Trammell Hogg's trip to D.C. & his Navy memories

Seven days before former Beacon Journal Composing night foreman Trammell Hogg died, the Mountaineer newspaper in Waynesville, NC published a story about Tram's Oct. 31 Honor Flight to D.C. to honor World War II dead and Tram's recollections of his Navy days. Here is the article:

by Worth Corn, Waynesville, NC Mountaineer
Sunday, 08 November 2009

When Tram Hogg looks back on his service in World War II, he sees good experiences and opportunities, but he also knows that those came with a hefty price.

Hogg, 82, served as a fireman first class and electrician in the Navy from 1944 to 1946. When he joined the Navy, Hogg tried to get into the submarine service, but he was told he was too young.

After training in Green Bay, Wis., and St. Louis, Mo., he was stationed in Apra Harbor in Guam and repaired ships of all sizes on the floating dry docks there.

“It was a large floating dry dock, made up of pontoons about 50-feet wide and 200-and-some feet long,” said Hogg, adding that the pontoons were welded together. “If ships could make it to Guam" they could be repaired permanently or temporarily. If it was a major, major fix, it was temporary so it could get to Pearl Harbor.

”Tugboats would bring the ships to the floating dry docks, which would pump in water to sink, allowing the ships to be positioned on keel blocks on the dry docks. Once the ships were in place, the dry dock would pump water back out and rise, lifting the ship."

When the process was completed, workers were able to work on all parts of the ship, including walking underneath it. Everything else was normal.

“It didn’t matter what size ship we had, we had keel blocks for them,” said Hogg. “We put electric and water to the ship, and everyone was still living on it like it was at sea.”

Hogg said every part of the docked vessel got power except the engine. Depending on their size, several ships could by dry-docked at the same time. The floating dry docks helped revive several ships, which the Japanese later called ghost ships because they believed the ships had sunk. Instead, the ships were repaired and continued to battle.

If there was a big hole in the side of the ship, Hogg said all of the compartments around it were closed off and sheets of metal would be used to replace the area around the hole. Most of the ships that Hogg worked on needed only maintenance or minor repairs.

He said he got to Guam in 1945 around the time the war was ending, so much of the fighting had stopped in the region. Throughout his time in the service, Hogg tried to keep things in a positive perspective. “There were a lot of things that you had to do that you wouldn’t do ordinarily,” he said. “But it was what’s put in front of you and you’ve got to do it or be in trouble. If you could cope with that, you had nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Hogg said he enjoyed everywhere he had to go, and his perspective helped him turn the most violent war in history into a series of positive personal experiences. “I think it helped me to be in the service, even going in young like that,” he said. “It was probably better for me than for my relatives — my mom, dad and sisters.

“I learned a lot. I saw a lot. Luckily, a lot of the bad habits that could have been going on didn’t really affect me.”

Hogg is thankful that he didn’t face combat during his time in the service, but he knows many did and didn’t return home. “I think I was very fortunate that I never was involved in any kind of direct fighting,” he said. “Luckily, the war ended before I was pushed into it. I feel fortunate about that. I don’t know if I would have the same attitude about things if I had.”

Hogg dropped out of high school to join the Navy in 1944. In 1946, he was discharged under the point system. When he returned to the United States, he earned his GED.

Though he was an electrician in the Navy, a car accident left him too shaky to pursue the profession. Instead, Hogg had a neighbor who worked in a print shop, and he got a job as an apprentice printer under the G.I. bill. He later worked for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, as a night foreman of the composing room.

Hogg said he has never regretted his decision to leave school for the Navy. “I really sort of liked it,” he said. “Anything new is an experience, even back then.”

Hogg was one of three Haywood County men to take a trip to Washington, D.C. on a Honor Air flight on Oct. 31.“That was a fantastic trip,” said Hogg. “It was really surprising to me that people here and at the airport and in Washington were able to get together and do what they (did). It was a great, great trip.”

Hogg said the Rotary club did a fantastic job with the trip and the guardians “couldn’t be better people.”

Several people, including Hogg’s wife, Janice, had been trying to get him to go on the trip for a while. Finally, Janice Hogg filled out the papers, and Tram Hogg felt like he should go.

He was amazed at how the buses were able to navigate the streets with the help of police, who rode along the route and blocked intersections as they came to them. He was moved by the many people who stopped to thank him and other veterans for their service to the country and the many letters he received during “mail call” on the flight back to Asheville.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” said Hogg, adding that he received letters from seventh-graders at Canton Middle School, boy scouts and others. “It made me feel pretty good.”

Among the monuments the group visited, Arlington National Cemetery and the National World War II Memorial stand out the most for Hogg. “One thing that impressed me was all of the gravestones (at Arlington National Cemetery),” he said. “On TV, there are a bunch of them, but there are acres after acres after acres of stones. I knew there were a lot, but I never dreamed it was like this.”

He said the experience took him back to his time in the service and added more perspective to it, particularly the wall of gold stars at the WWII memorial. “It represents a lot of deaths and a lot of people,” he said. “You look at that and you’ve got to think about the people that died.

“When you hear people talking about it, you listen and form your own opinions, but when you see things connected to it, it puts your mind in a different way of thinking. You’re a little more involved and think about it quite a bit more.”

Hogg recommended the trip for any WWII veterans and said they will benefit from it. Hogg and his wife have been married for 58 years. The couple lives in Bethel.

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Click on the headline for the BJ Alums obituary on Trammell.