Interview with Calvin Ruckel [December 2001]

Jennifer Ruckel:

Mr. Ruckel is 77 years old, having been born on February the 14th of the year 1925. My name is Jennifer Ruckel, and I'll be the interviewer. Calvin Ruckel is my great-grandfather, being the grandfather of my mother.Grandpa Cal, could you please state for the recording what war and branch of service you served in?

Calvin Ruckel:

I served in the second World War. I was inducted in 1943, two weeks after I graduated from high school.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What branch of service were you in?

Calvin Ruckel:

I was inducted into the U.S. Navy.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What was your rank?

Calvin Ruckel:

My rank was Machine Shop Specialist, First Class.

Jennifer Ruckel:

And where did you serve?

Calvin Ruckel:

I served in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean with the Seventh Fleet.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Were you drafted or did you enlist?

Calvin Ruckel:

I was drafted because the war was going on, and I was eligible.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Where were you living at the time?

Calvin Ruckel:

I was living in Akron, Ohio, at the time.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Why did you join?

Calvin Ruckel:

Why did I join?

Jennifer Ruckel:

Why did you join?

Calvin Ruckel:

I was drafted into the Navy is why I really joined, but --

Jennifer Ruckel:

Would you have joined anyways?

Calvin Ruckel:

Probably not. I don't -- I was raised on a farm, and I would have probably stayed right on the farm.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Why did you pick the branch of service that you joined?

Calvin Ruckel:

I loved the water. I loved swimming. And our family always had a boat, so that was just natural to pick the Navy.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Do you recall your first days in the service?

Calvin Ruckel:

First days in the service, that was quite an experience. We didn't know where we were going or why or what was going to happen. We boarded the train in Akron, Ohio, and we went to the Great Lakes Naval Station in -- north of Chicago, and the first day is where we went into a large building. They had us remove all of our civilian clothes. We went to a physical exam where we had all of our shots, and after the physical exam -- during the exam, they would write sizes, like our shoes and our shirts and our pants, they would write them right on our body, and then we would go to the medical department into the storage department where they would check the sizes that were written all over us and issue us shirts and pants and socks and shoes and all of everything we needed, and they give us large...duffel bag to keep all our supplies in. And then we were taken from there to the barracks where we would live for the next seven weeks in boot camp.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Tell me about boot camp.

Calvin Ruckel:

Boot camp for me was a lot of fun because I loved sports. They had all of these obstacle courses. They had big gyms where we did exercises, and you had to keep going -- the first days that we were there, you had to take this exam and you kept going until you couldn't do anymore exercises, and then from there, we went into class, and we're taught all the rules of the Navy and then we went to the gym where they had swimming pools, and they made sure that we were good swimmers and that we knew how to save lives. And from there, we went to -- we marched for 20 miles to the Great Lakes where they had lifeboats, and all boarded these lifeboats, and we rowed. We learned how to row with like 20 men in a rowboat at one time, and at the end of the day, we'd march back to our campsites, and, to me, this is great because I love the outdoors.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Do you remember your instructors from boot camp?

Calvin Ruckel:

I remember their faces, but I don't remember their names at this time.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What were they like?

Calvin Ruckel:

To me, they were really nice to me because I was -- I just seemed to fit in with all the exercises and things that you had to go through, but they were really strict, and they made sure that you did what you were told.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Where exactly did you go while you were enlisted?

Calvin Ruckel:

After --

Jennifer Ruckel:

In the ocean -- after boot camp.

Calvin Ruckel:

After boot camp, oh, I boarded a train. Of course, they don't tell you where you're going, and I ended up in Norfolk, Virginia. They said that I was waiting for a ship to take me to the ship where I would be stationed permanently. During the time I was there, I worked on a train _____, and that was interesting, too. It was different. (Chuckling.) And, then, we boarded a little -- a small ship that was going to Bermuda. Before we got out of the harbor, I was sick. (Chuckling.) I had never been in the ocean before, but after a couple of hours, I seemed to get used to the motion, and that was the last time that I was sick from the sea motion. Maybe it was because I was scared because I didn't know where I was going was part of it, but this was all different to me.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What islands did you go to?

Calvin Ruckel:

We went from Norfolk to Bermuda, like 500 miles off the coast of Virginia, and it was beautiful. It was a beautiful island. It was just like a jewel with sand all around it. We were stationed there for -- all the new destroyers come to -- on their first trip to -- to get the men on the ship experienced and to repair anything that was wrong to our new destroyer before they went to sea for good. We were there for a good many months. I got one leave where we flew home in a seaplane, and when I returned, we were notified for the ship to report to New York City where we had to go into dry dock and get ready for the Pacific was with the Japanese.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Where did you go from New York?

Calvin Ruckel:

From New York -- we was at New York on New Year's Eve and went down to the Panama Canal __________ _______. From there we went to the Ulysses...and from the Ulysses, we repaired the ship. The war was taking place in Okinawa, and on our way to Okinawa, we stopped at Hawaii for two weeks, and we continued to Okinawa where we were stationed until the end of the war.

Jennifer Ruckel:

When you went to Hawaii, what was it like after Pearl Harbor? After the bombing?

Calvin Ruckel:

All the destruction was pretty well cleaned up, of course, the ships were still sunk in the harbor. We didn't get to see much of that because were there for just a short time, and they finished preparing our ship for the war was taking place in Okinawa. Our ship was the DESTROYER TENDER, so we carried all the supplies and the ammunition for the other ships. We had 156 men just in the machine shop. There was 150 beds, hospital, and almost any repair shop that you could think of was aboard our ship to take care of the Seventh Fleet and the Navy during all the suicide plane attacks and war that went on at that time.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What was your assignment on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

I was assigned to the machine shop, and I was in charge of the milling department. It was a beautiful, beautiful shop. It was one of the most beautiful shops I've ever been in in my life, and it was aboard ship. It was -- I was lucky to have made it through the war without any injuries.

Jennifer Ruckel:

When you went to Okinawa, did you see any combat? Another war was going on, then.

Calvin Ruckel:

Oh, there was combat everyday. It was -- every night, it was like the Fourth of July. When the suicide planes would come in, the American Air Force would leave. They would fly out of the area to be safe because it was a 1,500-warship. The United States, there, would open fire, and not many of the suicide planes could get through.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Were there any casualties on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

We lost 77 men on our ship in casualties and booby traps that were on the shore and typhoons that hit there, but, all in all, we had like 3,000 men aboard our ship, so we were -- we were one of the lucky ones to make it through. When the war ended, we were still there. We saw the Japanese come in to sign the peace treaties aboard the aircraft carrier to which I had -- it was a happy day for all of us.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What were some of your most memorable moments on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

Seeing the white planes with the big green cross flying in with the Japanese to sign the peace treaty was -- that was the greatest thing that could have happened for us -- for the men in the Okinawa area and all of the world as far as I'm concerned. We were there from when the first atomic bomb arrived. And then an admiral -- he heard that an atomic bomb was in the harbor. He told them to head to sea and don't come back until they were ready for it. (Chuckling.)

Jennifer Ruckel:

Were you ever a prisoner of war?

Calvin Ruckel:

No. I was never a prisoner of war at all. We were stationed during Okinawa. We had an average of 56 destroyers waiting for repairs at all times, and we were busy. We worked 12 hours a day in the machine shop, and then they had seabees that would come and board at nighttime and work the other 12 hours to keep up with the repairs that had to be made.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Were you ever awarded any metals or ribbons?

Calvin Ruckel:

No. I received a ribbon for the service in the Atlantic and a ribbon for the Pacific war, and there was one other one, but it's been so long, I don't remember all the details.

Jennifer Ruckel:

While you were at sea, how did you stay in touch with your family?

Calvin Ruckel:

Well, we had good mail service, and we could -- I'd write home most every day, and the mail was always there. That was one of the happy part of the days when they'd pass out the mail. And every evening, after supper, we would have movies from the states, and that was nice, too, because we could invite all the sailors from the ships. There were usually seven destroyers tied to us, and they were welcome to come aboard our ship for movies every night. Of course, they were held below the deck where there were no lights allowed at top-side at nighttime. And during the daytime, we would have liberty parties, go ashore, play basketball and exercise, and they would go over with -- before we could leave the ship, they would go over with land mines and check for booby traps all over the area, and when it was all clear, we get to go ashore, and we had a lot of fun. We always made sure we had a lot of fun. When the Red Cross was there, we would pass out doughnuts and coffee and write letters for the sailors that couldn't -- who had been injured -- it was a lot going on. It was -- it made things pleasant.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What was the food like?

Calvin Ruckel:

The food was great. We had the admiral aboard part of the time, and we always had a Sunday dinner. It was just like Thanksgiving. We had a menu -- it was a very long menu. It was everything on it that you could imagine. The food aboard our ship was great. We had -- not only had a kitchen where they prepared the food, we had a bakery. We had an ice-cream stand. It couldn't have been much better for the men and boys _______.

Jennifer Ruckel:

How did people entertain themselves on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

How did what?

Jennifer Ruckel:

How did they entertain themselves on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

Well, everybody was busy. I mean you didn't have much time for entertainment except for the movies that they showed every night because everybody worked in the kitchen. The kitchen was never closed. We had men on watch at nights that had to eat, and during the daytime, you had all the shops were all open, and all you had to do was work and sleep, and you get to go ashore to play. That was life in the Navy. You never thought about what was happening ______ or anything like that you were so busy.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What did you do when you were on leave?

Calvin Ruckel:

On "what"?

Jennifer Ruckel:

When you were on leave, what did you do?

Calvin Ruckel:

Oh, I got leave from -- at the end of boot camp, I got a week's leave and went home and visited all the family, and then I got a leave when I was in Bermuda, and I got to fly home on a seaplane which was fun. I was working in the machine shop at the time, and they come and says, Cal, you have 15 minutes to catch the plane. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt because it was so hot in Bermuda, and I came down and grabbed my duffel bag and headed for the gangplank and boarded a small boat that was heading for the beach and took me over to the base -- air base, and there was a plane sitting in the water there, and we climbed aboard. I was still dirty from working in the shop, and when we took off, it was almost 90 degrees. Boy, when we got up in the air and were heading for -- it was in October, and by the time we got to New York, I was freezing because I was still in my shorts. And I headed for the nearest building. They would tell us how to get home from there, and I changed my clothes. I got a chance to wash up and put on some warm clothes.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Do you remember any particularly unusual events or humorous events on the ship?

Calvin Ruckel:

We had plenty of excitement because we had -- when the typhoons would come in, we had everybody look around for their bunks and they heard the anchor chain coming up because they knew there was a big storm coming, and probably 90 percent of them were sick, sea sick, from the terrible storms that was out there, but our ship was so big and powerful that we just plowed right through them. All the small ships, they would be going full speed ahead, but they were moving backwards because of the storms were so violent. When everybody was so sick, I would take a _________, flash it to the _______ and take a body bag and sleep on the top side of the body bag over the top of me to protect me from the weather because it was everyone was sick, and it was hard to stay down there when you weren't sick. (Chuckling.)

Jennifer Ruckel:

Did the guys pull pranks on each other?

Calvin Ruckel:

Oh, they had -- on the holidays, everybody liked to have something to drink for the holidays, but we weren't allowed to have alcohol aboard the ship, but we had -- there was always a few of them that, somehow, they broke into the alcohol locker where we kept the alcohol for the torpedoes, the fuel for the torpedoes was pure alcohol, and they would swipe the alcohol and mix it with grape fruit juice, and they would make this drink with this alcohol, and within a half hour, they were all out cold. They didn't last long drinking pure alcohol, but they got away with it. So the captain, he put a -- he made them stand watch in front of the alcohol locker to make sure that it wouldn't happen again. But, again, they went to the deck up above to the ______ torch. On the next holiday, they cut a big hole through the -- right through the deck into the alcohol locker, and they had theirselves ______________ (Chuckling.)

Jennifer Ruckel:

While you were on sea, did you keep a personal diary of what happened to you?

Calvin Ruckel:

No, I didn't. I didn't even think of such a thing. I don't know. I just never even thought of it.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What did you think of the other sailors?

Calvin Ruckel:

What? What?

Jennifer Ruckel:

What did you think of the other sailors, what were your opinions on them?

Calvin Ruckel:

Well, most all the sailors, I would say they were great men. They did a great job. They did what they were told. I met a -- I made a lot of friends when I was aboard ship. Our ship was so large, three years later, I was still meeting men that had been on there as long as I had and never come across them.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What did you think about the officers?

Calvin Ruckel:

The officers -- they were just as nice. They were just like a big family. Everybody had to do their part. We never seemed to have any trouble liking crew members.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Do you remember the day that your service ended?

Calvin Ruckel:

The day my service ended, I was -- when our ship was returned, we went from Okinawa to Pearl Harbor, and from Pearl Harbor, we went to San Diego. Boy, I was hoping that they would discharge me there. I wanted to get home so bad, but some of the sailors that lived out there, they got their discharge, but I stayed aboard, and they took us down to the Panama Canal and back up to Jacksonville, Florida, and that's where I was -- I boarded a train. It took me all the way back to the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, and I was discharged from there. And then I boarded a train there and arrived home in Akron. It was around midnight. Nobody knew that I was coming in at that time because I didn't have time to write a letter or call anybody. At that time of night, everybody was -- well, I didn't have a telephone. So I arrived home. I took a bus home, and I knocked on the door. My sister answered the door, and that's the first time they knew that I was home.

Jennifer Ruckel:

What did you do the days after the war, the days after you went home?

Calvin Ruckel:

I just visited all the families, and the first week or second week, I started looking for a job.

Jennifer Ruckel:

So you didn't go to school when you came back from the war?

Calvin Ruckel:

No. At that time, I felt like even though I had the opportunity to go to school, I thought, well, I can't go back to school with all these little kids. There was just something about going back to school. I just didn't -- I thought I would be out of place. I didn't know anything about college or what went on in a college or who went to college, so I just -- my dad was a machinist when he started out, and he knew some people at his shop, and he sent me over there, and they were happy knowing that I had such good experience in the Navy with machines that they were thrilled to have me. So that's how I started out as a machinist. I ended up as a tool maker in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Of the friends you made on the ship, were any of them really close like your brothers almost?

Calvin Ruckel:

At the time -- at the time I was aboard ship, they were like brothers. I had one particular fellow, he -- we got along real good. He worked in the shop with me, and he was always smoking, and I didn't smoke. So after months and months of talking to him, I finally got him to stop smoking, and I was happy and he was happy. His wife was happy because she was back home waiting for him, and she was happy he stopped smoking, but, then, something happened. We went to Okinawa, and the first suicide plane that flew over, he turned as white as a sheet (Chuckling), and he started shaking. He wanted a cigarette, and from that day on, he had his cigarettes, and I couldn't get him to stop (Chuckling).

Jennifer Ruckel:

Did you continue any of your relationships after the war, any of your friendships?

Calvin Ruckel:

No. They were all so far away. I think -- I think there was one boy from Akron, he was a state champion diver from -- yeah. I did. I ran into him, and we went out together once. Then I moved to Cleveland, and I was never in touch with any of the other men again.

Jennifer Ruckel:

After the war, did you join a veteran's organization at all?

Calvin Ruckel:

No. I never did -- my life was so busy that I never even thought about going to the Veterans Administration for anything.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Did what you experienced in the war influence any of your thinking about war, about the military in general?

Calvin Ruckel:

Everything was such a secret during the war that I didn't know anything about military business of any kind. I just did what I was told, and I enjoyed what I did, and I come home with a lot of experience and healthy.

Jennifer Ruckel:

How did your experiences in the war affect your life after the war?

Calvin Ruckel:

I had no regrets or any aftereffects from being in the service. I just went on with life. Everything was just like it was before I left because I was just a kid when I left. I was only out of school for two weeks.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Is there anything else you'd like to add that wasn't covered in this, any other stories or information?

Calvin Ruckel:

At the time, I can't think of anything else.

Jennifer Ruckel:

Well, thank you for the interview, and thank you for your time.

Calvin Ruckel:

You're welcome.

[END OF INTERVIEW]