The toll of secrecy and spring-cleaning

Last weekend I was down in Marblehead, Mass. giving a book-talk to a submarine veterans group.  I'd known that WWII was a time of great secrecy for the submarine service, christened "The Silent Service" for its tightlipped policies.  Submariners weren't even allowed to mention the names of their boats or their destinations, much less what they were doing on their patrols.  So when a submarine was overdue or lost, families had no idea what area of the world to even imagine their men in, much less research what might have happened. 

     I found out last weekend that the service is still this way, swearing its members to silence about specifics of their active duty even years after retirement.  The toll this secrecy has taken is that the submarine service has gotten short shrift in naval histories and other military literature.  Their sacrifices and achievements have gone unheralded. 

     There are some writers actively trying to redress this balance, but much information is forever lost.  Silence doesn't just take a toll on documented fact, but it seems to corrode memory and quash inspiration.

     There's another toll I've become aware of this morning.  My husband and I carried trash-bags on our 5:30am walk this morning, to do our part in our town's spring pickup of roadside trash.  I now have to clean the house before our upcoming long-weekend's trip to North Carolina.  I don't mind spring cleaning of our own private space, but this morning's roadside pickup made me despair of human nature by the time we got home with two full bags of roadside trash.  As in the past fifteen years we've lived here, our bags are dominated by cigarette packs, beer cans, fast-food wrappers and coffee cups, tic-tac boxes, and the weird signature mixed-drink droppings of rural motorists: individual-serving-sized bottles of coffee brandy and coffee-flavored milk cartons.    

               

Comments

[Amy]

Having spoken with some retired submariners recently, I have a new appreciation for the secrecy aspect of their lives, and the lack of contact with their families they endured. It really is quite a unique part of the military. They are quite proud that they have always been all-volunteer and the qualifications are very stringent. After retirement, they really stick together and continue to support the guys who are still in and each other. Looking forward to the book!

[joared]

Many many years after the end of WWII I learned my brother (who was never at sea as part of a vessel's crew but was part of the submarine service) had a secret code with our mother so she eventually knew where he was after the Pacific Theater ceased to be threatened, the war officially ended and he could eventually come home. That was a secret that had stayed between only the two of them.

I recall as a child only too well the slogan "Loose lips sink ships" and that would have included submarines, too. As far as I and family knew my brother was in the U.S. Navy, went off to train at Great Lakes, made the grade to work in communications and "shipped out." I am 72 yrs now, and never even knew my ten years older brother was in the submarine service until recent years.

I look forward to receiving the shipment of my advance order of your book and hope to be able to share it with him.

[Terri]

Gosh, that's really something how it had to be so secret.
I'll tell you what...As I said, I'm 150 pg. into your book and I never knew what was involved with submarines during the war. I'm learning so much and you explain it all in layman's terms, making all of it so interesting!