GOVERNORS ISLAND

Governors Island is a little island in the middle of New York harbor, sandwiched between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Defenses were placed on it to defend the harbor in the Revolutionary War, and it became Army property thereafter. At the end of World War II it was the Headquarters of First Army. LTC McGrew and his family were assigned there for over three years.

The island is in an incredible place. When you look North from the island you look right at the famous Manhattan skyline. In those days, lots of photographers went to the island to take wonderful pictures of the city. Now, when you see the Manhattan skyline on TV it is likely to be from there. When you look East from the island you see Brooklyn, and it looks so close you think you could throw a rock over there (you can't, I tried many times.)

When my family came to live on Governors Island, I was in sixth grade. I soon found that it was an ideal environment for a kid my age. It was perfectly safe. Anyone coming on had to pass through the MP s to board the ferry. Then, they had to do it again to go back to Manhattan. There was lots for kids to do. There was a huge gym which anyone could use. There was a YMCA, put up during World War II, I guess, to support the troops. There weren't really any "troops" on Governors Island -- it was an Army Headquarters. There were essentially only officers, and senior ones at that. That left the Y to us kids. There were neat war trophies everywhere, such as revolutionary-era cannons. All the pre-teens knew that any six of us could tip one of those over onto its muzzle and then spend the better part of the next day watching a crew with a crane try to upright it again. There was lots to do.

One of our favorite sports involved the retreat cannon. It was actually a real, working howitzer. It was fired every evening at 5 by the MP s. Every Army Brat knows that, when the cannon goes off, you stop and face the flagpole. Then you stand facing the flag while it is lowered to the strains of "Retreat", which is played over the post PA system.

What made the howitzer such a good sport was the lazy MP s. They were untrained in firing howitzers, to be sure, but youÕd think they would learn after the first time. They never did.

What any cannoneer is supposed to do before firing is check the bore to be sure it's clear. The reason for this is that sometimes rounds get stuck and if you try to fire another one with a round stuck in the bore, the whole cannon blows up. That's a really bad deal for the crew which is standing right next to it. The MP s knew that they were firing blanks, so they never checked.

We kids often stood and watched the howitzer crew since it was one of the neat things to do. We quickly figured out that they never, never checked the bore. Anything we wanted to deliver to lower Manhattan on a ballistic trajectory, we could. All we had to do was lodge the package in the bore and wait for retreat. Then we could watch our cargo cross Buttermilk Channel and land somewhere around the Bowery.

Well, not everything made it to Manhattan. One day some guys found a dead cat and put it into the howitzer. It barely made the commissary. The next day the commissary officer arrived to find his roof covered with blood and fur.

Most of us opted for less gory projectiles. My personal favorite was golf balls. The golf course was all around Fort Jay where the howitzer was, and we could usually find at least two lost balls in under ten minutes. They were too small to actually follow with your eye, but the mental image of them bouncing up Broadway was better than reality.

The way you made this work was to grab some handfuls of long grass and stuff them down the bore. Follow the grass with one or more golf balls. Then take a stick and push them down the bore far enough that the MP s wouldnÕt see anything sticking out. Then wait till they fire the howitzer and imagine the looks on the faces of the Wall Street brokers when golf balls go bouncing past their heads. We always watched the water in the channel at these times to see if the balls fell short of Manhattan Island. We never saw one splash.

The ultimate retreat cannon prank, though, involved extracurricular pyrotechnics. One of the guys got hold of a large quantity of fireworks. He packaged them all up into one huge bomb.

One of the best things about retreat was that it occured precisely on schedule everynight. So, this guy carefully rigged his bomb to go off a few feet away from the cannon at exactly 5 o'clock. Although it didn't go off exactly with the cannon, it was so close that only someone standing there watching could tell the difference, which the perp was, standing and watching, which is how he got caught. He was grounded for a month, but he chuckled the whole time remembering the aftermath of his prank.

It seems that the bomb was so big that the huge fireball was seen by hundreds of folks in both Manhattan and Brooklyn. A few seconds later they heard the report. Dozens of people called the fire department and reported a huge explosion on Governors Island. Very few people in the city knew much about the island except that it belonged to the Army. They naturally assumed that there was lots of ammunition stored there. Fire chiefs from several stations in both boroughs called to offer assistance. Naturally, the duty officer assumed that the retreat cannon had exploded, after all the MP s never checked the bore, and he called the medics. The circus went on for hours.

The only bad outcome as far as we kids were concerned, was that the MP s were now directed to check the bore before firing retreat. Several of us got caught during the next few weeks trying to shoot something to the city. But, as expected, the MP s quickly forgot the whole incident and returned to their pre-bomb ways. The fun went on as usual.

Not long after arriving, I realized that the older boys were making serious money as caddies at the Officers Club golf course. Since I lived in the middle of that course, I decided that I ought to get some of it, too. My father told me that he didn't want me simply to hang out at the course waiting for someone to offer me a job. He had heard too many complaints about the ignorant caddies. His son was to report to the caddy master for training. Only then could he caddy.

So I went in to see the caddy master, a sergeant. The sergeant gave me about 20 minutes of irrelevant instruction and told me to always report in when I came to caddy. I knew that none of the other caddies did that, but I complied, not wanting my father to ever discover otherwise. I soon found out that I was getting special treatment. Whereas the other boys might get jobs sooner, I usually got the best ones.

Two of the golfers I picked up as regular customers were considered special, but for very different reasons. The first was Major Wilson. I didn't know how this retired major managed to have all the free time that he had for playing golf, and as long as I caddied for him I never learned the answer. The only explanation was that he was simply retired and somehow had enough money to live without further effort. This became my goal in life: to be young and healthy enough upon retirement to be able to play a mean game of golf whenever I wanted. A mean game is exactly what Major Wilson played. He was still fairly young and he could hit the ball a mile. I loved to watch his drives take off low to the ground and slowly rise as they went out, straight down the middle of the fairway. The major had the energy to play 18 holes, while lots of the older players only played nine. And he was a good tipper.

I had been working for him for over a year when we went out one weekday morning in June. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. Everyone was in a great mood on the first tee until Major Wilson sliced his drive. Lots of people sliced their drives on the first tee, but they didn't hit as long as Wilson. This drive was typically long, but not straight. It rose upward as it went out, then started curving to the right still climbing, and headed straight toward the row of generals' quarters. Most of the generals assigned to the headquarters were nice guys. The one exception was Major General Butts who was the terror of the staff. Naturally, Wilson's ball chose his house to visit.

The ball splashed through the glass of the sun porch and disappeared into the house. Wilson and his buddies laughed about that, knowing that the general wasn't home at that time of day, and Wilson got out another ball to hit when he realized that it was imprinted with his name.

"I've got to get that ball back," he blurted.

After a few minutes of speculation about how to get the ball back, he turned to his caddy and said, "Get me the ball and don't let anyone know whose it was."

I tried to ask for instructions but it was obvious that no one had any idea how to do that.

I walked over to the general's house silently praying that Mrs Butts wasn't home. She and my mother had locked horns over several issues and she was well known in my household for being overbearing and unpleasant. I was so worried about the possibility of having to deal with Mrs Butts that I hadn't thought of an approach to getting the ball. I supposed I would have to break into the quarters if no one was home.

That shows how unfamiliar I was with the lives of generals in the 40s. They had servants. Some were enlisted personnel assigned as "aides". Others were hired by the general or his wife.

I went to the back door so I could see the broken window on the sun porch. It was a nasty break Glass was all over the floor of the porch. I peered in but couldn't see the ball anywhere. I looked back and tried to guess where the ball might have travelled after it went through the window. About that time I heard the door open and confronted an angry "colored" maid.

"Look at this mess!" she fussed. "Who gonna clean up all this broken glass? What the general gonna say when he come home and find the broken window? Who gonna pay for that window?"

"I need the golf ball back. I'm caddying for the officer who owns it and he needs his ball back," I said.

"Well, you ain't gettin no ball back til you fix this here window and clean up this mess!"

I started to see a way out. "All right," I replied, "get me a broom and a dust pan and I'll sweep up the glass. Then I'll take care of the window."

"How you gonna fix the window? What the general gonna say when he see the broken window?", the maid answered angrily.

"Never mind that. Get me the broom and dust pan if you want me to clean up the glass," I retorted. I had no idea how I would fix the window.

The maid brought the broom and I went to work on the glass. I worked fast since I was scared that Mrs Butts would return home and find me there. While I worked I tried to get the maid to bring the ball. She wouldn't, so I asked her where it was and she told me it had gone through the open window between the sunporch and the kitchen, had bounced through the kitchen, out the door and down the hallway into the house.

"It's all the way down by the front door," she said, "and you best not go in there til I tell you you can."

She watched me trying to sweep up all that glass and finally told me she would finish up, that I was useless, but I had better fix that window. I asked her where the phone was. She showed me the phone. I picked up the receiver, dialed the operator and asked for the Post Engineers. I was too nervous to notice who answered the phone at the Engineers, so I proceeded with the plan I had hatched while sweeping up the glass.

I lowered my voice as much as I could. "Hello. I'm at General Butts' quarters, Quarters 12, and some crazy golfer has broken a window. General Butts will be furious if he comes home and finds that window broken. You had better send someone over here right now and fix it before he comes home!"

"Who is this?", asked the engineer.

"I'm a visitor at the general's quarters and I know how angry he gets over little things, (everyone on the island knew that.) if I were you I'd have a crew here in five minutes so that when he comes home for lunch he doesn't pop his cork."

"All right, sir. We're on our way." Phew!

I returned to the first tee with the ball, which did indeed have Major Wilson's name imprinted on it. Of course they all wanted to know how I had done that and whether anyone knew that Major Wilson was the one who had broken the window. They teed off again and, before they finished playing the hole they could see the engineer truck at the quarters and two engineers replacing the broken glass. They laughed about it the rest of the day. I thought I would get at least a dollar tip, instead of the usual 50 cents. Major Wilson gave me 75 cents that day and never mentioned it again.

The other special customer was General Drum. He was 90 years old, nearly blind, could hardly hit the ball 20 yards, and only had five clubs in his little cloth golf bag. He actually only needed a caddy to see for him. In fact, every single time we went out he gave me a lecture about not losing any balls. If any were lost it was the caddy's fault and he would be fired on the spot. I had very good eyes and since the general hardly hit the ball out of sight, I had no trouble finding it.

When the caddy master assigned me to General Drum he told me that it was a lousy job caddying for the old man, but he would make it up to me. The way he made it up to me was to ensure that I always got the best tippers on the weekends. For awhile I was putting lots of money into my coffee can.

One day, after I had been caddying for General Drum for nearly a year, he seemed to be in even a worse mood than usual. I didn't mind, though, because I knew I wouldn't lose any golf balls and he would continue to be my ticket to big tips (he tipped one dime!)

The third tee was very unusual. To get to it you crossed a wooden footbridge to a corner of the parapet of Fort Jay. From there you drove across the dry moat toward a distant green. I accompanied the general up onto the parapet as I had every time I had caddied for him. He turned to me and growled, "You get down on the fairway or you'll lose sight of my ball."

If he hadn't thrown in that challenge at the end I might simply have obeyed, but I knew I wasn't going to lose his ball. I argued that I had been up there with him many times and had never lost sight of his drive except (I didn't actually say this) when it had dribbled into the moat.

The general wasn't used to being disobeyed nor was he in a mood to argue with a bratty kid. I ultimately declined to leave the tee and he threatened me again with being fired if I lost his ball. I smiled smuggly.

Then the old man teed off. The adrenaline must have been flowing pretty heavy because he hit it farther than I had ever seen before. That wouldn't have been a problem, but when it hit the ground it landed squarley on the only sidewalk crossing the course. That ball bounced about a hundred feet into the air and disappeared forever.

General Drum started muttering immediately that I would never find that ball. He was right. I offered him his choice of any ball in my collection, but I was fired on the spot. How the old man finished playing that round I don't know. He couldn't see the green, couldn't see his ball, and could barely walk that far. After firing me he strode off defiantly to show the young whippersnapper a thing or two. I would have caddied the rest of the round for him for free, just so that he wasn't helpless out there by himself. He sure showed me!

One important contribution to my future was the fact that many, maybe most of the boys on Governors Island aspired to go to West Point. There was a summer camp at Round Pond run by the Academy and many of us went there for a month! The cadre was mostly first classmen, doing it as volunteers. We were not only exposed to those cadets, but often were trucked down to the Academy for special events, such as a concert by the Military Academy Band. It was natural enough that at the conclusion of a month of West Point camp, you just assumed you would go there.