Charles Willard Mathews Memoir, Part 3 - War and Beyond

  Continued from (CHARLES WILLARD MATHEWS MEMOIR, PART 2 - SCHOOL DAYS)

This Has Been My Life (Cont.)

By Charles Willard Mathews, Jr. 

Chuck, Jean & Joe Mathews at the Riobamba Nightclub, Manhattan, 1942

That year, we had moved to a bigger apartment where I was manager for part of my rent. My sister, Anna Louise, came to be with us her first year in school. Jean, Charles and I used the screened-in porch for our bedroom. It got cool at times, but plenty of comforters kept us all cozy. Things were progressing smoothly. The Navy had been trying to recruit me to teach reserve midshipmen, but I said "No dice". Then Pearl Harbor burst on the scene. Louise says "Oh, did they attack? That's nothing! I just got invited to a Pi Phi pledge party."

Joe happened to be visiting us that day, so he flew off south back to his Army Air Post. I believe it was Valdosta, Georgia. Answering the next Navy recruitment letter, I soon became an Ensign, United States Naval Reserve, a direct appointment.

The Navy way was my way of life, like it or not, for the next three and one-half years. I was recruited to teach midshipmen and reported to the USS Prairie State, sitting in the silt on the Hudson River at the foot of 125th Street, New York City. First I was embarrassed that I may not have put my uniform on correctly. I guess it was right for I was not accosted. I became aware that all the world is not trusting. In a uniform of the United States military, even with a certified check, I found I could not get it cashed in a New York City bank. All types of new experiences. When CDR. Grover asked about my sea experience I had to say "Sir, I've not even seen the ocean." He exploded, just like the turret he was responsible for on the USS Missouri had some years before in Havana harbor. It became apparent that I was among the majority of officers recruited, not the exception. And the commander had to build a midshipmen school staff out of the likes of me.

In five weeks I was teaching naval ordnance and fire control, and learning it the night before each class. A couple of years later a few of us, now lieutenants, were withdrawn from the academic departments and reassigned to the executive department with the job of taking care of the midshipmen the twenty hours they were NOT in the class room. Company Officers, we were called. As the war cranked down, fewer new officers were needed and I was assigned to the Naval Transportation Service and shipped to Port Hueneme, California to learn to be a port director. Three months later just as the Japanese surrendered, I was ordered to Pearl Harbor to await further orders to Pusan, Korea. For three weeks I waited, reporting in each morning and taking the rest of the day on the beaches, especially Kailua on the east side of Oahu. Then with a few hours notice I was on an airplane headed for Buckner Bay, Okinawa, for more waiting. The receiving station in Okinawa was so impossible - mud, food, more mud, etc. - that I volunteered for temporary additional duty to the Port Director, Okinawa, and he sent me to Naha on the other side of the island where I became the operations officer, Port Director, Naha, and served the rest of my World War II naval service in tents, Quonset huts and typhoons. 

Postwar Okinawa - photo by C.W. Mathews

Fortunately, it was only a few months until both my brother Joe, who was now based in Kadena/Yontan and I had orders to return to the states. In early December, 1945 I was an illegal passenger on a B-24 on which Joe was the pilot. The plane flew to Sacramento, where we parted ways to be separated from our services. I was home for Christmas with Jean and our two sons. Stewart had been born in New York while I was stationed there.

Port Director's Office, Naha, Okinawa - photo by C.W. Mathews

Another month found us established in a prefabricated temporary home called 'student housing' at the University of Illinois. It was in the middle of what had been the gardens of the university experimental farm southeast of the general campus area. Three semesters later I completed my studies for the PhD (Mathematics). And BETSY was born. I had arranged to begin teaching summer school at Washington University in St. Louis. Arthur Holly Compton was chancellor and I felt that I would benefit by being near such a great Christian and scientist. Also, St. Louis was almost home for me. It was a providential decision for in the spring my father became ill and was hospitalized at the Missouri Baptist Hospital in St. Louis. In a few weeks he died.

One day in the fall of 1949, my Navy Reserve commander, a St. Louis industrial executive wanted to know how married I was to teaching. He was offering me a position as a Scientific Intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. I would work in the Midwest, gathering information likely to have acquired same in work or travel, or in living outside of the United States. On the basis of my personal confidence in George Forrest, I accepted the offer with a promise I would stay at least two years. In retrospect I found the decision very exciting and it led to what I consider a totally unexpected and very wonderful part of my life. I was soon convinced that intelligence was not the dirty business that it is reputed to be. On the contrary, I found that I developed wonderful friendships with many people and felt I was helpful to many refugees and defectors who needed American friends while they got themselves established in the United States.

After three years in the St. Louis field office, I felt that it would be worthwhile to move to another aspect of intelligence for career development. By coincidence, my close friend 'Zeke' Zellmer invited me to move to the Office of Scientific Intelligence in Washington, so I did. I spent the rest of my CIA years in that office holding a variety of positions. I was the Agency's representative in the 1955-56 Air War College class. And I headed the space intelligence program my last years in Washington. The experience in space intelligence led to an invitation to leave CIA and become Scientific Advisor of the North American Air Defense Command. Since that was a challenge and Colorado Springs is a lovely place to raise a family, the opportunity was readily accepted and in May 1963 our family became established in Colorado.

The work at NORAD provided much time to plan and develop in the broad area of space intelligence and defense. It opened the way for me to exchange ideas with military officers who were charged with defense responsibilities and with scientific and technical specialists in industry. Until the end of 1974 I was immersed in space defense problems. Then one morning just before Christmas, I was reading about the latest ‘cost of living’ increases and retirement benefits related. I asked Gen. McNabb, my superior who was himself retiring, what he would think if I should retire. In a half hour I decided I should retire on New Year’s Eve. With such little notice my retirement was quiet and simple. A number of people, including Jean wished I had been less hasty, so there could have been parties and farewells.

CHARLES WILLARD MATHEWS MEMOIR, PART 4 - THE FINAL CHAPTER 

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