Keith Tillotson
Engineering School (1942)
So they sent me up to Alameda, which is right by Oakland – across the bay – to the Officer's Training School. I spent about six months up there and I came out a second engineer.
I'll never forget that train ride. You know, the early days of the war they had blackouts. They wanted all towns blacked out on the coast. They were worried about the Japanese I guess. So here's this train, blacked out. Things over the windows, you couldn't see. And stuffy – man, that was a rough ride. It was about 500 miles. Seemed like they stopped about every twenty miles for some reason – I don't know why. I never wanted to ride that train again.
So I went to the training station. It was a pretty tough course. Some of the instructors were civilians, but most of them were Coast Guard instructors. And I'm one of the few that had service in the Navy. So we're out marching on the field. A lot of them didn't know anything about marching. But they had the officer in charge, the one that had to give the orders. They're trying to copy like they did the training in the Navy. They'd stand next to me and say, "What do I do?" And I'd tell 'em oblique left and squad right, you know, all this kind of stuff.
But I didn't have a high school education. What I had was just what I picked up with that book I bought, you know – High School Self Taught. So, I think they segregated a lot of the classes about how much education you had. I'm not sure of this, but I think so. There was a lot of long-winded problems, so I said, "Boy, this is going to be kind of tough." So I found a Smalley's log book. I don't know where the heck that thing went – a little thin book. I set up about half the night studying that little log book. Now I could use that for my long-winded problems. That made it real easy to get done much faster. 'Cause it was good to figure things to four decimal points, you know.
The instructor would give you a problem, and you'd start figuring it out. And I could beat everybody's time, see. Then the instructor would come over to me and say, "What answer do you have?" I was doing pretty good. They had courses in thermodynamics – steam theory, mathematics, all about boilers and engines, electricity, the whole bit. It was only about four months or so, five months I guess. Five days a week, eight hours a day, homework every night. You'd just study like mad.
They told us on the weekend go ashore and relax. So that was fun. If you didn't have liberty you'd figure out a way of getting' ashore. I found out, if you didn't have your pass, a little matchbook was about the size of your pass. And on the front of that thing, you'd scribble a few things on it and hold it up and walk out the gate, you know. Stupid stuff.
Well anyway, the Coast Guard gives you the examination at the end when you graduate. And I passed it at 93, which was pretty good. Was only about three guys beat me in the whole school. You had to draw diagrams of machinery, electrical. But I enjoyed it, I really did. You take the examination for third engineer, second engineer, or first engineer. I took the examination for second engineer. I skipped third engineer, except for diesel. I got a third engineer's license on a diesel, but on the steam ships I got second engineer. I'd got the time in. You know that counted, those six years in the Navy, and I could do that. So I said, well, there couldn't be that much difference in the exam, so I just took the second engineer. I still graduated as an ensign, as far as the Maritime Service was concerned.
