Jack Sloan 1989
“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”
Anatole France (1844-1924)
One of the best electricians mate that I ever knew in the Navy was a man named Eugene Marian Luke but he had a somewhat vivid imagination. He was somewhat of a maverick and this got him into difficulty from time to time. He would love to fool people into thinking that he actually putting his finger into a live socket and then reach out as if to grab them. Naturally they would jump away. Or he would create the illusion that he was running his finger down a live circuit board testing for power. He loved games of chance. But his imagination would go to work to overcome any restrictions placed upon his movements. After the fall of the French Forces in North Africa the Swanson stood into Casablanca Harbor and went alongside a pier. No one was allowed off the ship, so this challenge would be accepted by Luke. He took some battery water containers to the OOD and requested permission to go ashore on the pier to obtain distilled water for our batteries. The OOD granted permission but upon Luke’s return decided to check the contents of the battery water containers. It was vino or wine and Luke was on report and ended up being reduced in rate.
Once when Luke and I were drinking beer ashore, he told me his real name was Luciano but that he had gone to court to have his name changed to Luke in order to disassociate himself from the family. I often wondered if this was beer talking or a confessional. Probably the beer.
Luke did his work aboard ship but I was told that he did not miss any games of chance aboard ship. As I never had any interest in gambling I really would not know.
In 1952 I was Executive Officer on the USS Triumph AM323, a metal hull Minesweeper of the Raven Class, capable of 18 knots. We were enroute from San Diego to Charleston and as we approached the Panama Canal our radar malfunctioned, so we sent a message ahead requesting a radar technician to meet us and repair our radar. We pulled into the Balboa side and anchored awaiting assignment to a pier. A boat was approaching our ship and I looked through my binoculars and lo and behold who was standing up in the boat but Chief Electrician Mate Luke. I promptly went to the Quarter deck. Luke climbed up the sea ladder, turned and faced aft to salute the colors, then he turned and faced the OOD, and requested permission to come on board. I was standing off to one side and called out loud: “Mr Gallagher throw that bum off the ship!” Luke had the most astonished look that I had ever seen on his face. So then I said: “Luke don’t you know me?” And he took a real good look, then smiled and said: “You S.O.B.!”
At about that time we received our pier assignment so I told Luke I would see him as soon as we docked and returned to the bridge. After docking I went to get Luke and we decided the radar could wait a little while so we went to his CPO Club for some beer. We returned to the Triumph after a few beers and Luke fixed the radar. We sailed the next morning for the Atlantic via the canal and that was the last I saw of a good shipmate who was a maverick. Where ever Luke is I wish him well and I know that he must have succeeded in life because he was in the final analysis a competent person.