Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1930
Beginning January 1st I was a civilian again after 5 years and 72 days in uniform. In a couple of days the Trenton was due to sail away so Florence and I thought we would go over to the dock and watch it go downriver together for once instead of waving goodbye to each other. As usual everything happened as per schedule and at 8 A.M. sharp the lines were thrown off bow and stern and the ship slowly moved away from the wharf with a good portion of the crew lining the rails waving farewell. Suddenly, when the hull was about thirty feed out, there came the sound of a car racing around the warehouse and out onto the dock where it came to a screeching halt at the very edge. The door of the cab flew open and a tall, gangling ex-Alabama-farm-boy seaman fell out onto the planks. He was instantly up and teetering on the edge of the pier ten feet above the water screaming and waving his arms as if he was already swimming. The reaction on the Trenton was instant and uproarious, for he was joyously known by every member of the crew by his nickname. From bow to stern came the shouted advice, "Ears, don't jump!". "Ears, you know you can't swim!" "Wait, Ears, we'll send a boat for you!" Which is actually what happened. The captain rang down the stop signal to the engine room and had the starboard whaleboat lowered just long enough to pick up poor old Ears and return him to his ship. I only hope he didn't have too much extra duty penalty to do as he was a well-liked fun character.
As anyone who was living at that time knows, the country was just entering the worst period of economic depression in our history. So after checking around at many Philadelphia factories and finding nothing but "No Help Wanted" signs everywhere I decided that at least there was security in the Navy. There was the added pressure of having to make up my mind within a certain number of days in order to retain my rank as electrician's mate, 1st class. So on January 7th I re-enlisted for the regular four year period and wrote a request for duty on board a new cruiser that was being constructed in the New York Shipyard which was located just across the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey. I received $100 bonus for shipping over, which was very welcome extra money to us. I was assigned to the receiving barracks at the League Island Navy base, South Philadelphia. This assignment made me available for any work around the base and I soon had to join a crew that was separating old World War I ships from the holding pens in the back channel. It was dangerous work handling heavy wire cables on the decks of the old rusted hulks as they were pulled and hauled by tugs on their way to the salvage yards where they were cut up for scrap iron. The weather was cold and often the decks were icy and snowy which didn't make it any easier. But when the boat was actually en route we had time to run around below decks and found many interesting and unique features about each ship, also mementos of the men who sailed the Atlantic during the war period. The good part of this duty was that I got to go home to Florence every night like an ordinary working man. We were living in our apartment at Sansom Street, but kept in touch with Mrs. Bray back at Irving Street. In a few weeks our old apartment was again vacant so we engaged it immediately. By now we seemed to have acquired a lot of clothes and household stuff so we took all one evening filling our two suitcases, walking five blocks back to Irving Street, emptying them out, and carrying them back to Sansom Street for another load.