Uncle John Moakley (1909-1994) in 1930
Uncle John was born February 23, 1909, at The Moakley’s house on Toplff Street, Dorchester. When I was growing up he lived on the first floor of our three-decker, with my grandparents. My earliest memories of him were as a college student, with a raccoon coat, light gray spats, the whole 1930’s college scene. Most cars in those days were black, but the Boston College colors were maroon and gold, so he managed to buy a maroon car. His friend, Red Goggin, would climb the fence from Navillus Terrace and they would car pool to B.C.
When he graduated from B.C., of course jobs were scarce as hen’s teeth, and employers gave preference ot men with families to support, because single men could stay at home with their parents, but WNAC offered to let him watch the ball games free if he would read the commercials, and if he did a good job, they would hire him when they had an opening. Thus began his career as a radio announcer. Years later, on the strength of his having taken one physics course at B.C., they sent him to evening school to learn to be a radio engineer. Later, when television came along, he became a TV engineer.
Being single and living at home, he had money for hobbies. He had a sailboat, a sporty little car with a rumble seat, and he flew airplanes. Quite a role model for a young boy to have.
Thanksgiving, 1941, Mumma broke into tears at the table, saying, “This is the last time we will all be together.” I had no idea why she thought that, but I didn’t know Daddy Moakley had cancer, and Uncle John has signed up to join the Navy.
He was one of the “ninety day wonders. In their haste to build up a navy for the war they were certain would involve us eventually, they were trying to take anybody with a college degree and make him the equivalent of an Annapolis graduate. He had barely begun the course when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and we lost most of the navy we had.
As soon as the war started, the Navy closed off all our ports to keep German submarines out, and jpeople who had yachts could not use them. Rather that spend a fortune maintaining yachtws they could not use, most yacht owners donated them to the Navy. Since Uncle John had been messing around with small boats, he was put in command of a cabin cruiser. He thought that was going to be a pretty good deal, but yachts are not designed for use in the winter, and it was only good duty in the summer.
It also turned out to be more dangerous duty than he had expected. Instead of patrolling the New England coast, watching for submarines, he found himself part of the naval support force for the Normandy invasion. His little cabin cruiser was used to run errands between the larger ships. I guess the German artillery gunners were more interested in larger and more important targets, so he was not hit.
On the way home, off the coast of Greenland, where the water is cold, even in the summer, of of the sailors fell overboard. His crew had had plenty of “man overboard” drills, but Uncle John had had a summer job as a lifeguard, and, just to make sure the guy didn’t drown, he jumped in to rescue him. He told us later, “If any of the other guys had done that, of course I would have put him in for a medal, but I was the skipper, and you just don’t put yourself in for a medal. Besides, my uniform shrank, and I had to buy a new one.”
After the way, Uncle John spent many years in the Naval Reserve. Experienced officers spent their summer reserve duty as teachers, and antisubmarine officers were assigned to submarines, while submariners were assigned to destroyers. That way they knew how the other guy would be thinking. One day, while a destroyer was chasing him, Uncle John put up the periscope to see where the destroyer was. It was directly overhead. The periscope punched a small hole in the bottom of the destroyer, and was pretty badly mauled itself.
One day, Uncle John was being given a tour of a new type of submarine, and after showing the group around the sub, the skipper chose Uncle John at random, and said, “OK, take her down.” Uncle John had paid attention, and felt confident to take over the sub, but suddenly, a Chief Petty officer shouted that the sub was taking on water, and Uncle John went through the procedure for surfacing in a hurry. Later, Uncle John said to the Chief, “That was a hell of a thing to throw at somebody in a drill, pretending we were taking on water”, and the Chief said, “Oh, no sir, we would never say something like that if it wasn’t true. We really were taking on water.” Suddenly Uncle John felt weak in the knees.
For a while Uncle John was assigned to teaching sonar. He managed to persuade the Navy that to learn to use sonar properly, you need to use it in both shallow water and very deep water, and for that you should be based on a seamount, like Hawaii or Bermuda. Uncle John got to spend several summer training sessions in Bermuda.