A Sampling of Sea Stories

An Introduction to Sea Duty

November 1961, two months past my 17^th birthday; I had just arrived at the US Naval Training Center at Great Lakes Il. and it was very cold. Three months and a lot of yelling, running, more coldness and other BS in general – along with a little bit of learning, and I was still at the Lakes although now it was my Duty Station.

There had been some discussion about my going to some type of school; a part of the recruiting experience was taking a lot of tests and my scores had qualified me for just about whatever school they might have. But they were short of Hospital Corpsmen at the time, so that is what they were pushing me to do. I declined. And ended up with no schooling and assigned general duties. That’ll teach them, or me; well, someone or other would surely learn something; don’t you think?

Insofar as recreation, my main problem was how to spend what passed for my pay. I could buy some cheap civilian clothes – and have no money to go anywhere. Or, hang out in my uniform which did not get you much respect in those days. (“Sailors and dogs keep off the grass”.) Besides, I had a better chance of getting served (i.e.; passing for 21) in civies.) Oh well, one kept distracted as best as one could.

And then came the Cuban Missile Crisis and the blockade of that island so there was the premature ending of that Shore Duty and off to the Fleet I went. I was assigned to the USS Lorrain County, LST 1177; the initials stood for Landing Ship Tank. You've seen the movie where these types of ships (not those much smaller personnel boats) get as close to the beach as possible (using causeways as necessary) to offload vehicles and Marines.  Think of them as large ferry boats with guns. The defining characteristic was a flat bottom which made for a very active ride (as the saying went, those things” rolled in dry dock”).

I was now a deck seaman, also known as a swabbie or deck ape. But for some reason, I also had part-time responsibility for the ship’s library. And it was in that rarely visited room that I was trying to ride out my first major storm at sea, determined not to get sea sick (and didn’t). And then all sorts of  alarms sounded and General Quarters was announced.

I had only been aboard about two weeks and had no idea where I was supposed to go, so I locked up the library and followed another sailor who was headed towards the bow of the ship. This took us through the areas where the Marines were quartered and they were looking none too happy. All they were allowed to do was stay in place and they were getting no information. They certainly weren’t going to learn anything from us since all my new friend seemed to know was were the bow of the ship was.

We finally reached an area where there were steps going up to a hatch leading to the outside. When the hatch was opened, we were immediately soaked as a wave broke over us. (There was a combination of 40 foot waves and 40 knot winds.)

“Not going out there” my new best friend exclaimed; seemed reasonable enough to me; but then an Officer came along and out we went.

It seems that the ramp which was used to move vehicles below deck had come loose and fallen on a jeep; fortunately, no one was in it but a fire was started and had already been put out. What remained  was to get the ramp back up and secured, while the storm raged on around us.

As it turned out, that was only my introduction to the possible mishaps which could occur on a ship. We were headed for Little Creek, VA (the amphibious, or  ‘Gator Navy, base) just down the road from Norfolk, VA. We lost our Ship-to-Shore communications system, one of our two generators failed and there were two more fires before getting there.

I would be on that ship for almost three more years.

Liberty in Panama

“Liberty” is military speak for having some time off, an interesting choice of words, wouldn’t you say?

There we were, in Panama at a little out of the way bar, the only two Americans in the place. We were drinking from a "set-up", four bottles of coke, a bowl of ice, a couple of glasses and a bottle of rum. After a while we decided to skip the part about using those glasses. We just dumped the rum into the bowl, added a dash of coke and drank directly from the bowl.

Understand, I was maybe 19 at the time and we were sailors. Bored sailors. All the music on the jukebox was in Spanish; no problem, just lip synch along as though we knew what we were doing; there was a guy at the bar who seemed to be signing, presumably also in Spanish; once again, no problem, sign right back. Never mind that I couldn't sign in English, let alone Spanish.

The bowl was nearly empty and outside in the street was a parade. Looked like fun; always wanted to be in a parade. So we joined in, bringing up the rear for several blocks before we figured out that it was an anti-American demonstration. Did I mention we were in uniform during all that? Oh well.

The next night we went back to that bar. Soon as we were inside, it was like Norm came into Cheers, everyone greeting us. "Lo Siento, se hable poquito Espanol...". (That was me in my high school Spanish explaining, poorly, that I was sorry but only spoke a very little bit of Spanish.) No, they said, "you speak excellent Spanish." It was also about then that we discovered, by way of a couple of Shore Patrol authorities, that the place was off-limits, declared unsafe for us American sailors to be in and we had to leave.

And then there was that time in Puerto Rico; the park and the pretty young lady with very little English...

Not a Morning Person

One of the routines aboard ship is the “watch”. This is a four-hour period of time that is over and above the regular eight-hour work day; doesn’t happen every day, but rotates on a schedule dependent on a variety of  factors. The hour of the day your watch will commence also rotates.

There was this occasion when my watch was scheduled for 0400 (4am) which required that I be on station at 0345. There was one person from the prior watch whose job it was to wake the replacements. The first time he tried to wake me was 0320; I signified awareness and promptly fell back to sleep as soon as he left. Ten minutes later – repeat; another ten minutes, another rerun. The guy trying to get me up had just about reached his limit. There was a light at the top of the bunk and he turned it on, right into my eyes. Auto reaction, swing at him; not a good idea when you’re laying down.

But the adrenaline was  flowing and I was awake.

It was mid-morning of the next day, my friend of the Watch (and he was a friend of mine) walked past the tool room where I was loitering in the hatchway. I took the opportunity to apologize for our little to-do.

He didn’t accept and instead challenged me to repeat what I had said earlier that morning. Hmm,the thing was, I couldn't remember whatever that was so I decided to interpret his demand as a physical threat and told him if he was “going to jump, then jump”. And he did, the momentum of that action took us to the back of that very narrow, very small tool room. We ended up on a pile of ropes where the ceiling was at its lowest.

“Get off me” I yelled and he did manage to back off. But I couldn't just stand up, no, I had to jump up…..and hit my head on the edge of a metal beam from that ceiling. Didn't go all the way back down, but it was close and then I started to move back into the front aisle. Jim suddenly picked up a hammer and told me to sit down.  “What the hell’s with the hammer?” By way of a answer I was told to touch my face; didn't much matter where because there was blood everywhere.

After Jim had first made his move, we had been locked into that room to avoid interference, but now Jim banged to let us out. On our way to sickbay, we passed a group of Marines and had the full attention of at least three of them who proceeded to lose their breakfast over the side.

There were only four stitches sewn by our resident corpsman, but the thing is, before that hair had grown back, there was a storm and in the process of battening down the hatches and securing the boats, there was an accident involving a wrench and my head. You guessed it, another four stitches.

And then there was that time…….