So that’s about the whole story. We made three more patrols in the Eel and sank several more Japanese ships in the first two—during the last one we didn’t because there were none left to sink—and then the war ended and I had to fly here to Washington for a round of ceremonies I had never expected would happen to me. Keith is still with the ship in Pearl, and Admiral Small expects me back next week when he pins the Navy Cross on him. Everybody seems to have gone wild over our rescue of the three fliers. I’ve sat through half a dozen speeches about it, all embarrassingly overdone, and there’s a stack of mail piling up on the ship and at home in the same vein. Personally, I could tell about one thing that was an awful lot tougher, but that’s all in the past and best forgotten now.
I only had an hour in San Francisco waiting for my plane, so I had to call Hurry up instead of going to see her. Twice there was a busy signal, and I was beginning to fear I’d not get to talk to her at all, but I got a connection just as they announced the plane.
“Rich!” she breathed when I told her who it was. “Where are you? Can you come over?”
“Wish I could,” I told her. “But my plane is supposed to take off right away. I’ll see you on the way back from Washington.”
“I’m so proud of you, Rich. I think it’s just wonderful about your getting the Medal of Honor, I mean!”
“I’ve got to go to New London for a little while . . .”
“Good!” she exclaimed. “Maybe you can stop over in New Haven and see Laura. You know, she was out here for a whole month just a little while ago—just left, in fact. She’s a dear. What a dreadful shame about Jim!”
It was typical of Hurry to think about Laura instead of about her own loss. Maybe she instinctively knew that was what I wanted to talk about. “How is she?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s fine. She’s been working too hard and is a little thin, but I think she’s more beautiful than ever. She took it pretty hard about Jim, though, especially right after he was reported missing and some of those stories started to drift back. He should have written more often to her.”
“I don’t think anybody was able to write as often as he would have liked,” I began, but Hurry interrupted me again. She was talking rapidly, as though racing against time to get it all in.
“No, Rich. Listen to me. Jim’s been gone a year, now, and I know it’s dreadful to speak ill of the dead, but Laura was miserable. His letters kept getting fewer and shorter and more distant. She wrote him long letters, several times a week, and the measly little notes she got back were downright inconsiderate. And then there were those rumors about Jim playing around. Rich, why don’t you go and see her while you’re in New London?”
I kept leading, because I had to find out. “You know how she feels about me, Hurry,” I said.
Hurry’s voice took on a tinge of friendly exasperation. “Rich, what do you think I’m trying to tell you? Jim wrote her one time that he had finally understood how right you were about that qualification business. Then when she stayed with me we had plenty of time to talk—that’s when I found out most of this, though I suspected some of it already. I told Laura a lot of things that I had learned from Stocker, about how it was to be a skipper of a Navy ship, especially skipper of a submarine with the lives of all those men depending on you. I told her that Stocker had had to disqualify his Engineer Officer once, on the R-12, and the Squadron Commander spun him out of New London so fast that nobody knew he was gone until he had been transferred for several days . . .”
The loud-speaker near the phone booth blared the second warning for my plane. Hurry must have heard it too, for she practically stuttered out the last words in her rush to get them all in.
“Promise me you won’t tell her, Rich. At least not until after. But go and see her. I’ve always wished she had met you before Jim. You’re more her type. She was fascinated by Jim—who wouldn’t be?—but you’re the man she needs. And she’s always liked you, Rich. Even when she seemed not to, she really did.”
“Well, I . . .” I started to say, but the warning call came again.
“Go on! Please! don’t just stand there and argue. You’ve got to go and at least see her.” Hurry hung up.
I had to run to catch the plane, but the call was worth it. Now I’ve got just an hour and a half to get my suitcase and climb aboard the train for New Haven. There’ll be plenty of time for New London later. Right now I want to see Laura, just as soon as I can. The war is over. She needs me and I need her.
For once there’ll be plenty of time for everything.
End of transcription of tape recording #16MH, recorded by Commander E. J. Richardson, USN on 30 August 1945.
Transcribed on September 17, 1945, by Susan Cork, Y3c, USNR (W). Checked by Mary Kruschendorf, Ylc, USNR (W).
Submitted:
S. V. Matthews,
Captain, U. S. Navy