‘Duke’

By: Jim Barton

For nearly 3 weeks we had been attacking installations along the North Vietnamese coast with essentially no air cover. On April 23rd, we had gotten the word that carrier aircraft had severely damaged a North Vietnamese coastal freighter which was partially aground in somewhere between Ha Thien and Dong Hoi well south of Vinh. The ship was loaded with weapons material and its cargo was a priority target.

The recomposed northern SAG was tasked by COMSEVENTHFLT to go finish the job and destroy the waterborne logistics craft (WBLCs) which were offloading from it. This was a job better left to aircraft we thought as we closed the coast without air cover in daylight. It was a three ship mission.

In a line abreast with USS Benjamin Stoddert (DDG-22) in the center, USS Hamner (DD-718) to its starboard side at 1000 yards and USS George K. Mackenzie (DD-836) to port at the same distance, we approached the coast for the mission. It was a very clear morning, free of the usual dust and smoke which normally filled the air. Firing was to commence at a range of five miles but we were to approach the coast as close as two miles. We wanted to see what we were killing.

The plan called for Stoddert as the point shooter to begin firing on the way in with Hamner and Mackenzie watching for counter-battery fire and engaging, we were then to simultaneously execute a turn south at the two-mile point while Stoddert continued to fire. This was slightly different than the tactic we had used from previous raids. The idea was to maximize rounds against the WBLCs and then get out. In this area, there were no known coastal artillery fixed sites so approaching that close was a risk the OTC was willing to take.

I had the Deck and simply suited up with my flak jacket and helmet as we went to General Quarters as I was also the GQ OOD.

Digressing a bit, by now “Duke” had been stenciled on my flak jacket. This came from an earlier incident, my first in evasive maneuvers when encountering enemy incoming. “In Harm’s Way”, a John Wayne flick, was one of my all-time Navy movies. After Pearl Harbor and aboard the old sway back, John Wayne told the OOD to evade enemy incoming by steering for the last splash. This resonated with me I suppose.

On the way out of an earlier run at Vinh, we were encountering incoming and I broke from the zig-zag and steered for the last splash. The next one hit where the previous one had hit close aboard. The CO asked me what in the H*ll I was doing. I of course mentioned “In Harm’s Way” and the John Wayne tactic. A nervous chuckle came from bridge watch personnel when the Skipper yelled the H*ll with John Wayne and get back to your random weave. Lesson learned. Never again. But next GQ, the stencil was on my flak jacket and it was there to stay. I was now Duke.

On the way in on this raid, Stoddert commenced firing as planned with her forward 5″/54 gun in rapid fire at the surface contacts. Upon direction from Stoddert and not receiving any hostile fire, Hamner and Mackenzie followed suit each firing from the forward gun mounts as well at the WBLCs. There were lots of rounds exploding in and around the target area with good effect.

From my position on the Bridge, I noted about four minutes into the mission what appeared to be dust in an area along a hillside just north of the target area and from another to the south. It was a hilly area and it looked as though dust was coming from a couple notches in the hills. The signalmen and lookouts reported it as well. We were pretty close to the beach by now. WBLCs were scattering everywhere, what was left of them anyway. Lots of smoke filled the target area from the WBLCs and the freighter now pretty much ablaze.

As I tried to discern what this strange “dust” was with my binoculars it instantly dawned on me what we were dealing with as I made out shapes in the notches. We are talking literally seconds. I alerted the Captain that this was not dust at all; but rather smoke from discharging coastal artillery firing in the direction of the formation. The Signalmen using the Big Eyes confirmed it as well. They were 4-5 mobile artillery pieces apparently positioned to provide protection for the WBLCs and grounded freighter, and they were now firing at our formation from locations north and south of the target area. We called out counterbattery shifting from the primary targets and engaged the southernmost artillery. Hamner did as well to the north.

Immediately, I observed several splashes in close proximity to Stoddert. And suddenly from my location position less than a half mile on the port beam of Stoddert, I watched three rounds land near Stoddert, and one incoming round penetrated Stoddert’s port bow obliterating the second painted “2”. A signal came up from the OTC over secure voice and we were ordered to withdraw at high speed and execute a zig-zag. Mackenzie was initially blocked from firing counter-battery by Stoddert. Hamner began its turn and commenced firing with its aft gun mount toward the north. Rather than hauling out abeam of the smoking Stoddert, the OTC directed us to provide covering fire for Stoddert and Hamner as we were now closest to the target area. I ordered a turn to starboard and we rolled in behind Stoddert as it turned away to the southeast on the egress course with smoke billowing from the hole in the bow. Hamner was on Stoddert’s port beam by now also running a zig-zag but also firing. As we passed behind Stoddert and Hamner, we drew fire from the artillery. Although damaged, Stoddert continued to fire at the WBLCs on the way out. We were now northernmost ship with clear firing bearings at all the coastal artillery.

Now in a good position to provide cover fire, we concentrated with both barrels each from our forward and aft gun mounts at the artillery ashore with some effect. This was direct fire controlled from the Director but if I am not mistaken initially both gun mounts initially engaged using mount-controlled local fire. Bags Baggett can confirm or deny that one. Then we began our own egress. At high speed on the way out the mounts were under Director control. I was too busy to pay attention to the details of the guns as I was busy conning the ship.

Although I turned the ship away from the coast and commenced a weave at high speed, we were able to keep Mount 51 out of the stops and bring it to bear on the targets. As the closest unit to the action now, most of the incoming was being directed at us with numerous splashes aft ahead and on each beam. Unlike the area near Vinh, there were few fishing stakes to avoid and the accuracy of the coastal artillery while close aboard and intense was not accurate. As we were executing the egress first to the northeast and eventually east-southeast to catch up with Stoddert and Hamner, the volume of incoming rounds, however, was high. I spied a number of fishing vessels ahead of me, so I steamed directly through them. In doing so, the artillery ceased fire long enough for us to adjust away from the coast at high speed. We were clear of hostile fire except for a few rounds.

The three ships proceeded to the holding area off the coast and Stoddert began making repairs to its bow. I watched into the evening the light of welding torches at work in Stoddert. The shell struck Stoddert forward in the windlass room. Although it was put out quickly, the resulting fire destroyed a medical storeroom and the degaussing cable requiring repairs by ship’s force. Thankfully no one was killed. Stoddert continued with her mission and later that night the three of us refueled and rearmed.

Around noon the next day (24th of April), Mackenzie was detached from the SAG to proceed independently to join USS Long Beach (CGN-9) for PIRAZ Shotgun duties in the Tonkin Gulf well north of 19 degrees Latitude for a few days. While this was serious work as well, to many of us the break in action almost seemed like a vacation of sorts.

We would soon return to Freedom Train/Linebacker as this was non-stop action against the north. We were now past the time we were supposed to have headed home from WESTPAC. Three more months would pass before we actually returned to San Diego.
The point of all of this is that daytime destroyer missions without air cover was foolhardy. We finally figured it all out. But nighttime strikes were hazardous as well.

The author is a retired career US Navy Surface Warfare Officer whose assignments at sea include duty in all Line Departments in the Destroyer and Auxiliary Forces up to and including command of a Frigate. Ashore he served in key national policy positions on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Reunion

By: Garland Davis

They say the best ships a sailor serves in are his last one and his next one. How many times have you departed a ship feeling the anticipation of something new? A new challenge awaits. Your old ship has become monotonous and a grind and you find yourself glad to put it behind you. Even as your stride lengthens when you walk away, you feel an underlying regret to be leaving. There are men, and, I suppose in our new, ever changing Navy, women with whom you have shared some rough seas and hard times and some of the best of times. You are going to miss them. But this time, you will keep in touch.

But you eventually lose track. As the years and water pass under the keel, you forget names and which ship. You remember the good times. You’ll start a sea story with, “Me and this fucking Radioman, damned if I can remember his name…” all too often. You’ll tell stories about sailors from other ships that you met in the bars and clubs. Guys who know some of the same people you know. You never served together but now you are shipmates.

Finally, you reach the end of your run and retire to a civilian life that you have no fucking conception of. It is more strange to you than boot camp was when you first enlisted. You had seen the movies and TV shows and had some idea of what to expect. Coming into civilian life as an adult, a civilian life that you had only lived in as a kid is a fucking traumatic experience.

It brings to mind to an old joke. A Marine Sergeant Major, the epitome and recruiting poster picture of the perfect Marine reaches retirement. After the retirement ceremony, he dresses in a three-piece suit as a successful civilian does and departs the base. A few months later one of his subordinate Sergeants meets him on the street. He is appalled at the Sergeant Major’s appearance. The once perfect Marine is unshaven, ungroomed, dressed in wrinkled clothing, has shaky hands, and is scurrying along the street looking around as if he had seen a ghost or something was chasing him.

The Sergeant asked, “Sergeant Major, what in the world has happened to you? You were the perfect Marine. What happened to change you?”

The Sergeant Major replies, “You know, there ain’t nobody in fucking charge out here!”

Then there is the story of a thirty-year sailor who retired to a job in manufacturing. The fourth day he reported to work, his boss intercepted him and asked, “Hartman, this is the fourth day you have been late for work. What did they say to you in the Navy when you came into the office ten minutes late every day?”

Hartman said, “They always said, ‘Good morning, Master Chief.’”

But we move on and adapt to civilian life. Those of us lucky enough to live near an old shipmate or another serviceman, Navy, Army, Marine Corps, it really doesn’t matter have a tenuous connection to the past. A spark of the old life is there. Of course, we make civilian friends, but they are not friends on the level that our shipmates and those we called shipmate were.

We often sat around and wondered, “What happened to Old So and So?” But we really had no way of tracking them down. All one could do was reminisce and wonder.

And then came the Information Revolution and the information Super Highway. Some of us embraced it and others had to be dragged kicking and screaming, yelling, “fucking computers.” There was a miraculous web of electrons where we could communicate via e-mail. Later came the social sites. Bulletin boards where those with similar beliefs and experiences could connect. There were search sites where you could search for individuals. Slowly we reconnected with a few people. Then FaceBook exploded on the scene. You could join a group call Tin Can Sailors, or The Majestic and Ancient Order of Shit River and there he was, “Old Shit for Brains”, whom you had spent many hours thinking about, laughing about, and missing. And he knew where one or two other old shipmates were. You slowly reconnected with old shipmates and made friends with others who had been there and did the things you did albeit in different ships or at a slightly different time. It was as if the twenty or thirty years hadn’t passed. You built a group from the old life. You even discovered that one of your old shipmates retired in the next town over, an hour’s drive away.

The military sites and Facebook groups are rife with reunion announcements, places, dates and etc. More and more, old shipmates are driving halfway across the country to spend time with an old shipmate and going to the ships and unit reunions. Telephone plans are such that you can call anywhere in the country at no extra cost. Old sailors call other old sailors across the country and talk as if they lived within blocks of each other.

In 2012/2013, five of us started the Asia Sailor website and Facebook group. I don’t believe any of us served in the same command, but we had served together in Asia at relatively the same time period. I am in Hawaii, one was in the Ozarks, one in Florida, one in California, and our webmaster is in Thailand. Using e-mails and the messaging capability of Facebook, we conceptualized and launched the Asia Sailor Westpac’ers Association website and Facebook group. Each entity has in excess of four hundred members.

Barely four months after launching the website, we held our first annual Westpac’rs reunion in April 2013 at the Clarion Hotel in Branson, MO. For such a quickly planned and put together reunion, everyone agreed that it was an unqualified success. In May of both 2014 and 2015, the reunions were repeated with an overwhelming response. Shipmates from as far as Japan have attended the past two years and are expected again this year.

This will be the last post in my Blog until May 24^th. I leave Honolulu this afternoon for Chicago and on to Branson. I will return from Branson with new stories about the reunion, the events and the antics of my shipmates and myself when I resume posting.

While I am away I invite you to go through the menus and read earlier posts.

This was posted earlier in the Blog. It is a poem I wrote after the 2013 reunion:

The Weight of Our Years

By: Garland Davis

For a time, the old men would tell of years and wars past…

Stories and laughter among a forest of empty bottles

scattered in a graceless pack across the table.

Rain filled the darkness outside the window,

and the tables filled with memorabilia abetted the

desperation with which they yearned for those long gone days.

Reluctant to leave the companionship, once again

found for a few days at the spring reunion

and held close in that bitter pall of tomorrow’s leaving.

But, the thrill of our shared derangement, and stories

true and not that evoked both joy at remembering

and sadness, knowing that one cannot go back.

The old men remain, with their lives caving in around them,

crushed by the weight of years and lost among memories and bottles.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button. To see a menu of previously published articles, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Higher Education

By: Garland Davis

I completed High School before enlisting in the Navy. I always felt that the greatest benefit I gained from school was a love of books. My grandmother taught me to read and write before I started elementary school. I couldn’t begin to count the number of books I have read since 1951 when I discovered them. I wasn’t really interested in education in my youth. Fortunately for me, I never had difficulty remembering information that I read or heard from the teacher in the classroom. From a very early age, I wanted the Navy. That was my childhood goal which I attained at the age of seventeen.

At the time I enlisted, the Navy had a program for high school graduates. They were enlisted at paygrade High School Seaman (HSSN). Which basically meant that I would leave boot camp as an SN instead of SA. I went into the Navy as an SN (E-3) instead of Seaman Recruit. After fifteen years in the Navy, I decided to take advantage of the on-base programs to go to college. Within three years I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management with credits earned through classroom work and the CLEP Program. After spending eight years afloat on forward deployed ships in Japan I returned to Pearl harbor for a twilight tour, I decided to study for a Master Degree. I earned an MBA before I retired from the Navy.

After retiring, I took a position as a middle manager for a fast food company. The company had a program that would pay fifty percent of the tuition for managers who were pursuing a Master’s Degree and would repay the manager for his portion of the tuition upon receiving the degree. The PR Department approved my request to study for a second Master’s Degree. I took that degree in History.

At the time I took the last Master’s I thought my educational endeavors were finished. But, about three years ago, I decided to take some courses in English and Writing in an effort improve my writing abilities. I signed up with a New England University that has an excellent online program. The counselor who interviewed me by phone encouraged me to provide transcripts and select a degree program. I explained that I was sixty-nine years old and just wanted to take a few courses and wasn’t interested in another degree. She then started telling me about all the financial assistance available. I assured her that I would pay for my courses. She rather reluctantly enrolled me in an undergrad course in creative writing and poetry.

I did well in the course and enrolled in a graduate level course in literature and after that a grad course in creative writing. When I attempted to enroll in another course, I was informed that before I could take more courses, I would have to provide transcripts and enroll in a degree program. That, I guess, is the end of further education. I want to take the courses that appeal to me, not to fill some niche toward another useless degree.

I have heard it said that attaining college degrees demonstrates one’s perseverance and devotion to the goal of gaining the degree. I was thinking that since I am eaten up with ADHD, obtaining the levels of education that I have must really show that perseverance.

Here I sit with almost as many degrees as a thermometer. Looking back on attaining these educational milestones, I realized that I got much more satisfaction each time I completed a course for advancement, was actually advanced, and graduating as the honor man in the “CS B” school and in the BEQ Managers course. Each of these courses and schools helped me in the Navy. I cannot say that anything I learned in business school benefited my Navy career at all.

I knew a Third Class Musician with a PHD in Music. That level of education didn’t improve his ability to play the trumpet and clarinet. He left the Navy after one tour and ended up driving a long haul truck. I knew a Captain who went on to Rear Admiral with a degree in Preservation and Forestry. I doubt that it helped him fly fighters during WWII and jet aircraft during the Korean War.

A number of years ago a Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy proposed that educational achievements become a requirement for advancement to the upper enlisted grades. The proposal suggested that to be advanced to E-6 an Associate’s Degree would be required; for E-7 a Bachelor’s Degree would be required; for E-8 a Master’s Degree would be required; for E-9 progress toward a Doctorate would be necessary. Here, I deliberately neglected to use the terms Chief, Senior Chief, and Master Chief.

A group of us, all retired Chiefs, Senior Chief, and Master Chiefs, were having a couple of cool ones in my neighbor’s garage and discussing this. The consensus of the group was that none of us would have made the Navy a career. A retired Master Chief who had served thirty years in the submarine force and had been the Chief of the Boat (COB) on two separate submarines, as well as Command Master Chief in a Submarine Squadron remarked, “What the hell will a PHD do for me in a submarine. I already have a PHD. I spent thirty years in submarines. I already have a PHD. A PHD in submarines.”

I believe the sailor and the Navy probably benefits more from deckplate training of Officers and Enlisted persons in their professional and military duties instead of demanding higher degrees of educational achievement in disciplines that, more often than not, have no relevance to his Navy duty requirements.

The Chicken Wire Sanction

The Chicken Wire Sanction
by CAPT John Wallace, USN (retired)

Forty-five minutes by British Rail, north of Central London, is the small village of Stoke Poges. Though not generally known to the average tourist, it was here that Thomas Gray penned his “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.” Not far from that historic churchyard is a manor house and surrounding cottages once comprising the Moorehouse estate. The cottages have long since been sold off as quaint country homes, and the once elegant manor house turned into a workman’s social club.

During a tour of duty in England, we lived in a house facing the high brick wall surrounding the manor grounds. “The Cottage”, as it was called (our official postal address was “The Cottage, Stoke Poges”, was said to date from the 1700s. Originally just a one room dwelling, in Victorian times a three-story structure was added to the front—six huge box-like rooms—and the original cottage became a roomy kitchen. It had a substantial garden (that’s yard, in Brit), enclosed by a seven-foot-high fence of interwoven horizontal planks. It seemed to be ideal for containing a dog, with lots of room to wander and explore.

Pooker, the Andalucian cockerpoo, had served his time in the British Quarantine facility and came to join us in The Cottage. It became apparent very quickly that he considered that seven-foot fence a minor impediment between him and the exploration of the environs of Stoke Poges.

His first escape was baffling. We put him out to romp in his huge domain and he disappeared within minutes.

Following a close inspection of the fence for open gates or holes (nothing), I tracked him to a nearby field where he was receiving a short lesson in why not to mess with horses. A rather bored mare tired of his yapping and sent him tumbling with a well-aimed kick.

The misadventure with the horse was not a deterrent to Pooker’s desire to find out what was beyond that fence. At the next opportunity, he was gone again. This time, he disappeared for several hours, eventually returning with a tired but satisfied look on his face. I was determined to find his escape route from the yard and seal it off; so the next time I let him out of the house, I cleverly took up a strategic location where I had him under constant surveillance. He behaved as if he had no interest whatsoever in leaving the yard—lots of sniffing and wandering about. When he finally lay down near the back door with a deceptive yawn, I took a break from the surveillance. Zip…he was gone. This time, we had to retrieve him from the Maidenhead jail several miles away, where he had been deposited by a concerned citizen who found him meandering along one of the busier nearby streets.

Having been outsmarted on all my previous attempts to find his point of egress, I decided to station myself outside the yard where I could observe the entire fence line, then have my wife let the beast into the yard.

It worked. Along one stretch of the fence, I spotted a black furry head emerging, followed by a leg, a fat little body, and a stubby tail. He had discovered that midway between the posts the horizontal planks were flexible enough to wedge a determined body through. At last, I had him. I went out the same day and procured sufficient chicken wire to seal off the flexible area between the two bottom boards along the entire length of the fence. Gleeful, after having finally outwitted this wretched animal who had confounded me for so long, I left him alone in the yard to ponder the consequences of matching wits with his master. He, of course, disappeared immediately. He just moved up one level on the fence.

And so it went over the next few months, the contest between man and beast literally escalated. As I sealed off one level of this seven-foot high barrier, Pooker moved up to the next. I was spending a small fortune on chicken wire. I guess I was hoping that eventually the height would discourage him before all of my disposable income had gone into chicken wire.

The chicken wire had reached almost to eye level when the contest of wills and wits finally ended. A pleasant English matron appeared at the door one day to inquire about a dog that seemed to be protruding from our fence. She was walking by when she came eyeball to eyeball with Pooker, who had worked his way up to the escape level, which now stood at about five feet above the ground, but had apparently gained too much weight to get more that a head and a leg through the fence. From that day, Pooker abandoned his escape attempts, I suspect more out of embarrassment than anything else.

I am amazed to this day that he was able to wander around the streets and countryside of Stoke Poges without coming to an unfortunate end. But he was a clever beast, and I’ve still got the chicken wire invoices to prove it.

Entered the Naval Air Reserve out of high school in 1955, serving with VF-782 as an AT striker at Los Alamitos NAS, CA.
After graduation from college, attended OCS and was commissioned in March 1961. His duty assignments included USS Polk County (LST 1084)as Deck and Gunnery Officer; Navy Language School in Anacostia, MD, studying the Russian language; ACNSG Fort Meade, MD. as a submarine rider; NSGA Bremerhaven, Germany as Communications Officer; Vietnam as OIC of Special Support Group to MACV SOG; NSG HQ in Washington, DC; Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA; NCS Rota, Spain as Operations Officer; NSG HQ; ACNSG at Fort Meade; CINCUSNAVEUR London, UK as Deputy DNSGEur; NSGA Puerto Rico as Commanding Officer; NSA Fort Meade; NCPAC Hawaii as Deputy NCPAC.
Retired in January 1989 and remains in Hawaii.

Refugees

By: Jim Barton

41 years ago. My oh my how time flies in the life of a sailor.

On April 30, 1975 aboard USS Kawishiwi (AO-146) returning from the Gulf of Thailand after Eagle Pull (Evacuation of Phnom Penh) we were about 20 miles from the Saigon Evacuation (Frequent Wind) Task Force holding area still proceeding at slow speed near the coast when a lookout reported around 1600 that a group of boats were approaching on the port side at a distance of a couple of miles. I was Chief Engineer. Captain Ned Hogan ordered the machine guns manned. I was on the port wing of the Bridge when the order was given. It looked like the boats included at least one gun boat.

Captain Hogan was apprehensive and ordered shots fired across the bow of the lead boat which appeared to me to be a PCF Swift boat. I went aft to the “big eyes” to get a better look and reported to Hogan that these boats were full of women and children. The upper gun tub on the PCF had a tire over the guns making them unable to operate. To me their intentions were peaceful. We ceased fire and allowed them to close the ship. There were three or four boats in the small flotilla. In the distance we could see others heading along the coast toward the east in the direction of the holding area and a few broke off and headed our way.

We threw together a hasty plan and gathered up cargo nets to rig over the side and assembled an area on the O-1 level aft to accommodate these refugees. Once the first boat (PCF) was alongside I climbed down the cargo net and as Officer in Charge. I assessed the situation. This boat was crammed full of people. I did not get an exact count but there were at least 75 people on board. Some of the people were officers from the Vietnamese Army and Navy. They were wearing uniforms and most were armed. Before proceeding with the evacuation to Kawishiwi, I directed that all of the firearms be placed in a stack at the rear of the boat. I was joined on board by two of our Gunners Mates. The disembarkation went rather quickly, no more than 20 minutes. We hand tended lines and moved the PCF forward to make room for the next boat, a fishing boat Viet Thuan. The boat was under command of an ARVN Major named Phung Chou. The oldest were two men each aged 78. The youngest was a baby boy aged 3 months named Huynh Cong Phuong.

After convincing the mother of one of the babies I meant her no harm, the disembarkation went smoothly. Phung Chou went up first to serve as translator and then the mother to whom I handed the baby. And so it went until all 180 evacuees were aboard. We would continue this over the next few hours until we had 700 evacuees on board. We rigged a virtual tent city on the O-1 level aft with food serving line. Initially we rigged showers but later permitted the evacuees to shower in the crews shower room over the next two days they were aboard.

For me, the Vietnam War came down to these and other moments in the evacuation. The humanity of this was overwhelming. This was my 4th trip to WESTPAC. I had seen much of this war. And it all came down to this.

There is much more to this story but this will have to suffice for now.

Gettin’ Some Strange Can Be Strange

By: David ‘Mac’ McAllister

We were preparing for yet another deployment to Westpac since our sister ship in Alameda was once again unable to sail. I was standing on the main deck of this AOE watching stores being loaded on a crisp overcast Bremerton day when it came aboard. I knew that it existed but hadn’t laid an eye on it until now. With slings under the tires it was being lifted off the pier and made the distance from the pier to the ship. A haze grey 1956 Ford Fairlane four door sedan complete with a black waterline painted around its lower quarter and the designator LV-1 placed on each front fender in white highlighted black letters/numerals. It belonged to my division officer.

CWO3 had received accompanied PCS orders to SRF Subic Bay. LV-1 was going to make the trip with us while his wife and HHG would be coming in the normal fashion.

Naturally, CWO3 had been overwhelmed with glee for the past several weeks since receiving these orders. Personally, I thought unaccompanied orders would have been much better since he was married to an ex-Navy Wave that was the model from which the term buffarilla had been coined. Being no prize himself, I always thought that the mating of the two must have resembled hippo wrestling without the benefit of cooling water to conceal it. Seems they had one of those open marriages long before the term was in vogue. He had an eye for anything that moved as long as it wasn’t her and she liked the young and the tender. Many a division get together had been graced with her charm only to culminate in her cutting out the youngest of the tender FA’s present and bulldogging them into a back room to have her way with them. They would always emerge from that experience ruined for life.

We finished up our load out at Bremerton, POL’d at Manchester finally loading ordinance at Bangor. Then on a misty foggy Pacific Northwestern morning we slipped our moors, slid down the Hood Canal into Puget Sound through the straights of Juan De Fuca and out into the raging blue waters of the Pacific. With our bows pointing westward the rugged coastline of the United States dropped off into voids of the eastern horizon. On a great circle route, we sailed ever westward chasing the Earth’s curvature towards what would be our first port call – Subic Bay, RPI. Here we would top off on Avgas and leave CWO3 and LV-1 behind before setting off for unrep ops in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin.

Underway one morning as CWO3 dropped into the reefer shop for his ritualistic morning update and cup of Black Gang, he sat there in stoic silence listening as I gave him the skinny. I could tell he was ruminating and about to pontificate by the slow and measured fluttering of his eyelids. He always did that when he was about to bless us with something he thought to be profound. Squirming his little fat ass around on the work bench he came to full height and said “Mac, I been thinking, there’s allot of strange (his common reference to Pussy gotten outside the limitations of marriage) there in Subic. Believe I’m going to hire a live in maid, you know to sort of help out the wife around the house with the cooking and cleaning. I could probably find one that would be willing to put a little strange on me, if you get my drift. This way I can have my strange at home and never have to be out of sight and cast suspicion upon myself. I mean, you know how nosey neighbors can be and all”. All I could do was look at him and think to myself ‘Right!’

Upon arrival LV-1, packed with all of CWO3’s worldly possessions, was off loaded. Presently CWO3 lumbered down the brow with one of those oh so familiar manila envelopes containing his records and orders, hoisted his mushroom shaped continence into LV-1 fired it up and in a cloud of blue smoke departed down the pier. That was the last I seen of him until we returned 60 days later.

After countless unreps and conreps of bullets, beans and black oil, we returned to Subic for maintenance and to replenish our inventories. Walking into shop 38 to check on a job’s status I ran smack dab into CWO3. He had to give me the skinny on all his latest strange; but most importantly was his acquisition of a so called “Regulation Three Hole’r” from the Barrio and her subsequent employment as a live in maid in his base housing abode. Said that he was expecting Mrs. CWO3 within the week; however, already had the maid in place, cooking, cleaning and providing some strange. Needless to say, he was overjoyed with how well things were working out thus far. We parted ways at the door to shop 38, he off to who knows where and me off to the Chuck Wagon for a beer and Cheese Burger.

After another five weeks out we found ourselves once again in Subic for a little R&R, maintenance and replenishment. Ashore one afternoon, I walked into the Hole in the Wall, a little go down joint just across the bridge over Shit River, and ordered a beer. Climbing onto a rickety bar stool, when the frosty beer arrived I checked the bottle, wiped the neck and popped the top with my finger. After a long pull of the near freezing contents, I looked around surveyed the place. To my surprise in the back at a table talkin’ shit to one of the girls was CWO3. Catching his eye, he motioned me over. Knowing then that nothing serious was going on, I eased on over for a chat. Naturally, I had to be updated on all his latest strange. When I asked how the maid deal was working out for him his only reply was “Bitches”. A couple more beers were ordered and after a couple of pulls on them through misty eyes he tells me the sad tale.

Seems Mrs. CWO3, after settling into her new home complete with live in maid, got her ear to the ground regarding the hot and cold version of the maid’s extracurricular activities, bringing it to a halt. Now then in retrospect, Mrs. CWO3 begins to take a shine to the maid and the maid to her and a sort of trusting bond forms. So, CWO3, thinking this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, sets out to renew his former relationship with the maid. On tiptoes late one night he steals into the maid’s darkened room to resume his clandestine nocturnal activities. He lifts the sheets and slides into her bed only to find his wife already there in the arms of the maid making mad passionate lesbian love. Not necessarily miffed by all this going on, old CWO3 decides to join in the festivities. Neither the maid nor Mrs.CWO3 were willing to share any of their new found fondness for each other with him and proceeded to inflict bodily injury upon his person to the tune of both eyes being blackened on either side of a severely disjointed nose. Said he had to practically run for his life out of his own house as the enraged lovers commenced to throw anything that wasn’t nailed down at him.

Well, I sat there bewildered and yet amused at the tale while trying my best to pretend to be both sympathetic and shocked through tears of suppressed laughter. CWO3 in a most sincere and depressed tone looks at me and says “Goddammit Mac, I do all the leg work, pay a permanent bar fine, get the mother fucker registered on the base, provide her a salary and now the fuckin’ old lady is getting my strange! But that ain’t what really pisses me off, what really chaps my ass is that when they aren’t diddlin’ one another their ridin’ all over the base in my LV-1 and I’m a foot!” To that I said “Well you still got the Barrio shipmate; let the pigs eat slop there are steak dinners waiting out there.” To this he smiled, bought another round of beer to go and we caught a jeepney for Subic City with Marilyn’s on our minds.

David “Mac” McAllister a native of California, now resides in the Ozark Mountains of Southwest Mo. Having served in Asia for the majority of his 24-year Navy career, he now divides his time as an over the road trucker, volunteer for local veteran repatriation events and as an Asia Sailor Westpac’rs Association board member and reunion coordinator. In his spare time, he enjoys writing about his experiences in Westpac and sharing them online with his Shipmates.

PCS Syndrome

BY: Garland Davis

Long ago, during the seventies, I read a paper written by a Navy Psychologist. The subject of the paper was Navy enlisted members’ lives after retiring from active duty. The doctor chose one hundred names of personnel who had been retired for at least twenty years from the retired list. The list consisted prominently of Chief and First Class Petty Officers with a few Second Class Petty Officers.

Twelve of the one hundred were deceased, leaving her with a population of eighty-eight persons. She contacted each of them and asked them to provide a detailed list of jobs held after retirement and locations in which they had lived. Nineteen declined to participate leaving a study population of sixty-nine.

I don’t remember the percentages of her results. I have searched the internet for the paper. I am not sure it was ever published. She was at Balboa in San Diego when she did the study. I read it in a waiting room at the hospital while waiting to see a dermatologist.

As closely as I remember, the majority of responders reported changing jobs a number of times after retiring. Many also changed residences periodically. One individual retired in the South, after two years he moved to the Midwest, then a few years later to Alaska, then on to the Panama Canal Zone, and finally back to the Midwest. Those who retired and stayed in one area tended to change jobs or residences periodically.

I was thinking about this the other day as a subject for my Blog. After I retired, I worked as a Manager and District Manager for a fast food chain for a couple of years. I then moved to another fast food chain as Area Manager for a year. I worked as a consultant and Adjunct Faculty for a university for another year. I drove a taxi for a couple of years. I then started a taxi leasing company which I operated for over twenty years while continuing to drive.

I had a neighbor, a bubblehead, living across the street from me, who after retiring, worked for a Navy contractor for a few years. He then sold out and moved to Texas, where he drove a truck, did estimating and sold roofing, sold air conditioning, and now does estimates for Home Depot.

The Psychologist found that over fifty percent of the subjects in her study continued to the live out their lives adhering to the PCS system they had become accustomed to in the Navy. Some relocated long distances, some just across town, and many lived in one location but tended to change jobs every two or three years. A few retired back to their hometowns settled into stable jobs.

The doctor called this phenomenon of periodic change the “PCS Syndrome.” I don’t recall the psychological reasoning she attributed this propensity to that caused many of us to PCS ourselves periodically, a system that we had lived under for at least twenty years.

The only place I have a desire to relocate to these days is Branson, MO for about a week every May to attend the Asia Sailor Westpac’rs Reunion.

The most fun you’ll ever have with your clothes on!

Tu Do Street,Saigon

By: David Wright

AFTERWARDS I SMOKE A CIGARETTE,
AND WATCH HER DRESS.
SHE DOES SO METICULOUSLY.
EACH MOVE IS DELIBERATE AND PRECISE.
KNOWING THAT I AM WATCHING,
SHE TURNS AND SMILES.
“YOU MAKE ME SHY”. SHE GIGGLES.
“I DON’T THINK SO”. I REPLY.
SHE SITS IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR,
HER SMALL FIRM BREASTS BOUNCE GENTLY,
AND BEGINS TO COMB HER HAIR.
HAIR THAT IS SOFT AS DOWN.
AND FALLS BENEATH HER WAIST.
SHE SITS STRAIGHT,
HER BACK ARCHED.
IT’S A GAME SHE PLAYS.
“HOW CAN SHE DO IT”? I MARVEL
TO CONTINUE LIKE THIS,
A FEW HOURS OR DAYS WITH ONE,
THEN ANOTHER,
AS IF NOTHING HAD CHANGED,
FROM HER SCHOOLGIRL DAYS.
OR DID SHE REALIZE TOO SOON,
LIKE I,
IN A CORNER OF THE EARTH GONE MAD,
WHERE TWENTY-FIVE IS OLD,
THAT NOTHING IS FOREVER,
AND NO ONE WAS EVER REALLY YOUNG.

Continental Hotel, Tu Do Street, Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

USS Chopper

Story was sent to me by Jim Kikis

Sometimes when a submarine goes wildly out of control, it sinks to the bottom. Sometimes when a sub goes wildly out of control, it goes straight to the surface. When the USS Chopper lost control, it did both. At tremendous speed. Terrifyingly.

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of the Chopper. It was one of 122 Balao–class diesel-electric submarines, which were a significant fighting component of United States naval power during World War II. Unfortunately for the Chopper, however, it was completed too late to actually see any action and was quickly outclassed in the post-war era by nuclear-powered subs with new, innovative teardrop-shaped hulls.

For much of its life, the boat served as a simulated target for other ships before finally being struck from the Naval Register in 1971.

A notable, popular, and public submarine is also a submarine that isn’t very good at its job, so information about much of the Chopper’s Cold War operations is scarce. It engaged in a few patrols in the Mediterranean, the Philippines, off the coast of China, and in the Caribbean, but mostly thanks to the fact that the Cold War never really turned hot, there are no unusual stories of unusual happenings.

Except for one incident, off the coast of Cuba, in 1969, which led to its eventual decommissioning. Mostly because no one would ever want to get in it again, I imagine.

At 1:40 in the afternoon on February 11th of 1969, Chopper was participating in a training exercise with the destroyer USS Hopkins off the coast of Cuba. Everything seemed relatively normal, for a submarine. It was traveling at about eight knots, almost horizontal in the water with a one-degree down angle, and was cruising below the surface at 150 feet.

Like I said, fairly standard stuff for a submarine.

Two minutes later, everything went haywire. For reasons that were immediately unknown to the crew, the sub lost electrical power.

Completely.

And for some reason, the dive planes at the rear of the sub immediately reverted a full-dive configuration. The sub was headed towards the bottom, and the crew was deaf, blind, and powerless to stop it.

The crew attempted to regain control within the first five seconds, according to this US Navy report into the incident. Unfortunately for them, their wild ride was just beginning.

Within 15 seconds of the loss of power, the Chopper was pointed downwards at a 15-degree angle. The helmsman in the conning tower desperately tried to call for help from the maneuvering room in the forward section of the submarine, but couldn’t get through on the sound-powered phone.

The commanding officer immediately leapt to his feet in the Officer’s Mess, and tried his best to make it to the control room. That simple task was becoming increasingly difficult, as the boat continued to pitch downwards like a drunken college student falling over a slight curb.

By 15 seconds after the loss of power in the USS Chopper, the submarine was stuck at a 45-degree down angle, making it easier to walk on the walls than it is to walk on the floors.

The officer on deck ordered a full emergency blow of the submarine’s ballast tanks, desperate to get to the surface. And still, nothing happened. The Chopper was operating as if it had a mind of its own, and all it wanted to do was head straight for the bottom like a rocket.

30 seconds after that, the submarine sat, suspended in the water, nearly vertical. Anyone trying to move from one place to another was thrown from their feet. It became impossible to walk normally. Anything not strapped down or bolted to the floor went flying down the corridors. Chaos reigned.

To make matters worse, the Balao-class submarines were only rated to dive to a maximum of 400 feet. The Chopper sat in the water with its stern at 720 feet below the surface. The front of the boat was at over 1,000 feet below the surface.

About a minute after first losing electrical power, the sub stopped. It sat there, still at a horrifically vertical angle and pointed downwards, but it was no longer plunging towards the bottom and the inevitable crushing depths of the ocean.

And just as suddenly as everything all went to hell and seemed to fix itself, everything went to hell again.

Instead of being pointed straight down towards the bottom, the Chopper was now pointed nearly straight up, at an 83-degree angle. Everything that had happened a minute ago was now happening again, except in reverse. Everything that had gone flying through the corridors as now flying again, smacking people on the head, until it finally came to a rest at the back of the submarine.

The submarine wasn’t so much as a submarine, as it was a rocket headed for the sky. Filled with cork.

It broke through the surface of the water and came crashing down, propelled with so much momentum that it actually fell 200 feet below the surface again, before finally bobbing up to the surface one last time where it came to rest.

Various parts of the sub were flooded and otherwise destroyed, but the crew managed to get the Chopper back to port under its own power.

And that was the last time the USS Chopper ever saw service. It had suffered so much structural damage that the Navy immediately decommissioned her.

The Navy later learned that the loss of power was caused by battery voltage fluctuations induced by different propulsion orders, but the damage was done.

No submariner has since gone for a wild ride like that one.

Water in the Fuel

By Tony Och

March 30th, 1988 was a typical cold, gray, moisture laden, yet rainless depressing day, off the coast of South Korea steaming in the Sea of Japan. Topside at the starboard refueling station hooking up my sound powered phones, I was pissed off. BTCM assigned me phone talker for the upcoming UNREP, I always stood Lower level man during UNREP or GQ, keeping an eye on them ever so important boiler main feed pumps. The hole was nice and warm, I’d be sitting up against the spring bearing of the starboard shaft on the lower level in Bravo 2.

My pride was hurt, now a lowly topside phone talker, freezing my ass off. BTC showed up with two cups of coffee, unbelievable, I thought silently laughing to myself, Chief you are one good messenger.

This refueling operation was going to be the first since the Korean war, in which a U.S. Naval vessel dumped a South Korean man of war some F-76, so I was told? Gazing at the fishing boats on the distant horizon, BMC Cloonan kept my spirits up as he was barking at his BM’s. The ROKS Chung Buk DD-915 made her approach. A Gearing class Fram II, former United States ship, USS Chevalier DD-805(LCDR Chevalier made the first trap on USS Langley on 26OCT22). Just a little history lesson for you all. Well anyway, ROKS Chung Buk looked mighty sexy pulling alongside for the hookup. Riding low in the water, you could see the heat coming out of her twin stacks. Two General Electric geared main turbines, 60,000 shaft horsepower, four Babcock & Wilcox M type boilers, I assume? Rated at 34 knots, this little bitch could get up and go! A real sweet looking vessel.

The Gunner mates shot over the monkey fist and the BM’s hooked up and sent over the probe like they always did without a flinch. The ROK sailors directed the hose into a flush main deck tank top, cover removed and tied it down. LPD-8 commenced to pumping fuel. The beautiful white smoke streaming into the grey sky exiting the ROKS DD after stack, caught my eye. Her ass end dipped inboard towards us, she must be losing RPM’S on her port shaft, aft boilers going down, OOD adjusting rudders to maintain a true course, her superstructure dipped in maybe 15 degrees towards us. I was fixated on five or six little men in blue jumpsuits looking quite comical swinging axes, trying to free up the refueling hose. Onboard LPD-8…emergency breakaway…BTC vacates the refueling station…I froze. “Och, get your ass out of there,” yells BTC. I ran up the ladder towards the flight deck, the fucking sound powered phones around my neck stopped me and down I went. Releasing the hook at the breastplate, I regained my footing and was out of there. Once up on the flight deck, I watched as the BM’s retrieved the hose and probe back into the refueling station. Then the guide wire snapped and we headed to port, out of there!

The 4th of April we pulled into Pusan, it did not look good as black military staff cars lined the pier, awaiting our arrival. The CO and CHENG may be in some deep kimchi? Come to find out later after an unofficial board of inquiry, the ROK sailors must have thought our F-76 was golden as it was being dumped into a boiler service tank. LPD-8 shot them some water in the fuel oil. Just plain bad engineering practices on both Navies part. LPD-8 should have stripped and sampled them storage tanks a little better prior to pumping and the ROKS should have directed the F-76 to storage tanks to allow for settling and testing prior to burning it in the boilers. A good example of how you will go down fast, if one ignores common sound engineering rules/principles at sea.

Time to hit the beach for some OB and OSCAR! Don’t forget them egg, ham and cheese grilled sandwiches! A berthing compartment full of “mink” blankets while steaming back to Japan sure as hell does not meet my zone inspection standards!