Site Content

After Boot camp, Pappy signed up to go to signalman school. A signalman had to learn and remember different codes to send and receive messages from seaports and other ships. One code was called Morse code. It was a code made out of dots and dashes that could be flashed by a big spotlight or tapped out on an electrical key. Another code was called Semaphore and was sent with signal flags. This code was sent by a sailor holding two flags. The positions of his arms made the letters. Each flag was usually red and yellow. Pappy had to learn to watch for and receive messages and then to also send back messages from his ship.

It was hard work, but Pappy was a fast learner and did very well at signalman school. At the end of school, the sailors all knew a job and were ready to go to work on a big ship. Pappy was now a signalman first class. The last thing they had to do was line up one more time to get shots. Pappy got his first shot, put on his shirt and turned around just in time to catch Lawson. Lawson was scared of shots and had fainted! Pappy’s arm was very sore from the shots, but he pitched two baseball games that afternoon at the Navy schools and won them both. After that his arm didn’t hurt at all!