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The Lilac carried a native Puerto Rican radio operator of doubtful ability. Like Joan of Arc, he was always hearing strange “voices” but he did get in touch with the Navassa Radio Station advising of the time of the tender’s arrival.
This being shortly after the close of World War I, the Navy still maintained on the Island a listening station manned by three enlisted operators. Sometimes this was a big help in the maintenance of the light station, and sometimes not. Strangely enough, the Navy had no difficulty manning this station. The operators sought the assignment. They lived in a shack apart from the light station and “lorded it” over the keepers.
The Navy tug was sent out every three months from the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station with abundance of food and supplies from governments stores as well as shot guns and all the ammunition they wanted. They had a stock of phonograph records and all the books they could read. Their duties were light, reporting the weather. Best of all they had no superior officers over them to bawl them out, so they went wild.
Even before a landing was made, I saw three wild looking characters picking their way down the stony path to the landing platform where I met them. The Captain had warned me, “Lookout for Robinson Crusoe and his two men Friday. The Navy can’t get them off the Island where they have already stayed their three-year hitch.” I looked them over, greeting them cordially: no shoes and feet as hard as leather, wearing tattered, loose, roomy, dungarees, and short-sleeved shirts, full of holes. They had long hair and beards under crownless, battered hats. Here were three wild, happy-go-lucky lads, adventurers, without a worry in the world.
The keepers and their families stayed in the background. I toiled up the stony slope to the top of the Island. The keepers had planted papayas, bananas of various kinds, lime trees and watermelons close to the dwelling fertilized by piles of guano round about. Fishing was good off the landing. The tender brought a keeper and his family to relieve one of the keepers every six-months trip. The others were unhappy and homesick for Puerto Rico. They were not on good terms with the Navy boys nor with each other. They were jealous of the Navy attention to its personnel.
While I was inspecting the station, the tender was busy delivering supplies for the light station. A tram car on rails was pulled up the slope from the landing to the station by a gasoline powered hoisting engine.
The Navy was about to discontinue the radio station on Navassa Island. Many unhappy incidents with the keepers and their families showed me that some drastic action had to be taken to continue the maintenance of a light on this desolate island. I took measurements and data for an automatic light to be installed as soon as possible. Subsequent events speeded the installation.
One of the keepers, a single man, always feuding with the navy boys, was chased up the tower and leaned over the balcony rail backwards, daring one of the radio operators who had a shot gun to take a shot at him which he did. The Navy had to send the tug on a special trip to remove him to the hospital at Guantanamo Base.
On the second trip to Guantanamo Naval station, I reported to the Commandant, inquiring of the condition of the keeper who was shot. “Why,” snorted the Commandant, “The Bum wasn’t hurt at all. He caused us a lot of trouble to bring him in, but you could have picked the shot out of his back with a toothpick.”
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2019 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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