Page 18 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2023 - Online Magazine
P. 18
Glenn Rattan From Motley County to
the Shores of Korea
by Larry Williams
service and started tell us what our next assignment
thinking about was.
joining up. I was 18
and wanted to see “We shipped out to Pearl Harbor
the world, so I went at the end of January 1951. You
into Lubbock to the could still see the damage there
recruiting station on from WWII. We did maneuvers
Broadway and joined there for two weeks, then we
the Navy, June 20, stopped at Midway Island and
1950. Me and another then sailed to Sasebo, Japan.
fellow from Motley We were assigned to Destroyer
County were sent by Division 131, Task Force 77. Our
train to Amarillo, then job, along with our three sister
to Albuquerque. We destroyer ships, was to guard the
were then sent to the aircraft carriers USS Missouri and
Naval Training Center the USS New Jersey. We had all
in San Diego. It was the warships on the Task Force.
supposed to be for 13 We sailed for Korea, and, en
weeks. But the Korean route, they would send our four
War started only five destroyers towards the bank to
days after I joined shell the mainland from our ship.
up, so our boot camp We would get coordinates from
was shortened to nine Marine forward observers over
weeks. I was assigned the hills in North Korea. I was on
to be a Gunner’s Mate. the fantail of the ship, where we
manned two racks that held five
“After boot camp, they
lenn Rattan was born in took two companies of
Motley County, Texas on us, 160 men, on a C-124 double-
GJuly 24, 1931—the first decker Globemaster plane up to
born of Dempsey and Ima Jean the south end of Oakland Bay,
Rattan. He said he “was born way next to Alcatraz Island. We were
out in the country and worked assigned to the destroyer USS
hard on the farm growing up. Bradford (DD-545) in October
We had a dairy farm, and Mom, 1950. It had been drydocked since
Dad, and I would milk about a WWII and was still wrapped in
dozen cows a day, selling milk plastic. We started working on
and cream to stores all the way the ship right away to get it ready
up into Colorado. I attended for use. Once it was in order,
Matador High School and played we went out on the water seven
baseball. There wasn’t much time days a week, doing all kinds of
for hobbies, although I did do a maneuvers, like sub-chasing.
little hunting.” They (our Navy subs) would try
to sink us, and we’d try to sink
Glenn graduated in 1949, and them. There were 360 men on the
still remembers, “I saw a bunch ship. A Chief Petty Officer would
of guys coming back from the
18 Lubbock Senior Link
