some way Dad could help. So he devoted a
lot of his spare time on this because he felt
so strongly. Most people don't understand how horrible it was.
As a result, he met a lot of people of
all kinds coming out of Europe, and some of them
(05:59):
came off to I was asleep when the explosion came.
The terrific force pitched me down on the floor. Immediately
there was a complete black I couldn't see to collect anything,
not even my life jacket. I just think they remember
hearing two detonations almost simultaneously. On September three, nine, the
(06:26):
British passenger ship Athenia left Liverpool heading to Montreal with
dred passengers, including five hundred Jewish refugees, four hundred plus
Canadian citizens, and three hundred from the US. That same evening,
German submarine Youth thirty fire two torpedoes at Athenia, and
one exploded into her port side at m The following morning,
(06:51):
Athenia sank Stern. First one hundred and twelve of those
aboard perished. Britain had declared war on Germany only hours
before Athenia was hit a response to Hitler's invasion of
Poland two days before get At the Nurnberg Trials years later,
(07:11):
the commander of that submarine would say hitting Athenia was
an honest mistake. Her port windows were dark and she
was sailing in a suspicious zig zag pattern, and so
he had thought her an armed auxiliary ship. But Athenia's
cloaked sailing style was intentional, because aggression doesn't come out
of nowhere. Right Jews were fleeing Europe ships had been
(07:34):
warned not to sail, and stateside, those in the know
had long been nervous about aggressive vessels treading near our
eastern shores. Those of means could do something about it.
The hands and family moved to up and coming Wolfboro,
New Hampshire during Robert's teen years, to avoid potential calamity
(07:55):
in Boston. That's where he would meet those Europeans resettling
in New England. He just mentioned. I loved athletes like
Austrian skier Hun Schneider and Yucca mccola, a Finnish Olympic
truck star who would then coach at Harvard with an
Ivy League father. And such connections Robert's future would seem
to be open wide before him, we had a ski
(08:22):
club in both pro I became quite a good scare
wants a racist locally, and when I graduated, I applied
to Darkness the boy. I was zipped right into Darkness.
I went to dark with as a freshman in nineteen
forty one. Everything was tense, but they dreamt of it.
(08:45):
If he happening. People that did with my father. It's
all these older people. December seventh, nineteen forty one, it
was a Sunday and a group of us decided that
we'd like to go to the Wound. We were active
the rich on the afternoon. I can't tell you now
the name of it, but when I came out of
(09:07):
the movie to town had erupted, especially with all the
fellows in school, A lot of them right there in
there practically packed up and left and listen. So here
I was not knowing what was going on, but I
knew I was going to be going. I knew I
(09:29):
wanted to go, but I knew I wanted to ski.
Three weeks after, I was at a Cannon Mountain with
the kids ski team and we had the bumpin all
to ourselves. I feel you hey, that have the whole
mountain to myself. I'm going to enjoy you. I enjoyed
(09:52):
it quarter of the way down. My thought is nebs.
Then I flew through the year fifty a t feet
and he hit a pine tree. When they exported me,
I had broken my patella in fibula. Here I was
(10:13):
with a broken leg, feeling sorry for myself. What's gonna happen?
As far as the Service was concerned, along game an
Army recruiter. He said, hey, we can help you out.
We can get you in the Mountain Troops. Whether he
is ski or not. We're gonna pick you own the
(10:34):
University of Answered where they've got an our ow TC.
So I started training for the Mountain Troops. We skied
against our president. The team was undefeated and lo would behold.
We beat present. We eat at the national championship. A
(10:55):
Navy recruiter shows up in New Hampshire. How would you
like to go to schools some more and ski for
the Navy. We send in your orders and you're going
to Middlebury College. They had just established apeach Well Navy program.
A lot of these college programs who were to save
the colleges because they were losing all their men and
(11:19):
some women going in the service. We were just like
college student. We ate in the vessels and every except
we were an active duty in the morning. Re believe
we have to get up to gown per informations, doing
stuff like that between classes. I went through the season
there and I was transferred to Columbia University Naval Midshipments School.
(11:46):
Mid shipment that means you've qualified to train to be
an office. I said, I want to go with the
t keyboards and I got picked for pe keyboard training
at Newport Rhode Island. All offices there. This was the
first third of untour. So now I get to San
(12:07):
Francisco Courts with brand new transport strip to Southwest Pacific.
We went across the equator and we landed in the
island off Australia. I was put on the small freighter
chugging up and down New Guineas coast through the islands.
(12:28):
I got on a better ship to the tip of
New Guinea and there was at boards quarter right away.
I was assigned as an executive officer on board PT two,
so we bet the skipper right away he had to
be running the boat. It was just like a dance.
(12:56):
Those college programs Robert was recruited for often involved public
relations like duties where the uniformed athletes would show their
stuff at eventsment to inspire patriotism and progress. He was
housed in brand new barracks on campus, stocked with amenities,
and overseen by two Chief Petty Officers. So what does
the shift to p TEA boats really mean for bob
(13:19):
our Coastguard gunners mate Frank Tavita left his attack transport ship,
the Samuel Chase, to help mana Higgins boat on d Day,
and Higgins boats were one of the two most common
styles of pets the Navy and Coastguard would employ through
the war and that major European offensive. The massive fleet
of flat bottomed boats like Frank's were thirty six ft long,
(13:39):
made of plywood with a steel ramp, and could pack
in around thirty six fully armed troops. Because they were small,
the value of PTE boats were initially underestimated. Outside of
these short, fast maneuvers, What could a tiny motorized torpedo
boat accomplish against massive destroyers and battleships? Right, It's exactly
because they were small, vast, and cheap to make or
(14:02):
I lose that PETS would become a mosquito like force
in the Pacific. After the break, we follow Robert through
some high speed combat. There you're listening to service veteran
(14:36):
stories of hunger and war from my heart radio. I'm
Jacqueline Proposo and we're here with Navy Lieutenant Robert Hansen
on PTO operating off of more Thai Island. More Thai
is one of the Maluku Islands, also known as the
Spice Islands, which we'll get into later, an archipelago of
the Indonesian Islands, with Papua New Guinea to the south
(14:58):
and the Philippines to the north. By our entry in
late nineteen forty one, Japan had occupied the majority of
these Central and Southeast Pacific islands, which threatened our ally
British colonized Australia and our ability to transport troops and
materials for invasions in Japan. Around the time Bob was
joining the fight, the Japanese had lost many battleships and
(15:21):
the capture and recapture of dozens of these islands, and
so they turned to transporting troops and supplies on barges
low dark vessels that were slow but could easily camouflage
when docked tight in shallow waters beside an island. They
weren't that big, but they could carry a lot. One
nineteen forty four intelligence report estimates one barge could carry
(15:43):
a day's rations for six thousand, two hundred Japanese soldiers,
and they were armored, which gave the p TEA boats
a run for their money the cousin contrast, Let's remember
that the p TEA boats were made out of wood mahogany. Usually,
their ability to act as radar was limited, and so
crew basically patrolled open waters looking for targets with binoculars.
(16:06):
And while the eighty foot el Co PTE two was
equipped with two torpedo launching racks of forty millimeter deck
gun and two anti aircraft guns. When they found a barge,
they would have to get really close to the enemy
to spray and then speed away, and they'd splinter if
they took on enemy fire. The crew under Navy Lieutenant
John F. Kennedy would notoriously swim eleven hours to safety
(16:30):
after their PT one O nine was shredded around the
Solomon Islands. So here we are with our lieutenant Hansen,
one of fourteen men on PTE two in Squadron eleven,
part of the Mosquito fleet, right across from Japanese occupied
Halmahara Island as four slips into nineteen forty five. At
(16:58):
that point they were six see thousands Japs further across
from us, and they were constantly trying to get over
in sabotage. Atnything of our stuff? Was it d at night?
You were busy running into these damn barges, and heaven
shoot them. You'd make a run because we could go
(17:26):
fat and they could not go fat. We were out
of this night patrol. We're making a run in the
dark like the Japanese that cloth to make us silhouetted.
So the tip and we've found a bard who were
making one's trying to stop the kill of whatever severer
(17:52):
was that the weird I was standing right next year
all of us are there, is said, have hit down,
and I grabbed form. He was bleak, and I was
as ship. I had to step in and I pushed
the problems right to see what had happened. We stopped
(18:13):
with the far off away. A couple of other guys
have been here. We didn't have doctors. We didn't have
anything on these small boats. And he said, the hell
of it. I'm going to give him back, but maybe
he'll live. I told the great iron man, give me
a course straight back to the base. How the boy,
(18:34):
the sun came up every We're going like hell, and
in the excitement you forgot to reach that was out there.
And I happened to look over the side nice and
holy shot, we haven't going forty five miles an hour.
Oh my god, we've been are here and the only
(18:54):
thing that saved us is the boat had gone from
fever flat. A little water to raise up. We need
to hit a m fing. We pulled into the base,
the dambulus everything and they flew about. Boats came over
and he says, we just had one fade jelly, it's
(19:17):
free of flour wounded. Congratulations, you are now the skipper
pt What did you do? As skipper? Bob would make
nightly strafing like runs on the barges for the remaining
months of the war. During the day, he'd play a
(19:37):
little on top of nailing wooden boards together to teach
men how to water ski. He'd get to know the
locals food wise, the tropical Molucas Islands are known for
their abundance of local fish, obviously, and they're growing of cocoa, coconuts,
canary nuts, and sego, the starchy pulp of a particular
palm trunk that dries into a flower or tapioca like
(19:59):
per rolls. This region of Indonesia was also dubbed the
Spice Islands for their wealth of nutmeg, so prized in
earlier centuries for its medicinal properties that wars were repeatedly
waged against the native islanders by Portuguese, English, and Dutch colonizers. Notoriously,
the British gave up neighboring Banda Island to the Dutch
(20:19):
in trade for Manhattan. That's how much nutmeg was worth
in sixteen seventy seven. But this doesn't exactly mean the
almost one point four million Navy personnel in the Pacific
at this time we're feasting on local delicacies, as we
heard in our episode with Chief Petty Officer William Walker,
who was overseeing supply holds onboard ship in the Pacific.
(20:40):
At the same time, bugs often infested flour during transport
the powdered eggs. All of our veterans remember hating extended
to the powdered potatoes sailors eight on Island cleverly renamed
as snow flaked potatoes on holiday menus milk was dehydrated
to the canned foods, which we've heard kept in rooving
(21:00):
over the course of the war would often arrive glazed
with an odor that didn't exactly inspire an appetite. Sea.
Russian innovation was not so progressed that it could guarantee
flavor and freshness against the Pacific's heat and humidity, and
so spam became a sailor's major meat staple, and eating
it sometimes three times a day meant a total one
(21:21):
million cans of the stuff circulated there through the war,
passed with those powdered eggs for breakfast, fried into sandwiches
stewed with tomato sauce. This is why, as everywhere anything
fresh or flash frozen was prized. While Navy ships had freezers,
pte boats barely had a galley kitchen, only enough space
(21:41):
to make the crew sandwiches and coffee. Really, and base
camps relied on what ships like Williams could barrel through
the dangerous waters to them. As we heard from our
Coastguard Gunner's mate Frank Tavita. If anyone was getting the
fresh stuff, it was the officers, and William remembers fresh
eggs and beer as special actions for when those with
particular brass came aboard. What does this all mean for
(22:05):
Lieutenant Hansen? The food I was getting, we were offsites.
We were eating like kids. None of us were starting
the opposite, and none of the enlisted windows. All right,
anything not frozen. We were getting a good, better and
(22:25):
different unfrozen can dates by the barrel road. We were
so used to it. Everybody else was eating it. The
food didn't bother me. But through this I'd love to
ride that page every time we got a chance to
get out and think the crew because they enjoyed it
and they loved the wall and try and beg from
(22:47):
the ship looking for the fresh stop. We were trying
to help the datives that were helping us, and they
were helping us all the time. Extra foods that we
would scrown, we'd give it away. In truth, most of
the time the guys who not give them frozen food,
they'd give them damned food. And the datas were typl
(23:08):
to get anything. Every time we were giving it to
the datas. I would get a chance to talk with them,
most of to speak a word of English. But what
fascinated me was all the mahogany card stuff. They always
had statues, alligators, the most beautiful carving. You couldn't believe it.
(23:33):
I couldn't believe it. These guys also were diving, and
they dove to depths. We couldn't think of diving too.
The dive for pearls. Who dive for food, They spearfish.
They did everything. I'd ate a couple of times just
to please them, and they knew it. They just plut cocoa.
(23:54):
That's what we drink, cocad and milk. We would treat
it at like kings. I tried to teach them the
same way, because they had no reason not to. Then,
one night of this nineteen forty fun we were in patrol.
(24:15):
O kid that goes out of the radio, Mr Hanson,
there's a broadcast. Are now right now? Effort issued in
a conditional surrender, so the war is over. I said,
you gotta be kidding. Get every god day, have a
piece of ammunition out. You've gotta fire everything we got's
(24:40):
never seen the fourth in your life the war is over.
Robert lingered after v J Day while they figured out
what to do with all of those pt boats. Then
a mischievous e wall escapade landed him on a out
home to the Pearl Harbor base. You can hear the
(25:02):
full clip of that caper on his page at Service
podcast dot org. From that point forward, his life was
filled with more serendipitous opportunities. While at the naval base
in Pearl Harbor, he got an interview with Vice Admiral
Charles Wellborn, who was looking for a new aid. Despite
wanting to get back to civilian freedom, Bob recognized the opportunity,
(25:25):
took the position, and spent the following year's shuttling government
personnel to Asia, participating in the Korean War and then
the Cuban Missile Crisis, which qualified him for service in Vietnam.
With a family of three children, he officially retired from
the Navy in n Throughout all of this, Who remembers
the keeping people down he witnessed in various social and
(25:48):
economic spheres. He says it would tick him off that
black men like William could only get positions of manual
labor in the Navy, and he spoken loudly about that
disparity whenever his service story has been and requested. Since
you can hear a little about that in part two
of our episode, Dad, I can't talk about it. While
at General Motors outside of Detroit, who remembers pointing out
(26:10):
to skeptical white people that the black men who made
up two thirds of the workforce there largely drove Cadillacs
because they made good money but couldn't buy homes or
land in that part of Michigan. Volunteering with the Red
Cross both in the Pacific and in Michigan, he fought
to get a black doctor on the all white board
of directors back in Wolfborow. Years later, he took a
(26:30):
local argument all the way to Washington to get their
town hall updated to code. With the Americans with the
Disabilities Act. Now ninety six years old, he's fighting for
elder care rights. Our two interviews were peppered with examples
of his challenging authority to uphold equal rights and his
speaking up angrily when such things were tossed in the
rubbish bin. This is also why Bob, like William, doesn't
(26:54):
care to talk that much about food. He's seen the
highbrow and the rancid and eats to live. A common
refrain from our greatest generation veterans is that they were
grateful to have food at all, and it's funny to
hear how their memories of military cuisine might be a
bit rose colored by time and such appreciation because Hormel
(27:15):
took a lot of backlash from g I's after their
overeating of spam. Evidently, the recipe packed into six pound
cans for the military was slightly different than the pork
shoulder and ham combo vacuum sealed into the twelve pounds
commercial version, and it didn't taste as good. Troops used
the grease from it to oil down weapons and shine
their hair. Consumption dropped significantly on the home front. Post war,
(27:39):
spam ceilings had long been hit and as well here
in upcoming seasons. The military would soon start working with
one hundred and sixty six private companies within a year
after the war ended to both better combat cuisine and
innovate convenience foods for the American kitchen. In our next episode,
Ray Boutwell, a Navy cook stationed in New Jersey, we'll
(28:00):
guide us through some of the progress already being tested
at Base Camp Stateside towards the end of the war.
Until then, you can find more about all the nerdy
stuff behind this episode at Bob's page at Service podcast
dot org, plus extra audio clips and photos on our
Instagram and Facebook. We are at Service podcast Service as
a production from My Heart Radio, where Gabrielle Collins is
(28:21):
our supervising producer and Christopher hasiotis our executive producer. I
produced and engineered this episode with help from historian, novelist
and former past Guard officer Mike Coal on the PT
Combat Sequences. Listen up from Mike returning to us later
this season. Thank you to Bob's daughter Debbie for her
help and Bill Walker Williams son for connecting us with
(28:42):
Bob for this episode. Check out Williams episode Service within
the Service for another gripping perspective on Navy life. Thank
you for listening. If you like what you hear, drop
us a review, come say hi on social or leave
our veterans a message at Service podcast dot org. We
love to pass on your thoughts and good wishes. Most
of all, thank you to those serving and those who
(29:04):
have served. H
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