James Allen was 16 years old in the spring of 1942 and a junior in high when he decided to join the Navy. In March he forged his birth certificate and enlisted in the Navy. He was sent to the Great Lakes for boot camp and after boot camp he requested submarine duty because of a friend of his from Cleveland, Sam Sebring, who served aboard and later went down with the USS Trout (SS-202). Early in the war the Filipino government wanted to evacuate their gold and silver to Pearl Harbor before the Japanese got there. They loaded up all the metal into the Trout and when it arrived in Pearl Harbor they were one ingot short. They eventually found it being used as a paperweight. Allen ran into Sebring once in Pearl Harbor and they played a little catch together. Sebring lost a finger in the sub and it helped him throw a mean screwball. Allen went through submarine training in New London, Connecticut. Allen loved every minute of his training. Some days they would be in a classroom and other days they would be diving in Long Island Sound in O boats [Annotator's Note: World War 1 era submarines]. They would move the trainees around to give them a well rounded education. Allen was interested in the electrical system of the sub. In addition to school they also had assigned duties on the base. Allen was frequently assigned as a courier from the radio room to the decoding room. He would sit in the back of the radio room and wait for the message to be fully received before taking it to the decoding room. When they finished school in August or September they were sent to the receiving station in San Diego to await transportation to Pearl Harbor. They sailed on the USS Lurline [Annotator's Note: SS Lurline]. It took four or five days to reach Honolulu. When they were leaving the ships they carried full sea bags which carried all their clothes and hammocks. As they were dismounting a Marine sergeant and a lieutenant picked about six people and told them to come with them. They were brought to the sub base and told that they were being temporarily assigned to the Marine Corps to patrol the piers at the submarine base. They were searching for saboteurs. They were given World War 1 era bolt action rifles with ammunition and a bayonet. They were ordered to challenge anyone who approached. If he stopped people more than once they might get annoyed. He solved this by putting a round in the chamber. After a few days Allen went to talk to the lieutenant and told him that by keeping Allen on guard duty he was standing in the way of his actual assignment. The lieutenant thought he was full of it but checked and within a couple of hours Allen was given orders to report to the submarine base.

Within a day of arriving at the submarine base James Allen was given orders to report to the USS Wahoo (SS-238). He went over to see it and saw that it needed a paint job. He went aboard and gave his orders to the chief of the boat, Pappy Rau [Annotator's Note: Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Russell H. Rau], who welcomed him aboard. Allen learned quickly to never question Rau. The yeoman, Sterling [Annotator's Note: Forest Sterling], was called to relieve a lookout while they were on the surface during a patrol. Allen woke up Sterling and told him Rau wanted to see him. When told what Rau wanted Sterling questioned the order and Rau punched him and sent him to the floor. Sterling said he was going to report Rau and Rau said okay but never question his orders. Rau told Allen that the cook needed his help. Allen reported to the mess and discovered that there was a mountain of dishes that needed to be washed. This was his first job on the Wahoo. A Fireman 3rd Class is equal to a Seaman 2nd Class. Just to the right of his station was a hatch that came from topside. A sea bag came hurtling through the hatch and a yeoman followed it. It was Forest Sterling. Once the crew started coming back aboard the Chief Electrician's Mate told Allen that he was part of the electrical crew. They had a 90 volt ground on the batteries caused by acid in the vents. There were two batteries, one fore and one aft and each one had 100 cells in it. The cells were large objects and hard rubber ducts ran along the top of the cells in order to get rid of the hydrogen gas the cells gave off. During ventilation some acid fumes would condense along the walls of the tubing. The cells were about 40 feet long and almost 20 feet wide. The acid would conduct electricity. The batteries produced 270 volts. They had to take all of the tubing off and wash it out in an ammonia rinse. It took several days to clean and then reassemble the tubing. Allen became quite well known for his proficiency at this and when boats came into port they would ask for him. The batteries never fully worked as designed and when they returned to Mare Island all the cells were taken out and replaced.

[Annotator's Note: James Allen served in the Navy as a Fireman 2nd Class in the submarine service and was aboard the USS Wahoo (SS-238) for that boat's second war patrol.] Before the Wahoo got underway they had to do a sound check. An escort vessel was nearby with sound equipment. Once the submarine was submerged they would run each piece of equipment in succession and the ship on the surface would compare the noise levels. When they first went under, the officer of the deck ordered the bridge cleared but a lookout missed the order. When the sub submerged he floated off and the escort ship picked him up. When they left Pearl Harbor they were told they were headed for a patrol area near Bougainville off the island of Buka. The Japanese were trying to resupply their troops on Guadalcanal. Before leaving Pearl Harbor a new piece of equipment was installed on the Wahoo. It was a new radar for surface work that was designed to chart the distance of incoming aircraft. A chief petty officer was responsible for the ballast tanks. Pappy Rau [Annotator's Note: Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Russell H. Rau] ordered Allen and another sailor to monitor the radar while they were steaming on the surface at flank speed. During Allen's turn to watch the radar he saw a blip and called Rau over. Rau then called the captain and the captain cleared the bridge and the sub dove. During a dive Allen's first job was to hit the button to rig out the bow planes. Allen, Ken Whipp [Annotator's Note: Fireman Kenneth C. Whipp], and Pappy Rau were the three that dove the boat. When the sub was going flat out it dove quickly. It took the submarine a few minutes to dive to periscope depth, which was about 64 feet. The lookouts would take over the bow and stern planes and the officer of the deck became the diving officer. When Allen was relieved they were not quite at periscope depth. Marvin Kennedy, the captain at the time, Dudley Morton and the Executive Officer Richard O'Kane were there. The captain spotted something through the periscope and had Morton confirm. The blip that Allen spotted was a Gooney bird. After several minutes they surfaced and continued on their way. Morton came down and asked Rau who saw the Gooney bird and Rau pointed at Allen and Morton jokingly gave Allen a hard time. This told Allen that Morton would talk to his men. Kennedy would not even talk to his officers.

[Annotator's Note: James Allen served in the Navy as a Fireman 2nd Class in the submarine service and was aboard the USS Wahoo (SS-238) for that boat's second war patrol.] Every night they would surface and charge the batteries. O'Kane [Annotator's Note: later Rear Admiral and Medal of Honor recipient Richard O'Kane] would go to the bridge with a signalman taking star shots. As O'Kane would sight the stars the signalman would write down the readings. Then they went down into the control room and O'Kane did his calculations. His job was to keep the captain informed of exactly where they were. He did every morning and night. Allen was fascinated and would often watch O'Kane work. One night O'Kane noticed Allen watching him and explained everything he was doing to Allen. He walked Allen through the math required. The following night he offered to teach Allen how to use the slide rule and how to use logarithms to calculate things. Allen learned all he could. Before O'Kane would leave the control room he would leave some problems behind and tell Allen to work them out. The next night he would return and Allen would give him his answers. Allen learned when he left the Navy that O'Kane had put a note in his personnel file stating that Allen was a possible candidate for the academy. Allen got a copy of his record after leaving the military. Allen always found O'Kane to be a very generous man with his time even though he was very busy and always found that Captain Kennedy gave O'Kane a very rough time. Allen transferred back to the States and put in a request to go to advanced electronics school. It was called EIC School, electronics interior communications. Allen was accepted. It was the highest school an electrician's mate could attend. Allen got on the Lurline out of Brisbane on the way to San Francisco. Also making the trip were a couple hundred Australian war brides with their kids. Allen was sent to Treasure Island for 30 days' leave. On liberty, Allen loved to go to the YMCA cafeteria and get a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake. One day two woman came and sat with him. One was in her 30s and the other in his 60s. The younger one noticed his dolphin insignia and asked him which subs he had served on. When he mentioned he served on the Wahoo the woman laughed and said that her husband had also served there. When Allen asked for his name the woman replied Dick O'Kane. The older woman was O'Kane's mother. They spoke for a while. Allen sent a letter to O'Kane telling him what had happened to him after they parted company. Allen also told O'Kane that his help with the slide rule made it clear to him that he needed to finish his education and Allen found the confidence to go back to school. From the homework he had been assigned he felt confident he could handle the math. He ended up at Tri-State College in Indiana. Allen didn't have a high school diploma but he went through a summer school program to get him caught up. He stayed there and graduated in 1949. It's now called Trine University. Allen never got to see O'Kane again in person. Allen regrets that immensely as he has nothing but respect for O'Kane. Allen found O'Kane to be a fair officer but that he could be abrupt. Some men didn't like that quality about him but Allen thinks that was just a side effect of the amount of work that was always in O'Kane's lap. Allen found the other side of O'Kane. O'Kane and Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley W. Morton] would often play cards together. O'Kane was a confident guy and it helped the morale aboard the Wahoo. Kennedy was very aloof and O'Kane was the face of the crew. Kennedy would take a shower with fresh water. No one else was allowed to use this shower. Everyone else either used saltwater or condensate. The water was intended for use in the batteries. It wasn't for Kennedy. No one ever said anything but Allen could see the disapproval in the other sailors' eyes.

James Allen remembers Henry Glinski coming aboard with him. Glinski was a couple years older than Allen. Allen had turned 17 while attending submarine school. Glinski was a talker and that got him in trouble sometimes. Glinski had served on an aircraft carrier in the Coral Sea as a 20mm gunner with a crew underneath him. Glinski's crew was shot up on the Hornet [Annotator's Note: USS Hornet (CV-8)]. After that he volunteered for submarine duty. He did not go to submarine school before joining the Wahoo [Annotators Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)]. At the end of the day they would walk to the beer garden and talk with some other crewmen. One night, after having a few drinks, they returned to the Wahoo and met a gunner's mate named Ware who was in the conning tower. In the tower there was a locker that they used to stow ropes and things. Ware had rigged a gun in the tower and had grease up to his elbows. Allen and Glinski stopped to see what he was doing and Ware accosted them. Glinski recognized it as a 20 millimeter and started helping to put the gun back together. He did it so quickly that Ware could not follow his instructions. Ware made him take it apart and reassemble it slower so he could follow. Ware asked Glinski to be a gunner but Glinski refused. The next day Pappy Rau [Annotator's Note: Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Russell Rau] called Glinski to the control room and told him that he was the new gunner on the 20 millimeter. Glinski knew that Rau was not one to be refused so he became the gunner. On the third patrol the Wahoo got involved in a surface battle. Glinski was the forward gunner when the Wahoo ran into some Japanese transports offloading soldiers. Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley Morton, commanding officer of the USS Wahoo] told Glinski to fire on them. The gun jammed on Glinski and he told his barrel changer to change the barrel and drop the hot barrel in a tube of water to cool off. A shell was stuck inside the barrel and in the excitement the barrel changer dropped the barrel on the deck and reached for a fresh barrel. The shell that was jammed in the hot barrel exploded next to Glinski's foot and tore up his toes. He was taken below where the pharmacist's mate tended to him. The pharmacist’s mate, Lindy, told Glinski that he could not save his toes. They removed his toes with wire cutters. They gave him some narcotics and bandaged him up. When they returned to Pearl Harbor they had a broom tied to the periscope to indicate a clean sweep. Allen was in Pearl Harbor when the ship returned and he saw them bring Glinski ashore. They brought him topside and loaded him into an ambulance. Allen went to see Glinski and he told him what had happened. Glinski was in the hospital ward with some Marines from Guadalcanal. Glinski was still a talker and impressed the Marines by telling them that the Wahoo sunk the submarine that had been shelling the troops on Guadalcanal. He returned to the United States for recuperation and then returned to Pearl Harbor. When Allen was about to deploy aboard the Silversides [Annotator's Note: USS Silversides (SS-236)] he saw Glinski again who told him that the Navy did not know what to do with him. He was missing his big toe and that affected his balance. Glinski had to use a cane to walk and was anxious for a new assignment. Allen never heard from Glinski again after that and does not know whatever became of him.

James Allen crossed Captain Kennedy's [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant Commander Marvin Kennedy] path twice, much to his regret. The first time was during the second patrol [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS Wahoo (SS-238)]. When Allen was on watch in the control room he would occasionally go down into the battery well to check the readings. While doing these tests he would get little splashes of sulfuric acid on his clothes. The acid would eat little holes in his pants and sleeves. One shirt lost a sleeve so he cut the other sleeve to match and he fixed his pants by turning them into shorts. That is what he wore when he went on watch. One morning while on the surface, Allen was walking towards the forward battery when the captain came through. He said good morning and Kennedy looked him up and down with an evil look then told Rau [Annotator's Note: Chief Torpedoman's Mate Russell H. Rau] to get Allen some regulation clothes. Allen realized that his mistake was in speaking to the captain, no one did that. Allen then got some regulation clothes and went back into the control room. The second time he crossed Kennedy's path was when he was off watch and one of the lookouts on the cigarette deck got sick and had to be relieved. Rau sent for Allen who was having coffee in the crew's mess. Allen came straight from the mess and Rau told him to assume the aft lookout duty. Allen then went into the conning tower. He should have spent ten minutes with the red goggles on but did not want to annoy Rau. When he went topside he could not see a thing but he had a rough idea of where everything was. He found what he thought was the round metal pipe that was where the radio room antenna went topside and he tapped it with his foot and it was soft. It turned out that Kennedy was sitting on the tube and Allen had just kicked his foot several times. Kennedy started shouting at Allen and told him to go below. Allen then went below into the conning tower and put the goggles on. A few minutes later he went back outside and this time he could see the captain and slipped past him and assumed his duty. These were the only two times he had any interaction with Captain Kennedy.

[Annotator's Note: James Allen served in the Navy as a Fireman 2nd Class in the submarine service and was aboard the USS Wahoo (SS-238) for that boat's second war patrol.] One of the first things that the Wahoo did on the second patrol was they sighted a Japanese freighter. The captain got a good setup on it and put three torpedoes in it. Allen's station was in the forward battery and he could hear Kennedy giving orders to O'Kane [Annotator's Note: later Rear Admiral and Medal of Honor recipient Richard O'Kane] and Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley Morton]. He could feel the torpedoes leave the tubes and could feel the concussion of the explosions. After hitting the freighter the escort followed the wakes and the Wahoo immediately submerged to a depth of 300 feet. They couldn't keep the sub at 300 feet, it kept sinking as they had negative buoyancy. The destroyer was right on top of them and dropping depth charges. The Wahoo took a beating but they were saved by how deep they were as the Japanese didn't realize that American subs could go deeper than 250 feet. The captain kept up his directions as a way to evade the depth charges and find a salt barrier to disrupt the Japanese sub's pinging. In the overhead of the forward battery there was a soft patch. It was a hole in the hull that they lowered battery cells through. They patched it and riveted it in place. Allen was by himself and was looking for leaks. All of a sudden a drop hit him in the face. He looked up and saw another drop hanging from the soft patch. Allen reported it and an officer came and took a look at it. Eventually the Japanese destroyer gave up but the Wahoo stayed at depth for a while. It felt and sounded differently at that depth. Eventually they were able to surface. By the time they surfaced there wasn't enough oxygen to strike a match. The temperature inside the boat was about 120 degrees with total humidity. The first breath of fresh air got sucked through the boat by the engines and Allen remembers the air smelling sweet. They stayed on station and repaired what needed to be repaired. A few days later the sonar operator picked up the sound of screws and the Wahoo went up to periscope depth to figure out what it was. They found a Japanese submarine headed for Guadalcanal and when he got within range the Wahoo put a couple torpedoes into it. There wasn't much exuberance onboard because they sympathized with fellow submariners more than they did with surface ships. The Japanese submarine's torpedoes exploded when it was struck and the Allen could feel the explosion hit the Wahoo. They could even hear the sub getting crushed by the ocean's pressure.

[Annotator's Note: James Allen served in the Navy as a Fireman 2nd Class in the submarine service and was aboard the USS Wahoo (SS-238) for that boat's second war patrol.] Mush Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley Morton] and Kennedy [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant Commander Marvin Kennedy] did not get along very well. Morton was aboard as a PCO [Annotator's Note: Prospective Commanding Officer] and, as such, was able to challenge Kennedy in a way that no other officers dared. Allen was not privy to their discussions. Allen ran into Morton a couple times. He once ran in Morton in the engine room. Morton was in his skivvies doing laundry. The engine room had aluminum cowlings that got hot when they were on the surface. Morton used the cowlings as a makeshift dryer. Allen liked Morton because he would talk to the men. There was not a barrier between Morton and the men. After sinking the submarine they headed for Brisbane, Australia. The crew put up in a nice hotel for two weeks and the officers got houses outside of the city. Allen had a nice time in Brisbane. Allen went to a dance and there was an Army band with some Glenn Miller band members in it. Ray Eberle performed some songs for them there. Allen was still in the crew when Morton took over command. They were all mustered in their whites topside and Admiral Lockwood [Annotator's Note: Admiral Charles Lockwood] addressed the crew and told them that he had decided to put Commander Morton in charge. They were not aware of the machinations that were going on behind the scenes by O'Kane [Annotator's Note: later Rear Admiral and Medal of Honor recipient Richard O'Kane] to get Kennedy removed and Morton put in his place. Allen only interacted with Morton once after he took command. Morton asked Allen and Whipp [Annotator's Note: Fireman Kenneth C. Whipp] if they used the silhouettes of Japanese ships. They said no so Morton had Allen and Whip to throw the silhouettes overboard and replaced them with pinups. The men cheered as they tore the silhouettes down. Soon after that Pappy Rau [Annotator's Note: Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Russell Rau] told Allen that he was being transferred off. Morton had issued an order stating no hot bunking, or sharing bunks, between multiple crewmen. They had to either increase bunk space or reduce the size of the crew. Allen was shipped off to reduce crew size because he was still on the bottom of the totem pole. It was hard to see the Wahoo sail away but Allen acknowledges that it might have saved his life. On the seventh patrol the Wahoo was lost with all hands.

After leaving the Wahoo [Annotator's Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)], James Allen was transferred to the USS Sperry (AS-12). He was put into the relief crew and was allowed to transfer to another sub at a moment's notice if anyone needed replacements. Allen was promoted again and given a pay raise. Submariners were never short on money. The Sperry then sailed back to Pearl Harbor and Allen saw the Wahoo sail back into port following the third patrol. Allen spent much of his time desperately trying to get on another submarine. They kept him around to dismantle and clean the batteries. Sometimes they used baking soda and water or ammonia and water to clear the acid. The ammonia was hard on the nose and the soda left a white film that Allen had to clean off. From there they went to Midway and worked on some submarines before heading back to Pearl Harbor. The trips to Pearl were to restock the Sperry. Allen found Midway to be a boring place. Every Saturday they had a "turkey shoot." A seaplane would tow a target and everyone would shoot at the target. People opened fire on the target with everything from antiaircraft cannons to handguns. When the Sperry pulled into port it decided to join the fun and opened fire with the five inch guns. The shells had a lot of shrapnel and a piece of it caught the seaplane in the tail. They cut the target loose and that was the end of the game. Allen found the wildlife fascinating.

From there [Annotator's Note: Midway Island] they returned to Pearl Harbor. There, James Allen joined the Silversides [Annotator's Note: USS Silversides (SS-236)] in late 1943. Allen was delighted to be on a submarine again. He had a lot of respect for both the boat and the crew. He is very fond of the boat's commander, Lieutenant Commander John Coye. Burlingame [Annotator's Note: later Rear Admiral Creed Burlingame] was more well known but Allen thinks very highly of Coye. When they were getting ready to set sail they were singling up the lines and getting the engines running. A jeep pulled up and stopped at the dock and a full commander got out with his B4 bag. The commander crossed the gangway and saluted the colors and the officers. Immediately thereafter they got underway and all the men were wondering who the guy was. This stranger outranked the boat's captain but they eventually discovered that the late arrival was Gene Tunney, the boxer. Tunney was on his way to Midway for a position leading physical training. Every morning he would go up on the cigarette deck and do 100 pushups. Allen found him to be an affable guy who would talk to anyone. Tunney got on some people's bad side because he tried to get them to exercise. They dropped him off at Midway and then continued on their way. Service aboard the Silversides was somewhat anticlimactic. Allen was ingrained with the crew of the Wahoo [Annotator's Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)] so the Silversides was just another submarine to him. Allen went on two patrols with the Silversides. He had been overseas for over two years before requesting authorization to go to electronics school in Washington DC. Lockwood [Annotator's Note: Admiral Charles Lockwood] had passed an order stating that anyone with over two years overseas got priority. Allen did not have any problems on the Silversides. He did many of the same things that he had done on the Wahoo. He was just never able to fully assimilate. One man in the aft torpedo room was seriously injured. This was the first time that Allen had seen an electric torpedo. Everyone was still learning how to work on them. The torpedo man was working on the torpedo while wearing a metal wristwatch. He reached his hand in and the torpedo's battery melted the watch into the guy's hand. The pharmacist mate told the captain that it was beyond his capabilities to fix and as it was near the end of the patrol anyway they were ordered to go to Brisbane. While passing Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea they passed a hospital ship. The Silversides was ordered to go into Milne Bay and was assigned an escort to get them through the minefield. They transferred two men to the hospital ship. They stayed there for a couple days and it was uncomfortably hot and humid on the surface. The Silversides was very successful at sinking Japanese ships.

James Allen was at Midway aboard the Sperry [Annotator's Note: USS Sperry (AS-12)] when the Wahoo [Annotator's Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)] stopped to top off her fuel tanks and pick up supplies prior to going out on her seventh war patrol. Allen went straight over to the Wahoo and met up with his friend Ken Whipp. The Wahoo was staying overnight and Allen and Whipp stayed up all night talking. Whipp told Allen about the other patrols that they had been on. Whipp said that he had been demoted following a surface battle. Whipp jumped overboard for a Japanese flag without permission and Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley Morton] chewed him out. Whipp had put in a transfer request several patrols back because he thought that Morton had gone crazy. Whipp saw Morton taking bolder and bolder risks, far beyond what anyone would expect of him and told Allen that almost the entire crew had requested a transfer. Whipp claimed that Morton refused to approve the transfers. Several times Morton walked by the control room like a tiger stalking around its enclosure. The next morning Allen left the ship and Morton told Sterling that he would approve the transfer request if Sterling could find a replacement yeoman. Many people wanted to join the Wahoo because it was famous. Sterling went on to the Sperry and gave the yeoman aboard the the offer. The yeoman agreed and went to pack his bags. Sterling got off just before they got underway. Allen and Sterling were joined by a lieutenant who had also been on the second patrol. The three of them watched the Wahoo get underway and saluted it as it backed away and headed out to sea. That was the last that anyone ever saw of the Wahoo. Allen later received word that the Wahoo was missing and presumed lost. He refused to believe it at first but after a month went by he had to accept that Wahoo was gone. Allen believed that while the Wahoo was a happy boat for most of its life, during the sixth patrol it took a turn for the worse. By the time it was sunk the Wahoo was no longer a happy boat. Morton started to lose it on the sixth patrol. Allen believes that Admiral Lockwood considered removing Morton.

After the war, James Allen lost contact with many of his friends from the war. He was busy with college and did not even consider joining the reserves. He regrets not doing that because he most likely could had gotten a commission. His first job after college was with the WK Kellogg Company in Battle Creek, Michigan as a design engineer. Kellogg’s built all its own processing equipment and Allen worked on the electronics part of it. While on liberty during submarine school he loved to go to Hartford, Connecticut and go to shows. On one trip he was stranded in a little town composed of a gas station and a grocery store. He was hitchhiking but there were no cars passing by. A guy about Allen's age came by in beach clothes and noticed that Allen wanted to head for Hartford. He invited Allen to his cottage. Allen met the man's cousin when they arrived and they could not take their eyes off of each other. Her cousin, Dick, eventually got disgusted and left them alone. Allen and the girl, June Twiss, corresponded throughout the war and in 1945 they were married in Greenwich, Connecticut. They had one son. In October 1950 Allen's wife June came down with bulbar polio and died within a couple weeks. Suddenly, Allen found himself alone with a four year old son. June was buried in Greenwich and Allen lived for a while with her parents. Allen quit his job at Kellogg's in order to have someone to look after his son. He got a job with the Homelite Corporation and in 1952 met a girl named Alice who was working there. She had just emigrated from Ireland. Allen asked her out on a date and the following year they were married and remained married to this day. Alice raised Allen's young son Charles as her own son and took care of him when he needed some surgery done. They then had a boy and a girl of their own. Allen’s daughter died when she was 49 and his first son Charles when he was 48. The younger son is still alive and is a retired dentist. Allen left Homelite after 9 years and got a job in Rochester, New York with the Xerox Corporation. Allen worked there for 32 years before retiring. When he retired they moved to Rhode Island because Alice's sister and brother in law were living there. While in Rhode Island, Allen discovered the Submarine Veterans of World War II. Allen went to a lot of national and local meetings. The only person he ran into who was also on the Wahoo [Annotator's Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)] was a guy named Jack Ryan. Eventually they moved back to Rochester because Allen needed a double knee replacement. He went to a couple surgeons in Rhode Island but was not impressed. They came to Rochester for a visit but the doctor told Allen he would only replace his knees if he lived in Rochester. The doctor told him that the recovery period was just as important as the surgery and he did not want Allen to have issues hundreds of miles from the doctor who performed the surgery. The Allens moved back and got an apartment. They got used to the area again. They travelled around a lot trying to find a place to settle down. They lived in San Diego, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico before moving east with short stays in Texas, Alabama, and Savannah, Georgia, before ending up back in Webster, New York, just outside of Rochester. They travelled to Michigan to see the Silversides [Annotator's Note: USS Silversides (SS-236)] in Muskegon. Submariners started overhauling it and got it back to almost seaworthy condition. Allen took Alice on a personal tour around the submarine. The rediscovery of the Wahoo [Annotator's Note: USS Wahoo (SS-238)] was quite a shock for Allen. Allen has copies of the films but they are very hard to watch. Once was enough for Allen. A memorial service in 2007 was held at Pearl Harbor. Allen, Ryan and Carl Hood went to the memorial service for the Wahoo together. Ken Whipp had told Allen that his older sister had raised him. His sister showed up at the memorial and Allen spoke with her for a while. Allen spoke with many of the relatives of the deceased. The pictures of the Wahoo revealed that the sub had taken a direct hit to the conning tower. The sub was only in 200 feet of water but Allen thinks that that was too deep for a Momsen lung. A central part of sub training was to make a 100 foot ascent using a Momsen lung. Allen assumes that Morton [Annotator's Note: Commander Dudley Morton] was killed instantly but wonders whether or not some people survived the initial strike.