Kovalchik, John, SK2

TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, WHAT INFLUENCED HIS/HER DECISION TO JOIN THE NAVY?
Patriotism. Dad often told the story of his great desire to join the Marine Corps and how he twice took bus trips to the recruitment office in Pittsburgh only to be turned away because the Marine training camps were full.

Dad must have made these trips in the few months following high school graduation because in December of '42, President Roosevelt realized that there were a lot of men doing what Dad had done, men so eager to sign up that they were actually choking the system. Roosevelt thus signed an order essentially forbidding anybody to enlist; you had to wait until the Selective Service called you.

While Dad waited for the draft, he took a job at the nearby Hyde Park Foundry making steel deckplates; a job that the War Department deemed so essential that it gave him a deferment he could have ridden through the end of the conflict.

When Dad's number was finally called in late 1943, he reported to his draft board (in nearby Kittanning) and waived his deferment. Apparently, the Marine Corps was once again unavailable to him so he "swallowed his pride" and signed on with the Navy, who gave him an SV-6 classification.

SV-6 stood for Selective Volunteer type 6, with the V-6 meaning an enlisted man required for mobilization (as opposed to, say, a V-8 that indicated an enlisted man destined for aviation training.)

I know, the words "Volunteer" and "draft board" don't seem to go together. Perhaps in this case "volunteer" was supposed to indicate that the recruit had chosen his service branch or more likely, that he had enlisted despite having a deferment.

Interestingly, Dad's designation as an SV means the Navy thought he either had a special skill, or he had a good education and a high IQ. While I always considered Dad to be a pretty smart guy, his mother had recommended high school classes that would prepare him for trade school, not college, so the education and IQ may not have entered into the draft board's equation.

On the other hand, one of the classes in Dad's curriculum was typing and I'm inclined to believe that the recruiter saw Dad's typing ability as a special and very necessary skill. In 1943, a male typist must have been a rare thing. Dad certainly got to exercise this skill in his job as Storekeeper.

TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH HE/SHE TOOK IN HIS/HER MILITARY SERVICE. WHERE DID THEY GO TO BOOT CAMP AND WHAT UNITS, BASES, SHIPS OR SQUADRONS WERE THEY ASSIGNED TO? WHAT WAS HIS/HER REASON FOR LEAVING?
Summary:
10/2/1943 USNTS Sampson, NY (Basic training)
12/9/1943 USNTS Boston, MA (16 weeks of Storekeeper training at Hotel Victoria in downtown Boston!)
4/11/1944 Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, VA (LSM training)
7/15/1944 Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, South Carolina
7/26/1944 LSM-154
2/23/1946 USS War Hawk

Details:
1944
July 26: LSM 154 commissioned, with Dad on board as S1c(SK) (Seaman 1st

LSM Storeroom

class, Storekeeper) making him a Plank Owner.

Sept 1: Promotion to Sk3c (Storekeeper, 3rd class)

July '44 thru Jan '45: What I remember of Dad's stories leads me to believe this time was taken up by sea trials and long stretches at the docks to repair the leaks discovered on this new ship! Griffin T. Garnett's book, The Sandscrapers, although a work of fiction, serves to confirm Dad's stories. The LSMs being built in the Charleston Navy Yard suffered from poor design, incomplete documentation, inferior equipment, and shoddy workmanship. Much rework had to be accomplished before these ships could be sent to the Pacific.

1945
Feb 12: LSM sails from Imperial Docks, Norfolk, VA to Davisville, RI (A Navy SeaBee base)
Mar 8: Davisville, RI to Key West, FL
Mar 23: Key West, FL to Panama
Mar 30: Coco Solo, Canal Zone to San Diego, CA
May 1: Promotion to Sk2c (Storekeeper, 2nd class)
May 12: San Diego, CA to Pearl Harbor
May 30: Pearl Harbor to Eniwetok, Marshall Islands
June 16: Eniwetok, Marshall islands to Guam, Marianas
June 10: Guam, Marianas
July 10: Guam, Marianas to Saipan, Marianas
July 22: Saipan, Marianas to Okinawa
July28: Okinawa -- Dad's fleet comes under attack. A kamikaze sinks the destroyer USS Callaghan.

August 8: Buckner Bay, Okinawa to Saipan, Marianas
August 15: Saipan, Marianas. News received that Japan surrendered!
Dad's memory: "We were loading a truck with supplies when someone hollered out 'The Japs surrendered!' Of course that was great news, but war or no war, we still had to load the truck."

August 23: Saipan, the Marianas to Leyte, Philippines
Sept 5: Leyte, the Philippines to Batangas, Luzon, Philippines
Sept 8: In Philippines, picking up occupation troops to deliver to Senami, Japan
Sept 10: Batangas, the Philippines to Senami and Tokyo Bay, Japan
Oct: Tokyo Bay, riding out Typhoon Louise
Nov 30: Yokohama, Japan to Saipan, Marianas
Dec 9: Transferred to Guam to catch the USS Grafton to the West Coast (probably San Francisco), arriving Dec 24.

1946
Feb 23: Boards the USS War Hawk in San Francisco to commence Operation Magic Carpet
March 7: San Francisco to Pearl Harbor
March 20: Pearl Harbor to Midway Atoll
March 25: Midway Atoll to Yokohama, Japan
April 6: Yokohama to Seattle (orders changed? went to San Diego)
April 23: San Diego, CA to San Pedro, CA
May 14: San Pedro, CA to Shanghai, China
June 4: Shanghai, China to Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China
June 24: Shanghai, China to Hong Kong
June 28: Hong Kong to San Francisco, CA
July 23: San Francisco, CA
August 1: Seattle, WA
August 12: Transferred to Bremerton, WA for discharge
August 14: Discharged!

IF HE/SHE PARTICIPATED IN ANY MILITARY OPERATIONS, INCLUDING COMBAT, HUMANITARIAN AND PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS, TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE DESCRIBE THOSE YOU FEEL WERE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TO HIM/HER AND, IF LIFE-CHANGING, IN WHAT WAY.

1945 Yokohama

Within weeks of Japan's surrender, Dad's ship docked in either Senami or Yokohama and anybody going ashore was issued a carbine. Dad said that not only were there no hostile incidents, but a Japanese family actually invited him to have tea with them.

Something that always stuck in his mind was the sandbags piled here and there for protection against the air raids. The bags weren't filled with sand, however, but with aluminum rivets; rivets put to a different use since Japan's aircraft manufacturing industry had long since been destroyed.

The Japanese hadn't been able to build the planes needed to protect the homeland from the air, so the next logical choice for the unused inventory was to use it to protect what they could on the ground.

Another memory:
"When we were in Japan, any food left on our plates were dumped in a barrel and given to the natives."

DID THEY ENCOUNTER ANY SITUATION DURING THEIR MILITARY SERVICE WHERE THEY BELIEVED THERE WAS A POSSIBILITY HE/SHE MIGHT NOT SURVIVE. TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME.
Dad was typically spare and matter-of-fact with his descriptions of battle action. Only two stories survive that I know of.

1) When the LSMs weren't delivering cargo, they were tasked with laying smoke screens around the more important ships. Dad said they put a fifty-gallon drum of oil on the

LSM Fantail

stern, lit it off, and formed a picket line around the fleet. He noted a couple of dangers associated with this duty, the first being that your own LSM is NOT the recipient of the smoke screen, making you a target.

The second danger was that burning oil drums had a habit of blowing up and setting the LSM on fire.

2) Dad's battle station was a gun mount. I thought he said it was a .30 caliber machine gun but I see the LSM armament was one 40mm mount and five 20mm mounts. Whatever the caliber, his battle station put him on deck when the fleet came under attack. Dad described seeing a Japanese plane head-on as, "Not a good feeling." (Actually, Dad described seeing a "Jap" plane. Any discussion of WWII involved "the Japs.")

Forty-plus years after the war, though, a neighbor asked if Dad saw any kamikazes, to which he replied, "Yes, and that's enough of that." My research reveals Dad was certainly in harm's way on July 28 when kamikazes zeroed in on his fleet at Okinawa. Reading the muster rolls for that period, there were no injuries listed for the LSM-154, but the destroyer USS Callaghan was sunk that day.

On a lighter side, there were instances when the crew had to be concerned with, shall we say, "friendly fire."

These incidents took place in the ship's head, which Dad described as a long water trough covered with a plank that had holes in it to accommodate the men's posteriors. Dad said that if there was a rush to use the head, there was always a similar rush to grab the first, "upstream" hole. The acquisition of this prime spot put that lucky sailor in a position to crumple up a bit of newspaper, light it, and drop it into the trough. The water flow then took this flaming wad the length of the trough, singeing any sailor too engrossed in his Stars and Stripes newspaper to pay attention to more urgent matters.

Post-war, Dad was on a ship in Tokyo Bay for Typhoon Louise in October 1945 watching ships breaking anchor and getting pummeled by wind and waves. He was impressed by the horizontal rain and told me so when he advised me to evacuate Houston when a hurricane was bearing down.

OF ALL THEIR DUTY STATIONS OR ASSIGNMENTS, ARE YOU AWARE OF ANY HE/SHE HAD FONDEST MEMORIES OF AND WHY? WHICH WAS THEIR LEAST FAVORITE?
Since I can't remember more than one story about life onboard the LSM or any port they visited, I must assume that Dad's favorite assignment had to be aboard the USS War Hawk, mainly because that ship's task was quite the opposite of delivering war materiel to contested islands; Dad's

Bringing the boys home

War Hawk duty consisted of picking up the troops and taking them home.

Besides, even taking into account the Spartan accommodations of war ships, the War Hawk had to have felt like a cruise liner compared to the LSM. The War Hawk was about twice as long and twice as wide as the LSM. More importantly, the War Hawk had more than 3 times the draft. The LSMs drew a measly 8 feet when fully loaded; the better to beach themselves. Crossing the Pacific on an LSM had to have been like riding a cork.

To make matters worse, the LSM's top speed was 13 knots. Frustration at this slow, slow boat must have peaked as 1945 came to a close and LSM-154 left Japan and headed towards the States. Dad never took a liking to the song, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" because...he wasn't.

Speed and comfort aside, Dad's time on the War Hawk could hardly be considered a dream assignment; not when the alternative could have been a discharge at the war's end. Even though Dad had enough points for demobilization (military speak for "going home") his captain didn't want to trade a storekeeper with two years of experience for one right out of training. The captain made this decision despite enlistment promises that the enlistee's term would be the duration of the war plus no more than six months.

Had the Navy followed its rules, Dad would have been discharged March 2, 1946. The extra 4 1/2 months he served to crisscross the Pacific must have been grueling. It must have been equally tough to paste a smile on his face when posing with shipmates about to walk down the gangway for the last time.

Nonetheless, when the War Hawk made its last trip to Seattle in August 1946 and Dad finally got his own discharge, he found a reason to stay in the area. A month later, he gave his reason one last kiss and returned home. A train took him to Pittsburgh and a bus took him to New Kensington, but he had miscalculated his funds and ended up hitchhiking the last twenty miles to Leechburg.

FROM THEIR ENTIRE MILITARY SERVICE, DESCRIBE ANY PERSONAL MEMORIES, YOU MAY BE AWARE OF, WHICH IMPACTED HIM/HER THE MOST.
Sadly, any time the subject of Dad's Navy experiences came up, I had to hear the same old stories that covered no more than his first couple of months in the service. And since storytelling was not Dad's forte, his disjointed vignettes were tiresome and hard to listen to...so it was easier to just let him go on without interrupting for details or clarification.

The story always began with Dad's trips to Pittsburgh to enlist in the Marines and his subsequent enlistment in the Navy. Then he was in boot camp in Sampson, located in north-central New York. On the first day, the instructor asked if anybody had any choir experience. Dad raised his hand (he had a truly beautiful bass singing voice) and was thereby assigned to the choir. His actual statement was, "So I became one of the choir girls."

The extra duties of the "choir girls" put them into a longer basic training cycle, so their graduation from boot camp was a few weeks after their fellow recruits.

The Navy then sent Dad to Boston, MA to learn to be a Storekeeper (essentially an Assistant Quartermaster) and from there to LSM training in Little Creek, VA. It was during one of these trips that Dad looked at his train ticket and realized that although the Navy had told him to board the morning train, his ticket was actually good for all day. Dad skipped the morning train and took in the sights. He boarded the last train, reported for duty approximately 12 hours late and learned that the Navy considered him AWOL!

The Navy delayed Dad's training and instead gave him some character-building duties to fill the time.

I had heard this story dozens of times in my life but the last time was when Dad was 89 years old. He suddenly reflected on what he had just said and for the first time in my 63 years, he tacked on a new ending:

"So the delays caused by my choir experience and my AWOL punishment put me out of sync with my original group...and they all ended up in the first wave at Okinawa."

Surely Dad had made that connection before, but like so many WWII memories, he hadn't expressed it. Still, I got the feeling that he considered himself very fortunate to miss out on that particular phase of the bloodbath. Only later did I find out that of the six LSMs lost in WWII, three were sunk at Okinawa in the months before Dad arrived.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was a story Dad seldom told, since it concerned what he called his saddest moment. Dad had just returned to his hometown when he learned that a close friend who, even though he'd had a dependent wife and child deferral, had joined the Marines and had not come back. This loss affected Dad so deeply that 69 years later, Dad was calling out his name on his deathbed.

WHAT PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS DO YOU BELIEVE HE/SHE WAS MOST PROUD OF FROM HIS/HER MILITARY SERVICE?
Each of Dad's ribbons is what we now refer to as a "participation" trophy, which is unfortunate because that term doesn't begin to convey the individual hardships and sacrifices these servicemen endured while they were participating.

Thirty years after the war, though, Dad and I were able to share a joke about a certain seafaring accomplishment that I, a civilian working on a NASA tracking ship, was able to hang on my wall, while he, a sailor with nearly two years at sea, had not equaled. My trophy was my Shellback certificate.

I had learned about Shellbacks only when I joined my ship and, knowing Dad had spent WWII in the South Pacific, I had just assumed he had his own certificate squirreled away. When I excitedly called to tell him we were in the same club, he shocked me by saying, "Well, you're one up on me. I never crossed the equator."

My father the Pollywog.

I guess when Dad told his version of "Tales of the South Pacific", he was referring to any part of the Pacific that was south of Leechburg (and north of the equator.)

OF ALL THE MEDALS, AWARDS, FORMAL PRESENTATIONS AND QUALIFICATION BADGES HE/SHE RECEIVED, WHICH WERE THE MOST MEANINGFUL TO HIM/HER AND WHY?
Strangely, the medals didn't mean as much to me as the uniform itself. (I didn't even know until well into adulthood what medals Dad had earned!) Dad cut a very striking, imposing figure when he dressed up for the Memorial Day parades. But the uniform changed his demeanor, as well.

Album Cover

I saw other servicemen shrug into their uniforms and shuffle off to join the parade, but Dad was all spit and polish, standing more erect than I had ever seen and stepping out smartly and crisply to the cadence. In retrospect, I'm sure there was a part of my awe and admiration that had to do with watching Dad follow orders!

Dad kept only a small number of souvenirs from his Navy days. One of the spoons in the kitchen drawer had USN stamped on it. My brother and I slept under coarse, scratchy, USN blankets on our twin beds. There was a small (one D-cell battery) flashlight that had been pinned to his lifejacket and to this young boy's delight, he had a couple of wicked-looking knives and scabbards.

I was also fascinated by The Bluejacket's Manual, but its heft was quite imposing to a third grader. I did learn to tie a few knots and I still remember the rules for displaying the flag, though.

The best of the memorabilia were a couple of Our Navy magazines and a photo album. The grainy, seldom-captioned pictures in the album were no match for the excellent photography in the magazines, but in my youth, I must have pored over the album weekly and I must have asked Dad about each picture, but...I must have been too young to really comprehend the answers. Dad and I went through the album again when he was 89, but sadly, this time there were very few answers.

IF KNOWN, PLEASE LIST ANY INDIVIDUAL(S) FROM HIS/HER TIME IN THE MILITARY WHO STOOD OUT AS HAVING THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT ON THEM AND WHY?

Navy pals

In contrast to my grandfather, who seemed to find a new WWI army buddy every Saturday night, I remember only one meeting with a WWII buddy of Dad's and that was in the mid-'50s.

As is evident by the picture, Dad loved his shipmates but perhaps after the war, he didn't want them around to remind him of what they had all endured.

IF KNOWN, PLEASE RECOUNT THE NAMES OF FRIENDS HE/SHE SERVED WITH, AT WHICH LOCATION, AND WHAT WAS REMEMBERED MOST ABOUT THEM. INDICATE THOSE HE/SHE REMAINED IN TOUCH WITH.
As noted above, Dad lost touch with all his shipmates.

In his late 80s, when it was becoming obvious to me that Dad was having memory issues, I finally brought up the subject of reviewing his WWII photo album with him, hoping to grab some details of his service before it was too late.

"What album?"

"Your album with all the pictures you took during the war."

"What pictures? We weren't allowed to take pictures or even have a camera."

At this point, thankfully, Mom brought in the album. We then proceeded to have a very strange session of Q&A where most of the Q's consisted of, "Where'd you get these pictures? We weren't allowed to take pictures." These remarks were quickly followed by, "There's Jonesy!" or "There's Boats!" or "There's Cookie!" along with a snippet of a memory of them working or taking liberty together. Sadly, I was so taken aback by Dad's continual denials of the existence of the very album in his lap that I remember none of the names or comments.

ARE YOU AWARE OF ANY PARTICULAR INCIDENT FROM HIS/HER SERVICE, WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN FUNNY AT THE TIME, BUT STILL MADE THEM LAUGH LATER ON?
When I was about 9 years old I found a picture of Dad and a shipmate behind bars. I naturally had to announce, "Dad, you were in jail!" He responded, "No, we were just horsing around...but there's more truth to that picture than you know."

Docked in Key West Naval Air

Jailbirds

Station in March of 1945, Dad and a shipmate had left their LSM for a night on the town. It was quite a long walk across the base to the gate, but when they finally arrived, the marine guard wouldn't allow them to pass; Dad's buddy wasn't wearing regulation socks!

The two sailors made the long walk back to the LSM for the change of socks, then returned to the base gate, cursing the Marine all the way. They behaved themselves long enough to get past the guard and then resumed their grumbling.

Once the sailors hit the drinking establishments, they expanded their discussion of the Marine guard's pedigree to include all Marines, including those in present company. When Dad and his buddy began estimating how many Marines they would send to the hospital that night, the Shore Patrol stepped in and escorted the two sailors to a holding pen for rowdy servicemen.

Dad remembered that he wasn't so much disturbed by having his liberty interrupted as he was insulted by the accommodations; the holding pen was made out of chicken wire! That memory must have haunted him throughout his service, leading to the pose for the attached photograph from late '45 or early '46.

More than fifty years later, something sparked another memory appropriate to this category: Dad told me of meeting a girl who wanted a tour of the ship. I don't know if civilians weren't allowed on ships or if Dad just didn't want to go through channels but he ended up obliging the young lady by sneaking her aboard. As they hid below deck, they suddenly heard the engines rev and felt the ship moving. The girl freaked out, figuring her next stop was Tokyo Bay, but it turned out that the ship was just moving across the port to a new berth. Dad didn't mention a second date.

IF HE/SHE SURVIVED MILITARY SERVICE, WHAT PROFESSION(S) DID HE/SHE FOLLOW AFTER DISCHARGE?

The Classic Electrician pose

In 1946, Dad returned to manual labor jobs in Leechburg, most notably the Allegheny Ludlum Steel Mill in West Leechburg, where he met Mom.

In 1949, Dad started using the GI Bill to finance his education, eventually obtaining certificates in 1) electronics and 2) television technology from De Forest (now DeVry) school in Chicago.

Dad became an electrician for ALCOA and stayed with that job until retirement in 1986. During those years, Dad concurrently ran his own television repair business. He quit that business when vacuum tube sets were dying out, being replaced by transistor sets.

As a 63-year old retiree, Dad needed another challenge so he obtained his Master Electrician license and became an electrical contractor, accepting jobs well into his 80s.

IF KNOWN, WHAT MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS WAS HE OR SHE A MEMBER OF, IF ANY? ARE YOU AWARE OF ANY SPECIFIC BENEFITS THEY DERIVED FROM THEIR MEMBERSHIPS?
Dad was a member of the Leechburg chapter of the VFW but he didn't spend much time there. For my uncle and grandfather, however, a trip to "the club" was at least a weekly occurrence. When I asked Dad why he didn't join them, he said, "It's just a bunch

Leechburg Memorial Day Parade

of guys sitting around talking about the war. Who needs that?"

Dad really must have preferred to leave the war behind him, which was a shame for the VFW because, for every other organization he joined, Dad practically became obsessed with it. A case in point would be the Leechburg Elks Club, where he not only went through all of the officers' chairs but was instrumental in persuading the members to move the club to an empty movie theater and then devoting countless hours to its ultimate renovation into the finest club in town.

On the other hand, while the only connection Dad had with the VFW seemed to be the monthly magazine, he joined his fellow veterans every Memorial Day, carrying the Navy flag in the annual parade until 1966, the last year that Mom could make his uniform fit!

IF HE/SHE SURVIVED MILITARY SERVICE, IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU BELIEVE HIS/HER SERVING IN THE MILITARY INFLUENCED THE WAY THEY APPROACHED THEIR PERSONAL LIFE, FAMILY LIFE AND CAREER?

Reading the Want Ads

It's very difficult to make a major association of any of Dad's traits with his Navy background. For example, he was quite the authoritarian, which could easily be construed as a behavior learned by his experience with military structure, but I believe that trait could just as easily be applied to most other fathers of that generation. Or if not to most other fathers, then certainly to fathers who grew up under abusive, alcoholic fathers who demanded immediate compliance to an order. Dad was neither abusive nor alcoholic, but he certainly demanded immediate compliance.

If Dad's military service affected his career, it would only have been to convince him that he did NOT want to be a storekeeper for the rest of his life! However, even though the GI Bill had been around since 1944, Dad did not rush into academia but ironically returned to his pre-war manual labor career path (e.g. working in the local steel mill and delivering appliances) until 1949.

IF THEY WERE HERE TODAY, WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK HE OR SHE WOULD GIVE TO THOSE WHO FOLLOWED IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS AND RECENTLY ENTERED MILITARY SERVICE?
It's one thing to sign up to go to war...and quite another to watch your children do the same thing. In 1974, when the Viet Nam war was still raging, two of my brothers came home and announced they had just joined the Marines, thus sending Dad into a rage

Boot Camp Grads

of his own.
I was 23 at the time and very confused by Dad's reaction. The man who had always been the proud veteran was now considering a trip to Pittsburgh to beat the Marine recruiter into a bloody pulp (shades of 1945 Key West!)

By the time my brothers graduated boot camp, however, Dad had calmed down considerably and even went so far as to admit that the Marines were a fine organization and had done a great job in training and caring for his sons! The cynic in me says it is very possible that Dad made that statement because he'd already learned that his sons were being assigned Stateside duty.

On the other hand, there had been considerable discussion in the media at that time concerning draft dodgers. Not in our house, though. Had we been drafted there would have been no question about reporting for duty.

Years later, in times of comparative peace, Dad was delighted when a couple of his granddaughters joined the army.

HOW EFFECTIVE HAS TOGETHERWESERVED.COM BEEN IN HELPING YOU RECORD YOUR REMEMBERED PERSONS MILITARY SERVICE? DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?

Good Times

This is a terrific web-site with extremely helpful administrators who go the extra mile to help out. I just wish I'd started a few years ago.

11/1/18