Part II-U. S. Air Force, Chapter 17-Kunia Tunnel

CHAPTER 17
Kunia Tunnel
1964-1967

My first trip to Hawaii was on a prop plane on the way to Korea; this time not only did I have my family with me, but we were on a Boeing 707 jet. The flight was much shorter, more enjoyable, and the final destination was much more desirable. When we got to Hawaii we stayed in a Honolulu hotel, not too far from the beach, while we looked for permanent housing.
They were so short of personnel at DCA they wanted me to go to work immediately and look for housing while off duty. I was supposed to be assigned to the plans division but they had a systems control section that had to have an officer on duty at all times, seven days a week. When I arrived there were only three officers available to cover this section so they were putting in some long hours. When I became the fourth man, it made it possible for us to work three evening shifts, three midnight shifts, three day shifts and then have two and one half days off. I didn’t like the rotating shifts because it seemed the only time I wanted to sleep was when I was on duty. But the other three men liked it better than being assigned to one shift for an extended period of time, so that was the way we worked it. There usually wasn’t much going on during the midnight shift but it was the most dreaded because the last thing you did before going off duty was conduct a formal briefing for the commander and his staff about the events (mainly circuit outages) of the previous 24 hours.
Kunia was built during World War II as a survivable command post for the Navy. It was located near the middle of the island of Oahu, not too far from Wheeler AFB. We had to park the car at the entrance and walk a good distance through the tunnel to get to the underground building. DCA was a joint command, in other words we had Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all assigned to the unit. DCA was formed to unite the efforts of the different service branches and prevent duplicated efforts, especially on long haul communications. At this time satellite communications had not been perfected, Viet Nam was becoming hot and there was no underwater cable to that area. We depended primarily on Tropospheric Scatter Radio systems; this was a radio frequency that should have been good only for line of sight, but by using antenna the size of huge billboards, and applying enough power, the signal could be received over the horizon at distance up to 1000 miles. This was our primary means of communications with Viet Nam during the early years of the war.
I found there were certain advantages of being an Air Force captain on a Navy facility, at least while talking on the telephone. I would often be mistaken for a Navy captain which is equivalent to an Air Force colonel. I would usually straighten out the confusion but if the situation called for it, I would let it slip. My name and rank provided some amusement for the Hawaiian installer that came out to put the telephone in our house. We noticed he kept giggling to himself as he worked on the phone. Finally he said, “You know we ate the first Captain Cook that came over here”.
We found a house in Whitmore City at 118 North Circle Mauka Street, five or six miles from work. It was on the side of a hill and the lower side was up on stilts. We could park the car under the house and there was room for the washer there. (See figure 20.) During our second or third night in the house we were sound asleep when we heard this big crash right outside our bedroom window; it sounded like a cannon going off. Then there was a quieter rumble, rumble, rumble, plop. Next morning we figured out a coconut had fallen out of a tall tree and on to the metal roof next door and then rolled down and fell to the ground. We had saved a little money while at Pullman and made arrangements to pay our rent three years in advance. By doing this we got our rent at about half the going rate. I don’t remember what we paid but it worked out good for us. I didn’t realize at the time what a chance we were taking; I found out our landlord liked to bet on the rooster fights and was glad to get our rent to pay some debts. Then about half way through the three years, he sold the house. On the first of the month the new owner came over to collect rent; the first owner had failed to mention we were already paid up for the next 18 months. Fortunately the two men were able to work something out between themselves and we got to stay there until I was transferred. It could have really turned ugly but in the end it all worked out fine.
Randy started kindergarten there in the fall of 1964. One day he came home and told us his teacher and he were the only ones in his class with blue eyes. Although our next door neighbors were a military family, most were Filipino and worked in the surrounding pineapple fields. Many of the neighbors raised fighting chickens; these roosters had different habits than those I grew up around in Oklahoma. Our roosters would start crowing at first light. I guess their Hawaiian brothers had trouble sleeping because they would break out the bugle in the middle of the night. First, one would crow, and then the whole neighborhood would join in. After a half hour of crowing they would settle down for awhile, then, before you could get back to a deep sleep another rooster would wake up the whole shebang and do it all over again. When the roosters weren’t crowing, the dogs were barking or the cats were growling.
Sometimes there wasn’t a lot to do on the evening or midnight shifts, but there were some interesting people to talk to. One of those was SMSgt. Rogers. He had been captured by the Japanese right after the start of World War II and spent the entire time as a POW. He was on one of the Pacific islands--I think it was Wake--when the war broke out. He said one night right after Pearl Harbor they were all sitting around talking about what was going to happen. He said the conversation drifted from how to get off the island, to how a wound might get you off, to where would be the best place to shoot yourself to get a wound to get you off the island. He said they finally agreed that a shot in the calf of the leg would be the best option. He said they all broke up and headed for bed when BANG! There was a shot out back. Sure enough one of the men had shot himself in the calf. A few days later they were all captured and one prisoner went to Japan with a bum leg. Sgt. Rogers said the worst thing to endure was the uncertainty of the guards reaction; one day the prisoners might be beaten for no reason, and later they might be caught stealing a bag of rice and were told they shouldn’t do that kind of thing. He said they were often forced to load and unload railroad cars; the cars had signs on the outside with routing instructions. He said the prisoners would always exchange the instructions between different cars and the Japanese never did catch on to what was happening; days later the cars would come back with the same load still inside. He said they liked to load rice because it was shipped in course woven sacks; they could insert a sharp bamboo stick to let the rice spill and when they pulled the stick out there was no sign it had been pilfered. He said sometimes the guards had the prisoners make their tea and on those occasions they always add things like ground up flies, spit, or pee.
Another interesting man was MSgt. Kerridge. He said that while he was stationed at Thule AFB, Greenland, a C-47 aircraft was flying north up the west coast of Greenland. It started snowing, they couldn’t get above or below the clouds and their radios went out. What they didn’t know was that a strong west wind was blowing them over land. As you may know, the elevation of Greenland gradually gets higher the further you go inland. They kept flying, hoping to get out of the storm but all they could see was falling snow. All at once they hit some bad turbulence that lasted about a minute and then the ride got very smooth. The pilots didn’t realize they had drifted so far over land that they had flown into a snow bank and were stuck there with engines running. Everything was white with blowing snow and they thought they were still flying. But when the crew chief in the back looked out the side window; he could see the ground and recognized what had happened. He must have been a prankster because without telling the pilots, he opened the back door, walked around to the front of the plane and signaled the pilots to cut the engines.
Since I was working shift work, I was often off during the day and we had opportunities to do things with the kids (especially during the summer when they were out of school) that otherwise we couldn’t have done. We often went swimming at Haleiwa on the north shore where the military had a beach. One day while there, a small wave knocked Ronda down and about the time she would get up the next one would knock her down again. This happened about three times before we got to her and picked her up sputtering and crying, “I dwonded, I dwonded”. We often had a good breeze around Whitmore so I built a big box kite. We bought several balls of string and it really flew high. The higher it got the stronger the wind got until it finally broke the string. I’m not sure how far I walked to retrieve the kite but I went through at least a mile and a half of pineapples before I found it.
I started a coin collection while there. There were a lot of San Francisco (“S”) mint coins in circulation in Hawaii and this was in general the hardest mint to find. For several months I would go through about $100 in coin each day. After going through it and taking out the ones I wanted, I would have Nell take it to the bank and exchange it for another $100. I was able to find a complete set of walking liberty half dollars, standing liberty quarters, Washington quarters up to date, mercury dimes, buffalo nickels, Jefferson nickels up to date, and Lincoln pennies. I was able to trade enough coins to get a set of piece dollars. One day while in Honolulu, Nell got a twenty dollar bill with the word “Hawaii” printed real big on the back. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but during World War II all the money used in Hawaii was printed like this; in the event Japan captured the islands, this money would be declared as having no value.
While working shift work I sometimes found it difficult to sleep during the day. Ronda was concerned for me; one day just after falling into a deep sleep she came in, shook my arm and said, “Daddy, I turned off the TV so it wouldn’t wake you up.” Another time she was looking at Nell’s cookie jar shaped like a cow, complete with horns, a smile on her face, and a bell around her neck. Then she said, “I know why she has a bell around her neck. It’s because her horns don’t work”.
I usually took a sack lunch to work. One day I bit into my sandwich and Nell had failed to take the skin off the edge of the baloney. When I got home I teasingly told Nell, “It made me so mad I threw the sandwich at random, missed random and hit the Colonel”. I didn’t know it at the time but Ronda overheard; she told me years later that at the time she thought I had actually hit the Colonel with a sandwich.
One Christmas there we had bought a tape recorder. I recorded a message on it from “Santa” to Randy. When the kids came in that morning I pushed the “play” button. Santa said hello to the kids and asked Randy if he had been a good boy. As soon as he heard the question, Randy grabbed the microphone and said, “Yes, Santa, I’ve been real good!”
We were quite active in the church while in Hawaii. The first Sunday we were there we went to a congregation in Honolulu. I was distracted there and didn’t hear much of what the preacher said. The man sitting directly in front of us had thinning hair and had painted his scalp with what looked like black shoe polish to cover up his bright head. After moving to Whitmore we went to the Church of Christ on California Street in Wahiawa. Most of us were young military families; part of the time we had a full time preacher and sometimes we didn’t. During the times without a minister some of the men would do the preaching. One Sunday it was my turn. I had no more than got started when Ronda, sitting with her mother near the front, threw up all over the pew. It is hard enough to preach your first sermon ever under ideal conditions. It doesn’t make it any easier when your family is puking and stinking and wiping things up. I’m not sure if Ronda ate something that made her sick or if it was something I said. On another occasion during the middle of the week Randy and I were cleaning the building. I heard Randy’s voice saying, “One time there were these bad guys and they killed Jesus.” I looked around and didn’t see Randy but then found him behind the pulpit with a Bible in hand, preaching away. He was so short I couldn’t see even the top of his head over the pulpit.
We had several visitors while living in Hawaii. Lloyd Cunningham, Mom’s cousin from Moses Lake, had started drinking and was killed while DUI. His widow, Rosemary, was as nice as could be, and when she came to Hawaii for a vacation, she stopped by to see us. Aunt Dorris and Uncle Allen stopped by on their way to Thailand for his assignment with the State Department. Mom, Dad, Uncle Ray, and Aunt Edna came to see us for eight or ten days in January 1967. They really played musical cars to get to Hawaii; let me see if I can explain it. Linda and Cheryl were going to school in Los Angeles; they went to Othello for Christmas break. When it was over, they drove Mom and Dad’s car back to school taking Chuck, Carl and Allan with them. Mom and Dad were in the process of buying the place here in Texas. They loaded their pickup with things to be moved to Texas and drove to Los Angeles. Uncle Ray and Aunt Edna flew to L.A. where they got on the plane with Mom and Dad, and the four of them flew on to Hawaii. After the visit was over they all flew back to L.A. From there Uncle Ray and Aunt Edna got in the pickup and drove it to Oklahoma; Mom and Dad picked up their car from the girls and drove back to Othello with the boys. They then had a farm sale; they loaded the rest of the things they wanted in Texas in the old beet truck. Dad drove the truck and Mom drove the car to Texas. They didn’t have to go too far to get their pickup in Oklahoma. Dad had just been diagnosed with emphysema and they were hoping the move from the Othello dust would do him some good.
I took leave and we had a good visit while they were in Hawaii. There was no road around the northwest corner of Oahu at that time but there was a trail. Nell and I had a little Nash Rambler and we started down the trail to see just how far we could go; the six of us just about filled the car. On our trip we found another car load of people that had the same idea. One wheel of their car had fallen in a hole in the lava rocks; they were stuck and blocking the trail. With our help everyone was able to lift their car out and we all went on. When we got to the most remote point we decided we wanted to go out in the water and see if we could find some coral. We found some, but couldn’t break it loose from the rocks until we went back to the car and got out the tire tool. It really wasn’t very easy to get the coral because the water averaged about waist deep but the rocks on the bottom were full of holes and crevices. In addition, about the time you would find something a wave would break over your head and knock you down. We finally retrieved several good pieces. I knew Pawpaw would like to have some and indeed he was happy when I got it back to Texas and gave it to him. Before the end of the day we had driven all the way around the island, and as we hit the main road again we saw a sign that said “no trespassing” for the area we just exited.
Nell and I took a couple of other vacations while in Hawaii. We took the kids and went to Kilauea Military Camp on the big island. We had our own little cabin and ate in a big mess hall. During the day we had bus and walking tours of the area. One day we were scheduled to go on about a four mile hike across the lava beds. Ronda made it for about the first hundred yards and I carried her the rest of the way. It was a good vacation and I really enjoyed the break from work. Our other vacation was without kids. Larry and Kitty Yates (friends from church) volunteered to keep Randy and Ronda while Nell and I stayed in the beach cabins on Bellows AFB. These were rustic little cabins on an isolated beach and there were very few other people there. We just laid around and had a good time doing nothing for a few days.
I remember only two TDYs (temporary duty, in other words: trips) while assigned to DCA. The first one was an inspection trip to Japan and Korea. The only thing that stands out in my mind about this trip was the change that had taken place in Korea since I had been assigned there. It was no longer a third world country. The ox and carts were out of the streets of Seoul and cars had taken their place.
The other trip left a more lasting impression. In October 1965 I was sent to Saigon, Viet Nam for 66 days to help man the newly established DCA unit there until permanent personnel could be assigned. I stayed in a hotel in downtown Saigon and worked on Tan Son Nhut AFB at the edge of town. We worked 12 hour shifts, seven days a week with a weekend afternoon off every once in a while. We were not close to any fighting, but at night you could go to the top of the hotel and hear the B-52 raids and see the glow of the bombs in the distance. Once, someone set a bomb off in a hotel while I was there, but it wasn’t my hotel. I did scare myself one night; I had been moved to a new hotel. It was so new it didn’t have the electricity hooked up yet, but they did furnish candles. I got in bed and just started to relax when I started feeling a lump in the middle of the mattress. The first thing that came to mind was that some worker had left a bomb under the mattress. I tried to get out of bed without moving but couldn’t do it. I tried to reach my candle but couldn’t find it in the dark. When I finally managed to get up and light the candle I found someone had left a wet, wadded up t-shirt between the springs and the mattress.
I learned a new way to fish while in Viet Nam. There was a low area near the building where I worked at Tan Son Nhut. During recent rains the area had flooded when the river came up; after the river went down a big puddle about two feet deep and maybe sixty feet in diameter was left. About five Vietnamese men built an earth dike down the middle. Then they took five gallon buckets and poured all the water from one side to the other. When they got most of the water out they picked up all the fish left flopping in the mud. After they did this, they took their buckets and poured all the water back to the first side and picked up the remaining fish. These were big carp looking fish about two feet long. As far as I know they got every fish in the puddle except one. When they were about half through dumping water the second time, one of the fish came hurling out of the water, jumped the dike and landed in the side where they were putting the water. They didn’t empty that side again for just one fish, but they probably had 30 or 40 fish when they went home.
One night I was in the latrine near the hotel dining room and my cousin David, Uncle Ray’s youngest son, walked in. He was an Army helicopter pilot. Neither one of us knew the other was in Viet Nam.
Other than being separated from family, I think the worst part of being there was the traffic. Work wasn’t that far from the hotel but the trip was always a hassle. There was every kind of vehicle you could imagine on the road; it ranged from hand cart to bus and every thing between. There was a four lane road, two in each direction, most of the way to the base but about half way there it narrowed to two lanes to go across a short bridge. One evening after work, we almost got to the bridge when traffic on our side had spilled into all four lanes and all four were headed toward the bridge. On the other side of the bridge all four lanes were headed toward us. Needless to say no one was moving. The people that were on bikes were carrying them upside down over their heads trying to get out of the jam. We sat there for what seemed like hours before the traffic cops finally got things moving again.
All the time I was in Viet Nam I never shaved my mustache. It was pretty bushy when I got off the plane and Nell wouldn’t even speak to me. I found out later she had been taking some diet pill and apparently they had her pretty edgy.
Soon after getting back from Viet Nam I was assigned to the plans division which was the job I had been sent over there to do in the first place. This was five days a week, eight hours a day work, easy to get used to. A lot of my work involved trying to get the different services to work together rather than going their own way.
I got orders to leave Hawaii in May of 1967 and go to MacDill AFB, Florida. After we had shipped everything, Randy came down with the mumps but the doctor said he would be okay to travel unless the airlines objected; we used the “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach and no one objected. Our plane was delayed one day for mechanical trouble but we were soon on our way home. Now both my parents and Nell’s parents were in Texas so we headed east. When we landed in California and got off the plane Randy looked around and said, “Daddy, look at all the haoles.” That’s “white people” in Hawaii. He had grown up thinking most of the world was oriental; maybe he was right. We stopped by to see Grandma Cook in California and took about four weeks leave to see everyone in Texas.