×

Minot man served his country aboard USS Everglades

Eloise Ogden/MDN Jim Morken, a Korean War veteran from Minot who is celebrating his 90th birthday today, holds a photo of himself when he served in the Navy in the 1950s.

Korean War veteran Jim Morken enlisted in the U.S. Navy two years after his high school graduation.

A Minot resident for the past 62 years, Morken served in the military from 1952 until his discharge four years later in 1956.

Today Morken is celebrating his 90th birthday.

Born in Jamestown, he was raised at Hamberg and later moved to Maddock, where he graduated from high school in 1950.

After completing basic training at Great Lakes, Illinois, Morken boarded the ship, the USS Everglades at Norfolk, Virginia.

“That was our homeport,” he said.

As for the USS Everglades, “It was an AD-24. We took care of destroyers, It was a repair ship for destroyers,” Morken said. He said there were a lot of destroyers at that time.

The USS Everglades was one of four Klondike class destroyer tenders built at the end of World War II for the U.S. Navy. It was completed in 1946. When the U.S. became involved in the Korean War the ship was activated and commissioned in 1951. It played a vital role in keeping the Navy ready, repairing Norfolk-based destroyers and serving ships in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, according to USS Everglades information.

Morken recalls his ship went to the Mediterranean.

“We spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean. We went to different ports. One port was Istanbul, Turkey,” he said.

When they stopped at the different ports, he said they took care of the destroyers.

“I can remember one time we got to the Rock of Gibraltar. What we did there is a destroyer lost its prop. We had guys aboard ship that could go down and replace them. I can tell you I got to see a lot of the Rock of Gibraltar. We spent about a week there,” he said.

Morken said his job was as the disbursing clerk.

“Paid the crew,” he said.

He spent most of the time making out new pay records and also paying the crew.

“For some reason when I went to high school I learned to type and by golly, that really paid off,” he said.

He said they would go back to Norfolk, Virginia, their homeport, but made two trips to the Mediterranean.

Morken said he liked being on the ship.

“We had everything on the ship to take care of destroyers. If destroyers had problems, we had guys on there that would take care of them,” he said.

He figured that many of the ships went to Korea. The Korean War was taking place from June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953.

The ship moved around to different places.

“We didn’t just sit in Norfolk,” he said.

After he was discharged from the Navy, Morken returned to North Dakota and worked in a grocery store and also did some surveying at Maddock. He then got a job on the Great Northern Railroad, now BNSF.

The year after getting out of the service, he and his wife, Delores, were married in 1957 in New Rockford, where they lived until moving to Minot in 1960. The Morkens raised two daughters, Nancy Morken and Brenda Miller, both of Minot.

Morken is a life member of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and also the AMVETS in Fargo.

Morken and a friend enlisted in the Navy together at New Rockford. Morken said he’s glad he joined the Navy and served his country.

“It’s one of the best things I did,” he said.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today