Upon completion of my three year tour of duty in Panama I was ordered, on the completion of a three months leave to report for duty to the Commandant, Coast Artillery School, that officer being General Callan, who had, some months before, been ordered there on the completion of his service in Panama.
Mrs. Haight had, in the meantime bought the place in Summerville (for $10000), and she very kindly turned it over to us to use during my three months leave. This was my first experience with Summerville, and I enjoyed it immensely. The thing I remember most distinctly, however, is that, with the assistance of my very capable daughter, age three, I wired the house for electricity. In doing so I learned that the entire building was constructed of long leaf pine which was as rich with resin and as hard as when originally put in place some 140 years before. I had occasion to bore (with a brace and bit) at least a hundred 3/4" holes through joists 3 or 4 inches thick, and I recall that it sometimes took me as much as three hours to bore one of these holes.
Upon our arrival at Fort Monroe, on November 30, 1925, we were assigned to one of the brick sets opposite the hospital. It was a very nice set of quarters with one exception. It was the dirtiest set of quarters I have ever seen. One could have written one's name (or anything else for that matter) on any wall with one's finger. It developed that it had been occupied by the vacating family for three or four years, without being done over, that it was the only set of quarters on the post that had not been done over during the preceding year, and that no funds were then available for doing it over. When your grandmother saw it, for the first (and last) time in her life she sat down and cried at the prospect of having to live in such a dirty house.
I decided to scrub the ceiling, walls and woodwork myself (I couldn't get a detail to do it), so I started in. In the midst of my work, while I was up on a step ladder, stripped to the waist and dripping perspiration and dirty water, General Callan came to call. It was indeed an informal call as we sat on two packing boxes and talked for several hours. He told me that he had asked for me as he wanted me to take charge of the Department of Extension Courses in the School. This Department was charged with the preparation of all texts used in the instruction of Reserve officers and of all Correspondence Courses material. He also told me that what he most wanted me to do was to rewrite all the Coast Artillery Manuals dealing with the location and deployment of all Coast Artillery materiel, including fixed guns and mortars, 155 mm. guns, Railway guns, searchlights and communication systems.
With the background of the experience in Panama this became a most interesting undertaking, and when, in time, it was completed it, with a few minor changes, was adopted as the official approved War Department publications on these subjects.
While I was on this duty, in 1926, I was detailed as a member of a Joint Army and Navy Board convened in Washington to revise all submarine mine projects. Colonel Bishop was one of the other two Army members. The Board meetings extended over a month, and he and I were able to rent a small apartment at the Farnsboro during this period. This Board recommended that the development of the 1-wire system of controlled mines, which I had started while I was at the Torpedo Depot and upon which but little progress had been made, should be given first priority and that the submarine mine projects at both the Race and Admiralty Inlet, in both of which localities depths of 40 fathoms and maximum currents of 6 knots were to be found, be abandoned. These recommendations, which were based upon my experience at the Torpedo Depot, were approved by the War and Navy Departments.