—CAPT. EUGENE FLUCKEY to Boy Scout officials, who begged him to become an Eagle Scout, Groton, Connecticut, 1947 Nimitz The flight to Hawaii was rougher than expected. The heater was out of order and there were no blankets aboard. Gene Fluckey resorted to pacing in the belly of the transport to stay warm and contemplate his future as the plane droned on high above the Pacific. At Pearl Harbor a media frenzy awaited him. Newspaper reporters scurried for interviews, now that the story of the Barb’s last two war patrols had been released. Time magazine scored a one-on-one interview, and NBC radio went live with the skipper. The Navy encouraged him to go with the flow. “Public relations here wants me to sell submarines,” he wrote of the hubbub in a letter to Marjorie, whom he addressed as “Mrs. Dogfish.” As he had hoped, his new orders were to report to the sub base at Groton, where he was to put into commission the USS Dogfish (SS-350), one of the first postwar submarines and thought to be the most advanced in the world.
