Darwin Monaghen Reports Navy Life Most Interesting
Clear Laker Is Now Located at Naval Air Station, Alameda, Cal.
CLEAR LAKE—“I can’t tell you a word about where I’ve been nor what I’ve been doing,” said Darwin Monaghen who arrived Thursday from the West Coast where he landed two weeks ago. “I wish I might, for I know everyone is intensely interested in the war and all that is going on.”
“I can say, however, that, to me, Clear Lake is the best looking piece of water I have seen since I enlisted. And the town certainly has grown the past year. It seems that new house has sprung up on every lot that once was vacant.”
“I sure like the Navy a lot. The nicest part is the friends I have made among my shipmates. Then there is scarcely anything a town can offer that we do not have on shipboard excepting bowling and billiards. We have volleyball, basketball, handball, boxing and all other sports. The ship has a fine library, too.”
“We have one of the finest bands in the service. Whenever we hit port they play for dances. Many selections are of their own composition. Band members are artists in their own right, have their own styles and arrange their own melodies. We also have barbershop quartets to exercise our vocal organs.”
“The hardest thing I had to get used to in the Navy was going to bed at 10 o’clock and getting up at 6. Sleeping in a hammock didn’t bother me a bit. I found that the business course in high school and work taken at Hamilton’s school of commerce came in handy in my work.”
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Darwin, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Monaghen, enlisted in the Navy last September as storekeeper third class. July 1, he was advanced to second class and is now in the carrier replacement unit at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, Cal. He has a 15 day leave with four days travel time which gives him approximately two weeks at home. In his work as a storekeeper, he receives requisitions for supplies, records them and sees that the supplies are sent as ordered.
Darwin took his first course in business as a Globe-Gazette carrier boy while still attending grade school. When it was learned Thursday that he was, for a time, “home from the wars,” the town assumed a near-holiday aspect, his friends and relatives vieing with one another for an opportunity to bid him welcome.
~Source: Mason City Globe-Gazette, August 1, 1942 (photo included)
