4 4
2For young and old, the future seemed clouded with doubt and uncertainty. People everywhere—~~~ Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Turks, Russians—were being swept up into armies or were fleeing from armies as their countries declared war against one another.
3 In this first world-wide war, the fighting spread to every continent except the Americas and to every ocean except those surrounding the Poles. Every day, newspaper headlines grew larger and blacker with horror stories, U-boat sinkings, and casualty lists. How could America stay out of the war? When Germany began sinking American ships, there was no longer any hope of peace for the United States. President Wilson broke off relations with Germany and young men everywhere hurried to enlist in the armed forces.
4 With his experience in boats, Bucky clearly would be most useful in the Navy. With his eye problems, however, there was no way that he could pass the physical examination. Bucky refused to give up hope. Wasn’t the Navy looking desperately for small boats to patrol the coast? And didn’t the Fullers own such a small boat, the Wego'? At last Bucky had a scheme, but first he had to convince his mother and then persuade the Navy. His scheme worked. When Mrs. Fuller offered the Wego for patrol duty, the Navy accepted both the boat and Bucky as its commander.
5 ‘‘Chief Boatswain Fuller.’’ It was a title to be proud of, the highest rank a noncommissioned officer could hold. Best of all, he could pick his own crew. Line Pierce had already agreed to be first mate and his brother Wolcott, too, was keen to join them.
6 Up at Bear Island, Bucky worked furiously to prepare the Wego for active duty. Late in February 1917, the Wego became a Navy Scout Patrol boat officially assigned to guard the Maine coast. Only one problem remained to be licked: He missed Anne badly. Since a chief boatswain’s pay was more than twice what he had earned at Armour, there was no reason now why he
89The crew of the U.S.S. Wego, Bar Harbor, Maine, 1917; Bucky is at the helm, third from right
10could not support a wife. A proud and happy Bucky sat down to write to Anne.
11Anne’s letter discussed the practical details and preparations: Grandmother planned to use larkspur and hollyhocks to decorate the house; Anx, of course, would be in the wedding party. Most important, she urged him to be sure to have leave for that whole weekend.
12Important events in Bucky’s life had a way of happening on his birthday. Certainly one of the happiest events was his marriage to Anne Hewlett on his twenty-second birthday, July 12, 1917. The wedding took place at Grandmother Hewlett’s
13 summer place. Built in 1730, Rock Hall was one of the most historic old mansions on Long Island. Young officers in Washington’s army had visited and danced there. Now, more than a century later, the Hall was filled again with young men in uniform.
14 On the flag-hung, flower-decorated porch, Bucky stood with Line Pierce who was the best man. Both looked stiff but splendid in their Navy dress uniforms. A harp played softly. As the great-grandfather clock in the main hall chimed five, the violins and cello began the wedding march. The side door of the veranda opened and Anne stepped into view. In a simple white organdy dress with a flounced skirt, she seemed a vision from the past. Looking more solemn and owllike than ever, Bucky took a deep breath and stepped forward.
15 After the ceremony, laughter and cheers greeted the toasts to the newlyweds. Anne had young Rosy help to cut the cake with the long shining sword that was a tradition in military weddings. The musicians serenaded them with the strains of ‘‘Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow. …’’ Passing under the arch of swords and ducking the showers of confetti, the couple ran down the steps to the waiting motorcar.
16 Almost immediately, Bucky had to report back for duty. He was moved up to command a larger boat, the Inca, and sent to Virginia where the Navy had a new school for training pilots. Sometimes the seaplanes coming in for a landing ‘‘porpoised,’’ that is, they came in too steeply and tripped over their own pontoons, sending the nose of the plane down into the water. As a crash boat, the Inca had the job of rescuing these men. It was an important job, but a heartbreaking one, too, as Bucky soon found out. When the plane capsized completely, the stunned, belted-in pilot hung upside down in the water. Often the trapped pilot drowned before swimmers from the Inca could reach or free him.
17 These tragedies haunted Bucky. More, they filled him with the same sick anger that he had felt at his father’s illness. There must be a way. There must be a way to prevent this from happening. Science and technology put wings on men. Science and technology should be able to save them. Muttering and scribbling, Bucky worried over the problem every spare moment. He made countless sketches until at last the familiar current of discovery shot through him.
18 ‘‘I know it will work,’’ said Bucky to the station commander. He looked more confident than he felt. The two men bent over the working drawings. The mast was to be placed in the stern. The boom would have to be reinforced, of course. The grappling hook and winch could then tip the whole plane right side up immediately.
19 ‘‘I like the looks of your life-saving hook. We’ll give it a try,
2021Anne and Bucky’s wedding party, July 12, 1917
23 Fuller,’’ the commander decided. He gave orders to have a model built on the Inca.
24 In practicing on already wrecked seaplanes, the device seemed to work. It hoisted the planes right out of the water easily enough. But would it be speedy enough to save men’s lives? Watching the sky, Bucky knew when the testing day came. He could sense that this particular plane was coming in at too steep an angle. He shouted orders to move his men and ship. Within minutes the Inca was at the side of the capsized plane. Now the plane was up. Dozens of hands fumbled to free the dangling pilot. Then the body was down on the deck. The doctor’s hands worked steadily to pump water out of the lungs. Stretching, stretching, the minutes dragged on. The eyelids fluttered, opened, and the young pilot began to vomit! Bucky Fuller grinned as the crew cheered wildly.
25 That wide grin stretched even farther across his face some days later. Standing at attention, Bucky listened to Commander Bellinger. America needed more officers and needed them quickly. So the Navy had created a special program for training its brightest and most able young men to become officers. Despite the fact that Bucky had no college degree, the commander was recommending him for special appointment to the program.
26 At the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Bucky plunged into the hardest, most challenging work he had met to date. Unlike the work at Harvard, the classroom lessons here were tied directly to practical questions. How do ships survive the forces at sea? Force exists in the form of waves and winds. Its pull is a line whose effect can be plotted and measured. These lines which describe actual physical events are called vectors. Richard Buckminster Fuller found that he much preferred this geometry of vectors to that of his schoolboy days with its nonexistent points and lines.
27 Bucky’s thoughts were ranging far beyond the lessons of both his textbooks and seamanship. He felt a new confidence as he stood on the deck. Looking back at the wake of the ship, he
28 saw millions of white bubbles. He began wondering idly how many millions of bubbles were there in the wake. Bubbles are spheres, of course, and he knew that to measure a sphere you used the famous mathematical symbol of pi. But pi is an irrational number, one that is a never-ending, nonrepeating decimal. It struck him that in chemistry all the elements combine in beautiful whole numbers, never frustrating fractions. At what point did Nature round off the decimal in malting those millions of bubbles?
29 No, Bucky decided suddenly, Nature did not use pi in her spheres, whether they were bubbles in the water or elsewhere. Nature must be using a different system of arithmetic and geometry and it must be a real beauty. It seemed to him that her system must be the same in all her models and creations. After all, it was man who had set up separate departments of chemistry and physics, not Nature. He felt convinced that by charting and observing Nature over a long enough period of time, he could find that single system. And he was even more convinced that it would turn out to be a very, very simple one. His decision that day to find Nature’s own geometry was to lead him on a fifty-year hunt.
30 Engineering, ballistics, mathematics—the Navy was cramming three years of work into that three-month course at Annapolis. Bucky enjoyed every minute of it. After the disasters at Harvard, he found great satisfaction in knowing that he could handle the toughest land of class work. His grades and rank in class proved his ability once and for all. As in those summers at Bear Island, he had enough here to take up his extraordinary energy.
31 All the cadets, whether married or single, had to live in the barracks, but Bucky was luckier than the others. By chance, his brother-in-law’s family owned two hotels in Annapolis. So without spending too much money, Anne could stay near him. After evening parade, they would meet and walk slowly back to her hotel. It was like frosting on the cake to have Anne’s
3233company at the end of the day. Words would spill out of him eagerly as he shared some of the new ideas and thoughts bombarding him every day.
34Bucky’s mind, which always looked for patterns, had noted a difference in the Navy’s education of its officers. While at Harvard everybody talked about specializing, the Navy gave its brightest students a general course, one that gave them a picture of the whole system. In his writings later, Bucky concluded that the Navy had the right idea. To solve the problems of life in the twentieth century, man needed the broadest possible education. He pointed out: ‘‘We’re the only living creatures meant to be ‘generalists.’ We’re the only ones who can live and travel on land, on the water, and in the air. If Nature intended Man to be a specialist, she would have made him so. She would have him born with one eye and a microscope attached to it.’’
35Although it was a time of war and anxiety, it was also a time of love and contentment for the young Fullers. In those months at Annapolis, Bucky enjoyed the pleasure of learning, the satisfaction of accomplishment, and the added joy of having his beloved Anne at his side.
36Graduation brought the rank of ensign and a new assignment. He served now as a communications officer and personal aide to Admiral Gleaves. Because the admiral was in charge of the secret information on convoys, Bucky kept track of the movements and location of every single ship at sea. Using codes to communicate with the ships, he had to send enormous amounts of information with as few words as possible. Bucky knew that a captain who misunderstood him might take a wrong action with fatal results for his ship and men. Appreciating the importance of his words, Bucky adopted a rule that he has kept all his life: A message must be absolutely clear. One other of Bucky’s duties helped him polish his skill with words still further. He edited the Transport, a newspaper published for the men at sea.
3839Bucky working as aide to Admiral Gleaves