Emil Hoffmann

Emil Hoffmann 1910 Former MHS



January 20, 1910 Manning Monitor

Letter From Sailor Boys
A Very Interesting Letter From Emil Hoffmann and Louis Finnerty.
U.S. Naval Training Station, San Francisco, California, January 12, 1910.
Editor Monitor and all our Manning friends:

Thinking the people of Manning and vicinity might be interested to learn something of the routine and daily life of Uncle Sam's blue jackets, we will endeavor jointly to write a letter descriptive of the life of the blue jackets as carried out at the naval training station.

To begin with the government enlists men between the ages of 17 and 35 who are physically able-bodied. Upon our arrival at the naval receiving ship Pensacola we are required to pass a second physical examination. If found to be physically sound he is given his outfit of clothing which consists of five white suits of clothes, three white hats, two suits of heavy and two suits of light underwear, one-half dozen of handkerchiefs, one-half dozen socks, one suit of blues consisting of a jersey and a pair of pants, one blue hat, one pair of shoes, one black jersey, one scrub brush, shoe polishing outfit and two hair brushes. These clothes given you are put in a bag the size of an ordinary wheat bag. Our bedding consists of a hammock, a mattress and a good pair of woolen blankets, With the mattress we get two mattress covers, which are changed every week.

Thus equipped he is ready for his treatment through the naval training station which makes an ordinary seaman out of him in about four months. Then he is sent to the ship Pensacola to await a draft.

Before we proceed we will pause to say a word regarding Goat Island, where the training station is located. This island is about 640 acres in area. It is situated about midway between San Francisco and Oakland in San Francisco Bay, the bay here being about seven miles wide, extending to the north and south in the neighborhood of thirty miles. About half a mile north of the northern shore of the island and due west would carry you through the world's famed Golden Gate out on the rolling deep. Now to go on with our story from where we left it.

After a company of eighty men are collected at the ship they are sent to the detention camp, so called from the fact that the new recruits are detained here about three weeks, their hair being trimmed and all undergoing vaccination. This is done as a precautionary measure to prevent an outbreak of disease that might be lurking among the men from effecting the men at the barracks, at which place their are five or six companies. In addition to this you are also here taught the rudiments of military evolution, exercises without arms and the manual of armies.

Our next step toward our journey through the station is our being installed in the barracks, where the serious stage of the training begins, We will now attempt to describe the weekly routines at the barracks in detail.

On Monday morning, arising at 5:30 at the bugle call of reveille, we are given half an hour to perform our morning toilet. At 6 o'clock the assembly call is given at which the different companies assemble and do the morning house cleaning, which consists of sweeping, mopping, and cleaning the woodwork and windows.

To do this you are given one-half hour. At 6:30 a.m. assembly again, get your clothes out of the dryers in which you had hung them the night before, and then shift into clean white clothes, cleanliness being one of the requirements in the navy, everything pertaining to cleanliness being rigidly enforced. At 7 a.m. assemble for breakfast, one-half hour being given to eat. At 7:30 you must again assemble and get your guns at the armory for your morning's drill at 8 a.m. and under the leadership of your respective drill master you go through your morning exercises with arms and without arms to the accompaniment of music rendered by a band of twenty pieces. At 9 a.m. being dismissed for fifteen minutes to answer sick roll. We again assemble at 9:15 as another step in our daily routine, different companies now being assigned to different things, such as boats and oars, rigging, loft, where you learn to splice and tie knots, signals and throwing the lead and swimming. Being dismissed at 11 a.m. we have until 1 p.m. to ourselves to get our mail and eat our dinner. At 1 p.m. we again assemble and drill for two hours until 3 p.m. when the different companies are dismissed for the rest of the day, You can then scrub your clothes, go to the library and read, write letters, or you can go to the gymnasium and exercise yourself or play pool or billiards. Then at 5 p.m. you assemble and march to supper. After supper you can do as you please till 8 p.m. when it is hammocks call, and at 9 p.m. everybody is in bed and still for their night's rest.

This daily program as we have outlined it applies to the other days as well as Monday, excepting Wednesday afternoons we have the battalion drill, and in the evenings we have a show or moving pictures to pass away the time, and on Saturday we have no drilling at all, on which day half of each company go to shore and on Sunday the other half goes. Those who go to shore go at 1. p.m. and are supposed to be back the next morning at 7:15. If he is not back he is liable to get three or four days in the brig or jail on bread and water, the naval discipline being very strict, but after becoming accustomed to it, it becomes less irksome and in time you turn to it as one of the courses.

After being schooled and instructed in the barracks for a period of four months you are ready to be sent to a man-of-war to put in practice what you have here learned. The navy offers an excellent opportunity for seeing the world, and many opportunities for advancement in trade and to learn one as well. We shall close our letter wishing success and health to our old Manning friends.

We remain as ever,
Yours truly,
EMIL HOFFMANN, LOUIS FINNERTY