You might say Fred Hulsey’s exciting and adventurous life started when he was 13 years old. Fred had to drop out of school to help support his mother and his eight siblings after their father died.
He picked cotton and plowed a mule on their small farm in the Mossy Creek area of White County. On Valentine’s Day 1941, the family home burned, leaving 16-year-old Fred with only the clothes he was wearing.
He joined the Civil Conservation Corps, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s programs to provide jobs in conservation projects. The CCC camp in Gainesville was located near the end of Rainey Street in the vicinity of the present Gainesville High School.
The CCC transferred him to Nevada and then to California, where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He left the CCC to help build submarines for the U.S. Navy. Fred says he always wanted to go to sea, so he hitchhiked to Mobile, Alabama, to join the Merchant Marines, starting a 39-year career that provided him with enough stories to pass down to his family for a lifetime.
Merchant mariners were in American convoys crossing the Atlantic to supply allied troops. He witnessed ships being torpedoed and dive-bombed. On one such trip, an enemy torpedo just missed the bow of his ship and struck another one nearby.
When World War II ended, Hulsey’s ship was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other seamen in port were celebrating. A brawl broke out when some British Royal Navy sailors had to board his ship from theirs to get to shore. After it was all over, the British and Americans went ashore and continued their celebration peacefully together.
His roommate on one voyage off the coast of Romania fought with another sailor over two packs of cigarettes. The other sailor ended up dead, and Fred’s roommate hid out ashore for a week, delaying his ship’s departure.
