THE FAITHFUL WAKIVA, WHICH WAS SUNK IN COLLISION
BIG TRANSPORTS IN BREST HARBOR
May 24th. Hooray! We have thirty-five German prisoners to shovel the coal from the lighters into the buckets. And, by gosh, these square-heads went on strike and the kindly French let ’em get away with it. If any prisoners went on strike in Germany it’s a cinch they’d be shot full of holes. They don’t treat ’em rough enough in France.
After looking over several of these Corsair diaries, Commander Kittinger had this shrewd and good-humored comment to offer:
The impressions which these youngsters jotted down were amusing and often inaccurate, but they caught the spirit of the service and the day’s work. When one of them felt aggrieved because he was “bawled out,” he never stopped to take an inventory of his professional qualifications and the duties thrust upon him as well as upon other untrained and unseasoned lads. Nor did he always realize that he was allowed to perform functions whereby he had the safety of a hundred and twenty-five lives and a million dollars worth of irreplaceable property between his two hands. There was no time to learn by experience and every “bawling out” was, I hope, driving an important fact home. Where else could one of these boys have learned such valuable lessons and be on a pay-roll at the same time? Of course they could not understand such methods, but the system soon separated the sheep from the goats—the latter remaining at the business end of a deck swab. Many times the skipper was not as angry as he appeared. The first lesson was to say “Aye, Aye, Sir,” when told something important instead of trying to explain. When a young man explains, he is not listening to the order, but thinking up a reply.
To the Corsair’s company the most interesting happenings during the long period of convoy duty were the changes and promotions which shifted many of the family to other ships and stations and brought new faces aboard. Commander Kittinger had been advanced a grade on the Regular Navy list since joining the Corsair and was in line for transfer to a larger ship. He was given the stately armed transport Princess Matoika, formerly the Princess Alice of the North German Lloyd, and thereafter carried many thousand American troops in safety to France. In this ship the roster of officers was more imposing than in the yacht which served so faithfully, for Commander Kittinger now gave orders to two lieutenant commanders, eleven lieutenants, and twenty ensigns. Toward the Corsair he felt affection and loyalty and was glad that his war record had included a year with her, crossing with the first American troops and battering about in the Bay of Biscay. Drilled in the exacting school of the regular service, he had only praise for the spirit, intelligence, and devotion of the Reserves, officers and men, who had fitted themselves to circumstances and played the game to the hilt.
After the war Commander Kittinger was sent to the Fore River Ship Building Company as Naval Inspector of Ordnance. While there he received the following letter:
July 23, 1919
From: Director of Naval Intelligence,
To: Chief of the Bureau of Navigation:
Subject: Award of the Legion of Honor.