Sailor's testing work in the desert helped win World War II

U.S. Navy veteran Fred Brown didn't see much of the sea during World War II.

“I was a dry land sailor,” Brown said, laughing. “I spent my days in the Mojave Desert — miles away from any ocean.”

After boot camp at Farragut Naval Station in Idaho, the Seattle native was assigned to the Naval Ordnance Testing Station, Inyokern, China Lake, Calif.

“We tested rockets, bombs, aircraft and all sorts of ordnance,” he said.

Brown spent much of his youth working on ships, but after joining the Navy, he didn't set foot aboard a seagoing vessel until the war was almost over.

“My father left when I was 7 years old,” he said. “I worked in the shipyards to help support my mother. I'd been used to being on a Navy ship every day, until I was drafted.”

Desert living came as quite a shock.

It was June when he arrived, and the desolation and scorching temperatures were a stark contrast to the lush, rain-drenched Pacific Northwest.

Until boot camp, “I'd never been out of the state of Washington... It was like being at the end of the world.”

He said working at the test facility was like having a regular job.

He worked five days a week, had weekends off and worked with civilians

“It was lousy pay and long hours,” he added.

“A lot of it was secretive. We really didn't know what we were doing. We weren't told. Come to find out later, we were working on the casing for the atomic bomb, in the middle of the desert!”

Powerful rockets were developed at the facility and test-fired from Navy aircraft, including the Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber and the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bomber.

Near the end of the war, Brown was sent to San Pedro where he finally boarded a ship — the USS West Virginia, a battleship that was sunk when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor — but had since been repaired.

The ship was heading back to Pearl Harbor.

“By the roll of the dice, less than two days after we arrived, I was on the USS Webster, an aircraft repair vessel, and heading back across the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, up to Norfolk, Va., then to Philadelphia, where I was discharged.”

Brown and his family spent a lot of time at the Salton Sea — he still has a home at Desert Shores — fishing and water-skiing in the early 1950s and 1960s.

“I was a water-skiing fool,” he said. From Desert Shores to North Shore, it was 14 miles. I used to ski the whole way without stopping.”

Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via email at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com