A visit with Korean War veteran Rhudy Scaggs

By Troutville Sunshine Girls

 

It’s Veterans Day and while out delivering the invitations to their special program, Troutville Sunshine Girls had a visit with Korean War veteran Rudolph “Rhudy” Judson Scaggs. We always enjoy hearing their stories and pleased when he took the time to share a few with us.

Rhudy is a graduate of Troutville High School and also went to Troutville Elementary School on Sunset Avenue. He was the high scorer at Troutville High where he played forward position for the basketball team. But what even impressed us more was when he told us he was also the quarterback for the football team. He said his coach was Jimmy Moore in late 1940s.

Rhudy worked for Layman & Rogers Electric Company in Troutville after graduation. He then went to sign up for the Air Force but failed the color blind test. He said he “just turned around walked down the street and signed up with the Navy.” It was then midnight the same day when he left for Richmond along with his brother Freddie. They were on a train through Covington by 5:00 the next afternoon to the US Navy Training Station in Great Lakes, Ill.  He said they had a very hard sergeant when it came to line up. We all laughed when he described him like Sgt. Carter on the old TV show “Gomer Pyle.”

Rhudy was chosen to be one of the Platoon Leaders and said in the barracks with bunks for 160 guys, he saw another Troutville native, Calvin Bryant, who was in downstairs barracks. He said they always had to carry a rifle everywhere they went and removed them before entering the building, leaving the rifles perfectly lined up in a tent position.

From Great Lakes he went to Providence, R.I. to get on his first ship, the 757 Destroyer USS Putnam (DD-757). This we found fascinating when he tells us this was the ship that took President Harry Truman to Key West, Fla., where he would stay at the Little White House for his presidential working vacations. Rhudy went on to tell us of his duties at the Combat Information Center. They stood on the other side of the big plotting board and put everything backwards on the board so it could be read from the other side. Everything came through the CIC and they would contact it with radar and track the enemy ships. To us, this seemed like a stressful job and understand why it was called the “Nerve Center” of the ship.

Rhudy, like other veterans, told us about the big storms and rough waters. He recalls staying off the ship at a military academy, taking the beds of guys who lived close by, sending them out of their barracks to go home. This was when he was on the U.S.S. Oriskany CV-34 escorting the aircraft carrier around South America because it was too big to go through the Panama Canal. They escorted the ship to Korea and picked up another destroyer with a larger deck on it. They then were able to go through the Panama Canal. He said they pumped up the ship, filling the chamber with water to raise the ship, making it able to go through the canal, same method that is still used today.

Rhudy told of his experience of going through the initiation with others who hadn’t crossed the equator with crawling through a tunnel filled with garbage and then getting hosed off to become a Shellback when sailing around Cape Horn. We found that story amusing as well, but knew it was probably not a favorite memory of his time in the service. On his basement walls he proudly displays several pictures of ships he was on and certificates of going around the tip of South America. He even has his leather lace-up leggings from boot camp hanging on the wall. They almost looked like suede, but we didn’t dare touch them.

When they decommissioned the USS Putnam 757, he was in Charleston, S.C., and then in Newport, R.I. on U.S.S.W.M.C. LAWDD763. Rhudy was a disbursing clerk and in charge of keeping all the pay records and list of accounts and would pay the sailors every two weeks with a chip. He remembers the pay master boarding the ship and coming to the cabin trying to get Rhudy to re-enlist.

Rhudy married his high school sweetheart and recently celebrated their 70^th wedding anniversary residing in Botetourt County.

Rhudy was a government representative working at ITT, teaching how to inspect goggles, and signed off on each one before the goggles were shipped.  His title was Product Assurance Representative for ITT, one of only three companies who manufactured the night vision goggles at that time.

We talked about all of the changes in the world today – from technology to government. We ended our conversation back to talking sports, which is what he loves, along with his hobbies of painting and used to be a pretty good bowler as we noticed several trophies in the corner of the room. He enjoys watching sports on TV and says that has even changed as there’s now way too many commercials.

Please come join us tomorrow on Veterans Day, November 11, to meet Rhudy and several more of our amazing veterans. They will be at the Troutville Town Park on the 11th hour with a special program in Shelter A.  For more information, call the Sunshine Girls at 819-6335.