Cloudbuster Nine by Anne R. Keene

Author:Anne R. Keene
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683582083
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2020-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

Admiral Jerry Holland, the Other Bat Boy

The first time I spoke with Rear Admiral Jerry Holland, he confessed that he never told his seven children or his grandchildren stories about his childhood mascot days at the Iowa Pre-Flight base because they’d heard enough of the “old Navy stories.” When he was a kid growing up at 325 Melrose Court, down the street from the University of Iowa campus, Jerry’s parents were civilians with no connection to the military. In his words, Jerry’s father was a pacifist. When the base opened in early 1942, eight-year-old Jerry fell in line with cadets marching down Melrose because “it looked like fun.” He was followed by a scraggly stray spaniel named Blackie Black Bottom, who was also adopted as a base mascot.

One of the cadets marching down the street was a strawberry-blond, freckle-faced Ohioan named John Glenn, who took Jerry under his wing and helped him land the job as batboy and base mascot. Glenn went after the opportunity to fly combat missions as soon as he was eligible, entering the first Pre-Flight class at the Iowa station in May 1942.

After the Navy bought Jerry a cut-down khaki uniform and service-dress blues, it was John Glenn who gave Jerry the nickname that stuck for life, “Admiral.” Pictures in Glenn’s scrapbook, taken by Jerry’s mother, show the two in matching uniforms, standing beside a large boxwood by the side of their house.

For decades, the Iowa City newspaper followed Jerry’s career as a hometown success story. He graduated from Annapolis, going on to became an admiral and a submarine commander in the Navy. Jerry also earned a Master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and writes on national defense issues with particular emphasis on command and control and communications, nuclear weapons policy, and submarine warfare. As a naval historian and vice president of the Naval Historical Foundation, he edited The Navy, a comprehensive chronology of the history of the U.S. Navy.13

When I interviewed Holland, he showed little nostalgia for his years as the base mascot, feeling that he had done more significant things in his life.

As we talked, and I asked more questions, Admiral Jerry cautiously opened up. When I asked if the base had a band, he paused, without an answer. Then, the photographic memory went to work, filing through bands he had served with, and he said, “Hmmm . . . yes, they had a band. I see them now . . . I believe there were about 18 to 24 members.” Like the Chapel Hill band, the Iowa band only played at football games, not baseball games, and that memory took us back to the University of Iowa in the spring of 1942.

Early in the war, he explained, the armed services were recruiting everyone they could get their hands on, especially natural athletes and professional sports stars, who were grabbed off by Army Air Corps and Navy aviation branches. Recruiters wanted men who were already in tip-top physical shape. “If you start with a guy in good shape, training does not take as long,” he said.

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