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Time Code Speaker Narrative
00:00:01 Jack For the purpose of this interview could you please state your name?
00:00:04 Louis My name is Louis A. Boucher. I was born February 25th, 1933 in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts.
00:00:15 Jack And what branch of the military did you join?
00:00:17 Louis I I was in the United States Coast Guard.
00:00:21 Jack Why did you join the Coast Guard?
00:00:23 Louis I I joined the Coast Guard because at the time when I was seventeen there was no work to be had and I just got through school and my father wasn’t feeling to good at the time so I decided I’d get a job you know and so I could help out at home and I went into the service. I went into at first like I said earlier I wanted to go into the Army but my father wouldn’t let me so I met with a friend of mine who was home on leave from the Coast Guard. Got to talking with him then I started talking to my father and my father okayed and he signed for me to get into the Coast Guard.
00:00:58 Jack Why did you choose the Coast Guard?
00:01:00 Louis Because they wouldn’t let me go in the Army (laughs).
00:01:04 Jack Why wouldn’t they let you go in the Army?
00:01:06 Louis Because he knew that the you know the Korean War was ready to start. I didn’t know anything about the Korean War because I went in before the Korean War and he used to read the papers all the time and back then I didn't read much of the papers. You know and I used to read you know during World War II I used to read the papers all the time about World War II what was going on over there but in Korea you know after World War II you figure that’s going to be it. And then so I guess he knew something was going on there and so he wouldn’t sign for me to go into the Army so he did let me go into the Coast Guard.
00:01:43 Jack What age did you enlist?
00:01:44 Louis I was seventeen years and three months.
00:01:47 Jack Where did you grow up?
00:01:50 Louis What’s that?
00:01:51 Jack Where did you grow up?
00:01:52 Louis Where did I grew up? I grew up in Haverhill. Haverhill, Mass. I went to eight years of grammar school and one year of trade school and three years of agricultural school.
00:02:06 Jack Describe your life before entering the military.
00:02:09 Louis Well I lived in a rural section of the city and we used to have animals that we
that we we had goats we had pigs, chickens, and geese, rabbits and we used to we used to have to depend on you know for food like the chickens and that we had eggs and the pigs we used to slaughter and goats we had milk. And so I went to a year of Haverhill trade school because I was too young to get into agricultural school. You had to be fourteen at the time and I was only thirteen when I graduated from grammar school. So once I got into once I went to agricultural got into agricultural school I went there for three years and got out of there when I was seventeen and it was no jobs to be had I mean you know working on a farm but you you weren't going to make much of a living working on a farm. So I decided that I wanted to go into military. So then my father signed for me for the Coast Guard and you know the military didn’t pay that much at the time but it was it was a job and you learned a lot of things in there. It was a lot of trades you could learn and when you went into boot camp they give you a whole battery of tests and I I took all the tests and everything and never heard anything about it until the day I I got discharged. They they wanted me to reenlist and they told me I had qualified for every service school there was I said it’s a fine time to tell me you know when out of the day I’m getting out. So I didn’t get out on that but I did qualify for every school there was. I could of went to Radio Operators School, Gunnery School, Cook and
Bakers, Hospital, Hospital Corpsman, Radar, Motor Machinist anything like that and anyone of the schools.
00:03:59 Jack How did the military change your life?
00:04:02 Louis Military? It it gave you confidence in yourself it learned to you know to to be proud of a team and you also learned discipline that’s one of the best things in the I can recommend for a young man is the discipline in that. You learned how to take care of your clothing how to take care of yourself and it was a lot of good things you know how to get along with other people you know how to meet different people it it was it was a great life. I enjoyed it very much the first three years I go in. I’d recommend it to any young man today that you know that doesn't know where he’s going in life you know give him a chance to learn a trade to learn other people you know go places see different things it’s very educational.
00:04:55 Jack What did you want to do when you grew up?
00:04:57 Louis I wanted to be a fireman.
00:05:01 Jack What was your parent’s reaction to your decision to enlist?
00:05:06 Louis They were a little cool at first but once I got in they were fine. After I was in for about a month or so they were fine. I used to write to them every week they’d write to me every week so.
00:05:20 Jack What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about joining the military?
00:05:24 Louis It’s a it’s a good start for somebody. I’d I’d highly recommend it for for any young man you know that doesn’t know what he wants to do whether he wants to go to college or or what it is and and it’s a way of paying back your country for for being here you know. It’s a it’s a patriotic thing to do.
00:05:44 Jack Describe the bonds with people that you formed during the service.
00:05:48 Louis You got to be good friends and you depended on each other in a lot of tight spots. You know you could you could depend on one another you know. One would help you out and you’d help him out so it’s great bond.
00:06:00 Jack Did you talk to anyone after your service that you knew?
00:06:05 Louis Did? Want to say that again Jack?
00:06:08 Jack Did you talk to anyone that you knew from the time you were in service?
00:06:13 Louis Did I talk to anyone before I went into the service?
00:06:16 Jack After.
00:06:17 Louis Oh after?
00:06:18 Jack Yeah.
00:06:19 Louis Yeah I’ve talked I’ve talked to someone some some of the guys some of them that were friends of mine they went in the service. They joined different branches and you know they and a lot of them were drafted you know going to Korean War a lot of them were drafted and you know and and they were sorry they hadn’t you know hadn’t enlisted in some of them because you know
know a lot of the times if you enlisted you could get you know go into branches whatever you want to do you know go into different schools and things like that but if you got drafted you went where they told you and that was it.
00:06:54 Jack What was it like for you to adapt back to civilian life?
00:06:59 Louis What was different than civilian life?
00:07:02 Jack What was it like when you came back after your service?
00:07:05 Louis Oh it was in other words once you got back it was a little hard to to get away form the regimentation because you know in the service you did this at a certain time you did that at a certain time and Jesus when you when you got home you forgot to you know you forgot that you were out of it and you used to hang up your clothes and you know put everything away just like you did in the service because if you left your clothes hanging around in the service or something a Petty Officer come around and pick it up and they used to sell it and if you got caught buying your own clothes back you were in trouble so I mean (laughs) things like that you learned to pick up you learned to make your bed and you know you learned to clean up and take care of yourself.
00:07:48 Jack What was your most vivid memory from your military service?
00:07:52 Louis What’s that?
00:07:54 Jack What was your most vivid memory from your military service?
service?
00:07:58 Louis I can’t get that.
00:08:00 Jack What was your most vivid memory from your military service?
00:08:05 Louis The the most memorable?
00:08:08 Jack Yeah.
00:08:09 Louis There’s so there was a lot of things Jack. I I started out after I got into Boot Camp. I got signed to fire department I worked on the fire department for about three months but right there at the at the Boot Camp that I was in and then I got sent to New York the the third Coast Guard district and I was assigned to Rockaway Boat Lifeboat Station in Rockaway, New York which was just the (coughs) excuse me just the other side of the Marine Parkway Bridge in in and that was the busiest Coast Guard station in the country. We used to get something like about twelve hundred and fifty calls of assistance a year and that was anything from drowning to finding boats missing boats sinking boats fires sometimes we’d have to go help fire department you know when a building fire and things like that we could get near there with a boat or something like that you know pump water on it and we used to do crash boat duty. We were right near Floyd Bennett Field and we used to do and we used to do crash boat duty for the big flying boats the flying boats you know they used to fly right after World War II. Every time they came they came down they used to have to take these flying boats and attach wheels to them because they had you know they had no wheels on land it was strictly a flying boat so they would lower them into the water down a ramp into the water and then they’d take off and sometimes they'd run drills all day take off and landing take off and landing and you used to have to stand by them in case they crash because we’d have to go in there and help pull them out and it was a real busy place and then from there then I got sent to the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore where I spent I only spent four months down there but that was a very busy place and you know that was putting ships in and out of dry docks and and coal and fuel barges and running down on shake down cruises bring back some of these ships when they broke down and things like that so it was busy and then from there I made a swap with a guy and I got stationed in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire and that was the deadest station there was in the country going from the busiest to the quietest so I mean there there it was never too busy. Occasionally although I did got a call one morning for a drowning and we went down and we had an amphibious duck you’ve probably seen those duck rides the duck boats they call them in Boston we had one of those and we went out and we started dragging for them on the third run we picked them up and when we got them on the on the dock I’d knew the guy I’d gone to school with him I went to eight years of school with him and he was dead but that I do remember the station but that was a very quiet station and from there I got discharged from there went back in 1954 and I was at the Captain of the Port in Boston and there you had to you worked with the customs and you would search boats. Any ship that came in from an Iron Curtain country we went aboard. We went aboard with Geiger counters looking for anything you know and that was what do you call it you know nuclear something like that we had Geiger counters and they would one time we went aboard one of the ships and the thing the Geiger counter went crazy. They had a piece of granite on the deck and it had a piece of cobalt inside of it and that drove the machine crazy and we thought we had something you know till we found out what it was but we you know we would go on all these ships check all these ships out and once they came in the port going on and off of them we got to check the passengers and run around them you know with small boats make sure nothing was put over the side or anything and that was part of coming aboard checking all ships and then out of the Port of Boston.
00:12:10 Jack What was your most most life changing event in the military?
00:12:14 Louis Probably when I got married.
00:12:19 Jack Describe an average day during your time with the military.
00:12:24 Louis An average day if you were on a if like if we were on a
tug at you know Curtis Bay you used to get out at 5:30 in the morning and we had a crew of eight and what we’d do we’d put ships in and out of dry dock and sometimes that’d take three four hours put one of those in and we had a a barge which we’d call the sea mule and then we had a fifty foot a fifty six foot tug part of it because we’d break up the crew and part of the crew would take the fifty six footer. Another part of the crew would take the the sea mule and that’s how we worked. We’d put those ships in and out of dry dock and we had other barges we used to have to pull around and around to different ships on load and like we had a sludge barge which was nothing more than old oil coming out of the engine and Christ that held about a thousand gallons of oil in there and we would bring that to the ship tie it up to the ship two three o’clock in the morning whatever time they needed it so we we drop that off and sometimes it’d be cold it’d raining sometimes snowing and that’d deck be icy and you just held on but you got used to it though.
00:13:43 Jack What’s the one thing about home you missed the most during the service?
00:13:47 Louis About home? Not being able to sleep in the morning you know somebody telling you what to do everyday.
00:13:55 Jack Did you find being in the Coast Guard rewarding?
00:13:59 Louis Yes.
00:14:03 Jack What’s your opinion on the Coast Guard today?
00:14:06 Louis What’s that?
00:14:07 Jack What’s your opinion on the Coast Guard today?
00:14:10 Louis It’s very diversified it’s it’s a very diversified service and it and now its when I was in when I was in we were under the Treasury Department now it’s the the Homeland Security. Now I have a grandson who’s graduating here in about three more flights as a helicopter pilot .
00:14:32 Jack What’s your opinion on war today?
00:14:34 Louis What’s that Jack?
00:14:35 Jack What’s your opinion on war today?
00:14:37 Louis As far as I’m concerned this war over in Afghanistan I mean Christ you don’t know who the heck they’re fighting over there I mean during the day they’re your friends at night they want to kill you. I think they should get out of there. They spend enough money over there and wasted enough money. It’s ridiculous to be over there.
00:14:55 Jack What’s the most dangerous thing you did while in the Coast Guard?
00:14:59 Louis Most dangerous?
00:15:00 Jack Yeah.
00:15:02 Louis Unloading ammunition. We used to have to unload all the ammunitions of the ships that went in the dry dock and then a lot of the times on the patrol boats being out in rough weather. I’ve been out in a hurricane in one of those small boats the 36 foot motor life boat. I was out in 96 mile an hour winds and that I will never forget because that that boat went up would go almost straight up and then dive right in and I was up in the forward cockpit and we were underwater you’d go underwater and then you’d come back up and we we drove like that for about an hour and a half and we didn’t even go very far. It was so bad we had to turn around come back in again. (long pause) Jack have you ever seen that 36 foot motor life boat that ties up at Rock Harbor? The 36500.
00:16:01 Jack No.
00:16:02 Louis It’s it’s there in the summertime what you should do sometime have your mother or somebody take you there or Joe take you down there and take a look at it. That boat saved 34 men right off of Chatham. A tanker split in half back in 1952 in February. I forget the just the exact date but in 1952 right out front of the Chatham Coast Guard station and it it rescued 34 men out there there’s 35 one got killed they got caught between the the lifeboat and the tanker and that's the kind of one of the boats I was on that was the 36500. I was on the 36498.
00:16:41 Jack What was your favorite duty?
00:16:44 Louis My favorite duty? Was riding riding the patrol boats a lot of times we used to have to go out and do boarding and we we go out check all these boats you know for lifejackets make sure they had lifejackets fire extinguishers you know they had lights and everything and we got a lot we meet a lot of nice people out there and it was a very interesting job to do you know and and all kinds of different jobs in there you know I mean being out on the water like that was very interesting very enjoyable the worst part was standing watches up in towers.
00:17:26 Jack What were you looking for up in the tower?
00:17:29 Louis What’s that?
00:17:30 Jack What were you looking for up in the tower?
00:17:32 Louis Jack you were up there for four more hours when the first time I ever went up in one of them was in November 25th, 1950 the night of a hurricane and we didn’t they didn’t know about a hurricane they they didn't have the you know the systems they have now to predict them and we were up in the tower 85 feet high and we got a call. This was my first night in the station I got out in boot camp and they they sent me the this is at Rockaway Coast Guard Station in Rockaway, New York so I had the mid. to four walk so I went up there with another guy and so we were standing watch and we got a phone call about quarter of one in the morning to put up southeast storm warnings so a southeast storm warning was a red pennant the square pennant with the the black block in the middle and then on the bottom was a white pointed flag and its see we were what they call a hoist station so when boats went up they could see that flag that they had lights on it and everything so we got a we got that for a southeast storm so about three o’clock we got a call to put up hurricane warnings so we hung up the hurricane warnings. That was through the square ones with the the black block in the center and all of the sudden the wind picked up so much it just snapped the whole pole and everything right off the right off the tower we could feel that power shaking and I mean to tell you it was shaking. We were getting gusts of 96 miles an hour and no the being on a being on a watch is like that at night. There was nothing happening it was the most boring job and you had a clock to punch and you had to punch the clock every half hour so if you fell asleep and that clock wasn’t punched you were in deep trouble. You’d get a court-martial for falling asleep and that was one of the most serious things you could do you know fall asleep on watch so you made sure you know you’d walk around it was it was you know you’re getting sleepy you’d walk around the catwalk on the outside to stay awake and you had no radio you had nothing to read nothing. You had to you had a pair of binoculars and you had a radio and all you did you just stick those glasses in your eye and look around out to sea see if they had you know some merchant marine or something in distress you’d see signals you know flares or something like that but it was boring God was it boring especially on a foggy night you couldn’t see anything and it was like being in the middle of nowhere you know all night long but it was boring. Sometimes it was cold we had a little heater in there and sometimes the power go out and then when you at high tide sometimes you’d have to walk in water up to your chest you know to get back to get a ride to go back to the station. We were about four miles away from the station and we used to have to ride down in a pickup truck that did 22 miles and a half an hour because of its governor and because the skipper didn’t want anybody fooling around with the truck you know to go anywhere so you know that it was a boring job in the towers.
00:20:36 Jack What would happen if you fell asleep?
00:20:39 Louis You’d get a court-martial. You could you know you could you could be restricted for so many days so you they could even put you in the brig now the brig was a jail and you you know if you did enough times you’d get a a dishonorable discharge or something like that and if you did that in wartime you know say if you were a Sentry or something like that in wartime if you did that you could get shot for that you that was one of the most the worst thing you could do is fall asleep on watch that was a no-no.
00:21:24 Jack What boat was best that you were on?
00:21:28 Louis What’s that Jack?
00:21:29 Jack What boat was best that you were on?
00:21:33 Louis I still I don’t get you.
00:21:35 Jack What was your favorite boat?
00:21:37 Louis My favorite boat?
00:21:38 Jack Yeah.
00:21:40 Louis The the 36 footers because those are one of the safest boats ever built. Those boats were 36 feet long and I think there was something like about seven feet wide or six and a half feet wide and they had a a 90 horsepower diesel engine on them and they would take waves and you could actually roll in it you know roll it would ride itself within ten seconds you know if you got the water bad enough we had cables on it. We used to tie ourselves in on the boat with cables and it you know if it took a turn it it capsized in in other words it capsizing is turning boat upside down this boat would actually go right back up again right back on the steer within ten seconds and what a beating it would take oh my God you could hear that you know you could hear ribs creek but it was the safest boat they ever made at the time. Now they got bigger ones that are even better but back then you know technology wasn’t wasn’t as good as it is today.
00:22:03 Jack How much were you paid when you were in the Coast Guard?
00:22:06 Louis $75 a month room and board.
00:22:11 Jack Was that enough?
00:22:12 Louis That wasn’t much. They used to get $13 every two weeks of spending the rest went home so I got $26 a month the rest I put in the bank I sent it to my mother and she’d she’d put it in a bank for me. (pause) You didn’t need much money cause Christ you got your beer your hospitalizations you got your clothes all paid for and everything they make much better much better money now Jack. Big bucks now.
00:23:29 Jack What do you miss most from the Coast Guard?
00:23:31 Louis What’s that?
00:23:32 Jack What do you miss most from the Coast Guard?
00:23:35 Louis What do I miss most?
00:23:38 Jack Yeah.
00:23:39 Louis Oh I been out of there so long now Jack I really don’t miss anything. (laughs) No I’ve been away from it too long I mean probably miss the guys in there you know I mean you’ve made a bunch of friends in there I mean that you miss you know because they came from all over the country they they came from Ohio came from California Texas wherever you know oh God you had them everywhere that’s that’s about the the biggest thing I miss you know some of the guys that I was with and some you don’t miss at all.
00:24:19 Jack What would you do differently if you could do it over?
00:24:23 Louis I would find out which school I qualified for and I’d probably gone to school you know what I’d do you know in in looking back on it you know what I’d do I’d go to Cook and Baker School. That’s is one thing I did too I I was a relief cook in there too when the regular cook went out like when on on the lifeboat stations when the regular cook went off on you know liberty or when he went on leave I used to do the cooking and that that was a good job I mean you got up in the morning you did the cooking and you know then at night you’d actually you could do whatever you want to do. You didn’t have to stand watch or anything you know so that that was easy and then when you got out that’s a great trade on your side when you know how to cook because you always have to eat.
00:25:12 Jack What was your favorite memory from the Coast Guard?
00:25:16 Louis My favorite what?
00:25:17 Jack Memory.
00:25:20 Louis Oh I don’t know. (pause) I don’t know.
00:25:38 Jack Do you still see anyone from back then?
00:25:40 Louis Do I ever see anyone that I was in with?
00:25:41 Jack Yeah.
00:25:42 Louis No no because they they were all you know a lot further away than I was. (pause) I mean it’s been a lot of years since I’ve been in there Jack. That’s going back we’re going back 50 years 50 some odd years.
00:26:05 Jack Did you ever see any fishermen that needed help?
00:26:08 Louis Fishermen?
00:26:08 Jack Yeah.
00:26:09 Louis Oh yeah we used to tow in fishing boats. (laughs) I’ll never forget one time we we had a a boat come in and a a 83 footer and that that was a one of the big patrol boats. It came in and we went down there it had come and it came into the base they they were trying to find parts that they needed for their on their in their engine you know so they they stopped in there so we went down. We had coffee with them and they opened their refrigerator they had a thirteen pound lobster in the refrigerator so one of the guys on their fishing boat they just towed in gave them and it took the whole inside of the refrigerator that that’s a big lobster.
00:26:52 Jack Okay well this concludes the interview. Thank you very much for your time.
00:26:56 Louis You’re welcome Jack anytime so hope you make out good with it. (laughs) If you need more just give me a call.
00:27:05 Jack Okay, thank you.
00:27:06 Louis You’re welcome Jack. Thank you.
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