I was in transit for a few days, probably a week, and was assigned to work in the Disbursing Office. I typed information about a persons pay, deductions and basically worked on their pay records. At the end of the time working there, the DK1 in charge asked me if I wanted to switch from Storekeeper to Disbursing clerk, I politely declined as I did not want to sit at a desk all day. Well I reported to Supply, and was assigned to the Inventory Office. Yep there was my desk. It wasn't too bad because I was to spend a lot of time in the warehouses going over inventory. This was a new department in supply, and in charge was SK1 Rogelio Fernandez, from the Philippine Islands. I was his assistant, and for most of the time the only other person in the department. When staffing was good, I would have another SKSA to work with me, and when we were doing a big inventory there might be 2 or 3 others. Our "Office" was two partitions made from plywood in a corner of the warehouse. forming kind of a U shape facing the Control Office where a good friend worked, Robert "Bob" McCoy from Cincinnati OHIO. He also worked for a SK1 Filipino. Both were extremely good Petty Officers and great to work for. Our jobs kept Bob and I at the office late many a night, and they would tell us to sleep in the next morning.
My job was to inventory everything in the supply department according to Navy Procedure. Basically one section at a time according to Stock Numbers. LOL After counting everything with in certain category, I would compare my count against the records. If I needed I would recount a certain item. After assuring my count was correct, I would issue a "Loss/Gain by inventory" and correct the records. I would then prepare all paper work to be sent to our main office in Honolulu. We had deadlines to meet so many nights I would work till midnight and at times later to meet them. Roger, always took this into consideration and gave me many afternoons off to compensate.
Bob and I shared a room in the barracks, and one morning we had "Authorized Late Sleeper" status, but no one had told the duty Petty Officer. This day the Duty PO was an SK2 that Bob and I had been in more than one confrontation with. He came over to the Barracks and burst into our room, he grabbed McCoy by the shoulder and started to shake him, I was awake as our other room mates had just left and was watching what was about to take place. In the military you are not allowed to touch another person if they are sleeping, if you do the sleeping person is not responsible for their reactions.
Well as soon as he touched McCoy, Bob rolled over and punched him right in the face. He started screaming assault on a Petty Officer and I'm writing you up!!!. I told him, Hey go ahead I saw the whole thing and you grabbed him and he reacted!! He claimed Bob was awake when he grabbed him and I replied NO he wasn't he was asleep. This was one of those "That's My Story and I am sticking to it" Moments because I was the only witness. He was really mad when he found out we were authorized to miss muster that morning.Made him look real bad. He never worried about Bob and I missing Muster again though.
As I look back, this was going to be the first of many times where I was going to be in a position where I was going to be given more authority than my status called for. I made SKSN, E-3 while I was on Midway, and had a few SKSA's and junior SKSN's work for me at various time. One day I had 2 men working an Inventory in the Warehouse when an SK3 from that area assigned them to a different job. I of course Jumped his butt for moving my people and he started in about being a E-4 Third Class and out ranking me. I told him I didn't care those people were not working for him they were working for me. Well he called his Department Petty Office over to settle it. He was informed that since those men were assigned to my department he could not reassign them without my permission. He hated that and it was not the last confrontation between us.
I have quite a few stories from Midway and they will be told as I remember them not necessarily in order of how they happened.
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