Mark John Maynard served on USS Sturgeon (SS-187), USS Marlin (SS-204), and USS Cobbler (SS-344) during World War Two. He was born in Sumner, Washington outside of Tacoma on 24 August 1924. With the Great Depression, the family moved quite a bit. They were fairly affluent prior to the Depression which made them poor. They sharecropped during those times. He had 11 brothers and sisters. His father had been a plasterer or mason and had psychological problems due to providing for his family. Maynard’s mother was a homemaker. The problems went from bad to worse when the family broke up. Maynard along with the four other younger children became wards of the state. He continued to be so until he joined the Navy at 18 years of age. He had tried to join the military since the war started in December 1941. He had heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor while walking home from one of his several jobs. The announcement came over the radio in the neighborhood. Maynard did not know where Pearl Harbor was, but he knew the Navy had been tremendously damaged. The judge would not allow Maynard to enlist. Despite repeated pleadings by Maynard, the judge wanted him to complete his high school education. When Maynard turned 18, the judge finally acquiesced to allow his enlistment even though Maynard was only in his junior year of high school.

Mark Maynard entered the Navy and initially had training in Idaho and then Illinois. While he was at the second training camp, volunteers were sought for the submarine service. It seemed exciting and the pay was good so Maynard volunteered. He went to New London, Connecticut for his submarine training. The training included emergency submarine escape training in a diving tower with a Mommsen lung. He learned to gradually rise to the surface to prevent damage to his lungs. There was discipline and routine. Regulations had to be maintained. Some men could not take the physical or mental demands. After New London, Maynard went into a relief crew to give submarine crews time away while they refitted a veteran submarine. As the new trainees were assigned to their first submarine, there developed a special feeling of confidence. Maynard would eventually be assigned to a boat that operated out of Pearl Harbor. Other submarines were based at Midway or Australia. Each ship had a complement of 65 to 70 including officers. There was a mix of veteran and newly trained crewmen. Sometimes the crew reached 90 men thus allowing for new sailors to be trained. Once that was achieved, the veterans would go to new construction to man a newly built submarine and train a new crew in their department. That rotation occurred throughout the war. The first submarine ride for Maynard was at New London. There were several different classes of submarines. Some dated all the way back to 1914 and were pretty rickety. Diving for the first time was exciting. The training was realistic.

Mark Maynard traveled by train from New London, Connecticut to Mare Island which was a replacement depot for submarine crews. He traveled to Pearl Harbor on an ammunition ship. Seeing the old hulks at Pearl Harbor was distressing. It was a mess and disheartening. He knew he was at war. The submarine base at Pearl was never hit by the Japanese nor was the fuel storage areas. Admiral Nimitz said that was a big mistake the Japanese make in their attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Admiral Chester Nimitz]. The submarines carried the load until the fleet was rebuilt. Maynard’s first assignment was to chip paint on a submarine, the USS Dolphin which had to escort the USS Maryland battleship the next day when they were both scheduled to exit the repair facility [Annotator’s Note: USS Dolphin (SS-169) and USS Maryland (BB-46)]. The paint made his uniform a mess but the mission was accomplished. Maynard was next assigned to a relief crew in Submarine Division 21, 22 and 23. The relief crews were responsible for preparing a veteran submarine to go back to sea after a two-week refit, repair, repaint, and load-out. When crewmen were needed on one of the submarines, they would be drawn from the relief crew. Maynard had his eyes set on two submarines but did not get selected to serve on them. He was finally chosen for the USS Sturgeon. Meanwhile, the other two submarines he had wanted to serve on did not return from their combat missions. Maynard’s first encounter with the executive officer on his new submarine assignment was not a good one. To make matters worse, as a quartermaster striker, the executive officer would be his superior officer. After two war patrols, the exec departed the boat.

Mark Maynard [Annotator’s Note: aboard the USS Sturgeon (SS-187)] sailed from Pearl Harbor to Midway to top off fuel tanks for his first war patrol. Their destination was the Bonin Island where they sank two ships and potentially damaged others. Sometimes damaging the enemy ships was good because the repairs tied up their manpower and facilities. Before going on patrol, the submarine was taken out for an indoctrination explosion to let the new crewmen know what it was like to hear an underway detonation near the submarine. It did not seem bad to Maynard. The real thing would be much worse as he would discover later. It was terrifying when the 300-pound depth charges went off near the submarine. He watched the veterans to see if they were alarmed. Maynard’s battle station was reloading the forward torpedo room. The submarine’s skipper, Captain “Spud” Murphy [Annotator’s Note: no given name provided], would come to that space to check out the sonar. Being a naturally nervous man, it alarmed Maynard until he found out that was the way the officer was normally. Maynard learned to cope. It was exciting to sink an enemy ship because it seemed like payback for Pearl Harbor and some of the early defeats in the Pacific. There was no morality to it nor worry about people dying.

Mark Maynard’s second war patrol on his submarine [Annotator’s Note: USS Sturgeon (SS-187)] used the deck gun to fire on enemy sampans operating off Okinawa. Another submarine was also firing on the small enemy boats. It was difficult to get a hit with the rolling seas. Two officers from Maynard’s boat boarded the enemy vessel and searched for code books. They retrieved a small machine gun which was in the lobby of offices at Pearl Harbor for years. When the Sturgeon went out for its second war patrol, it sank three ships and damaged others near Okinawa. The Japanese defensive ships worked over the submarines. There were about 270 depth charges dropped on Maynard’s submarine. The boat was designed well and very sturdy. It was built in 1937 and relatively new when Maynard came aboard. She was pretty limber. He could see the inboard bulkheads flex when the depth charges exploded. The second war patrol was a success. The crew was happy. The boat was sent to San Francisco for a major overhaul. That was when he married his wife. He had known her for two years prior to the wedding. During the overhaul, the Sturgeon was declared obsolete for further wartime action. It was sent to New London to serve as a training boat relieving some of the older design submarines in use prior to that time. The crew on the Sturgeon could also provide real wartime experience in the training of new submariners. That allowed the new sailors to be more prepared than Maynard was on his deployment.

Mark Maynard trained new submariners at New London before being assigned to a new submarine. He was responsible to train new men to completely understand how the submarine functioned. Maynard was ready to get back into the action and besides he had lost his submarine pay during the training period at New London. He volunteered for a new boat and boarded one operating out of New London. It was the Marlin [Annotator’s Note: USS Marlin (SS-204)]. It was a smaller ship than Maynard was used to sailing on. Unlike the Sturgeon [Annotator’s Note: USS Sturgeon (SS-187)], there were no war patrols while he was a crewman on the Marlin. The Marlin had worked the Atlantic early in the war to seek out German submarines. Being not very successful, it was pulled back and used for training purposes. The war was coming to closure and Maynard could sense things were winding down as islands were captured nearer to Japan. The dropping of the atomic bombs in August 1945 marked the end of the conflict. He could tell the war was over, but it officially did not end until 31 December 1946. He served on both the Marlin and Cobbler [Annotator’s Note: USS Cobbler (SS-344)] during the latter time. Even though they had no war patrols they were classified as World War Two submarines. He served on Cobbler until he assumed shore duty in San Diego in 1950.

Mark Maynard was one of 27 chiefs in the SUBPAC [Annotator’s Note: Submarine Command Pacific] when only nine were needed. He sailed a tanker and then a tug which were big mistakes. He wanted back into submarines but could not return at his quartermaster rating. He changed to electronics and went to an intensive one-year training for the new rating. He maintained his rank as chief but not in quartermaster but electronics. He was back in submarines and commissioned a new one. With nuclear power being the next generation, Maynard found he had to make a pest of himself before being accepted for nuclear power school. After training, he reported to USS Sargo [Annotator’s Note: SSN-583]. She sailed from Pearl Harbor to the North Pole. She was not the first boat there but surfaced there in February 1960 after a tough and a bit risky voyage. The submarine passed through the Bering Straits during winter with the thick ice above it. There were problems with the sonar and iceberg detection equipment which provided false readings. Some navigational errors were made that resulted in damage to the submarine communications system. Sargo eventually made its way back to Pearl. It had to be extensively repaired in drydock.

Mark Maynard witnessed a big celebration at the end of the war. Some men even drank torpedo fuel which contained highly toxic alcohol and was dangerous. There were wild parties. He stayed aboard his ship. He had a wife and young child and did not want to go ashore. Times Square in New York City was jammed with people. World War Two helped turn Maynard’s life around. He did not finish high school and had no experience in the world. Going from a farm to a submarine is completely different. He learned to adapt and thrive in the new culture. He put 18 years in the service and made lieutenant. He is happy with what he did. The pension from his service has made him content. The best people in the world are his shipmates from the submarine service. They shared things that were never shared with family. United States history and patriotism should be taught in schools today. The youth need to feel it necessary to protect the country against enemies whether foreign or domestic. World War Two enabled him to operate equipment more sophisticated that he ever thought he would. In the late 1930s, he saw a submarine near his hometown and knew that was what he wanted to do. He also saw the USS Constitution when it made a tour and was impressed with that historical ship. Seeing those two ships made him want to be a sailor. He had no problem with nervousness or claustrophobia on the submarine. He knew of no one who had PTSD—posttraumatic stress disorder. His final thoughts are centered on keeping the democratic republic we have in this country. He is proud to be an American. He is proud to be a submarine sailor.