Interview with Walter W. Schuhmacher [10/10/2003]

Andrew L. Fisher:

It's October the 10th, 2003. This is an interview for the Veterans' History Project. I'm talking to Mr. Walter W. Schuhmacher, 6151 Hidden Brook, Toledo, Ohio 43613. Telephone: [telephone number deleted]. Mr. Shumacher served in the US Navy during World War II and during the Korean War. Mr. Schuhmacher, let's begin with your pre-service life, where you were born and went to school and how you got in the Service.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Okay. I was born in Flushing, Long Island, New York. And I -- okay. And I went to high school in a town called Newtown High, Newtown, Long Island. And then in September '43 when the war was started, I enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17. I was sent to Great Lakes and I was -- I did my boot training there. And from there I went to Service school in Great Lakes and then from there I was sent to Norfolk, Virginia to be transferred to my ship which I didn't know it at that time my ship was going to be and then when we got our orders we boarded a transport. Went down to Panama and from Panama we went down to the -- Recife, Brazil where the ship was and the ship was stationed there. And that was the ship -- that was called Below the Southern Cross because that was in the South Atlantic. And I got on the ship and it was the USS Omaha. It was a light cruiser. And in fact I requested light cruiser duty so I was satisfied with that. And my first job on there was working on the -- checking the motorboats to make sure that the -- that the diesel engines were running and underway and had to check them every four hours and that was part of the duties. And then after that why then I got down into making fresh water in the evaporator room. That was a job that was very important because the boilers in the ship need highly-purified water. The water we made was the best as you could get because the salt content was less than one-tenth of one percent which was better water than what you ate and cooked with. Therefore, why, you had to be alert all the time. And the thing was -- well, let's see. You had to be dedicated to your job because if you weren't, why, it could cause a lot of salting of the tubes in the boilers and then salting on the steam lines that goes to the main propulsion machinery.

Andrew L. Fisher:

You mentioned that you wanted light cruiser duty?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

What was the reason for that?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, I -- the cruisers was a fast ship and they was what-would-you-call mostly escorting and they were ships that could travel at a high rate of speed underway and it was a ,more or less a duty that I figured I would like.

Andrew L. Fisher:

What is a light cruiser?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, a light cruiser is -- well, you start out, you got the battlewagons and then you got the heavy cruisers and then you got the light cruisers. Light cruiser carries six-inch guns and it also carried -- our ship also carried depth charges and torpedoes. And our speed was -- we could do over 36 knots which is very fast for a light cruiser.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So that was almost like a destroyer duty?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, it was a little bigger than a destroyer.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Yeah.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

As a matter of fact, the destroyers today are as big as the ship I was on.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, I think a destroyer back then went about 40 knots; didn't it?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Somewheres in there. We could outrace them, actually.

Andrew L. Fisher:

I see.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

You know, in fact there's a -- the ship I was on before World War II, why, it held a record from Honolulu to San Francisco for speed. And the only ship that broke that was the Aircraft Carrier Lexington. So they carried that honor all through the war.

Andrew L. Fisher:

It was called the USS Omaha?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

That's right.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And did they name those cruisers after cities?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

After -- well, they raised -- the battleships was named after states and the heavy cruisers was after capitals and the light cruisers was after major cities.

Andrew L. Fisher:

I see. And that's a standard?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

That was then but now no more.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh. I see.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No more. Now they name them after anything they want, now.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, let's continue on.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, then we did patrol duty all over the South Atlantic. And -- oh, I would say from, part of the North Atlantic and was -- our main duty, the reason for that was that the Germans had submarines in the area and they was, if they weren't raiding convoys and stuff like that they was protecting their ships that was trying to come from Asia, bringing rubber and products so they could get them to Germany for their war effort. Before I got on the ship, why they encountered one called the Odenwau. They had a name on it, The Wilmot, out of, I think Philadelphia if I remember right. And when they confronted the ship, why, they found out it wasn't true, that this was a German vessel. So they -- the Germans decided to scuttle the ship and they -- so they sent a fly school over and they prevented it from being scuttled and they escorted it back to the United States. It had a cargo of rubber on it to be used for the war effort in Germany. Fortunately the crew that was on it before I got it, I had a lot of friends on there and then after I got on there why they received a, what you call, a royalty or what is it.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Bounty?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Bounty for capturing the ship.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

But I missed that by a couple of months so. That was one of the misfortunes.

Andrew L. Fisher:

What is a second class machinist? How does he get trained?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, machinists -- machinist mates in the Navy, they -- they run the machinery on the ship. The engines, the main engines, those lubry engines and like the evaporators and then after a while why they took them -- they broke it up and they got like a motor machinist mate, why he would work on diesel engines and gas engines and stuff like that. But a machinist mate, why he -- like I say, stand watch on the main engines and then on the auxiliary engines and then I stood my watch I was called what they call the

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

division, the Auxiliary Division, and that was making the fresh water. Had to take salt water and purify it to get the salt out so they could use it on the ship so that the ship wouldn't have to require pulling into port anytime to take water on. So this was, like I say, it was a job that was -- had to be done properly and it had to be done right because it could do -- if you had too much salt in the water it could do a lot of damage to the main boilers and the other machinery.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So did you -- in the South Atlantic, did you encounter any German submarines?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, the only encounter we had with that, we was coming back to the States and we was running through what they call a speed run. And that's where they see how fast the ship would go and how the machinery would hold up. And we come across the Equator and off in the distance we could see a German submarine and it was having an initiation.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh, a crossing?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Run across the Equator.

Andrew L. Fisher:

The --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

But the Captain says we're going home and we kept right on going. We let them alone.

Andrew L. Fisher:

I guess I don't understand that.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, I mean, it was a case there, why, I mean we had our orders.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

So of course that was just before they conducted the D. Day invasion and I -- I believe it was in the Mediterranean, sub of France we took a convoy over there of troops. And so that was our problem was to get back and get into the Navy yard and get our work done and get back over to the Mediterranean so that we could participate.

Andrew L. Fisher:

How were the seas in the South Atlantic? Were they pretty rough?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, not really. The only thing, the seas down there they got what they call these big rolling swells. They're huge waves and lengthwise but not height wise. And the ship just goes up and down and up and down and it's really not that rough. Of course, if you get in a storm, why, that's a different story.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Were you ever in any danger from the weather?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, no, not really. The only really rough weather we seen was when we came back in Cape Hatteras. The only thing is there when you're coming in there it's so rough, why, when you get down in between the waves in the hollow, the only thing you see is water. When you get on the top of the waves all you see is ocean. So, that's all that you could see all over. That was the only bad part down there.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And how did you handle it, were you seasick?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No problem.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Never were seasick?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

But as a kid I was raised on Long Island and on the water and the Atlantic Ocean and stuff like that. And was always interested in boats. In fact, we had a couple boats, me, my father and my brother and so we enjoyed the water.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Uh-huh. And how did you like being in the Navy? You chose the Navy.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, that was -- that was one of my goals I wanted to be from a youngster. Why, what happened there, why, when I was youngster, why a fleet came into New York. So my father had a fellow, he was in World War I where he was on an aircraft carrier. And they came in and we went and visited that. We saw the battleships in New York and then we -- so I seen it like it was and I knew that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a sailor; I became a sailor.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, you stayed in after the war was over, I can see.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, after I got off the ship, they took the ship back to Philadelphia. In fact, the ship was an older ship. It was an older light cruiser. It was built in 1928 and it was commissioned in 1932. So that ship was old in comparison to the ships of today. So they decommissioned it. And then I got transferred to what they call the 16th Fleet inactive and I was putting ships in mothballs for what they call preservation school in Philadelphia. And I was there for four weeks and then I went back to Norfolk and we worked as a unit. And we went on these ships and we inspected them to make sure that the cruiser was clean enough to do the machinery right. My job was mostly down in the engineering forces, you know, spaces to make sure they did it right to put the preservative on it so that when they put these ships in mothballs, you had to bring them back out again they wouldn't have no trouble.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Let's talk about the Mediterranean duty.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

You were there for the invasion of --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Southern France.

Andrew L. Fisher:

-- Southern France. That was after D. Day?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, it was right during D. Day.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh, it was?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. It coincided with D. Day.

Andrew L. Fisher:

I see.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Because they went in from Normandy. We went in from down around from Toulon.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Toulon was a --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

That's a seaport down there.

Andrew L. Fisher:

French seaport?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And what were your duties then in the invasion?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

In the invasion? I was -- my job was, I was up there, what they call the forward twin. That was a six-inch gun forward. My job was to put the powder in the elevator that went up to the guns. Powder came up in metal cans or canisters if you want to call them, took the top off and put them in the elevator and they went up to the guns and they put them into them.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And were you -- was your -- using your cruiser to support the landing?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah. We was -- well, what happened there was before we got into Toulon there was an island called Island of Fogoroli (ph) and there was a -- the Germans had a fort there. And that island had to be taken before they could go in any further. In fact, any further why there was a -- well, mines. It had old mine fields all around the island and in there. So what they had to do, we had to -- ships went in there, it was a French cruiser Gloria and a French battlewagon, the Lorraine, and us and I think the other one, I think called the Albemarle. We had to go in and take turns and shell this fort. So consequently -- well, before that they bombed it, aerial bombed it and they couldn't bust it open or anything like that. And so they said, well, we have to shell it from the sea. So we went in there and started shelling. And our shells wouldn't do no good because they just like bounce off because the walls of the fort were so thick. They say -- I don't know if it's true or not, but they say they was about, oh, well, 12-foot thick. It's concrete, dirt, and whatever else they had, you know. And the only way to get through that was they had this Battleship Lorraine that had the 14-inch guns on it and they sat there and we surround the battlewagon in case they had -- they shelled it and put the shells right in the doorway and that busted --

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

-- the fort open. And then they sent the ground troops in. And in fact we sent -- the Admiral that was on our ship was -- he went in himself, was named Admiral Chandler, and he went in there himself with a crew and he captured the fort. And the Island of Fogoroli (ph) was actually surrendered to our ship and we had to take on the German prisoners on our ship so we could transfer them to another ship to carry them to a prison someplace.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Where would you keep the prisoners on your ship?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, we had -- we had what they call a stadium on the ship. This was where they had scout planes. We launched these scout planes and was wide open there. So we just had that, like, roped off and they had a setup there and that's where they fed them and everything else. If they had to use the facilities, why, then they escorted them down below and they brought them back up again. So that was -- I forget how many it was, probably around 35 or 40 maybe.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Then how did you get in through the mine fields?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

That -- well, that -- the thing was --

Andrew L. Fisher:

Or the mined waters, I should say.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, the thing was that we was in there and we got a message saying that -- proceed with caution, you are in a mine field. So we -- so everybody that could come up topside and we just inched our way out and left and we didn't get --

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh, you could see the mines?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, no. You can't see them but they knew somehow through intelligence that they was there. We just went in too far because they was trying to get close to shell the island.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And if would you hit a mine, could that sink your ship?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, it may or it may not. It could damage it pretty bad but the only thing we could see that was to -- we was out of there, why we were watching and we had these mine sweepers go in. And some of them were just small wooden boats and if you'd see a big explosion and splash, you know there was nothing left. So there was mine sweepers over there. And that's where they're sweeping the harbor to get into Toulon because what happened over there, Germany took France, why the Frenchmen they scuttled their battleships over there, sunk them but the Germans utilized their guns, they -- whatever they did to them to make it so they could shell them or anybody coming in. So after that, why, we had to sweep the mine fields so that other ships could get in there so they could shell these naval vessels from France so that they could get in there for the invasion.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So those French battle -- or ships were just sunk part down in the water?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Sunk down in the bottom; yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And the guns were above the surface?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. Sunk by the Germans. Whatever they did they isolated it so that that it could be used again. Of course then after a while, after we shelled them -- well, Allied Navies shelled them and then they bombed them so they could render them useless so that they couldn't operate their invasion successfully.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Did you come under fire?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Your vessel; did it?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Did you sustain any damage?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, we didn't get hit at all. We just -- they -- what they call, they put one on one side and they put one on the other side and they figured the next one was going to hit you, so what they do is just increased your speed and pulled down so that you could --

Andrew L. Fisher:

That's called bracketing; isn't it?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, yeah. So we got out of there and -- well, in fact, none of the ships got hit.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And what about German submarines, were they a danger in the Mediterranean?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, but we didn't do no submarine patrol there. We did mostly outside on land.

Andrew L. Fisher:

But were you in danger of being torpedoed?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, we don't know.

Andrew L. Fisher:

You were not being torpedoed or you were not torpedoed rather?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh, no, no.

Andrew L. Fisher:

I see.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No. We don't know because Germans had submarines in there but I think what they was doing was concentrating mostly on the supplies and convoys coming up from the United States with supplies and stuff like that.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Uh-huh. Out in the Atlantic?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Because Africa had already fallen. Sicily had fallen. Italy had fallen. So it was a case there where I think that the concentration for the submarines was in there.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And it would be hard to get through the straits; wouldn't it?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh, yeah. Well, if you ever want to see a good movie see that one called Dar Spoof (ph).

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh yes. I saw that that.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

That tells you just about what the situation was.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Made me claustrophobic.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh, yeah? Well, I don't know.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So were you under attack from the German Air Force?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Not that I -- not that I know. They say that some place there was German planes flying around but we never did see them.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So the Americans or the Allies pretty much had sea and air superiority?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah, yeah. They had control. Because, like I say, North Africa had fallen, Sicily had fallen, and Corsica had fallen. They had fallen over there and the Germans was back on the Europe side. So they didn't have no bases over there that they would operate out of.

Andrew L. Fisher:

How was the resistance at Toulon; do you know?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, Toulon was -- it was some resistance but I think the fact that they had crossed the Isle of Fogorolies (ph) and D. Day was coming and the French had to go someplace else and it was there but not what you call really a drastic.

Andrew L. Fisher:

It was not like at Omaha Beach?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh, no no no no.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, it wasn't a beach at all there, was it, you went into the harbor?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. Well, we stayed outside and they sent the landing craft in with the troops and stuff like that. And in fact that's what I say we took -- before that we took the first Brazilian troops over there during World War II. They was just one of the main groups that went on the invasion in Southern France.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh. So they were to meet up -- they were to come up from the south and the Allies were coming in from the west?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

West.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And they were going to meet up there?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, converge up there.

Andrew L. Fisher:

They were going to meet up there?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, some place. Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Uh-huh. And so you supported that landing for how long?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, it was about a couple weeks. Then we come back and we went back on patrol again.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Back in the Atlantic?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And did you patrol in the North Atlantic?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

A little bit. Not too much, because we was taking -- well, we go out there. They had an island out in the middle of the South Atlantic called Accession Island. That was a base where all these planes that was flying over could stop over and refuel and stuff. So we had to take convoys out there with supplies and stuff like that, like tankers with gas on it and whatever they needed.

Andrew L. Fisher:

But did you encounter any submarines, German submarines in the North Atlantic?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, none at all.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So they had the -- the US Navy and British Navy of course had pretty much neutralized the submarine activity by D. Day; hadn't it?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And the convoys were now getting through?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Pretty much so.

Andrew L. Fisher:

In the beginning the convoys had a very small chance of getting through --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well --

Andrew L. Fisher:

-- unscathed?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, the way history says that we sank quite a few of the Allied ships out of convoys because of the Wolf Packs. And they operated mostly in the North Atlantic because the only thing, like I say, we was taking some kind of supplies from Brazil over to Accession Island and stuff like that. And our duty was to patrol down there, to make sure that nobody --

Andrew L. Fisher:

Uh-huh.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

-- no German subs or any enemy was in that area.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And by that time there were no -- there was no German surface Navy left?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Not that we know of.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Yeah. The Graf Spee had been sunk or scuttled?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

And the Scharnhorst and the Bismarck.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And the Scharnhorst and the --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Bismarck.

Andrew L. Fisher:

-- Bismarck were all gone?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Were all gone, yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So your worry was submarines or attacks from the air?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah -- well, yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And being in the South Atlantic, there was no danger from the air because the German Air Force couldn't get that far?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Couldn't get that far.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So it was just submarines?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And they were -- as you say they were pretty busy up in the North Atlantic with the convoys?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. To explain about that, aircraft we had on them -- we had what they call these scout planes, you know. One day we launched one or sent it out and on returning back he never came back. We don't know what happened to it, whether they run out of fuel or had mechanical problems or it got shot down by a submarine or whatever. We lost the plane and the pilot and the radioman.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And you never had radio contact with them?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, never had no radio contact. The only time you'd have to have radio contact was an emergency. And we figured he might have been gone out too far or he might have been surprised or nobody knows.

Andrew L. Fisher:

How did he get off the cruiser or the --

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Shoot them off.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And then when he comes back, he lands and you lift them up with a winch?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, that was part of my job.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

What they do there when a plane comes in you have to land into the wind, I guess, and the ship goes along and makes a turn. It creates a slick, what they call calm water. And then they have a net out there, like a cargo net. The pilot lands on that slick and you got a hook on the pontoon and he gets up under that net and takes the hook and then we have -- my job was on what they called the boom side and the other was called the web side with the cable. And you have that over the side and then you drop down between the boom and the ship and the radioman has to put it on a hook on the plane and we pick the plane right out of the water.

Andrew L. Fisher:

American ingenuity?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. Well, it was quite a job though because, I mean, you had to know your signals and you had to watch what they called the boat-swain's mate, and he was giving the signals and on a ship like that we had a big boom and a loom on it, just had a regular crane. This was an old fashioned ship. Now they got a different --

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, V. E. Day was in May of '45?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And you were -- you were on patrol duty or on convoy duty or whatever?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

On patrol.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Until that time?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And then what happened after V. E. Day for you?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

For me? Well, we stayed on the ship there and continued to patrol until they give us orders to come back to the States. And our job was to go back to Philadelphia and put the ship in the dock there and the -- most of the crew got all transferred off. And those of us that wasn't eligible for discharge, I wasn't eligible because I had to go yet till '47. So that's when they sent me -- well, I got off and they sent me to Norfolk. That's right outside where they call the 16th Fleet, Inactive Fleet.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Well, was your -- did you enlist in the Navy?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So you enlisted for four years?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, it was what they called -- I went in at 17. It's called a minority enlistment. That goes in the Navy until you're 21. After that, why if you want to enlist you're a regular enlister.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So you've been in four years and you're discharged?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Not quite four years.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Had you considered maybe staying in, making it a career?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Oh yeah, but -- well, the thing was there was I was in that 16th Fleet down in Norfolk putting the ships out of commission. They come up to me one day and said, you're being transferred. Well, the thing that hurt me there that -- I had gotten married in '46.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Uh-huh.

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

And I was stationed down there and then was just waiting for time, I was going to reenlist if I couldn't find a job or anything like that. So, the Executive Officer came down and called me and said, you're being transferred, and he says, to Charleston, South Carolina. I said, what am I going to do in Charleston, South Carolina? He goes, they're going to put you on mine sweeper. I said, oh no no no. I said, where's it go? Where would I go? He said, probably over to the Mediterranean again sweeping. I said, oh no, no. I'm not going to go over there. I seen them getting blowed up over there. I said, I'm due to get out in February, I'm going to get out. So I got out but I -- and I got out and I didn't have a job, and I -- and hadn't lived in Toledo yet so, because I was from New York. And so, I come back and I said, well I got a job and I said well I think half- assed job, I said, well, I don't know how this is going to fare because if I don't get the job so I signed up on reserves. So if I had to go back in I would not lose the rank. Because if they took you back in you lost one rank so that would drop me down to third class.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Now where were you living then? You were still in Long Island?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

No, no -- well, yeah. I come back -- when I got discharged, I come back to New York. And I got a job in a shop, a machine shop as a machinist apprentice but then my wife she wanted to come back to Toledo.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Oh. She was from Toledo?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So that's how you got from Long Island to Toledo, Ohio?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I met her brother in the North Atlantic Great Lakes Service School so I come to Toledo a few times with him. And so we got together and stuff like that so in 1946 we got married in New York. She didn't want to leave Toledo so it didn't make no difference to me so, I can live most anyplace I guess.

Andrew L. Fisher:

So then you got out of the Service?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. Signed up in Reserves. In New York -- when I got out in New York I signed up in New York because we was living there for a while. So then -- when I got in the Reserves we moved to Toledo so they just transferred my records and everything to Toledo. I never went to no leaves. I was what they call Inactive Reserves.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Inactive Reserves, yes. Was that six years?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Four years.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Four years?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. And then when the Korean War come along, why, President Truman decided that we needed more help I guess. But -- so I had four months to go and I would have been done. So he extended everybody's enlistment for a year. So after that I had 16 months to go. And the day my daughter was born that's the day I got the letter saying they wanted me back. So I had to go back and I went to Detroit and then from Detroit I went to Great Lakes and from Great Lakes to Norfolk and Norfolk back to Philadelphia and I got on the carrier ship in Philadelphia.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And stayed in the States?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Yeah. We put that ship back in commission and then we had a couple, what they call trial runs. And then we had some rod work done and we then went to San Diego. So I went to California.

Andrew L. Fisher:

And was there any chance that you were going to be sent over to Asia?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Not really at first because our job out there was to put these ships back in commission for the Korean War and we stayed tied up to the dock and the ship tied up next to us and we would work on it -- (telephone). Excuse me.

Andrew L. Fisher:

Was there much naval activity in the Korean War?

Walter W. Schuhmacher:

Well, the only thing I know is what they call a bad pumpkin and stuff like that. That's, you know -- those -- President Johnson was president. I think that's what escalated the Korean War.

[Conclusion of interview]