1

VETERAN: Russell Fairchild INTERVIEW DATE: November 19, 2014 TRANSCRIBER: Shannon Niekamp TRANSCRIPTION DATE: November 20, 2014 2

KATIE AMBLER: Today is November 19th, 2014, and we are interviewing Russell Fairchild at the courthouse in Adams County. Mr. Fairchild is how old today? RUSSELL FAIRCHILD: 83. AMBLER: Having been born on July -- I'm sorry. FAIRCHILD: December. AMBLER: Thank you. And what's your birth date? FAIRCHILD: December 19, 1930. AMBLER: All right. My name is Katie Ambler and I'll be the interviewer, and Shannon Niekamp will be the court reporter for this interview. Mr. Fairchild, when and where were you born? FAIRCHILD: I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 19, 1930. AMBLER: And who were your parents and what were their occupations? FAIRCHILD: My mother was a housewife and mother. My dad worked for Ford Motor Company initially. And then the Depression came along and he worked a lot of odd jobs. It was a struggle for him during -- until World War II came along and sort of opened a lot up, jobs up. AMBLER: What was your mother's name? FAIRCHILD: My mother's maiden name was Gladys Marie Weineken. AMBLER: Okay. And what was your father's full name? FAIRCHILD: My father's full name was Russell Samuel Fairchild. AMBLER: Okay. Did you have siblings? FAIRCHILD: Yes. I had three brothers. A brother a year younger than I and then twin brothers. Not my twin but twins to each 3

other six years younger than I. My brother a year younger than I passed away three years ago. AMBLER: Now, so you were the oldest of the four? FAIRCHILD: Yes. AMBLER: Okay. Of the four brothers, did others serve in the military? FAIRCHILD: Yes. My two younger brothers served in the Army primarily in Cuba. This is before we had all the trouble with Cuba. AMBLER: What were you doing before you entered service? FAIRCHILD: I was a student at St. Louis College of Pharmacy. I graduated from there in February 22nd, 1952. March 23rd, I was on my way to Newport, Rhode Island, to Naval OCS. Prior to that, I had applied for admission to Naval OCS in December because I had already had eight postponements for the draft to get through school. And by the way, we had to maintain a C advantage. If we didn't, we were in the Army. AMBLER: Interesting. FAIRCHILD: Yeah. Well that was no problem, but I mean, I don't think they would get away with that today. AMBLER: I doubt it. How old were you then when you entered service in March of '52? FAIRCHILD: I was 21. AMBLER: Okay. Which branch of the military did you serve? You said Naval OCS so you were Navy, correct? FAIRCHILD: Navy, right. AMBLER: And what war did you serve in? FAIRCHILD: The Korean. 4

AMBLER: What's the highest rank you achieved during your time in service? FAIRCHILD: Lieutenant Junior Grade. I did -- after I was discharged, I did receive my commission to full lieutenant. I refused it but they gave it to me anyway. AMBLER: On what basis did you refuse it? FAIRCHILD: I had served three years and four months. I was away from my family. I had four children born. Missed their first year. My wife and I missed our first year together after we were married. I went overseas right away. I thought I'd given enough. I didn't, didn't want to serve anymore. AMBLER: Understood. I think you sort of answered this question but to be clear, did you enlist or were your drafted? FAIRCHILD: I enlisted. AMBLER: Okay. And why did you choose specifically the Navy? FAIRCHILD: Well, there was an ONOC office in St. Louis, Office of Naval Officer Cacuman, which I was aware of. I wasn't aware of any other service with such a facility, and so I simply went down and talked to them and they were tickled to death. AMBLER: What do you recall about your first few days or first few weeks in service? FAIRCHILD: Oh boy. Yeah. First time away from home, strange part of the country. It was March. It was cold in Rhode Island. Very structured living conditions. You know, it was just, it was new to me but it happens to every fellow that goes into service. 5

AMBLER: How did you feel? FAIRCHILD: Feel? AMBLER: Yeah. What do you remember about thinking about at all at the time? FAIRCHILD: Well, it was kind of hard to be too introspective. We were, I mean, we were just pushed to the limit. We were lights out at 10:00 p.m. We weren't supposed to be up doing anything but we found out very quickly that the duty officer went off duty at midnight. We would get up and study by flashlight just to get through. I was, to a certain extent, I felt a degree of patriotism. I felt like communism was an evil thing and I wanted to fight it. I -- and above that, beyond that, I wanted to get through and get my commission because I wanted to get married and I needed the money. AMBLER: So you talked about being in Rhode Island. Where were you specifically for that first training? FAIRCHILD: Newport, Rhode Island. AMBLER: And when you left Newport training, where did you go on your first assignment? FAIRCHILD: I went to my first assignment was to the USS Virgo which I quickly found had duty was in ammunition. First thing I did was take out more insurance. Second thing I did was tell my wife very little. I told her it was a cargo ship which was true. Just didn't tell her what the cargo was. AMBLER: Right. Tell me a little bit about the Virgo. About how many people were stationed on the Virgo? FAIRCHILD: We had a crew of 300. There were 18 officers. Of 6

those 18, four or five were junior officers. We had some -- thank goodness, we had several warrant officers which are men who have come up through the ranks and gotten their commission the hard way and they knew what they were doing so we learned from them. AMBLER: And what did you learn in that first assignment? FAIRCHILD: I was fortunate to have a really good skipper, Captain Outersan. He was schrier captain, World War II. Very intelligent man. He made the junior officers keep a journal and he provided them with a list of questions periodically, like every couple weeks and you had to answer those questions in the journal. Then you had to submit that to him for grading so it was, he was serious. It was good training. Thank God I had him. I learned quickly. AMBLER: Do you recall others besides the skipper that you felt like you learned from and what were they like? FAIRCHILD: I learned from every one of them. They were all proficient at what they were doing. The junior officers were -- in four months, you can't learn everything. But the engineering officer, Mr. Divans, was excellent. Mr. Barton was the first lieutenant which is essentially cargo officer. He had a couple of warrant officers under him. And, of course, all your enlisted men, your petty officers are like sergeants in the Army. They knew what they were doing, too. So there were enough experienced people that they could accommodate us dummies and we learned. AMBLER: New officers. New officers. FAIRCHILD: Yeah. Yeah. 7

AMBLER: Did you receive any kind of specialized training either on the Virgo or later in your time in service? FAIRCHILD: Most of my training on the Virgo was on the job training. I went aboard in September, and by January, I was standing underway watches. I was officer of the deck in charge, which speaks well for the training we got. I was sent to crypto school in San Diego. That was two weeks and that gave me a lot of sleepless nights because on the Virgo, the Virgo was not designed to work right out of the holds so all the requirements had to be received the day before and then they worked all night breaking everything out on deck, closing up the holds and that required a lot of messaging back and forth. And that was all encrypted and decrypted and it was the junior officers, myself primarily that had to do that. So I would go for days without getting out of my clothes. Just flap down on a bunk, go to sleep. Lot of hard work. Not much danger but a lot of hard work. AMBLER: Okay. Let's back up for just a second. Crypto is cryptography school so code breaking? FAIRCHILD: Yeah. AMBLER: And explain a little bit more about why the Virgo couldn't accommodate -- had to have that overnight of decrypting, recrypting and decrypting. Explain that just a little better. FAIRCHILD: It was just, well, it was just the way it was rigged. Ammo ships are designed, open up the hold, and then go down and fish stuff out of the hold and I don't know if you know 8

what underway replenishment is but the ships sail along side by side at about eight knots. They have to steer into each other a little bit because the bow waves are forcing the ships apart. And the line is put across and the receiving ship either hooks it to a ring over there or, in the case of carriers, they had their own winches and the ships sail along side by side. The ships are connected by the wire with a hook in the middle. The other ship pays out, our ship takes in, they pick it up off our deck, and then takes a lot of skill on the winchman. The ships are rolling and to get that across and then drop it down on the deck over there, the Virgo could not work right out of the holds. AMBLER: I understand. FAIRCHILD: And I can't tell you exactly why but it was just they weren't rigged for it. But my second ship, the Mount Baker, was so rigged. And we would steam up the east coast of Korea, we'd give out this ammo. A cruiser would come alongside and then we'd give them what they needed and a carrier would come along. We never carried anything heavier than 500 pound bombs. We gave them napalm. And we never serviced the battleships. They had enough ammo, they didn't need service. The bigger ships we serviced were the carriers and then the cruisers. We went up in a task group. There were usually two oilers, that is two fuel ships, an aviation supply ship, an ammo ship, and sometimes a command ship. And we would have three either rock or tie frickets as submarine screen. And we would be out about two 9

weeks, sometimes three. When we expended everything, then we would go back to Sasebo, load up again, and we would go out again. It was just constant. AMBLER: So you were based in Sasebo, Japan? FAIRCHILD: Yes. AMBLER: And you would make these ammo basically, runs; right? FAIRCHILD: Yeah. AMBLER: Into the eastern coast of Korea? FAIRCHILD: Right. Right. At Ulsan and Pohang were Marine air groups and they would come out with ducks. Do you know what a duck is? It's a -- it can go on land or it can go on water. And they had no port that we could get into so we would have to anchor out and they would come out, load them up with bombs and they would go in. There was just a constant stream of them. AMBLER: How did you adapt to military life? FAIRCHILD: I was young. AMBLER: Physical regimen didn't bother you? FAIRCHILD: No. No. I had one thing going for me. I still have it, unfortunately. I sleep very, very lightly. And when you wake me up, I'm there. And that served me well. AMBLER: How did you feel about the barracks, the food, the social life? FAIRCHILD: What social life? You know, it was just all part of the game. I formed some friendships which I still maintain. It was -- lot of good guys. There were a few people I wasn't too crazy about. But I thought OCS was interesting -- my philosophy at OCS 10

-- there was 600 in our battalion, our class. And we had one officer, he was a full lieutenant, Annapolas, Annapolas graduate, and we had a first class petty officer for our whole battalion. You can't possibly know everybody. I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible and to the point that right before we graduated, they were, we were taking turns drilling the battalion, and the chief petty officer said to the lieutenant, well, he said, you, pointing at me. And then he said, what's his name. I said, I've been successful. I graduated right in the middle of the class. AMBLER: We've talked a little about your job and your assignment. Obviously the OCS that you're referring to is Officer Candidate School, correct? FAIRCHILD: Uh-huh. AMBLER: And you graduated from OCS in about September of '52? FAIRCHILD: No. I graduated in -- on the 24th of July. AMBLER: In July. FAIRCHILD: 24th of July. I was commissioned the morning of the 26th. I flew to St. Louis, met my intended or my intended met me at the airport. She had everything arranged. I had my blood work done -- in those days you had to have blood work done -- up at Newport, mailed it in to St. Louis. We were married at 11:00 a.m. mass the following morning. I had not attended a rehearsal. I just watched her out of the corner of my eye and did whatever she did. And we had a week-long honeymoon and then I left for the west coast. My ship's home port was San Francisco. AMBLER: You talked about life on the Virgo. 11

FAIRCHILD: Uh-huh. AMBLER: Okay. From the Virgo you went to which ship? FAIRCHILD: I went to the USS Mount Baker. The Virgo was in the Philippines at the time. They flew me back to Japan. Horrible flight. We hit a storm. The pilot was throwing up. But we did make it okay. And they flew me into the Atsugi Airforce Base right outside of Tokyo. And from there, I took a seaplane to Sasebo which landed in Sasebo harbor and then got the next ship. AMBLER: Now Mount Baker -- FAIRCHILD: Was an ammo ship. AMBLER: Okay. And you said this is a similar type of ship except this ship could load from the hold. FAIRCHILD: It was approximately the same size, 459 feet long, carried about five thousand tons of cargo. The difference was the Virgo was steam turbine, this was a diesel and it actually had huge pistons and it was little different but still same size ship and the same duty. AMBLER: So similar duties for you both ships? FAIRCHILD: Yeah. In the interim, in the interim between my -- I got to go back home back to the States with the Virgo and they put it in dry dock -- it needed a lot of work. And during that interim period, they signed the truce in July of '53. And then when I got back to, when I got back on the Virgo to Sasebo, then I flew to -- I'm sorry. And then we went down to the Philippines and they flew me back and that's when I picked up the Mount Baker. From that point on, there 12

was no more, no more runs up to the east coast of Korea. It was, it was a lot of training and hauling stuff around. Actual cargo, not ammo. AMBLER: I was going to say, so the sum of the cargo was not ammunitions? FAIRCHILD: That's right. That's right. In fact, one load we did get back one more time to the States for repair and on our return -- we always carried something. On our return trip, we carried beer. Carried a cargo of beer. Keeping those sailors out of the beer was just a nightmare. AMBLER: Was this Japanese beer? FAIRCHILD: No. This was Budweiser. AMBLER: This was Budweiser? Oh, fascinating. What kind of memories do you have from your service abroad? FAIRCHILD: What kind of memories? AMBLER: Uh-huh. FAIRCHILD: I have some very fond memories. For one thing, it made me self-confident. It made me a leader. I wasn't that way when I went in. I was rather shy and having responsibilities, especially the special weapons responsibilities, changed me. It did. It did. It just did. I have been in management the rest of my life. So I thank the service for that. I don't thank them for being away from my family for so long. And what I want to -- when I was leaving the ship, first of all, the captain wouldn't let me go when I wanted to go because I wanted to be home for the birth of our twins, but he wouldn't let me go. So then before I left, he gave me a pep talk which was 13

essentially your country needs you. And I said, no, captain, my family needs me. My community needs me. I was a pharmacist and there's no talking me out of it. AMBLER: The community that you are talking about, which community was this? FAIRCHILD: St. Louis. St. Louis. Pharmacists are in short supply. That's a wonderful profession for a woman. There's no heavy lifting. It's all indoors. You use your brain and not your muscle. AMBLER: What was the weather like? FAIRCHILD: The winters in Korea and on land were brutal. I mean, they were brutal. At sea and even in the coastal waters, they would get below freezing but not as cold as on land. And all our guide wires which were normally about that thick (indicating) were like that from the ice from the spray that would land on them and ice formed on the deck and it was uncomfortable. AMBLER: Did you ever witness combat? FAIRCHILD: I did not. I was -- we were never fired upon. Twice we had air warnings where they sent migs out after us. Our carrier pilots took care of that. We never saw them. There was an occasional floating mine. I don't know whether they just got loose or whether the Koreans were doing that deliberately. They had no Navy. They had no Navy but every once in a while, there would be a floating mine come down through the middle of the formation. And we usually had a destroyer with us and it would drop back and sink the mine with gun fire. Now I never saw one 14

explode. They just hold it and it sank. We transferred personnel. We had one doctor for the task group. Steaming along side by side and they transferred him across. AMBLER: By guide wire? FAIRCHILD: No. With a manilla, manilla rope and rather than have him on the winch, they had a work party of about 20 guys running with this rope one way and then and somebody telling them back, back this way. We got a few of them wet but we never dropped anybody. We always had a destroyer as lifeguard behind and, of course, they had lifejackets on. These were young guys. They were not thrilled with this operation. I've got a lot of pictures of that. AMBLER: What kind of friendships or comradery -- you talked a little about forming some lifelong friendships. FAIRCHILD: Yes. One of my classmates from Naval OCS and a fellow that I become very, very close to, we went to the Virgo together. And then I got transferred out, he got transferred out, and my only contact with him was we were steaming up from the Philippines on one run or yeah, Philippines. It was at night, and you know what they talk about ships that pass in the night, he -- the ships always identify each other and he must have been on watch and he sent over a message to me but by the time I got it and got up on deck, it was just a light disappearing into the darkness. Another close friend lives in Panama Beach, Florida, and I drop down there every once in a while to see him. And we've stayed close through the years. AMBLER: What was the first gentleman's name, the one that past 15

on the ship in the night? FAIRCHILD: I have no idea. I can't remember that. AMBLER: And the gentleman who you still see who lives in Panama City, Florida. What's his name? FAIRCHILD: His name is Paul Piret. He never married. He's a great guy. Just lot of fun. Lot of fun. We went to a restaurant one time and went down there and he ordered twice baked potatoes, and she said, I'm sorry, we don't have twice baked potatoes. He said, well do you have thrice baked potatoes. Yeah. Anyway. AMBLER: He sounds like a character. FAIRCHILD: Yeah. Another one of my classmates from college pharmacy followed the same route about two years after I did, and he lives down right very close to Pensacola, Florida, and I drop down to see him every once in a while. Although he was not in at the same time I was in. AMBLER: What's his name? FAIRCHILD: John Griffon. He was best man in our wedding. AMBLER: How did you keep in touch with your wife and your kids and your friends back home. FAIRCHILD: Oh my gosh. We have boxes of letters. I wrote as often as I could, probably about twice a week and she wrote more often. We, we hooked up one time coming back, we hooked up a ship to shore, radioed somehow through the telephone service, and that cost an arm and a leg, but I talked to her while we were about 100 miles out. It's not like it is today. When I was in school, pharmacy college, she was in 16

nurse's training in San Francisco, and I called her one Christmas, set it up for her, she was in her dorm, there was only one phone on the floor, told her what time I was going to call, she guarded the phone so nobody else would get it. I called her. I had to go through four operators to get to her. It cost me fifteen dollars for three minutes. Contrast that fifteen dollars was a lot of money back then because I was making $330 a month as an ensign. AMBLER: You talked about the letters. How did the letters get to you? FAIRCHILD: They got to us in various ways. Of course it was all air flight from the States to Sasebo. If we were up on a line and there was a ship coming up, they would bring mail up to us and it would be transferred over at sea. Otherwise, we picked up our mail in Sasebo from the Naval base there. AMBLER: So if you didn't have it delivered to you while you were away -- FAIRCHILD: We just didn't get it for a while. AMBLER: You'd just pick up several letters at a time? FAIRCHILD: That's right. That's right. One of the few benefits we got was when we were up in what was considered the war zone, our mail was free. We didn't have to put a stamp on it. Of course a stamp was only a nickel then. AMBLER: What did you guys do for recreation when you were off duty? FAIRCHILD: Well, we -- I got, wherever I was, I tried to break out of the port area which was, which was bars and bawdy houses, whatever you want to call it, and get into the 17

countryside just to see the people, talk to the people and see what was going on. Bought a set of dishes in Japan. I went to the place where they make them. Saw the whole process. You know the gold around the plates, it was a kid, looked like he was about 12 years old and he had a phonograph turntable and he would put a plate on that turntable and he would tap it until he got it absolutely centered and he had a paint brush and he put the gold paint and he'd hold it on the edge. That's how he put the gold on the side of the plate. Really interesting. The ovens, they had to bake the dishes and then they had to let them cool for three days. If they opened them up right away, they'd shatter because of the cold air. Interesting. Interesting. And people were -- everywhere I went, people are people. Just like we are. I really like the Japanese people. I like the Filipino people even more but there again, I got off, went to church in some of these countries, the Philippines' church windows were all open, birds were in the church flying around which was a little bit discomforting but. AMBLER: During your time, what medals or citations were you awarded? FAIRCHILD: Well, the three, the three that we listed there. AMBLER: So the Korean Service Medal with two stars. FAIRCHILD: Yes. Yes. AMBLER: National Defense -- FAIRCHILD: Now the only one that I actually got a medal for -- I 18

don't know if they're available for the others was the UN Medal but I actually got a medal coin for that. AMBLER: You also received a National Defense Service Medal as well? FAIRCHILD: Yeah. Yeah, I got the ribbon. I don't ever recall getting a medal, an actual medal or medal. AMBLER: Piece of hardware. FAIRCHILD: Yeah. AMBLER: At the end of, the end of the war is a little bit difficult because obviously you say they signed the truce and you were then continued your service. But when you separated from service, tell me a little bit about coming home. FAIRCHILD: Well, of course, I got home once a year not for my benefit but because the ship needed either repair or renovation to accept some new equipment. When I, when I got back, the twins were two weeks old. My wife was absolutely exhausted. Her mother was there helping her. And I said I would take the night feedings. You should sleep. Of course, I had to report every day to Treasure Island. There was a lot of paperwork to be done, to muster out. And this is going to sound like unbelievable but had a boy and a girl, they were good-sized, they were full-sized babies, both of them. My wife, you saw her, she's not large. I could, I would get them up. Of course in those days, there was no collapsible bottles. They were glass. I put a water bath on, put two bottles in it, I would change them. By that time, the milk would be warm. I would prop one, hold the other, burp them, put them back to bed. All this in 20 19

minutes. I'm not kidding you. They were like ravenous. They sucked that bottle. In fact, they would suck the bottle so dry, create such a vacuum, the nipples would pop down into the bottle if I didn't catch them in time. AMBLER: When you separated from service, what was the last location before you came back to home? FAIRCHILD: Treasure Island. AMBLER: Treasure Island. Okay. FAIRCHILD: And we drove back from San Francisco to St. Louis. We had a Plymouth four-door sedan, a Cranbrook, the smallest, well, cheapest one they made. We had two car beds, I had two car beds, bench-type seat. The twins were in the front seat with me. These car beds -- of course, we didn't have any seat belts at that time. My wife was in the back with the two older kids and we drove, took us four days. We had to stop early, get a kitchenette because we had to make formula every day. Get the kids down, get them fed, and everything and all that sort of thing. But you know, we were young. We were young. There was no limit to what you could do when you're young. There is obviously now a limit. AMBLER: How did your community receive you? FAIRCHILD: I don't think anybody knew there was a war on. I'll tell you two stories. I went to Sears. First of all, I got a job, Hesselberg Drug. The next day, I went -- I needed a stove. Electric stoves had just come out. This was in '55. I went to Sears. I said I would like one of those electric 20

stoves, but I can't afford it right now. I'll have to buy it on time. Okay. So he said, well, you'll have to fill out this questionnaire. So when we got to how long have you been employed at your job, I said one day. Well, sorry. Can't do it. That was the first thing. The second thing was in St. Louis, you have to have a city license to drive in St. Louis. It's a sticker. Goes on your windshield. And to get that sticker, you have to prove that you paid your personal property tax. So what is personal property? You own a watch, that's personal property. You have to declare it and pay a tax on it. A lot of stuff like that. Well, I'd been in the service for three years. The fellow said have you got proof you've paid your personal property tax. I said, no, I do not. I said I've been overseas for three years. I was in the service. Sorry. We can't issue your license. I said, let me talk to your boss. I got my license but that was the sort of thing we ran into. Wasn't as bad as Vietnam. They just weren't aware that anything was going on. Life didn't -- wasn't interrupted very much. Vietnam was another story. AMBLER: How did you adjust to civilian life? FAIRCHILD: Listen, I was running so hard, I didn't have time to think about it. We had four kids, Mary was expecting our fifth. We had seven children in six years. Ultimately we had ten children in 14 years. I was too busy to think about it. It was -- I found out a lot. When you think you can't go another step, yeah, you can. When you think you're at 21

rock bottom for energy, you got about two hours left. AMBLER: Do you belong to any kind of veteran service organizations? FAIRCHILD: American Legion. AMBLER: And how long have you been a member of the Legion? FAIRCHILD: Five years. I waited a long time to join. I waited until I was retired. AMBLER: What have you done besides managing all those children since you've separated from service? FAIRCHILD: Well, I went to work for a hospital. I went to work for Hesselberg Drug. It was a prescription mill like a factory. I didn't like it. I only worked there about six months. Then I went to a hospital. It was an all black hospital in St. Louis. St. Mary's Infirmary. Worked for a nun. I had -- I liked it there. The personnel were all black. I was one of the few white people that worked there. But it was in a bad neighborhood but there was some nice people there. Then I lived in St. Louis County so I got a job in St. Louis County. I worked there. It was a chain store. I didn't like it. I worked there about six months and then a job came up in Quincy at King Drug. I don't know if you remember King Drug. I worked for them. Worked for them about five years. Then I went to work for St. Mary Hospital and I liked it. I loved hospital work. It was more challenging than retail work. I worked there until they were ready to sell the hospital and I left and I went to work for Quincy Medical 22

Group. Oh, I was director of pharmacy at St. Mary's after it took me about two years and then put me in charge. I was director for over 20 years and then I went to work for the Quincy Clinic. And I worked part time for Blessing just as staff work. And I retired completely when I was 73. I don't know what to tell you. I'm just as busy now it seems like but I'm not employed. I'll tell you I don't know how government affords it, social security. Of course, we have lived a very conservative lifestyle and we don't spend a lot of money. But I mean, every month, the government drives a dump truck and dumps money on my driveway. And I have a retirement from St. Mary, also. Life is good. AMBLER: In terms of your time in service, did you guys always have the supplies that you needed? Was everything -- did things run according to plan generally? FAIRCHILD: Absolutely not. As an example, I had charge of the special weapons and I'll leave that up to your imagination but at least I had -- was in charge of the conventional explosive portion of the special weapons. We had to inspect those, keep them temperature controlled, and they had bags of desiccant in them which, after a time, picks up enough moisture that they're not doing the job. Tried to get more desiccant. I couldn't do it. I mean, we just couldn't find anybody to get it. So what we did was -- I and one other officer helped me -- we took the desiccant out of the weapons, took them down to the galley, put them on a pan and put them in the oven and dried them 23

out, put them back in the bags and put them back in the weapons. I hope that -- as far as I know, that did the trick, but I couldn't get anybody interested in helping us. AMBLER: Did you have anything that you kept on you or kept with your belongings that you kept for luck? FAIRCHILD: For luck? No. No. AMBLER: What was the food like? FAIRCHILD: Food was surprisingly good I thought. Of course it depends on what you're used to. I was -- I grew up in a lower middle class family. We had a very basic diet that continued in service. Interesting, they -- one of the traditions in the Navy is for every meal, the cooks bring a tray of food up for the officer on deck. I'm talking about whether the ship is underway or whether the ship is in port. Whoever has the deck watch gets a tray of food and the officer has to sample it and say whether it's good or not. And usually the guys on watch who were always hungry, they would finish up the tray. AMBLER: Did you ever go back to school when you returned home? FAIRCHILD: No. Not per say. I did go back to programs, sometimes extensive programs like a week long to sharpen my pharmaceutical knowledge and skills. As far as the Navy was concerned, no. And I was forced to remain in the reserve for a number of years but as soon as my reserve obligation was up, I got out. AMBLER: Did you ever use any of the military benefits provided like the GI Bill or the home loan? FAIRCHILD: I did. Our first home I bought on the GI Bill. It 24

was -- I got a five and a half percent rate which is more than what you get now. But yes, and I do appreciate that. AMBLER: How do you feel the military affected your life? You talked about this a little bit, but if you'll just give us a little more. Was there some other significant impact from service? FAIRCHILD: As a father controlling ten kids, it was invaluable. First of all, by that time, I had toughen up. I wasn't a bleeding heart anymore. We -- one of the things that we did in service, the executive officer -- the captain had his own cabin and suite of rooms. The executive officer sat at the head of the table, next senior on his right, next senior on his left, and so on down. I was always down at end of the table as a junior officer. The exec would not let anybody leave the table until all had finished eating. He said he wasn't going to have the hubbub of people jumping up and down and running hither and yon. Secondly, you had to ask him permission to leave the table. I adopted that for the family. The kids could not leave the table without asking permission. They would not be granted permission until all had finished eating. And at supper time which is the only meal we had where we were all together and we always ate supper together, everyone had a chance to speak. Went around the table. Have you got anything, what happened at school today, etc. etc. And they all went around the table and they all got a chance to talk. And then when that was done, then they 25

could leave the table. And they still, even though they're -- our older ones are in their 60s and almost all are in their 50s, they still needle me about that sometimes and say, may I leave the table. AMBLER: Were there other life lessons you felt like you learned from the service? FAIRCHILD: There probably are. I'm trying to think. I learned don't give up. And you'll never know what you're capable of until you're put to the test. And when you think you probably can't, you probably can if you devote enough time and effort to it. AMBLER: How has military service impacted your feelings about war or the military in general? FAIRCHILD: I think the military is entirely necessary particularly in today's world. I'm not sure the volunteer military is adequate or fair. I think everybody should serve at some point. And I have mixed feelings about women particularly serving in combat. Women are life givers. They're not life takers. They serve more than men do but they serve in a different way. As I say, my wife served. It angers me that I get all the credit when she gets none when what she was doing was more important than what I was doing. AMBLER: Is there a message you would like to leave for people who hear or will view this interview in future generations? FAIRCHILD: He did his job. AMBLER: Is there anything that you feel like I haven't asked or that we should discuss or anything you want added to this interview? 26

FAIRCHILD: I'd probably run on and on too long. AMBLER: Well, I want to thank you for your service. And I would -- oh, we need to mention real quickly, the lovely lady in one of the photos is your wife. What's her name? FAIRCHILD: Mary. AMBLER: Okay. And she was the one that you went to meet and marry during your time in service, right? FAIRCHILD: That's correct. That's correct. And her dad was dead so she paid for everything. Yeah. She's my kind of woman. AMBLER: And you have been married how many years? FAIRCHILD: 62. AMBLER: Happy times. Thank you so much, sir. I really appreciate your service. FAIRCHILD: You're welcome.