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Note: William was born at 1145 Clover St. Camden, NJ and initially lived in the house of his maternal grandmother Amelia (Cole) Jackson. He attended John Greenleaf Whitter Elementary School, Hatch Jr. High School and Camden High School. He was captain of the basketball team. He went to trade school to become a Barber ($40) on Arch Street in Philadelphia. He was in the US Navy . He also became a tailor and eventually retired from working at Quartermasters in Philadelphia. His main hobby is photography.
William A. Chapman�s Navy Career
Bill was drafted into the U.S. Navy on March 15, 1945. He states that when he went to the recruitment center they asked him if he wanted to be in the Army or Navy. He requested Army and they put him in the Navy stating that they were putting older men in the Navy. Bill received his boot camp training at the Great Lakes Training Center in Michigan. His rank was Seaman. He excelled at shooting a rifle and missed winning a prize (local town write-up) by one point. He remembers traveling by train from Philadelphia to Washington, DC then to Port Chicago (Naval Weapons Station, Concord, CA). Port Chicago had just experienced a large munitions explosion (July 17, 1944) in which 320 men were killed two thirds of them were black. The force of the explosion cleared the ground in a one mile radius. Fifty blacks were later court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny for failing to resume loading ammunition after the explosion.
From Port Chicago he was transferred to Shoemaker, California, from there to Treasure Island, CA. where he was placed on a ship to Honolulu, Hawaii. Bill immediately became seasick but eventually improved. He was stationed at Camp Aiea, HI. where he setup a barbershop. Most of the seamen had all of their hair cut off when they arrived in Hawaii. Bill used a razor blade to shape them up. He was given the nickname "Clerk". From Hawaii he was placed on a ship, possibly the USS Catron for 21 days arriving at the harbor of Manila. When in Hawaii and in Manila Harbor he saw the remains of many sunken ships. He was not allowed to disembark in Manila but instead was taken to Samar Island in the vicinity. He remembers losing his white sailor�s hat while climbing down a rope ladder transferring ships in Manila Harbor. While going to Samar Island he bought coconuts from the children for $0.25 only to find them plentiful on the island. [Navy 3149 Base. Located in Ngolos, 23 kms. from the town proper of Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Base of the American soldiers of World War II; commands a view of the Pacific Ocean.]
He lived in a hut built on stilts on the island and setup a barbershop at that facility. Another barber later joined him. At times the sailors would play craps while waiting for their turn to have a hair cut.
While there he was involved in a race riot. Apparently a white and a black sailor were dating the same Filipino girl and eventually got into a fight about it. The white sailor was killed and his friends were determined to have revenge. That evening Bill saw a white sailor shoot at a black. Bill immediately went to another section of the camp and spent the night under someone�s bed. The next morning brought the news of seven white deaths and one black injured. This was never put in the news and most of the blacks were transferred out of the area. Bill returned to Camden, NJ.
He was discharged on March 15, 1946, one year after being drafted. He returned to his job as a tailor at Quartermasters in Philadelphia, a job he initially obtained in 1942 and was held for him until he returned from the Navy. He remembers his Navy experience clearly as if it were yesterday. He, however, cannot remember all of the names of the ships on which he sailed. He states that one was a battleship and another was a converted destroyer.
This transcript is from a telephone conversation with William A. Chapman on Sunday July 4, 1999. It was taken by his son William T. Chapman, MD.
Note: The decommissioned USS Catron (APA-71) was sunk by practice gunfire in the Pacific, 6 May 1948.
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