Treasure Island

Treasure Island was a man made island in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland, California. It was built for the 1939 Worlds Fair. The Navy leased T.I. from the city of San Francisco at the start of WW2 for a training base. I attended the Electronics Technician "A" School for 26 weeks from September, 1956-March,1957. This was an early experience in my career that I learned I should have listen to W.W. Keller when he told me I needed more mathematics for electronics. I had to struggle the first six weeks reviewing algebra and learning trigonometry and calculus for all those electrical formulas. I spent many nights in the study room with a slide rule and textbooks.
A note about San Francisco: San Francisco was such a nice city and service personnel were welcomed back in 1956. We all spent a lot of week ends touring the city and surrounding area. There were military bases in the area around San Francisco for the Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force and many civilian workers that worked at those bases. It breaks my heart the way San Francisco now treats our military personnel. From not allowing a Navy ship museum to keeping the Marines off the street for recruiting posters to kicking the ROTC out of the schools. And now I hear that Marines from battle were not allowed in the airport. I had to travel to San Francisco in my work but I will never return again. Let them have it.

ET School Campus
Picture courtesy of Russell Cole. Russ was a shipmate of mine on the USS AJAX. We were at TI at the same time. I think Russ started out in Radar school and later transferred to ET school. I did not know Russ at TI.
More Pictures of TI from Russ


This was one of the landscape items for the 1939 World's Fair. (The stature not me)



Down at the docks on Treasure Island. That's the Oakland Bay Bridge in the background.



That's me standing beside my buddy's 37 Ford. We had to fight off all those California Beach Girls that wanted to ride in that car. I have just recently had a visit by Robert Rayer from Ann Arbor, MI the owner of the 37 Ford. I really enjoyed the chat with an old ET school shipmate.


Here is a recent picture of me with Bob Rayer after about 49 years. He is the same old guy he was back in ET School


This is a picture that Bob had. That is me overhead and that is "Superman" Bob Rayer pretending to be a weight lifter.


I am looking for the above fellow students. I am holding the coffee cup. The one blond guy in the skivies was Hicks I believe - the other guy was Mayfield from Kansas I believe. This was in the barracks. Maybe they will contact me.


This was Red Magaha from Arizona. I understand that he continued his naval career. Breaux and Red were party and drinking buddies back then. Breaux and Red did see each other several times while serving their "20".


The 125 lb Terror Weight Lifter A.J. Breaux from Gueydan, LA. I just recently talked to Alton and he surprised us because he stayed in the Navy for twenty years. He was a Senior Chief Electronics Technician when he retired. Breaux was 21 while we were in school. You know who could buy the beer. We had a lot of fun on those liberties in San Francisco with Breaux and Bob Rayer. Note those Navy issue shoes on Breaux in the Gym.
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