Callao Peru..S A.
Dear Laura + Charles
Well we are in Peru at last. Anchored off Callao, which is about 7 miles from Lima. I think Lima is the capital of Peru. Some country I can’t say I care a heck of a lot for it though. Too many Peruvians and everybody speaks Spanish. A few of them speak English. We have a great time getting them to understand what we want. The ship gave everyone a little pamphlet with a lot of the most important words in Spanish; it is a help. Nearly everyone aboard knows a little Spanish.
The monetary system is sure funny. Their unit is the SOL which is equal to $.25 in our money. A SOL is made of silver and is as big as one of our dollars. Get one dollar changed into Peruvian money and you get four coins as big as you started with, Getting it changed into smaller coins and you get more yet. Whenever one of these storekeepers see one of our sailors coming they raise their prices about double, so we have to jew them down.
It is about as cold here as San Francisco. Been here three days and the sun hasn’t came out once—not even for five seconds. About the first three days out of San Diego it was about as hot as I have seen it anywhere but about two days before crossing the equator it started getting cold. When they initiated us upon crossing the line, we nearly froze when they put us in the tank of water.
It was some initiation….a long story. Putting us in stocks and giving us a royal shocking with their electrical apparatus….electrical chairs, electric shoes and other manner of shocking devices. They put all the polliwogs (which is a person who has never been across the equator) in stocks and then lay on with half a dozen clubs, etc. They also put graphite grease on our faces while in the stocks. Then they spray some stuff that tastes like fly spray in our mouth, it sure leaves an awful taste. They have lots of other tortures for the initiation too, so that when a person becomes a shellback he really rates it. They end up by putting us in a chair which tips us over backwards into a tank of salt water. Before tipping us over they put real black grease on us.
About five guys in the tank to hold us under the water to make sure we get wet. Then they throw us out head first and we slide down an incline on our stomach. Then when hitting the bottom there is two rows or ranks of shellbacks waiting with clubs etc. Which we must run through. A guy wastes very little time going through. As one sailor said, “It seems like the faster a guy runs the faster he runs.” It seems like no one misses with their paddle or club. So a person really knows it when he gets through.
But that is the climax of the initiation and a guy is a shellback after that. I pity the guys that are polliwogs the next time I cross the equator. The shellbacks started on us about three days before we got to the line …..Tying polliwogs up, cutting their hair in all manner of shapes, literally scalping some of them. No one did a thing to me before crossing so I was one of the lucky few.
We had three planes crack up coming down. One of them fell in the ocean but as it had flotation gear, which is two big rubber bags under the wings which are automatically inflated if the pilot or radioman presses a button.They got them inflated before hitting the water. The plane went over the side while landing. They picked the plane up after a couple of hours. No one killed. The destroyers picked up the pilot and his radioman. After they got the plane back aboard ship it was the worst looking wreck that I have seen on our ship except one of our planes that crashed in Honolulu.
Peru hasn’t much of a Navy here; about five or six ships which are all pretty old. The Peruvian sailors wear a uniform which looks almost like ours, more like ours than any navy I have seen yet.
We fired a twenty one gun salute when we entered the harbor. The ambassador came aboard this morning and we fired a nineteen gun salute for him.
I took the examination for Radioman Third Class a few days ago. It was pretty easy so I am pretty sure of getting rated if there is any rates this quarter and there should be.
Peru is as far east as Washington DC. I always thought it would be west of California even. We will pass through four seasons of the year on this cruise. We left San Diego when it was still summer; got down here while it was still winter; it will be spring here in a few days; and when we get back to the states it will be fall.
Well I will close for now.
With Lots of Love
Bill.