They said Sam was a dependable, reliable person. He was a man who took care of his family. He went to church on Sundays and enjoyed his job, working on a big aircraft carrier being constructed at the Fore River shipyard Massachusetts. The carrier Cabot had been ordered sometime earlier and was expected to join our fleet — if they ever got it finished. Pressure was on the shipyard and its 23,000 workers and Sam to hurry up and do just that.

The contract to build the Cabot had been good for Quincy. Me? I was just starting school in Centrahoma at the time (1940) and knew nothing about any of this. So, it was that day, when our worker Sam left his wife and kids and carried his lunch bucket, wearing his photo ID badge wandered to work never to be seen again. He just vanished.

Work on the proposed aircraft carrier “Cabot” continued while his puzzled wife wanted to know where and what had happened to her husband. The ship was searched over and over again. No Sam.

Work continued on the Carrier then on December 7, 1941, the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. The crippled US Navy (at least what was left of it) later sailed out to Midway to meet and fight the new Jap enemy. During the battle of Midway, the USS Lexington (CV-2) was sunk and many of her crew were lost in the Pacific. As a direct result of this loss the (as of yet not launched) Cabot had its name changed to Lexington.

I was growing up blissfully unaware of all this as I toiled away in the 2nd grade in Centrahoma. Time passed and we finally won that war. The new Lexington went on to establish its own heroic exploits during the war but sustained serious damages itself. It was bombed, strafed and torpedoed due to those hazardous days. My friend Joe Bryan, an Ada Pharmacist (also a sailor), rode the ship through the Marianas and other bloody conflicts during which many of that carrier’s crew paid the ultimate price, but it did make it home. Joe told me all about it.

Sometime after WWII the shot-up carrier was sent to the Bremerton, Washington Shipyard for extensive repairs and upgrades. Meanwhile I was getting older and attracted the attention of my Uncle Sam. He drafted me and I went into the Navy. As Virgil Guy used to say, “To make a long story short”, I eventually found myself assigned to this big carrier and joined its new crew and the shipyard workers there in Bremerton in a strenuous effort to get this thing back out on the open seas.

Our work was interrupted one day by the appearance of a hearse and three Bremerton police cars driving down the pier. Later I saw the funeral home guys carrying out a body. I wondered what was going on. Here’s what had happened. When the ship was being built in Quincy, its lower hull and sides were built honeycombed with small voids (empty compartments). The thinking was that if a torpedo hit, the “blister” would take the blow and spare the main hull. I don’t think that had worked as well as they had hoped since at least one Jap torpedo had slammed into one of these blisters its and made its way about 25 feet inside the Lexington before it exploded, nearly ending the Lexington’s career out there in the bloody battle of the Marianas. So, the Navy came up with a new idea. Fill those voids with a thick viscous inert oil. That’s what they were doing when they cut open this particular void. There lay old Sam. Still wearing his work clothes, his photo ID and he still had his lunch pail. His nap lasted much longer than he had planned.

His poor wife, still in in Massachusetts, came to Bremerton and collected Sam and took him back to Quincy for burial. He didn’t get any military honors for all the battles he had gone to.

This reminds me: “be sure and go to church Sunday.” Just don’t try to sneak in a nap. No telling where you might wind up.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com