Sharecropper's Son to Navy Commander

By Billy F. Odle CDR USN RET

I grew up on a farm during the Great Depression and WWII. When I was sixteen, I decided that a sharecropper's life would not be my future. I quit school and joined my siblings in California. On my eighteenth birthday, I joined the Navy and served thirty years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891578326

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Sharecropper's Son to Navy Commander

Billy F. Odle, CDR, USN RET

Copyright © 2024 Billy F. Odle, CDR, USN RET

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89157-807-4 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-89157-832-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

I am pleased to dedicate my book to the memory of Mary Ann, my deceased Navy wife for sixty-seven years. She was also a loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Rest in peace, babe.

Special Thanks

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1

My Early Years

Chapter 2

USS Hamner DD718, a Destroyer

Chapter 3

USS Hamul AD20, a Destroyer Tender

Chapter 4

Navy Recruiter Des Moines, Iowa,

Chapter 5

USS Hamul AD20, a Destroyer Tender

Chapter 6

Commander Cruiser Destroyer Flotilla One

Chapter 7

USS Jupiter AVS-8, an Aviation Supply Ship

Chapter 8

USS Biddle (DD-5), a Guided Missile Destroyer

Chapter 9

USS Claude V. Ricketts (DDG-5), a Guided Missile Destroyer

Chapter 10

Service School Command Great Lakes, Illinois

Chapter 11

USS Butte AE-27, a Ammunition Ship

Chapter 12

USS Ogden LPD, a Landing Platform Dock

Chapter 13

Naval Sub Board of Inspection and Survey Pacific

Chapter 14

Commander Naval Surface Forces Pacific

About the Editor

About the Author

I am pleased to dedicate my book to the memory of Mary Ann, my deceased Navy wife for sixty-seven years. She was also a loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Rest in peace, babe.

Special Thanks

Special thanks must go to Jim and Ellen Hunt. They encouraged me to finish the book, and without Jim, the book would still be unedited on my computer, and Ellen, for recommending the books title.

Foreword

This is the autobiography of a man who began life as the son of a sharecropper in the rural South in the 1930s. His formal education was limited to the ninth grade and was often interrupted by the need to harvest crops. From this humble beginning, blessed with basically good intelligence, a work ethic, a desire to learn, and dodged persistence, he rose to become a senior officer in the United States Navy. While going through the ranks in the Navy, he traveled extensively and interacted with a wide variety of people, many of whom were exceptional and are known worldwide. His career of thirty years required much personal sacrifice, but it has given him an extremely interesting life, which is the subject of this book. Few people have ever had the variety of life experiences this author will share with his readers. If you have ever served in the military, and particularly the Navy, you will remember having had some similar experiences. If not, you will still learn a great deal about a man who had a very humble beginning, which led to a very successful life with many worthwhile accomplishments.

James W. Hunt

Introduction

Over the years, I told friends stories of my early years and naval career. They encouraged me to write them down. I never seriously considered doing that until I was on a plane headed to the East Coast. Seated next to me was an older gentleman, and he asked my profession. I told him, and he said his dad had started a small boat shipyard but passed away at a young age. Later, his mother told him she knew his dad had a shipyard but did not know any details of that life. After hearing his mother tell him that, he said he was going to put details about his life in print. Later, I thought about what he said and became more interested in doing that.

I began to think about what I did, heard, and saw during my early years and naval career. I decided that I would write short stories about those recollections. Stories had to be factual and not embellished in any way. A person's identity would not be exposed unless I was certain he was connected to the event. Each chapter would be about my recollection, covering the time I spent at that duty station. My stories would not be written in order they occurred but as the event came to mind. I chose not to write some stories because they were too personal for me or a shipmate to be in print.

My family were sharecroppers who worked on several different farms growing cotton and corn. I was the baby of a family of three brothers and two sisters. I was fifteen and the last kid at home when we moved to a farm about fifty miles away. The house was the first we ever lived in that had electricity. We never had running water or a bathroom. I enrolled in the eighth grade and, at the end of the school year, was advanced to the ninth grade.

I started the new school year but was only able to attend during wet weather. Not able to attend full-time, I found it difficult to understand what the teacher was trying to get across. In retrospect, I really do not understand how I was advanced to the tenth grade. Starting in the tenth grade, nothing was going to change with my ability to attend school. It was at that time I decided to drop out and think about my future.

I started to realize that this type of life was not one I wanted to continue. I made a decision that when all cotton had been harvested, I would join my brothers and sister in California. Arriving in Redondo Beach, California, I found a job in a gas station. In those days, attendants actually pumped gas for customers.

A short time later, I went to the navy recruiting station to apply. The recruiter said the Navy had no openings for my age group. He added my name to his list for when I turned eighteen. As soon as I was eighteen years old, I applied for the Navy, was accepted, and was sworn in on February 28, 1949.

I served thirteen years enlisted and seventeen years as an officer. During my tenth year in the Navy, I was promoted to chief petty officer. Later, as an officer, I served on five different class ships—two ships as the assistant engineer and engineer officer on three ships of different classes. My final assignment was the fast frigate type desk officer on the staff of Commander Naval Surface Pacific.

Chapter 1

My Early Years

Year 1931 until 1949

I was born on my mother's birthday in the wee hours of February 6, 1931, to Sarah and John Odle. The place was near a very small farming town in Guy, Arkansas. I was the last of three brothers and two sisters. They were Ray, Audrey, John, Kress, Glennie, and me. My family was poor dirt farmers in a part of Arkansas, known as hill country. The soil was not very good, and it was difficult to grow almost any kind of crop. I have been told that when it was determined that my birth was near, Dad hitched the mules to the wagon and took the youngest kids to my aunt's house. He then went into Guy to get the doctor.

When I was about two years old, we moved south of Little Rock to a wide spot in the road called Scott, where the land is good to grow cotton, corn, and just about anything you wanted to plant. Dad was the overseer of a large plantation, where all farmers were sharecroppers. Each farmer worked a small partial of the land for their own livelihood. The sharecropper was also required to plant and harvest the owner's crops. This took up a large portion of their time. It did not matter if the weather was good or bad; the plantation owners' crops always had first priority for labor. This prevented sharecroppers from harvesting their crops in time to bring in top dollar.

I have no memory of moving to the Delta. My brothers told me that we lived in two different houses before we settled into the one for the overseer of the plantation. My first memory is when I came down with the measles. I remember that quilts were placed over the windows to shut out the bright light. My parents were told bright light with measles could cause blindness. To this day, I do not know if it is true or not.

The plantation house was large; however, it still required the boys to share a room. My oldest brother had gone out on his own. A large back-screened porch had a cistern used to store rainwater that was used to wash clothes. The cistern was covered with a wooden top that was not very strong and could not support much weight. At a very young age, I had a very bad habit of walking in my sleep. One time, someone in the family woke up to find me climbing to get on top of the cistern. Looking back on that episode, I can only imagine what would have happened if I had succeeded in getting on top and falling into the cistern.

During the time we lived in this place, the Great Depression was in full swing. Every day, you would see men just trudging along, hopelessly looking for work or something to eat. Many would stop at the house and ask mom if she had some work in exchange for something to eat. They would work in the garden, chopping weeds. Or they would cut firewood or almost anything within reason to get food. Mom always seemed to have a biscuit or two left over from breakfast. She then would build a fire in the stove and always managed to stir up something for the stranger to eat. This was a scene that was played out in many, many places all over the United States. Men were desperate for jobs, were hungry, and were willing to do almost anything for their survival. Most of them insisted on doing the work before getting the handout.

The soil where most of our relatives lived in the hill country was very poor, and in addition to the depression, there was a drought, and not enough moisture fell to help their crops grow. Our relatives needed a way to support their families, so they came to live with us in the delta and worked as laborers in the field. They were paid a small hourly wage to chop cotton and corn to help families to purchase food.

Several days each week, someone from the family went to the old river, which was a branch of the Arkansas River. A trot line, which was a fish line with lots of hooks tied between trees or other fixed objects, was set. All types of fish were caught to bring home, where the adults worked to clean and cook the fish.

Mom always had a large garden where she grew lots of potatoes, beans, corn, tomatoes, etc. This really was what helped all of us to survive. There was never a large variety of meats available for dinner or supper, mostly chicken, fish, and some pork. Squirrel was added when in season. In those lean times, Mom tried to prepare enough food so there was nothing left over. The meals were served family style. We would sit down to eat after dishes with the food was placed on the table. Mom would wait until everyone had served themselves, then and only then would she put food on her plate. She would not take any food until she was sure that everyone had enough to eat. She encouraged all of us to take small portions to ensure there was little waste. She could not afford to have food go to waste, and the food left was used to make soup, stew, or anything she could out of the leftovers.

Every day, Mom had to build a fire three times every day in her iron cookstove to cook for the family. She never cooked on a modern stove until she and Dad moved to California in 1947. There was a limited number and variety of cooking utensils for her use, but she always had a teakettle full of water heating to wash dishes.

Using a woodstove to cook on, you do not have much control over temperatures. In the summer, it would get very hot in the kitchen, and that is where we also ate our meals.

My uncle Earl Hughes owned a model T. Ford touring car, which had two seats with a canvas top, just like you saw in the movie Grapes of Wrath. He and his family came to live with us to work. He arrived at our house. I was probably about four years old. He wanted to know where the family was working in the fields. I told him I would ride with him to show him the way. Being young and one who liked to ride in a car, I took the long way around. For many years afterward, he reminded me about that one time when the Hughes family came they brought along a rat terrier dog who was named Trixie. The dog belonged to my cousin Jay, and it was allowed to be in their house. Dad had a strict no-dog-in-the-house rule, but he gave in and allowed Trixie to be in the house.

My brother Kress also had a dog, which was a mixed breed, all white, and named Snowball. Kress could not understand why Jay could have his dog in the house and he could not. One day, he tied a large rope around Snowball's neck and dragged the dog into the house, with Snowball resisted every inch of the way. Dad would not let him keep the dog inside, which broke Kress's heart.

In the middle of the 1930s, my grandmother Griffith passed away, and a few weeks later, Grandpa came to visit. One day, we were taking a walk around on a road next to the pecan orchard. Standing alongside the road was a large corn crib. This corn crib was constructed with boards a couple of inches apart so that the corn stored there could get ventilation to prevent rot. As we walked along, Grandpa saw a large rat with its tail extending outside of this corn crib. He quickly grabbed the rat by the tail then, just as quickly, smashed it against the boards, killing it. I can still see him as he grabbed that rat by the tail and the way he killed it.

Almost all the land on the plantation at that time was tilled by using mules. Later, as tractors became more readily available, the plantation owner purchased a couple of tractors manufactured by John Deere. These tractors were nicknamed Popping Johnny since they made an unusual popping noise as they ran. The clutch was hand-operated instead of using your leg and foot. One of the tractor drivers was a young black man who liked me, and he talked to me a lot, even at my early age. One day, as he was bringing the tractor in from the field, he climbed down and picked me up to give me a ride. I sat on his knee as he backed the tractor into the shed. I got in the way of the hand clutch, and the tractor hit the back wall, causing part of the roof to fall. When the roof fell, a nail from one of the boards hit him on the shoulder, which caused a painful injury.

When a world champion prize fight took place between Joe Louis and the German Max Schmeling, the only radio within miles of where we lived was owned by the plantation owner. It was well after dark when the fight started, and the owner put the radio into an open window so everyone gathered outside could hear the broadcast. I think almost every black for several miles around was standing close to the window listening to the fight on the radio.

The school where my brothers and sisters attended was about two miles from our house. They walked to and from school on a road that, when it rained, became muddy and slippery. In those days, no school lunches were served. Mom somehow always managed to put together lunch for them, and the lunches were never without a biscuit. Money was scarce to buy (lite bread). Today, it is called (white bread). They carried their lunch in a small bucket that originally contained Rex jelly This jelly looked like cherry Jell-O and did not have a very good taste. If you mixed some gelatin and Kool-Aid today, it would probably taste the same as Rex jelly.

Later, we moved about five miles further south to a farming community called Toltec. The same plantation owner had purchased a large parcel of land and cleared it of timber to make it suitable for farming. He built seven or eight houses for families living on this land. All the houses constructed were identical, and each had four rooms. They were wood frame with clapboard siding and wood floors, each built on pedestals about two feet high. The framing on the inside walls was not covered with any sort of sheathing. They were hot in the summer and cold in the winter due to the lack of inside sheathing and insulation. The roofing material was corrugated tin that made a loud noise when it rained. None of the houses had electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing.

Our house faced a lake, which at the time was named Mound Pond. It is thought that the dirt removed to form the lake was used by the Indians living in the area to make the mounds that are next to the lake. Some folks thought the mounds were burial mounds. A dirt road ran along the lake and around the mounds. My dad would not allow us to dig or do anything that would harm the mounds. These mounds are protected by the state of Arkansas today.

The seven or eight families on this large farm were all black except for our family. Each sharecropper farmed fifteen to twenty-five acres, depending on the size of the family. The plantation owner farmed all the remaining land. Each sharecropper was required to plant and gather the owner's crops. His crops always took priority. This sometimes becomes a problem, especially if your crop matures at the same time as the owner. The weather turned sour, and your crop generally was not as good a quality as it was not gathered on time. At the end of the year, after selling your crop, you paid the owner what you owed him. Then you counted the money you had left and found that you had little to show for all the work you did during the year.

Our house was known as the overseer's house. There was also a large barn, feedlot for the mules, and sheds for storage of plows, tools, and equipment. There was a small building where the harnesses for the mules were kept. The feedlot had a fence installed that extended into the lake and allowed the mules to get their drinking water. In warm weather, the mules would wade into the water to cool off. A hired man called a Hostler took care of the mules, making sure they had food and were groomed. He also repaired the plows and made sure the harness was always in good order.

Each working day, the farmers would come to the barn, catch their mules, put harnesses on them, get their plows, then go work their land. The Hostler rang a large bell at noon to notify the farmers that it was time to bring the mules to the barn for feed and water. When the mules were brought in at noontime, the harnesses were removed, and the mules were turned loose in the feedlot where they could eat and get water. After dinner, the farmer would again catch and harness their mules, then proceed to the fields to work. At sundown, the mules were returned to the barn, and their harnesses were removed. Each farmer groomed their mules with a large metal comb called a currycomb.

The lake had many small cypress trees scattered around it. Fishing was best around the trees. Fishing was one of the pastimes that most of the farmers did on a regular basis. Catfish, crappie, and bream were there to be caught. It also was one of the main sources of food for all the farmers.

The lake was not polluted as we know pollution today; however, the cypress trees always dropped little green cypress balls into the water around the trees. This caused a thin green film to form on the water. We would not swim in the areas that contained the film. The lake would freeze over in the winter, allowing us to ice skate. You had to be careful not to go near the trees where the ice there would be thin. We did not have ice skates. We just used our leather-soled shoes.

Our house was about one quarter of a mile across the cotton field from the Bradley General Store, located on a paved highway. The store was the only business for at least five miles and was the gathering place when farmers were not in the fields. One day, several men, both black and white, were gathered when a car stopped, and a city slicker got out. He started talking to the men, trying to get them into a shell game, hoping to make some money. The men did not fall for his game, and he turned his attention to me and a couple of other boys. I was about nine years old, as were the other boys. We all were wearing bib overalls, and I did not have on a shirt. The city slicker told us that he could do all kinds of magic and then said to me, I will bet you a nickel that I can say some magic words, and your shorts will fall off. I told him that if I had a nickel, I would bet him, for I was not wearing any shorts. He then got in his car and left.

Aunt Easter and Uncle Butler owned a shoe repair shop in Little Rock. Uncle Butler liked to fish, so when they came to visit, he would fish while he was there. He had a device using the spring mechanism out of window shades. He placed a pulley on the device, wound some fish lines around the pulley, and hung the device on a tree limb. When a fish hits the bait, it trips the mechanism and pulls the fish out of the water. On one visit, they brought me a tricycle that was a little small for me, but I rode the heck out of it. I remember that I could not go very fast as all the surfaces I had to ride on were dirt. It was the only bike of any kind that I ever had.

A couple of times, I was able to spend a few days visiting with my cousins Silvia and Milvia, who were several years older than me. In the summer, I never wore shoes, and I had stepped on a thorn from a locust tree in the yard. A thorn had broken off in my heel, and it was infected. Sylvia and Milvia promised me some of the grapes from the vine growing in the garden if I let them remove the thorn. I screamed like they were killing me, but they were able to remove the thorn, and the grapes were good.

The country store served not only our small farming community but a much larger US government farming community of several hundred acres to the east of the store. The government had divided this land into several different-sized particles, built houses on each particle, and then allowed homesteaders.

The government also built a grade school located in the center of the property. I had to walk to and from this school on a buckshot dirt road that, when it rained, became very slick and sticky. Each step that you took, your shoes picked up more mud until you could hardly pick up your feet. You would have to take a stick to get the mud off your shoes.

At some point, while living at Mound Pond, I developed a very bad toothache where, after a couple of days, the hurt would not stop. Dad said he would take me to see the doctor. He was talking about a country doctor, not a dentist. This doctor had a small cabin on a couple of acres by the lake. Dad told the doctor that I had a bad toothache and asked him to look at the tooth. The doctor told me to sit on a tree stump nearby and looked into my mouth. Then he gave me some of the liquid to drink that tasted like whiskey. After a few minutes, the doctor came over and told me to open my mouth. At this point, I was scared to death, but it did not matter, for he was going to pull the tooth. After a little crunching and twisting, the tooth came out. I guess this is one reason that I do not have a fondness for dentist.

Most of the boats that the locals used to fish the lake were homemade wooden boats about twelve to fourteen feet long and three feet wide with sides twelve inches high. There were boards across the rear end and in the middle used to seat passengers. Paddles were used to move the boats. I never saw a manufactured boat or one with a motor on the lake. My brother-in-law Louis was always tinkering with something. One day, he decided he was going to convert one of our boats into a sailboat. He figured out how to install a mast and made the sails out of an old cotton sack. He finished the boat and then sailed it around the lake, where it performed pretty well, considering the boat had a flat bottom.

One summer, I became very ill with pneumonia and was recovering on a small couch. My mother had really bad eyesight and wore very thick lenses in her glasses. I saw a snake on the couch with me. She ran out the door, grabbed a garden hoe, came inside, and pulled me off of the couch. Then she proceeded to whack away at the snake with the hoe until she killed it by chopping it into several pieces and destroying the couch.

In addition to fish in Mound Mond, there were lots of bullfrogs. To catch bullfrogs, we used a carbide light attached to your cap. The light shown on a frog cast a reflection of their eyes, and using a long pole with a gig attached, you would stab the frog. He then released the frog in a burlap bag. To prepare a frog for cooking, you killed it, removed its intestines, and cut off the rear legs, which was the only part we ate. One night, we were cleaning frogs when one was laid down after its intestines had been removed. The next thing we knew, the frog was jumping toward the lake; however, we caught it before it hit the water.

Frogs are cooked by dipping the legs in a batter and fried the same way you cook chicken. While cooking, the frog legs tend to move around in the pan due to contractions of their muscles. If you have never eaten frog legs, they taste a lot like fried chicken.

In every place we lived, Mom and Dad always planted a huge garden, which was really needed to feed the family. There was always a large crop of Irish potatoes along with beans, several types of peas, cabbage, beets, corn, okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes. Many types of vegetables provided fresh provisions as they matured. Mom canned vegetables, sauerkraut, pickled beets, and peaches. She made sure to can sufficient quantities of vegetables that would ensure food for winter.

When the potatoes were ready to be harvested, Dad would take a mule and plow up a row, and then we would scratch the dirt off the potato vine and put them in small piles. After all the potatoes had the dirt scratched off, they were ready for storage. The potatoes were stored under the house on and under a layer of straw. This method of storing the potatoes under the house would protect the potatoes from freezing.

We usually stored several hundred pounds of Irish potatoes. We did not grow as many sweet potatoes and usually only had a couple of hundred pounds to store. On a cold winter night, there was nothing better than sweet potatoes baked in the oven and slathered with butter. This was our sweet dessert several times each year. I still bake a sweet potato and think of those days.

We always had a cow that Mom milked twice each day, saving the milk in a container and placing it in a pump cooler box that was the only refrigeration we had. To build a pump cooler box, Dad dug a hole about four feet square and four feet deep around the pump. Then built and installed the wood box with a cover and shelves all around. Several times each day, fresh cool water was pumped into the hole until it almost reached the shelves where milk and other food were placed. This method did not keep the milk very cold, but it did keep it from going sour. We had to be very careful when we lifted the cover to remove something from the cooler because snakes also liked to cool off by coiling up on the