More Sea Stories

By Garland Davis

Sea Story Number One

We were anchored in Buckner Bay, Okinawa. This was in the early sixties before the concept of CHT.

Some of the Steward had spent the evening fishing off the fantail and had quite a catch of fish which they cleaned and filleted. I asked if they were going to feed them to the officers. They told me no. They were going to have a fish fry for all the Filipino Stewards.

Later, I was by the bake shop talking with a CS3 named Ike when the Assistant Supply Officer said, “The Stewards are frying fish. They sure smell good. I wonder what kind of fish they are.”

Ike said, “They caught them off the fantail, sir. That type of fish hangs around anchored ships.”

“What kind is that?”

“Wrinkle necks, sir” replied Ike.

“Why do you call them wrinkle necks?”

“Because they got wrinkles in their necks from looking up at scuppers waiting for somebody to flush a shitter.”

I thought the Ensign was going to puke right there.

Sea Story Number Two

Everyone who was there in Subic during the sixties knows that a sailor on liberty had to be off the streets or back through the gate by midnight.

My ship was at anchor. The fleet landing was down from Alava Piers about a block from the Officer’s Club. By midnight there were about half the crew waiting for a boat ride to the ship. It was a small Ocean Going Tug. The Naval Station was supposed to be providing liberty boats.

By 0030 no boat had arrived. The ship’s Captain came down to the landing from the O Club and told us that the station boat pool had promised hourly boats with the last boat at 0100. We told him that we had been waiting since 2330 and some guys had been waiting since 2200.

The Skipper said he would go back to the O Club and call to find out the problem. About a half hour later he returned carrying a one-gallon mayonnaise jar and had a sleeve of paper cups under his arm. He said, “The Boat Pool is having problems and won’t have a boat available until 0400. So, I brought us a screwdriver.”

The mayonnaise jar was full of vodka, orange juice and Ice.

It was completely empty when the boat did arrive about 0330.

When we got back to the ship, the Old Man told the XO to pass Rope Yarn for the day. He said, “We are not going to get a lot out of these guys today.

My cook striker had the galley under control. I hit my rack to rest up for liberty call.

SEA Story Number Three

I was in a Forrest Sherman can in the early seventies. We left Pearl Harbor for WestPac and the Vietnam War about the middle of ’72. After a quick stop in Subic where several new personnel who had barely missed the ship in Pearl were waiting. A Couple of days and we were on to Vietnam.

One of the new guys waiting was a Seaman. An extremely good looking Seaman; Robert Redford good looking. I’ll call him SN Eaton for this chronicle.

We left Subic for the gunline. SN Eaton was sent Mess Cooking. The HMC told me he thought Eaton would be a good mess cook for the CPO Mess. Since the CPO mess cook was due to rotate back to his division and it not making a lot of difference to me, I said okay.

After a few days, we noticed that the HMC and the PNC were spending a lot more time in the Mess. They were both taking an interest in advising SN Eaton and even helping him do his job.

It quickly became obvious that they both were in love with SN Eaton. Both Doc and the PN came out of the closet and were vying for Eaton’s favor.

The Senior Chief brought the situation to the command’s attention and all three of them were transferred off the ship when we returned to Subic.

After the ship departed Subic to return to the gunline, the CPO Mess invited the Captain for dinner. After dinner, the CO began his remarks by saying, “It is unfortunate about the homosexual problems we have had.”

The BTC said, “Yeah, all these queers in the Mess and I ain’t had a blowjob this whole cruise.”

The Captain was speechless!