[The following takes place in the United States Navy in 1941.]
Hoff boarded the Navy’s newest carrier completely naïve. He learned quickly not to ask stupid questions. He found that the old-timers enjoyed peppering greenhorns with sarcastic remarks and lies to confuse them. Don Hoff’s first night on the massive ship was not a pleasant one. His bunk in the floating city of more than two thousand souls was in the enlisted men’s quarters, deep within the Big E’s bowels. Mentally exhausted by the time he reached his lower-deck berthing compartment, he found his lower-level bunk, dropped into it, and drifted off to sleep.
Hoff was wearing only his shorts when he was startled awake around midnight by warm water splashing on his chest and stomach. As the liquid splattered onto his face, his eyes quickly found the source of the cascade – a thoroughly inebriated aviator who had stumbled back aboard from shore leave. The man was now urinating on Hoff and his bunk.
Source:
Moore, Stephen L. “We Would Have One Helluva Celebration.” Pacific Payback: The Carrier Aviators Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. NAL Caliber, 2014. 13. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Donald Hoff interview from *Vengeance at Midway,” Battle 360 video, Episode 2.
Further Reading:
USS Enterprise (CV-6) / “The Big E”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CV-6)
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