John Harrison, Horologist

[UNM1136]

I've not looked at the links, yet. But my maternal grandfather was a WWII submariner. Enlisted at 17 to feed his half brothers and sisters (the Great Depression hung around NM for a while). My six year old daughter was given a homework assignment to write a paragraph about an important person in her life, and she picked him, a year after he died. Given the timelines for the assignment I only had a couple of his sevice photos with shipmates, and couldn't get a solo photo from my mom...So his headstone from the National Cemetary in Santa Fe had to do. The headstone included his rank and rate. I knew nothing about his official job, only that his battle station was manning a M2 (the Ma Deuce, not the carbine) or M1 Garand when the boat was surfaced. He had a few obviously painful stories about surface action in the Pacific. He got to shoot at surface combatants.

I was intrigued by the rate on the headstone, and Google was not very forthcoming. It was a very obscure MOS that had no real need after his service in Korea ended. After several half hour attempts resulting in nothing I found a single, solitary website that listed the rate of as that of a watch repairman. 1940s-1950s navigation using 1920s-1930s tech needed him to keep the boat's chronometers working...

Sorry, gotta go. Allergies acting up and all.

pat