Friends of SRC include submariners who served in S-boats, those currently serving in nuclear submarines and the many who rode the boats in the last half of the twentieth century. Among the latter is Duke Ford, an eighty year old resident of Phoenix, Arizona who still works and is married to the former Beverly Gardner.

Like so many of his Navy buddies, he enlisted during the Second World War to fight the Japanese. After recruit training he served aboard the destroyer escort, USS Carter (DE-112) which sank a German U-boat in the Mediterranean. Duke started his Navy career fighting submarines and it never occurred to him at the time that he would spend a good part of his life under water. The Navy sent him to the Philippines where he worked with Seabees. In April of 1946 he got out of the Navy to go to school. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder under the G.I. Bill Of Rights. He wasn't as tuned to all the academics as he was to playing football.

He found out that the kids getting out of high school were in better shape than he, so in 1948 he re-entered the Navy. He didn't have the benefit of going through Submarine School and in 1951 reported aboard the USS Greenfish (SS-351) as a third class torpedoman. He went to the forward torpedo room gang, but spent most of his time qualifying.

In 1951 the cold war was just getting started as far as submarines were concerned. Greenfish made its first WesPac cruise and while there Ford took advantage of the local customs and bistros, one of which in Yokosuka was, "The White Hat Crub". The Greenfish gang took a special liking to Ruby and her friend Satchiko. Greenfish was scheduled for super secret operations involving the landing on Chinese soil of Chinese agents who were to do something mysterious and profound. The men of Greenfish were warned by Captain W. P. Willis that they were not to talk of the coming operation. Certainly, the men of the torpedo gang would never divulge any military secrets. Of course the exact time of Greenfish's departure was kept secret.

Because Duke had not yet qualified he was on deck carefully laying the mooring lines in the deck locker when Greenfish headed out to Sagami Wan and passed the Yokosuka Naval Base knoll. Waving wildly from the rocks were Ruby and Satchiko. "Good Ruck, Duke san", yelled Satchtiko. "You come back White Hat!" yelled Ruby.

Somewhere off the Chinese coast a rubber boat was put over and off went the secret agents. Duke and his cronies were glad they weren't going with them.

In 1954 Duke reported aboard the Wahoo (SS-565). Like Greenfish it was homebased at Pearl and like Greenfish did its share of WesPac cruises. At that time Wahoo was equipped with Cleveland Vertical Radial Diesels. These were intended to conserve space and had their generators under the engines so that the generators were in the motor room flats.

The Cleveland Company manufactured the engine from designs that were originally from General Motors, but which the parent company refused to certify as reliable. Cleveland's advertisement for the engine which appeared in the Naval Institute Proceedings described its engine as follows, "Compact, economical and above all, dependable, GM Diesel Electric Drive is the power plant that pays its way in all types of marine operations."

As we all know this engine proved to be a disaster and Duke Fork did all he could to help the poor enginemen who struggled to keep just one of the five engines operational.

Duke and his fellow tropedomen were responsible for Captain Hanssen's palm tree. It was stationed between the tubes under a lamp that was supposed to duplicate sunlight. The word on the boat was that the captain had made some sort of bet that he could keep a juvenile palm tree healthy for the duration of a WesPac cruise. Duke fought a losing battle as each palm frond sagged then fell to the deck. After three months it was only a stick. The wardroom had many suggestions including feeding the sick palm vitamins and carrying the root ball to the bridge whenever the boat was on the surface. Nothing helped and finally the lonely green stalk began to turn brown. By this time Wahoo was homebound and it was scheduled to make a two day stop at Guam.

Guam had been the site of some heavy Second World War fighting and many of its native palms had been destroyed. As a result the Guamanian government had set big penalties on anyone caught digging up a palm. Duke explained all this to Hugh Nott, the executive officer, but the exec's reply was, "Do you want to disappoint the captain?"

A hapless TAD ensign, riding Wahoo for eight months was assigned a two and half ton truck. Four torpedomen, lead by Duke Ford threw three cases of beer into the covered bed of the truck and with the ensign at the wheel the truck sped off into the mountains. By the time the ensign had picked out a young tree the torpedomen had finished two of the three cases of Iron City Beer. They dug up the tree, squeezed the roots into a five gallon coffee tin, pushed the tree into the truck and continued their beer drinking on the way back to the boat.

Guamanian farmers often tied their goats and pigs to stakes at the side of the road. The Wahoo torpedomen had to get rid of their bottles and what better way than to throw them at the animals as they passed. When a few enraged farmers ran after the truck the torpedomen threw the bottles at them too. It was all great fun and the ensign at the wheel knew nothing of the beer, the bottles or the disgruntled farmers. The tree was placed at the bow while Wahoo remained in port. Captain Hanssen was proud and never asked any awkward questions. Ford and Barnaby hoped the farmers wouldn't find them before Wahoo got underway.

On the trip back to Pearl the torpedomen tended the palm with loving care. Each morning the tree was brought to the bridge where the O.D. had to duck under the fronds to get at the 7MC. Luckily, the pancake diesels were out of commission so much the palm never had to buck much headwind. It was administered vitamins by the pharmacists mate on a daily schedule, but in spite of everyone's best efforts the tree began to droop. It was another loosing battle and by the time Wahoo got within two days of home port the last frond dropped into the bilges.

Wahoo laid off the channel entrance for three hours waiting for a private boat belonging to a local florist to come alongside. A palm tree was hauled aboard, money was exchanged and Wahoo limped up the channel on one engine with a healthy palm at its bow. Duke had been a part of Hanssen's great palm tree epoch and was suitably proud. To this day he points to a picture of Barnaby, and three others standing around the forward torpedo tubes with a healthy palm tree in the foreground.

After Wahoo Duke spent time on the John Marshall (SSN-611), but the two crew concept seemed to rob the crew of the camaraderie that was intense on the diesel boats. He later rose to chief petty officer, then E-9 as he became an instructor at the Advanced Undersea Weapons School.

Duke Ford put in thirty years in the Navy and never regretted a moment. He liked being at sea and his best experiences were in submarines.