Malefactors were transported from the scene of the alleged violation to the Brig. Once there, commissioned officers were separated from enlisted men and provided with cells befitting their rank.
As soon as they reached a condition approaching partial sobriety, most of these gentlemen were released on their own recognizance and informed by the Shore Patrol duty officer that an official report of the incident would be transmitted via official channels to their commanding officers. They were further informed that it behooved them to return immediately and directly to their ship or shore station.
The enlisted personnel were first segregated by service: sailors in one holding cell, Marines in another, and the odd soldier or two who’d somehow wound up in San Diego, in a third.
Then a further segregation took place, dividing those sailors and Marines whose offense was simply gross intoxication from those whose offenses were considered more serious.
In the case of the minor offenders, telephone calls would be made to Camp Pendleton, or to the various ships or shore-based units to which they were assigned, informing the appropriate person of their arrest. In due course, buses or trucks would be sent to the Brig to bring them (so to speak) home, where their commanding officers would deal with them.
Those charged with more serious offenses could count on spending the night in the Brig. Such offenses ran from resisting arrest through using provoking language to a noncommissioned, or commissioned, officer in the execution of his office, to destruction of private property (most often the furnishings of a saloon or “boardinghouse”), to assault with a deadly weapon.
In the morning, when they were more or less sober and, it was hoped, repentant, they were brought, unofficially, before an officer. He would decide whether the offender’s offense and attitude should see him brought before a court-martial.
A court-martial could mete out punishment ranging from a reprimand to life in a Naval prison.
Although none of the malefactors brought before-him believed this, Lieutenant Max Krinski, USNR, most often tilted his scale of justice on the side of leniency. This was not because Lieutenant Krinski believed that there was no such thing as a bad sailor (or Marine), but rather that he believed his basic responsibility was to make his decisions on the basis of what was or was not good for the service.
Lieutenant Krinski, a bald-headed, barrel-chested, formidable-appearing gentleman of thirty-eight, had himself once been a Marine. In his youth, he served as a guard at the U.S. Naval Prison at Portsmouth. He did not, however, join the Marines to be a guard. More to the point, he quickly discovered that all the horror stories were true: Prisoners at Portsmouth were treated with inhuman brutality and sadism.
Although he was offered a promotion to corporal if he reenlisted, he turned it down, left the service, and returned to his home in upstate New York. After trying and failing to gain success in any number of careers (mostly involving sales), he took and passed the civil service examination for “Correctional Officers” in the Department of Corrections of the State of New York.
His intention was to go to college at night and get the hell out of the prison business; but that didn’t work out. On the other hand, as he rose through the ranks of prison guards (ultimately to captain), the work became less and less distasteful.
In 1940, a Marine Corps major approached him and asked if he was interested in a reserve commission. As he knew, Marines guarded the Portsmouth Naval Prison; but the major made that point specific. This made it quite clear to Krinski that The Marine Corps was seeking Captain Krinski of the Department of Corrections, rather than former PFC Krinski of the Marine Detachment, Portsmouth Naval Prison. He declined the Marine major’s kind offer.
But if war came, he realized, he could not sit it out at Sing Sing. He approached the Army, but they were not interested in his services. (He still hadn’t figured out why not.) And so when he approached the Navy, it was without much hope…. Yet they immediately responded with an offer of a commission as a lieutenant (junior grade), USNR, and an immediate call to active duty.