Despite the thousands of cadets that graduated from the Massachusetts Nautical School Ship Nantucket over her thirty-three years of service at the school (technically not all under the name Nantucket, but the same vessel), there are only three accounts that I’m aware of that describe life aboard her that have ever been published.

Two were by men I had the honor of knowing personally and called friends, George Duffy and Rodman Dickie, both now sadly passed, and the third was Charles Bamforth, who Rodman informed me of, and although Bamforth had already passed many years before, I was able to connect with his sons and their wonderful families.

The earliest account was Bamforth’s, who graduated with the October class of 1915 while the vessel was still named Ranger and under the command of Rust’s predecessor, Captain Charles N. Atwater USN(R). Bamforth was also a longtime American-Hawaiian officer and was Master of the Honolulan when it was sunk by a U-boat a month after Bernard’s Arkansan. Bamforth’s book is named; ‘Iron Jaw: A Skipper Tells His Story - Captain Charles N. Bamforth (1895-1975)’, Charles A. Bamforth and Richard A. Bamforth, Editors, Published in 2002, Dorrance Publishing Co. (Pittsburgh, Pa), ISBN 0805954171. The book, written by his family from the Captains personal notes and journals devotes four and half pages to his time at the school in Chapter 2 – ‘TO THE TOPMOST BUNT’.

Next was Rodman Dickie, who graduated with the October class on 1940, after a false start due to illness during the 1938 summer cruise. In his book; ‘Saved By A SERIES OF MIRACLES’ by Rodman L. Dickie, Published in 2012, Infinity Publishing (West Conshohocken, Pa), ISBN 978-0-7414-7850-4 (Paperback). Rodman devoted about seven and half pages to his time onboard.

Finally, there is George Duffy, who graduated with the October class on 1941. George’s book ‘Ambushed under the Southern Cross – The Making of an American Merchant Marine Officer and His Ensuing Saga of Courage and Survival’ by Capt. George W. Duffy, Published in 2008, Xlibris Corporation, ISBN 978-1-4363-0636-2 (Hardcover), ISBN 978-1-4363-0635-5 (Softcover). George devoted four chapters  which include many great photographs and sketches from his personal collection.

Both Rodman and George served on Nantucket when she was commanded by Rust’s successor, Captain Clarence A. Abele, USN (R). Interestingly enough, Bernard’s 'favorite' officer, Chief Engineer Erwin R. Kelly was still serving. Another difference is that all three of these men were forced to take modified cruises along the American East Coast and Caribbean waters due to their training taking place on the eve of war when it was not safe to venture into European waters. Bernard may have gotten a little more experience by sailing back and forth across the Atlantic in more varied weather and was able to visit more interesting ports in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.

Despite the twenty-eight year span (Bamforth started in 1913), during which Bernard’s time falls smack in the middle, not much appears to have changed in the daily life of the cadets, so I believe we can infer Bernard’s experience from these other men’s experiences.

Of course first and foremost there was a lot of hard work to sailing a vessel like this. From never-ending chipping and painting the ship and polishing the brass or “brightwork” that most sailors even today can relate to, to chores from a more by-gone era like holystoning the decks and coaling the ship, which I’ll detail below:

Holystoning the decks – sanding the weathered teakwood decks literally with sand and saltwater while using a brick to move the gritty solution around and grind away the weathered surface, most often while on hands and knees. George has a picture in his book showing the cadets thus engaged. Bamforth described it as such: “We took a wagonload of bricks and a load of sand. For most of the two weeks, we were on our hands and knees with a half a brick in each hand, sanding the wooden decks to remove the weathered surface which had developed during the winter. This was part of the hardening-up process to make seamen of us. Some of the less determined boys quit right there, forfeiting their down payments.” Those boys were lucky enough to still be in port, but the process often occurred at sea as well and those involved had no choice but to grin and bear it.

Coaling the ship – As George Duffy wrote “The hard life in the Nantucket came as a surprise, I am sure, to most of us. There was nothing, however, more unanticipated than the terrible ordeal of coaling ship. Soft coal was burned in the four Scotch boilers, and it arrived in bulk by barge or rail car, seventy to a hundred tons of it. Storage compartments adjacent to the fire room were called bunkers. Above the bunkers, circular bronze plates fitted to the gun deck and the spar deck [ES: Bamforth’s book shows these on the cover] accommodated portable cast iron pipes of the same diameter as the plates. The coal was dropped down these pipes to the bunkers.

The process began by pairing up third and fourth classmen according to height. Upperclassmen with shovels filled canvas bags with seventy or eighty pounds of coal which each pair of underclassmen swung between them. The queue of struggling cadets lurched up the gangway, thence to the open holes where the bags were deftly flipped and their contents, for the most part, delivered. Then it was back down the other gangway for the next bag. Upperclassmen, manning brooms, tried to keep the decks clean, but the fine, dusty black stuff spread throughout the ship. Eventually, as the level of coal rose in the bunkers, cadets were dropped in to direct the incoming “black diamonds” into the corners. It was no place for the claustrophobic. When the bunkers were chock-a-block full, the canvas bags were filled and stowed on deck, along with whatever number of burlap bags that were needed to hold the last sweepings. At the end, we were black from head to toe. First, though, the ship had to be washed down.” George went on to tell an amusing story about reporting for duty before he had an opportunity to clean up.

While all that work was occurring, the Nantucket’s officers would randomly run safety drills. As Bernard mentioned in his first letter “We have every kind of drill all the time. Like collision, abandon ship & man overboard.” Bamforth also mentioned Fire Drill, Signal Drill, and Navigation Drill. George’s book mentioned them throughout his chapters, especially the man overboard drills. According to George the Nantucket’s officers seemed to take great pleasure tossing a buoy over the side at the most inopportune times, often while the cadets were engaged in raising or lowering sails and in all kinds of weather. The designated rescue team would have to immediately stop were they were doing, man and launch the lifeboat and row (of course they were not given one of the motor launches) to retrieve the buoy in the quickest possible time. Sometimes the officers were tricky enough the call the man overboard on say the starboard side, when the buoy was actually tossed on the port side to see how the cadets adapted.

Living conditions onboard the Nantucket could best described as ‘primitive’. As Bernard mentioned in his letters they were given a small locker to stow their clothes and personal effects including ‘stores’, goodies family had sent to help ease the cadets’ 'suffering'.

The cadets slept in hammocks hung from hooks in the beams that formed the ceiling of the gun deck. From the other men’s accounts, the upperclassmen appear to have first choice on the locations they picked, mainly toward the middle of the vessel, while the lowerclassmen had to settle for what was left towards the bow and in other nooks and crannies. For the newest cadets, it appears falling out of the hammock while asleep was not an uncommon event. In some cases this was simply due to getting used to sleeping in a hammock, but in other cases the cadet fell victim to one of the more popular forms of hazing by the upperclassmen, having the foot end of the hammock ropes cut. Apparently they exhibited some compassion by only cutting the foot end so the cadet had a better chance of landing on their feet rather than on their head, although most ended up horizontal. Imagine being sound asleep after an exhausting watch of hard physical work and waking up to the sensation of free-falling seven feet before smacking into to the hardwood deck. A literal example of ‘a rude awakening’.

All the other accounts mention hazing to some degree. It seemed ever present, but varied in intensity from class to class, from mild harassment to quite severe bullying up to and including public humiliation even physical abuse. Officers appeared to consider it part of the tradition (no doubt they had suffered hazing during their training ‘back in the day’), and rarely seemed to addressed it. Hopefully Bernard was not the victim of anything too severe. I doubt he would have mentioned it to his father, but he may have confided in his Uncle Jim if it had occurred.

Even though this was a civilian school, it was run by retired naval officers, who ran it likely a military academy. Discipline was strict and demerits were freely issued for the slightest infractions, from proper uniform details, to hygiene to performance of duties. Captain's Mast was held on a regular basis and the cadets handed out their sentences. Most often these demerits were simply worked off during the cadet’s limited personal time but could also result in a loss of liberty in port. In the most severe cases, like stealing food, it could result in confinement and being expelled when they returned to Boston.

As Bernard mentioned in his letters there was a lot to adapt to, from odd and ever changing working hours (watches) to inconsistent opportunities to eat, and when you did, questionable portions and quality of food, which boiled over on Bernard’s first cruise. There was no service staff aboard, so cadets did all the work from food preparation, to serving and clean-up.

In addition to the officers and cadets, the school employed four experienced seamen. The 'Lima bean mutiny' story, as I like to call it, from Bernard's first training cruise in 1929 mentioned seaman "Herbert Freehold, a native of Wilhemshaven [sic], Germany". I located a portion of a crew manifest from the same voyage which noted they took on another German named Albert Klabunber, age 27, when they stopped in Venice in July.

Personal hygiene appears to be a priority as disease can spread quickly on a confined ship. As Bernard mentioned the cadets were even responsible for cleaning their own clothes. The others mention daily saltwater baths from a fire hose, ice cold from the sea. Bamforth mentioned that if a rain squall occurred the cadets were ordered to strip where the stood, so they could take “advantage” of  a fresh water shower. While the fresh water felt better, “it seemed anything but warm, especially with a fresh breeze blowing”, Bamforth noted.

Of course somewhere in all of that the cadets had challenging classroom work and studying to do.

First year was a little bit of everything, both deck and engineering duties, to give the cadets a taste of all the possibilities of a career at sea. By the start of their second year as 2nd Classmen they had to choose between marine engineering or seamanship & navigation.

It was certainly no pleasure cruise, but despite the grueling work and harsh conditions, the young men that survived to graduation seemed to have appreciated the experience, at least in time, and it appears to have prepared them for even rougher times ahead.