The USS Johnnie Hutchins had reached the end of its road. It was an ice-cold morning with icy winds off the bay there in Bayonne, New Jersey. We, its last crew, stood there at attention – shivering as an obligatory speech or two was given extolling a few of its war exploits and history during the War II. I was proud to have served on this little 209 ft destroyer-escort, but I also knew it was very cold and I was just hoping we could finish and I could get on with my life.

The “Hutchins” was built during a frantic time of WWII. Nazi U-Boats had swarmed America’s East shores and cut off our free access to the Atlantic. It also scared the heck out of East Coast boaters and fishermen. I thought about some of this and how it had even affected my family’s little grocery store in Centrahoma in 194344. We were cut off from all sorts of things, most importantly, coffee. People were pretty obsessed about not having their morning “Joe.”

It was the job of our Navy to change the status quo, but the destroyers built for that purpose had a top speed of about 17-knots. The German’s submarines could just flat outrun the very ships that were out to sink them. So, the Navy embarked on a crash program to build a new fleet of faster Destroyer Escorts. A few had already been built and these little diesel powered boats weren’t much faster than their predecessors. About 20-knots. Not quick enough. Plans were changed and since the Navy already had a large number of steam turbine engines on hand, they quickly changed over to conventional destroyer steam power. The Johnnie Hutchins could make 34-knots or 44 MPH.

The Navy mass produced these little beauties fully equipped with the latest sonars, radars and sub killing weapons right down there at Orange, Texas. It wasn’t long before Hitler withdrew his surviving subs and we soon had coffee, bananas and 10-cent coconuts galore at Bullard’s Grocery in Centrahoma.

But that was then and now on February 25th, (my birthday no less) in 1958 we were sending her to be part of the Navy’s Mothball Fleet. But my big worry was this: “How do I get out of Bayonne?” It had snowed over a foot of snow the last 2 or 3 days and I wondered how I would ever get out of the snow-piled parking lot. Turned out OK. The good old Navy sent a crew out to help dig out our cars and I was soon driving to Brooklyn. Homeward bound soon, I hoped.

A few of you may wonder what happened next. I languished a few days over there in an old Navy Receiving Station waiting for my “early out.” But alas, I was soon informed by an overweight Navy bureaucrat that I was “essential” and would be shipping out on another old DE the next day. “When you get back to New York we’ll see then.” But he went on, “I can keep you another year if need be.” Depressed beyond hope I packed my bag and the next morning reported back to the 5th floor.

Next morning I didn’t see my fat officer but was directed to get in line. I did. Somehow the vast bureaucracy had been messed up. Soon I learned that the line I was in took me through the process of leaving my Uncle Sam. Later that

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day I crept out to the main gate where I was stopped by two Marine Guards. They dumped out my carefully packed seabag. They found nothing stolen but I couldn’t get it all back in. I finally discarded my underwear and a few other things in the trash. I thought if I hurried and got out of town, they could never catch me again.

Sadly, I had forgotten it was St Patrick’s Day in New York City. It was many hours later that I crept across the G. Washington Bridge, squeezed through the Holland Tunnel and finally got on the New Jersey Turnpike. At Stonewall, two days later, Pat and I plotted our wedding to take place in the Summer of 1958.

Be sure and go to church Sunday. Thankfully, I will be there too.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail .com