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| There's more than one way to fight a war. |
“GOODBYE, MOTHER. I’ll
write when I can.”
It was July 1942 and his draft number date was rapidly approaching.
He’d decided to take the advice of a family friend and enlist in the Coast
Guard instead of waiting to be drafted. But not to be a gob. He was the holder
of not one, but two, brand-new degrees in music from the College of the
Pacific, so naturally he was going to enlist in the Coast Guard Band.
Like the
millions of soldiers and sailors before and after, he was prepared to leave home
and return … he knew not when. He packed and said goodbye to his
mother, Jessica, at their apartment on Carlton Way near Hollywood Boulevard.
With the shock of Pearl Harbor not yet worn off, Jessica didn’t think she was
sending her son off to fight, she thought he’d be safely sitting out the war on
a bandstand in an officers’ club somewhere.
Oscar Collins, a Pacific Electric trial lawyer and close
friend of his mother’s, was a sort of mentor, helping him get a job with the
Southern Pacific Railroad after he finished his classes in February 1942. He
quickly climbed through the lowest of the office ranks, starting as a file clerk and currently
working as a telephone reservation clerk. The lawyer, he recalled, had some
dash. The Collins family had been associated with Wyatt Earp.
It was while on this undemanding job one day that Oscar called downstairs to tell him that the Coast Guard was forming an
Eleventh District band. Oscar mentioned that the recruiting office was just a few
blocks up Main Street from the S.P. building, and since he had been a
trombonist for many years, why didn’t he go over to apply? This kind of tip wasn’t
called networking then, but here was a very good idea. If he waited around to be drafted, he'd end up in the Army. Cannon fodder -- with asthma.
After saying goodbye to his mother, he had figured it would also
be a good idea to do the same with his boss, Charlie Pestor, the district passenger agent
at the S.P. Pestor was a really decent man, he knew, and the older man reminded him
not to leave without first getting a signed letter from the company in order to
have a leg up on a job when he returned.
So he headed out the front door of the S.P. building at
Sixth Street without regret. Anyway, he
was more than a little tired of reading
wires addressed: J M BARGER SP PULLMAN LOS ANGS.
Walking up Main
Street, he saw that the recruiting office was in the San Fernando Building.
He stepped up to the officer there to ask about the band and was promptly informed that
everybody had to be sworn in first before any requests would be heard. So he lined up with the other ten or twelve young men there and was duly sworn into U.S. Coast Guard.
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| The great Jack Teagarden. |
Now it was time to try for the Eleventh District trombone
position. Sorry, the officer replied, all the positions are all filled, the
last one by Jack Teagarden. Jack Teagarden! He
knew Jack Teagarden was one of the best and most famous trombonists in the
country! The last slot!
So much for the Coast Guard Band, he thought. He was now going
to be a gob after all.
There wasn't much time to think about it. He and the others were ordered to report directly to the Coast Guard base
in Wilmington, which turned out to be housed in what had been the California Yacht
Club, tower and all. He and the other new coastguardsmen were shown where they
would be bunking. He was surprised to
find that the accommodations were the former crescent of garages where yachtsmen kept their cars while they were boating.
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| The yacht club in Wilmington. |
Then a chief petty officer approached the waiting men. He listened with consternation and amazement as the petty officer told them there had been a "snafu." Not only were there no bunks, there were no uniforms. You might as well all go home, the petty officer concluded. Come back tomorrow.
No band, no bunk, no uniform… his military career was certainly
off to a good start! And was his mother ever going to be surprised. He headed back to Hollywood.
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