Kid Red and His Shipmates

Abner Thomas Barrie grew up in Connecticut and enlisted in the Navy on 12 June 1924, when he was almost 19 years old. On his enlistment papers his first name appears as "Edward." Apparently, in the days before Social Security numbers, driver's licenses and ID cards your name was whatever you wanted it to be. After submarine training in New London, CT, he was stationed aboard the USS S-30, based in Cavite, Philippine Islands, and Tsingtao, China. He spent almost his entire Navy career on the S-30, and was discharged on 7 June 1928. His highest rating was Radio Man 3d Class, which suggests he was either unambitious, unintelligent or a smart-ass (based on the evidence in his genes, I reckon it was the latter).
After his Navy stint, he was, among other jobs, an electrician. At one point in his career he was severely electrocuted, and the resulting skin grafts on his arms erased his tattoos. During World War II, he served as second mate and first mate on oil tankers. He continued to work on oil tankers after the war. He died of tuberculosis in 1957 and is buried in the Baton Rouge National Cemetery in Baton Rouge, LA.

In these two early photos, we get an idea of why Abner was called Kid Red. He had red hair, of course, but when he went into the Navy he was a bit of a scrawny-looking kid. Eventually he filled out and buffed up and no one could call him scrawny (or a kid) by the time of his discharge.
In the photo at far left, he is with a shipmate called Zimmer.
In the photo at near left, he is pictured with one of his buddies, Horace B Jones.

Here's another, later shot of Kid Red and Horace B Jones.

Here are some shots of Kid Red over the years. In these cases, his shipmates are unidentified.

More shots of Kid Red and unidentified shipmates.

Here's a portrait of Abner's good buddy Horace B Jones at Dewey Dry Dock in Olongapo, Philippine Islands.

The individuals standing in the rear in this photo are identified as West, Probst and Bakis. Abner's two good buddies Jones and Rosen are sitting in the foreground. The setting is Dewey Dry Dock in Olongapo, Philippine Islands.

This is another shot of Abner's buddy Rosen (on the right) and an unidentified shipmate. The USS S-32 is in the background.

Here's Abner on a naval base somewhere in the Pacific. I'm not sure where this photo was taken. I suspected Pearl Harbor, but I can't find a Johnston Ave in modern maps of Pearl Harbor. Perhaps this is Cavite or Olongapo in the Philippine Islands. If anyone can positively identify this location, just e-mail me to let me know.

This is a curious photo. Why would Abner have a Chinese girl on his lap? She could be the daughter of one of the Chinese workers employed by the Navy in Tsingtao, but I suspect she might be a refugee. During the 1920s, China was ruled by regional warlords, with a weak government in Beijing. The Nationalist Kuomintang, based in Guangzhou (Canton, near Hongkong), pursued a military revolution against the government, warlords and foreign "treaty powers" such as Britain, Japan and the United States. In 1927, Shanghai fell to the Nationalists, and the US Navy was dispatched there to protect American and other foreign nationals in Shanghai's international settlement through the summer. I have no way of knowing whether Abner was ever part of this US Navy mission to Shanghai, but this photo suggests he might have been.

A love story?
I found this letter among Abner's photographs: Written in pencil, it reads:

Mr. E.T. Barrie
U.S.S.S. - 30
Tsingtao, China
28 October 1926
Shanghai
My dear friend
How are you? I came to Shanghai all right and very sorry that couldn't see you last time. Somebody told me that you have been up the Stadium and were asking for me. I am working now in "cafe de Paris." I want to see you very much, because I love you. I want you to send me your photo. I am very lonesome for you. Say hello to your friend for me.
When you answer me back I'll write you more.
With love and kisses,

Your Nadia

My address:
Miss Nadia
636, East Lughang Road
Shanghai

All we know about Nadia is that she was Russian, probably a White Russian refugee. Her real relationship to Abner is unknown. I wonder about his reaction to this letter. Did it fill him with passion? Did he recoil in horror? Did he ever write to Nadia or see her again after this? No one knows. I suppose it's suggestive of something that this letter alone survived of all the correspondence Abner might have had during his Navy years.
Continue on to Life aboard the S-30.