Jiill's Journal: A submariner from Amiret

One of my mom’s two brothers, Ken Schultz, served in the U.S. Marines. His younger brother, Dave, was a Navyman. Dave was a latecomer to the family, and many of you are getting to know him as our guest columnist, The Absent Uncle. At a family gathering about a month ago, Uncle Ken handed me an envelope with a newspaper clipping stuffed inside. I didn’t look at it that day. To be honest, I nestled it in a side pocket of my purse and forgot about it until cleaning out my purse last week. What appeared on the now discolored newspaper clipping was a story all about Ken. It was written in 2010 by Bill Palmer, a columnist for the Marshall (Minn.) Independent titled, “A submariner from Amiret.”

I was just a pipsqueak when Uncle Ken was discharged from the Marines in 1964. Other than the set of China he bought for my mom while in port in Japan, I knew very little about his service to our country. The column Bill Palmer wrote about Uncle Ken helped me get to know more about our family, about Ken and his experiences as a U.S. Marine.  

This week, in respect to Uncle Ken – and all veterans of all branches – I share with you Uncle Ken’s story:

Ken Schultz lives in rural Amiret where he also spent his early years.

“We had dairy cattle, pigs, chickens, and … grain,” he recalled.

Ken, his three older sisters, and one younger brother all had plenty of chores, including feeding cattle, pigs, and chickens, gathering eggs, picking strawberries, grinding feed, and helping with canning.

The kids attended country schools for their early grades.

“The first one was on the south side of Amiret,” Ken remembered. “That was an eight-cornered schoolhouse.”

Ken completed his education in Marshall, graduating from high school in 1960.

Following graduation, he joined a pole barn construction crew. Two crew members had served in the Navy and one in the Air Force.

“I listened to their stories all summer long and the Navy sounded much better than the Air Force,” Ken said. “So I said this is what I want to do.”

That decision quickly changed Ken’s life. He returned home on a Thursday in October; met with a Navy recruiter on Friday; took a bust to Minneapolis on Monday; and boarded a flight to San Diego the same day.

Ken entered Boot Camp at Naval Training Center San Diego.

“The first couple of days were mainly shots, haircuts, indoctrination, uniforms, sea bag, and all that good stuff,” he explained, “and then they started you on calisthenics and marching.”

“I thought it was an easy life, myself,” he explained, “because (on the farm) we were working sunup to sundown.”

There was one area, however, that Ken found challenging.

“I’m not a swimmer at all,” he said laughing, “but I managed to get around a pool far enough to convince them I could swim.”

He stayed at San Diego after Boot Camp for Storekeepers school where he learned about managing replacement parts aboard ship.

“They sent me to the USS Nereus, a sub tender in San Diego,” Ken remembered.

The Nereus was a repair and supply ship for submarines.

“It was a big ship, but it was a nurse ship,” Ken said. “I joined the Navy to see the world and I was getting upset. I’d volunteer for anything to get off that ship because it just didn’t go anywhere.”

Ken issued parts to storekeepers off submarines and envied their stories about cruises to the Western Pacific.

“A storekeeper came off the Queenfish one day and said he was getting transferred and they needed a storekeeper,” Ken recalled.

Ken interviewed with the sub’s executive officer who took a chance on this sailor who had not attended submarine school.

“The next morning, I had orders and a couple days later we were headed to WestPac,” he said.

The Queenfish, a World War II fleet submarine, was a whole new ballgame for Ken. “She was a little over 300 feet long … 16 feet wide on the inside; and we carried 80 guys,” he explained.

A Storekeeper aboard a submarine does more than issue parts.

“When we went to sea … you had to do other things,” Ken explained. “You had to stand watch in the sonar, ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), helm, bow planes, stern planes – wherever they were short somebody.”

Submariners must learn everything about the sub’s operations, a process known as qualifying on the boat. Describing the crewmembers who supervised qualifying, Ken said, “They made sure that you knew it – nobody was going to let you slide because their lives depended on you knowing it.”

Life aboard the old submarines was challenging.

“I slept in the forward torpedo room and had a pull-down bunk that was underneath a torpedo,” Ken said. “We slept 12 guys in that little cramped space.”

“We made all our fresh water,” Ken continued, “but it was used for cooking and eating, so basically showers were non-existent on the Queenfish. We had no air conditioning, so the boats would get hot and you always smelled of diesel fuel or exhaust.”

Those overripe conditions aboard the old subs led to a reputation for their crews. Ken said, “They called us sewer pipe or pigboat sailors.”

Rough seas posed another challenge in the older submarines.

“If it was tough weather we could not go down,” Ken said. “We had to ride it out on the surface. I was on watch once (in the sail) … and it really got rough … the water came up and all of the sudden it was over your head – you just held your breath and then pretty soon you’d pop up, look around, and then plow into the next (wave).”

Ken laughed and said, “That’s when you wonder what a farm boy from Minnesota who doesn’t like water is doing up here.” But there were compensating experiences for the sometimes-grim life aboard boats.

“Submarines were like one family,” Ken said, “and they had good meals all the time. Any time you went to a foreign country, it was special – that was fun.”

Ken served aboard three boats: the Queenfish, the Greenfish and the Black Fin.

They made port calls in Austria, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and Hawaii.

He also paid a memorable visit to Vladivostok, home to the Soviet Union’s Pacific Fleet Cold War tensions between the U.S. and USSR meant the blackfin approached and reconnoitered the Russian port city underwater and undetected.

Ken received his honorable discharge at Treasure Island Naval Station in San Francisco Bay in August 1964.

He explained what he learned from his service, saying, “You could do just about anything if you put your mind to it and were willing to learn.”

Thank you for your service, Ken.

And thank you to all of our veterans who have served and those who are serving.