Eugene Ostlund Interview

              John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Cold War Oral History Project Interview with Eugene Ostlund by Cadet Stuart Craft, April 6, 2006
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
About the interviewer:
Stuart C. Craft '07 is an economics major from Richmond, VA. A sports aficionado, he aspires to a career in the law.
Craft: The following interview is being conducted for the John A. Adams Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for History 391—History of Sea Power in the 20th Century. The interviewer is Stuart Craft. The interviewee is Ret. CDR (USN) Eugene Ostlund. Today’s date is April 6, 2006. We are meeting over the phone.
Could you, first, briefly talk about your family background, such as your birthplace, your family history and your first enlistment in the Navy?
Ostlund: I was born in North Dakota. I have four siblings. My father died when I was nine. I graduated from high school and enlisted in the Navy in 1940. I went through boot camp at Great Lakes, qualified for a Class A school. They sent me to Pensacola, Florida, Aviation Metalsmith School. When I finished that I went to Naval Air Station, North Island, where I stayed until 1943, and I was transferred to a carrier aircraft service unit. From there I qualified for the Navy V-12 program. They enrolled me in the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where I finished two years of college work. The war ended and I still had a year to go on my enlistment, so the Navy transferred me to the University of Michigan where I did another year’s work. My enlistment was up in 1946, and I got out of the Navy and went back to school in the fall at the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill. My goal was to get a commission in the Navy when I graduated from the University of Michigan. In 1947 I was commissioned an ensign in the regular Navy. That pretty well sums up my World War II experience. If you have any questions, let’s hear them.
Craft: What, initially, made you sign up for the Navy? 2
Ostlund: North Dakota was a bad place to be in the ‘30s. They had two years of grasshopper devastation, a severe drought lasting two or three years and then, of course, there was the depression, so I couldn’t wait to escape. That’s really what happened. My motive for joining the Navy had nothing to do with patriotism, but it was a way out of North Dakota, a chance to see the world, and a chance to learn a trade.
Craft: During your first enlistment period that you talked about, what exactly were your responsibilities in the Navy?
Ostlund: I was an aviation metalsmith and the responsibility was to repair airplanes and make modifications on them. We found out when the war first started that the pilots of the fighter planes didn’t have sufficient armor plating. So one of the first modifications we made was to install armor plating on the back of all the seats of the fighter planes. Then, of course, any damage that was done to aircraft was repaired on a routine basis. One other innovation which we worked with was a thing called JATO—Jet Assisted Takeoff—where we attached these rockets to the tail end of the fuselage to give it accelerated power for takeoff. Finally, as radar came into the service for the bigger airplanes – the ones we used for patrol – we installed radar equipment.
Craft: Did you see any combat in your first enlistment period?
Ostlund: No I didn’t. We flew some anti-submarine patrols off the West Coast, but we never saw any submarines so there was no combat involved.
Craft: After serving out your first initial enlistment, what made you decide to stay in the Navy and become an officer? Was it still financial reasons or did you begin to like the Navy? 3
Ostlund: Well, I liked the Navy plus the fact that I had six years service and I knew that I only needed 20 to retire was a big inducement. Also I knew that the life of an officer in the Navy was considerably better than the life of an enlisted man.
Craft: Could you briefly talk about your life as an officer the first couple of years?
Ostlund: When I first got commissioned I was assigned to the Navy cruiser U.S.S. St. Paul, which was stationed on the West Coast but operated primarily in the Asiatic fleet. We spent most of our time in China. We’d take tours from the West Coast that would last – some of them three months, some of them a year. The Cold War was just starting. World War II hadn’t completely tuned down so we were kind of on a semi-wartime condition for the first two years and then the third year the Korean War broke out and we were immediately diverted from a cruise training reserve midshipmen and sent to help things out in Korea – evacuate the troops. We also provided shore bombardment after the Inchon invasion and as we moved up north. We accompanied the troops offshore and fired close battle support.
My duties aboard ship were varied. I started out as damage control assistant and later I was the assistant navigator, signal officer, radio officer and finally communications officer. When I left the heavy cruiser St. Paul I was assigned to the staff of the Commander Seventh Fleet operating in Korean waters. From there the Navy sent me to post-graduate school for command and control communications. After I finished P.G. school I went to the U.S.S. Gearing (DD710), a destroyer which operated in the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean where I was the communication officer and the operations officer. There we played hide-and-go-seek with the Russian fleet. They tried to embarrass us whenever they could by playing chicken to see who would give way – you know, obey the rules of the road. And the other thing was we’d try to detect and force their submarines to surface. So it was kind of a cat and mouse game.
I left that tour after two years and went to the destroyer escort, the Haas (DE424), which was home-ported in New Orleans where our duty was to train weekend warriors. We’d take them out on a two week 4
cruise and go to some interesting port that we could make in a week, like Havana and the Canal Zone and Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic – places like that.
I left that tour of duty to go to the University of Minnesota where I was an instructor in the ROTC program. I taught celestial navigation, diesel engineering, military justice. Upon completion of two years of that type of duty I went to the destroyer flotilla staff, which was based out in Long Beach, California. Our primary mission was destroyer development so we had all kinds of interesting testing of new equipment and doctrine plus administering and running the squadron. The flotilla consisted of three squadrons of destroyers.
I finished that assignment and was transferred as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Lansing (DER 328), which was based in Honolulu. Its mission involved the seaward extension of the DEW [Distant Early Warning] line. The interesting and frightening thing about that was that the weather in the northern Pacific in the winter could be very, very severe. We had some real interesting experiences combating ice in heavy weather.
When I finished that tour of duty I was assigned to the Command and Staff College of the Air Force Air University down in Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. And upon completion of that tour of duty, I was assigned to the Defense Communication Agency in Washington, D.C. where I terminated my naval career in 1965. That’s a quick thumbnail sketch of what my military duties were.
Craft: Yes sir. I remember you talking about when you were a communications officer you did a little bit of code breaking. Could you go into that at all?
Ostlund: When I was on the staff of the Seventh Fleet, we had some agents who were ashore in China. They provided us with weather reports which helped plan the air strikes in the Air Force. Those things had a primitive code that they used to transmit their information to us and one of my responsibilities was, 5
every night, to decode those messages and provide them to the aerographers and the squadron commanders.
Craft: During the Korean War, did you feel that the war was a necessary war considering the proximity of that war towards the end of World War II?
Ostlund: Yes I did because the Russians were developing atomic weapons – if they hadn’t developed them, they were close to developing them – and the invasion of South Korea by North Korea was completely backed by Russian combat planes and personnel who were working as supervisors and training for their armed forces. If we had not intervened, I’m sure that South Korea would have ceased to be an entity.
Craft: What was the morale of the Navy like, as a whole, during the Korean War? Was there any resentment toward President Truman or other political leaders?
Ostlund: The main resentment that I found was – of course, the draft was still in existence – they recalled a lot of people who were in the Reserve units. At that time the reason people went into the Reserves, primarily, was to get an extra paycheck and do something on weekends. Somewhat similar to what the Air National Guard and the National Guard and the Army Reserves were doing prior to the recent conflict. It came as a surprise that they were suddenly called up and had to leave their families and serve in the Navy at sea where they had not anticipated that at all when they joined the Reserves. So there was some resentment, and the resentment was that the call-up was so selective and didn’t appear to have any rhyme or reason. Some of the units that were on a pay status were not recalled, whereas some who were not on a regular pay status were recalled, so that caused a lot of bitterness, as well as individual reservists being called back to duty.
Craft: Did you think that the Korean War was going to be an easy victory for the U.S., or did you think it would be long and drawn out like the previous two wars of the 20th Century? 6
Ostlund: No, along with everybody else, we pretty much thought the war was going to be over by Christmas in 1950, and there were messages originated by MacArthur’s headquarters which supported that optimistic opinion. Then when the Chinese poured across the northern border at the Chosin Reservoir, that changed everything. All of us were really expecting the war to end by Christmas. Naturally there was some frustration and disappointment when things were thrown in reverse and we had to retake all that land again.
Craft: How well do you think that the Navy performed its role during the Korean War?
Ostlund: Very well. Of course, the Navy operated almost without an opposition and those of us who were in the surface ships could just pretty much lay off the coast and fire at will. We had one or two cases where we received fire from the shore and one or two instances where aircraft made a pass at us. But by and large, it was pretty much that we had it our own way. Of course, the naval air suffered many casualties from anti-aircraft fire over enemy territory, but at sea it was pretty much a safe zone.
Craft: What was the public opinion of the war in the United States?
Ostlund: On the West Coast there was a lot of interest in it from the Navy people because so many of the sailors left their dependents ashore when their ships deployed, but as you went inland, there was very little interest. When I got to the East Coast there was no interest at all in any of the events that were taking place in Korea. If they made the newspapers, they were always below the fold and back on page 12, whereas on the West Coast, as different engagements were taking place, they got coverage on the first page of the newspapers and were in the nightly news. Most of the country’s civilian population was not called on for any sacrifice, so unless you had a loved one involved, you didn’t have much interest in what was going on in Korea, rather like what’s going on right now. 7
Craft: What was your perception of the Russians at this time? Did you think there was ever going to be a full-fledged war between Russia and the United States?
Ostlund: Yes I did. I thought there was going to be a nuclear exchange, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Craft: How was the Navy preparing for a war with the Russians?
Ostlund: We went on full alert. The Navy was fully mobilized and was staged in the Florida and Charleston areas to deploy everything in the Atlantic Fleet. We were fully deployed and fully expected to be called upon.
Craft: What was your most vivid memory of serving in the Korean War?
Ostlund: My most vivid memory was, well, probably how damned cold it was. It was really miserable. In the winter of 1950, it set all records up there for severity. It was cold and miserable. My second most vivid memory was when we had a major accident on number two turret. A thing that happened was thought technically impossible. One of the powder bags caught a stray spark and ignited. Everybody in the turret as well as the upper and lower handling room were asphyxiated. Those were my two most memorable occasions, I think.
Craft: I remember you talking one time about how a ship that you were on almost capsized?
Ostlund: That had to do with the destroyer escort that I commanded. It was operating on the seaward extension of the DEW line. We had a very severe storm develop. The barometer dropped below 28 inches, the wind blew – I don’t know great the velocity was. My anemometer showed 125 knots and it was pegged so the wind was more than that. We had a rogue wave (estimated to be 50 feet high) that caught us and caused us to roll. The design of the ship was such that it could roll up to 58 degrees and 8
still regain stability. If it went over 58 degrees, we had what was called a negative righting arm and the ship would have capsized. We rolled about 50 degrees. That was about as close as I want to come to capsizing.
Craft: How did your jobs change during times of war, such as Korea, versus times of peace, other than the fact that you were operating in enemy waters?
Ostlund: Well, it didn’t change too much because at the end of World War II, for a long period of time, all the ships stayed in what was called Condition Three, which meant one-third of the crew was at their battle stations all the time. When you were in port it meant that at least one-third of the crew stayed aboard. When we went into Korea, we found that we were able to perform the duties pretty much with one-third of the crew so it meant that you were on watch for four hours and then you had eight hours off and then you were back on watch for four hours. As I said, the Navy operated almost unimpeded in the Korean War so it was only when it looked like there was going to be a situation with an aircraft coming in, or the ship was in too close or going to take some fire power from the shore, that we had to set a more rigid battle condition and go to general quarters.
Craft: After the Korean War was over, what was your position and responsibility in the Navy?
Ostlund: When the Korean War winding down, I got transferred, as I mentioned, to post-graduate school and then I went to the Mediterranean Sixth Fleet.
Craft: What made you decide to finally retire?
Ostlund: Well, for one thing, I had 26 years of service. The second thing was I had four children coming up that I thought might want to go to college. There was no way I could do it on the pay we were receiving from the military in those days. Plus my wife had been having some emotional problems, which were usually made worse when I had to leave the family and go away on extended periods of duty. My 9
boys were teenagers and it was in the ‘60s and there was a lot of concern about what would happen to them. I thought it best if I tried to provide some fatherly advice which couldn’t happen if I was going to be deployed for two or three years at a time. So it was two things. One, the fact that I was able to, and two, for family reasons.
Craft: With regard to family life, how did you deal with the difficulties of having a family and, at the same time, traveling around the world for the Navy?
Ostlund: Well, you’d better have a wife who has a good head on her shoulders and had a lot of energy and knew how to be faithful. Fortunately I lucked out.
Craft: Alright. That’s all I have for you, sir. I appreciate it.
Ostlund: Well, I hope you find it useful.