During the late '50s, the IBM punch card phenomena was present everywhere in the the US Navy's shore establishments. My first stop out of boot camp was the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Kingsville, Texas. I was assigned to the Supply Department and as an Airman Apprentice (E-2), and did everything from swinging a sickle on the grass cutting detail out on fuel farm, where the the JP4 jet fuel was stored (no motors allowed), to driving a 2 1/2 ton Chevy truck every 4th duty night to the main supply depot 50 miles north to NAS Corpus Christi, known as "mainside".
Our Supply Department was in the process of transitioning from a hand posted Kardex file system to IBM punch cards. What was important to the department's civil service employees, was that the average office clerk who worked on posting Kardex files was usually a GS-3. There was great competition for the IBM key punch positions as they would be GS-4. It should be noted that the senior civil service executive for the department was a GS-7. Soon there were IBM cards on all aircraft parts and even our paychecks were on IBM cards.
IBM punch cards were boxed and hand delivered to the main supply facility in NAS Corpus Christi on daily basis, where they were run through a sorting machine and generated massive amounts of green bar paper stock listings. When I retired from the service in 1977, punch cards were still very much evident.
