My best friend and I (Bill Perkins) enlisted in the U.S.N in Dec. 1951 after graduating from HS in 1950; as soon as we enlisted, they sent Bill to the U.S.S. Philippine Sea, (a small aircraft carrier) which was operating so close to the Korean coast that they were hit by shore batteries from the "gooks"; in the meantime, because they found out I already knew how to weld, I ended up on the U.S.S. Fulton, AS-11, a submarine tender that spent most of it's time tied up to the State Pier at New London, Ct. right across the Thames River from where they were busy building the U.S.S. Nautilus, (the world's first nuclear powered vessel).
I ended up spending my whole first 4 years of active duty repairing the Navy's submarines, (which "break" a lot! ) While several of my class mates came home from Korea in "caskets", the Navy sent my ship to such "thrilling places" as Argentia, Newfoundland, Greenland, (which definitely is NOT "green" at all ), Iceland, and all over the Carribean, always straightening out those pesky submarines that always seemed to keep on getting "dented up"!
There are not a lot of guns on submarine tenders; other than 4 big 5 in "38"s, (don't ask me what the "38" meant ), we did have about 2 dozen WW 2 Colt 1911 .45s that we had to carry when we were standing sentry-watch in ports outside of the U.S. (I think I got to fire the things about a dozen times in 4 years. )
The most "exciting" thing in 4 years of active duty? either being assigned to install the U.S. Navy's "first ever" syrup coke machine in the control room of the Nautilus while she was in the floating dry dock at the New London Sub Base, after just returning from her historic, "first ever" voyage under the polar ice cap; most days while Nautilus was in dry dock, Admiral Hymen Rickover could be found aboard her, (usually looking over the shoulder of the poor ME2 trying to get the specially designed, worlds first syrup coke machine "installed" and in operation; ) Running a close second to that, was being handed a plaster-of-paris, gold painted table "centerpiece" from the huge reception at Morton Hall at the Sub Base, by the First Lady, Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower, (while helping 2 dozen more "white hats" clean-up all of the empty liquor bottles from the big celebration after the Nautilus launching at Electric Boat, 2 miles down the Thames River. ) BTW.....I still have the centerpiece, but unfortunately, I was too dumb, (or too scared) to ask Mrs. Eisenhower to sign it for me. I never did get to see "Ike", as for some reason he was the only V.I.P. in the whole country that didn't attend the Nautilus launching, and sent the First Lady instead.
If you ever saw a news-reel video of the famous scene of Mrs. Eisenhower attempting three times to break the traditional champaign bottle on Nautilus' prow, then being "assisted" by a Navy Commander (which got both of them "soaked" ), I had the extreme pleasure of witnessing that historic event from the "Color Guard" I was part of, less than 50 feet away! (To say that the Navy was very excited to have the world's first nuke would be the under-statement of that decade! )