He has been around the world, had cocktails with England’s Prince Philip on the royal yacht HMS Britannia, and faced down Russian ships during the Cuban missile crisis. How did a country boy from Shepherdstown do all that? John VanTol credits the United States Navy.
VanTol, born into a local flower-growing family, grew up working in their flower fields. “I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees, weeding,” he recalled.
He graduated from Shepherdstown High School in 1944 at age 17 and joined the navy, where he spent 25 years. Most of the time he was on destroyers, and he had command of three of them.
He explained how an enlisted man with a high school diploma could become a commander. During World War II, officers were needed. A navy plan called V-12 allowed him to attend civilian colleges at the navy’s expense for 16 months and earn commissions.
VanTol attended Bethany College and then Franklin & Marshall, and the war ended. In August 1945 he joined R.O.T.C. He was sent to Princeton University to finish his degree and was commissioned as an officer. Because of the timing and the circumstances, he ended up with three years of college instead of 16 months. He also had a service obligation to fulfill, and he decided to make the navy his career.
“I probably spent 17 of my 25 years at sea,” he said. Peacetime tours take around four or five months, but some are as short as two weeks out and two weeks in. VanTol’s first commissioned tour was his longest—seven months—around Africa. “I was planning to get married when we returned,” he recalled, “so I took my blood test in South Africa so we could get married as soon as I got in.”
His first command was a destroyer escort to a radar picket ship in the Greenland-Iceland area watching Russian aircraft and trawlers. He remembers it as his most rugged sea duty. “It was cold, wet, and rainy.”
VanTol’s late wife Alice traveled with him, moving to ports up and down the east coast. VanTol had a tour of duty with Britain’s Royal Navy stationed at a British base in Ireland. The family spent two years there and had the opportunity to travel through Europe together. The VanTols had four children.
VanTol explained that a naval ship is commissioned for 20 or 30 years, all that time running continuously. It is like a living town, working 24 hours a day. A destroyer has a crew of 200 to 300, and is always manned. When it comes into port, some of the crew stay on board, and qualified officers must always be present. When he was in port, he could usually go home three nights out of four, and sometimes his family could come on board for dinner.
The Cold War found VanTol at sea off Cuba in 1962. “My job was radar surveillance around Havana and Matanzas, where Russian ships went in and out,” he said. “We didn’t know that missiles were going in.”
Aerial surveillance showed that the Russians had brought in missiles that could strike the United States. As the crisis built up, VanTol was sure that the United States was going to invade Cuba.
“Armament was ready to go,” he recalled. “Our ship was right off the mouth of Matanzas Harbor and would serve as a reference point for the airborne to go in. The southern tip of Florida was full of tanks and armored equipment.”
A U.S. naval blockade turned Russian ships away from Cuba. When an agreement was finally reached, they were allowed to enter to remove the missiles.
“When the first Russian ships came out again,” said VanTol, “we didn’t know if there were missiles on them. My job was to follow them, and I did for five days. We finally went alongside and the Russians rolled back the canvas and showed us the missiles. Naval planes were overhead taking pictures, too.”
VanTol described life on a destroyer as very austere. Enlisted men had no privacy, sleeping four or five high in bunks. There were no doors on bathroom stalls because doors are dangerous at sea. After a few days out, they used up their fresh milk and eggs and went to powdered milk and eggs. They ate dinner tied to the table in rough seas and had to be ready to grab onto something at all times. “One hand for the ship and one hand for yourself,” was an old Navy saying.
Reflecting on his years at sea, VanTol said, “Nothing is better than a quiet night at sea,” adding, “and nothing is worse than a rough night at sea!”
Upon retirement, VanTol used his navy experience in management and administration to launch a second career with nonprofits, including the Girl Scouts, the Jefferson County Commission on Aging, and Jefferson County Schools. In 1984, on a trip to Vermont to put one of their children in college, the VanTols fell in love with the area and relocated. They lived in Vermont for 15 years, finally returning to Shepherdstown because they could no longer tolerate the cold climate.
“I had my best, most enjoyable, and lowest-paying job working for a bookstore in Stowe, Vermont,” he said. VanTol loves books, and he still works as a volunteer for the book store with a biweekly radio program. They send him free books, then call him to discuss them on radio.
VanTol’s third career is as a volunteer. Among other things, he is cataloging information on church history for Trinity Episcopal Church, he is active in Historic Shepherdstown, and he is a driver for people who need rides.
At 80, VanTol says, “I’ve had a wonderful life, a wonderful wife and children, a wonderful career and I would do it all again.”