"Henry Was A Talker" Part II

More of the story of Henry Glinski by Jim Allen as excerpted from his Polaris article....

We got underway starting Wahoo's second patrol, and headed for the Solomon Islands; our area was off the NE coast of Bougainville, near a little island called Buka. We sank a large loaded freighter that was probably headed for Guadalcanal. A Jap destroyer worked us over pretty good. A little later we sank a Jap submarine.

One day in the crew's mess, Henry told Paul Phillips the baker he had worked in a bakery in Chicago and he could show Phillips how to bake better bread. He kept talking until finally Phillips said, "I think you're full of it, Glinski. But tonight you can bake the bread. That way the whole crew can enjoy your expertise."

Henry assembled the ingredients: flour, eggs, milk, shortening. And he asked for some yeast. Phillip handed him a one pound block. This is where Henry's memory and expertise fell apart; he put the whole pound into the mix. And poured the dough into a wash tub so it could rise.

Well, it rose alright. In fact, Henry was up most of the night punching the dough down trying to keep it in the tub. To Phillips and the crew this was like watching a Buster Keaton movie. The finished product had so many air holes it looked like mice had tunneled through it. It wasn't bad tasting but it gave everybody intestinal gas. But Henry just kept talking.

We ran submerged the next day, and when it came time to surface I heard the OD say to the Quartermaster, "Be careful when you crack the hatch. The pressure in the boat is as high as I've ever seen it."

We pulled into Brisbane for our overhaul and after two weeks at a downtown hotel we were ready to go out again. Pappy Rau told me the new skipper, Lt Cmdr. Dudley Morton, said no more hot bunking. Since I was low man on the totem pole, F3/C, I was transferred to the relief crew on board the USS Sperry.

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Next time JIm recounts Glinski's wounding during Wahoo's third war patrol