Navy Chiefs

Navy Chiefs. There is lot of lore in our culture about U.S. Navy Chiefs. It’s true that it is the chiefs that keep the ships afloat and doing their job but the rumor that somehow they are loud belligerent demanding SOBs like many of the Army and Marine sergeants is simply not based on any real facts. My experience with Chief Petty officers is limited because of the limited time I spent in uniform but I believe that my experiences with chiefs were not untypical. This brief account will be limited to a remark or two about one such man and a bit more about another.

Joe Copestakes, at the age of 12, as an enthusiastic ham radio operator, and much later as the Chief Radioman aboard the USS Nicholson DD442, knew more about radio in the ‘40s than most electrical engineers or any of the other technical officers in the U.S. Navy. He also became a very dear friend and mentor after welcoming me aboard our ship, the USS Nicholson DD442, at Pearl Harbor in 1945. I, at the age of 20, an electronics petty officer 2^nd class and senior electronics technician aboard, would have fared very badly without his help. He was also later the best man at my wedding in Charleston, South Carolina. We maintained a close relationship through our ship reunions until his death about four years ago. He is sorely missed.

Above. Jan. 1, 1946. St Michael's, Charleston, S.C.

Best Man, Chief Joe Copestakes - Mr. and Mrs. John Hood - 

Matron of Honor, Jerry Tvelia

Joe’s talents and expertise were not unusual or unexpected but the story about the other chief is remarkable in many ways and is the primary subject of this blog. 

Chief Storm Bull and I never had a personal relationship even though he was a crucially important person in my life.  He was in charge of my company at the advanced electronics school I attended located on Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. He was a quiet man of fairly short stature. We all liked him. During our seven months course I came to know a little bit about him. He was a nephew of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and was a well-known composer and concert pianist in his own right. My graduation ceremony at the end of the course was to be held in the elegant concert hall located at the end of the pier. Chief Bull was to play a concert for the ceremony. When my mother, a trained classical concert pianist, heard what was to occur on that day she made arrangements to come out from Denver to attend. That was no small feat in 1944. She wouldn’t have missed it. It was a great occasion even though I don’t recall that she even got to meet him personally.

But the story goes on. After the war Storm Bull became a music professor at my alma mater, The University of Colorado, and was the head of the department of piano music. Even though I never had occasion to meet him at CU, (it’s a very large place and I was in Physics), I was proud to have attended an institution that was home to my old chief. The following clip is taken from Wikipedia.

“Storm Bull (October 13, 1913 – July 22, 2007) was an American musician, composer and educator. He was Professor Emeritus at the College of Music, University of Colorado at Boulder and Head of the Division of Piano.[1]

Background

Johan Storm Bull, the only child of Eyvind Hagerup Bull (1882-1949) and Agnes Hagerup Bull (1885-1950), was born in Chicago, Illinois . His family heritage included the musical traditions of Norway. Both of Storm’s grandfathers were nephews of the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull and were also first cousins of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.[2][3] In 1919, Storm Bull began his formal musical training at the Laboratory Schools of the University of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, and the Chicago Musical College. His teachers during this time included Percy Grainger.

Career

In 1929, his debut as a soloist took place at age 16 in Oslo, Norway. He performed Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor with the Orchestra of the Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Issay Dobrowen before an audience which included Nina Hagerup Grieg, the composer’s widow.

In 1931, he studied in Paris with Lazare Levy at the Ecole Normale de Musique and at the Sorbonne. Bull continued his musical training at the Liszt Academy and the University of Budapest. He was the private pupil of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.[4]

On March 2, 1939, he gave the first North American performance of Bartók's Second Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock. He performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Douglas Clarke and made his concert debut in New York City with a solo recital at Town Hall.[5]

Bull served three years in the U.S. Navy during World War II in a precursor to the Navy SEALS. Bull was a Chief Specialist in Athletics, Underwater Demolition Team. Starting in 1945, he spent two years teaching at Baylor University before accepting a professorship at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1947. During his time at CU-Boulder, his students would include classical musician David Schrader and composer/pianist Dave Grusin.[6][7]

In 1954, Bull was honored as a Fulbright Grant Professor of Musicology at the University of Oslo, Norway. In 1969, Storm Bull was honored with the Distinguished Achievement Award for extraordinary contributions to the cultural life of the United States and Norway by the Scandinavian Foundation at the University of Denver. After thirty years with the University of Colorado College of Music, Bull retired in 1977 as Professor Emeritus and Head of the Piano Division.[8]”