As usual, Dad's advice was good. I did just as he advised me and, for the first of two times in my life I repeated the words, "I DO" as I was sworn in as a Navy Officer. It was a sad thing for me to say good bye to my comrades on the Peter John. We had been through good times and bad, almost like a family. The Chief gave me a letter asking that I come back when my Naval Service was completed, I have that letter put away and still look at it occasionally, even more than 50 years later. I celebrated Christmas with my Family and January 2nd saw me on an airplane out of Travis Air Force Base, headed to Pearl Harbor.
Chapter 1 - THE CANOE CLUB
It was an 11 hour flight from Travis Air Force Base to Hickam Field, I was indeed fortunate, there was a car waiting for me from the Escort Squadron to which my new ship was attached. They took me over to the BOQ (Bachelor Officer's Quarters), where a young PO (Petty Officer) perused my orders for the accounting numbers.
The BOQ was a holdover from WW2, the hallways were called Cockroach Speedways by the Junior Officers who had been there for a while. It was clean enough and I was exhausted, so, after a quick shower, I was dead to the world. I wasn't even interested in supper.
I had left a wakeup call request for 0600 (6 am) with the desk, I sure didn't want to be late reporting in on my very first day! The next morning, I struggled into my Dress Blues, despite the humidity and heat, first I reported in to the Naval Station and then to the Squadron Commander.
My ship was currently at sea, so they occupied my time by sending me to cryptography school. WOW, my typing abilities were zero and my knowledge of communication procedures was even less than that!
When my ship finally came in, I was shocked, it had the geometry of a canoe! It was 386 feet long and 47 feet wide. Worse, it had been modified so that there was a lot of heavy electronic gear up on pylons 90 feet above the water and there had been cast iron ballast placed on the tank-tops (bilges) to act as counter-weights.
I was to find out the thing rolled like the pendulum on a clock!
The ship was powered by four Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston diesel engines. I soon learned they were so worn, one could almost shove a house cat into the air intakes and have it come squalling out the exhaust! UNHURT! In fact, everything on the ship was worn out and obsolete.
The ship had been built originally to escort convoys of cargo ships across the ocean during the Second World War and, if they got one voyage out of it, they figured it had served its purpose.
Now, almost 20 years later it should have been put out of our misery!
Much of the machinery had been manufactured by companies that no longer existed and it was a testament to the ingenuity of sailors that the ship remained on TOP of the water!
We went out on patrols in the North Pacific for as long as 70 days, plus 5 days to get there and 5 days to return. The ship couldn't carry enough fuel to stay underway all that time and there certainly were no gas stations out there, so we would arrive at our destination and shut the main engines down and drift until we were in danger of being off-station before we would start up an engine and go back to doing it again.
This was going to be pretty much my life for the next several years, it was not bad duty, if you liked to watch sea gulls and waves go by. Thumb twiddling was also advised as a competitive sport! The department that operated the radars and electronic gear was usually busy, but the Engineering Department had only to keep the lights on and the seawater out.
As an officer, I was expected to stand watches on the bridge and in the Radar Center, something that was completely new to me.
Standing a watch on the bridge in the North Pacific during January was not my idea of a holiday, all my sea experience had been in the Engine Room of either tug boats or freighters. That part was similar enough that it was no problem, although I had problems accepting that the Navy did not actually maintain their own ships, like I had been used to.
Much of what I considered to be normal maintenance was deemed to be a "shipyard job"!
There were two small boilers on the ship, used for ship's heat and hot water mostly, with a small amount going to the galley and the laundry. The boiler tenders had never even seen the inside of a boiler, let along worked on one!
My fellow officers were, for the most part, pretty good fellows and the one who became my immediate superior and I formed a lifetime fellowship. In fact, I met the girl who would become my own wife at his wedding!
Like any group, there were individuals who were less agreeable than others and we were a collection of all strata's of American Culture of the time, from Boston Brahmins to Weed Patch Farm Boys.
Only a few of us had worked at a paying job prior to serving, most had come to the Navy straight out of College or High School. I did find a certain animosity towards someone who had sailed in the Merchant Marine, as I had. I thought it strange, but, since the worst practitioner of that bias was quite a bit senior to me, I did my best to avoid confrontations with him.
It was a difficult translation for me, to go from actually doing the work to keep the ship running to getting others to do it for me, where the ritual was more important than the performance.
Growing up on a farm and serving on ships for a livelihood did not prepare me to appreciate those whose only purpose was to see how little they could do in a time period!
Despite all that, my ship never failed to perform whatever task it was assigned and only once were we ever in any real danger of our persons or the ship, of that, I will relate in its proper sequence.
We sailed shortly after I reported aboard, we were doing surveillance duty in the South Pacific. The weather was delightful and, as a Naval Officer on the bridge of a war ship, I was learning whole new set performance standards. While I could understand the theory and mathematics behind navigation, I never did become proficient at identifying stars and taking navigational readings from them.
I was, however, in my element as I was the Watch Officer one night when a rogue wave hit us and after it passed, the Port Bridge Wing had disappeared and the forward gun mount and all its parts were ripped from the foredeck, never to be seen again; the ship was flooding.
As tragic as that was, it was that sort of thing that I did know how to handle. In less than 20 minutes, I had the hole in the deck backed up with mattresses and sheets of plywood, the compartment pumped clear of water and safety ropes strung to prevent anyone from falling where the bridge wing had been.
The next morning, I had the hole in the deck sealed with cement and we continued with our assigned task. The only thing I neglected to do was have the temporary repairs painted Navy Grey and that is what the Executive Officer complained about!
Much of our duty on that patrol was pure routine and not much stands out in memory. The Supply Officer was relieved and a new officer came on board to take his place, he was by education, a Civil Engineer, another square peg pounded into a round hole.
He had not been on board very long when we headed to the North Pacific. On small ships like ours, the ship's Supply Officer also operated the Officer's Mess.
The Officer's Mess is separate from the Crew's Mess and Officers were required to pay for their own meals.
The Supply Officer served a pink Jell-O as a salad for lunch. We were sailing out the Kauai Channel, which is always rough and turbulent.
As the ship began to roll (like a canoe), those blocks of pink Jell-O began to flop; before any of us could stop them, they had flopped the length of the table and landed in the Captain's lap. The Captain had a lap full of pink gelatin, the Supply Officer's face was bright scarlet and the rest of us were busy biting our fists to keep from laughing.
I do not believe Jell-O, of any color, was ever served again at sea in that ship's wardroom!
Almost as bad was the time the popcorn maker blew up, it was a practice to watch a movie in the Ward Room after 8 O'clock Reports had been made in the evening.
We were all seated watching a movie and the popcorn maker was busy popping corn. All of a sudden, there was a flash of fire and burning kernels of popcorn were being sprayed across the entire room.
There was lots of smoke, but no damage to the ship or to ourselves. The Ward Room smelled of burnt popcorn for months afterwards!
Chapter 2 - ROUTINE
Each patrol was highlighted by some happening, most are lost in the mists of time by now, but they were spectacular when they took place.
There were four Engineering Spaces, two engine rooms and two control rooms. In each engine room there were two large main propulsion diesel engines side by side. There were two crankshafts on each engine, one upper and one lower.
There were two pistons in each cylinder, opposing each other. The fuel injectors were between the opposed pistons, two in each cylinder.
The injectors were poorly supported and not infrequently, the pressure inside the cylinder would propel an injector out of its fixture and send it flying through the engine room like a rocket. Fortunately, nobody ever got hit by a flying injector, but there were more than a few sets of underwear that had to be changed immediately.
Upkeep and maintenance was a nightmare, after being on patrol for seventy days, it was not unusual to be in port for just five days, only to be sent out to "do it again". Should two of those days fall on a weekend; that left only two days when assistance from the Navy Yard or the Naval Supply System was available before preparations had to be made for departure.
The perils of a "Peacetime Navy"!
It was always a scramble at best, to be ready to sail at the appointed time, either a sailor or two had failed to return from overnight liberty or some vital piece of machinery suddenly decided to throw sparks and flaming insulation across the machinery space.
When everything else had been taken care of, we could depend upon the fuel barge to be late.
The fresh water tank held 10,000 gallons; that had to provide for all uses on the ship, boiler water makeup, main engine and generator engine cooling jacket water, drinking water for the crew, laundry, cooking, showers and coffee.
That meant that the distiller had to run perfectly 100% of the time and for a piece of machinery that was older than the men operating it, that goal was highly unlikely to be met.
We would start the distiller as soon as we had cleared the plankton beds that surrounded the Hawaiian Islands. Started too soon, the plankton would carry over into the drinking water.
Coffee that tasted like three day old fish was worse than awful and, because the storage capacity was so small, it took only minutes for the taste and smell to hit the drinking fountains!
Almost all in port time was consumed in maintaining the ship, while the deckhands were busy cleaning rust, the engineering crew was frantically working on what had broken down during the preceding trip, so the ship would be ready to go back.
I had the good fortune to have an Academy Classmate who was the Repair Officer at the Submarine Base.
The wear standards for the engines on a submarine were more critical than our own, even on the same model engines. I was able to obtain cylinder liners for my engines from him, they could no longer be used in a submarine, but they were still within wear specification for our ship. Since they were declared scrap, he could give them to me at no charge.
It was a financial lifesaver for us, as budgets were very tight. I avoided telling the Squadron Engineer where I was getting my liners, so I was able to keep all the liners for our own use. He even took to following me around the Naval Base, but I do not believe he ever caught on.
All the departments on the ship had a budget they were supposed to live within. Should a budget be exceeded, the Captain had to explain the matter to the Squadron Commodore. This was usually a grueling session for the Commanding Officer and it reflected badly on his ability to command.
Going over budget was definitely a "no-no"!
Even fuel was budgeted, regardless of weather conditions or the number of days spent on station.
Coming off patrol, we were always low on fuel, but I keep some fuel "off the books" in the tanks, as did the Chief Petty Officer.
We had a decision to make, our Captain was one who we all would do almost anything for and he had an important family social engagement that he really wanted to attend.
Ordinarily, we would have swung down to Midway Island and refueled, but that would have taken several extra days and the Captain would miss his Family Event.
He called me and the Chief Petty Officer into his office and asked each of us how much fuel we had squirreled away, unaccounted for, and would it get us back to Pearl Harbor safely without having to refuel.
The Chief Petty Officer and I "hummed and hawed" a bit, did some mental arithmetic and told him we could do it, just barely.
So we bypassed Midway and headed for Pearl Harbor with the Chief Petty Officer and myself doing everything we knew about to squeeze every last drop of fuel from the tanks. We even resorted to scooping it out from between the ribs of the ship with brooms and dust pans!
As we approached Pearl Harbor, there was a regulation that said a ship could not enter the basin after dusk. It was approaching that time and we were all at our maneuvering stations for entering port.
I was at my station in the main Engineering Control Room and the Captain called down on the bitch box to tell me our stack was smoking, something that was sure to draw the attention of the Commodore. I answered him by telling to go NOW, get this ship docked as fast as possible.
Several days later, I gave him the "chits" for spare parts and materials I needed for the upkeep and repair of the Engineering Department, he looked at a chit for 1200 gallons of lube oil and gasped.
He told me he couldn't authorize that!
I replied, "Captain, remember when I told you to get this ship in port and docked?"
He got a horrified look on his face and said, "My God, you didn't..."
I did, I burned lubricating oil in the main engines rather than go dead in the water (DIW) and have to call for a tug!
We ended up splitting the order, half now and the other half a couple of hours before we sailed on our next patrol.
The squadron never caught the fact that our lube oil consumption had skyrocketed for one voyage.
When the ship had been converted to a Radar Picket Ship, the interior spaces had to be altered to accommodate the additional crew needed. Open areas on the main deck were enclosed to provide a mess space for the crew and berthing area for the Engineering Department.
On the next deck down, a small storeroom was converted to a berthing and office space for the junior officers, it was sometimes referred to as "Boy's Town". It was a grim place, wire mesh bunks stacked three high directly above the fresh water tank.
The deck was always damp from condensation and, because it was right at the ship's waterline, every time the ship rolled, air would be trapped in the sewer outfall and would come blowing back through a swing check valve and geyser up through the toilet.
If you did not time your visit to the "head" correctly or someone had forgotten to close the keeper on the check valve, you would meet a column of cold seawater 10 feet high!
Heaven protect you if you happened to be seated on the toilet! It was truly a "FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH"!
Our ship was the senior ship in the squadron, if the Commodore was ever to go to sea, it would have been in our ship. That didn't make anything on our ship any better OR different than our sister ships, they were all exactly the same; it only meant that we had to be ready for a visit from the Commodore or his staff at any time.
That made repairs and upkeep very difficult; so much of our maintenance had to be scheduled with shipyard assistance. We were in port for a "limited availability" with the shipyard when a sister ship's Engineer became ill two days before they were to sail.
All of a sudden, I found myself being hustled aboard the other ship for the duration of their patrol. The two ships were so identical, I could have closed my eyes and gone almost anywhere without stubbing my toe!
It was an interesting experience, however, to witness an identical ship being commanded by a different Captain.
It was fortunate, the trip was made in the summer, when the weather was at its best, there were no problems, no excitement, but there was also no boredom, every day there was some problem, amazingly similar to the ones I faced daily on my own ship.
Taking a small ship into the far North Pacific is a problem in and of itself. The ships were never intended for long voyages or for the number of people in the crew, nor does a long, narrow hull lend itself readily as a stable electronics platform.
Every day was a battle to supply the needs of everyone, from drinking water to heat, to meals, to lighting. The ships were never intended to do what they were being asked to do.
At the end of that patrol, my own ship had already departed, so I asked for and was given two weeks leave.
I had telephoned my parents to make sure they would be home, it was already early October and I had news I wanted to give them face to face.
I snagged a ticket on a TWA commercial flight to San Francisco. It was to be my very first time on a jet.
We were late departing Honolulu, they had been waiting for a tour group that had been in Tahiti.
The tour group never arrived, so the plane was forced to fly with only about 15 passengers, I arrived in San Francisco a little bit worse for the wear as the cabin crew had opened Champaign for the tour group and had nobody to serve it to.
Never let it be said that a sailor was not up to his "duty", there were six of us sailors on that flight, along with two Honorary Sailors, sometimes referred to as Marines.
I took a taxi to a friend from my tugboat days' house, where I showered and shaved before catching a bus home. At least I LOOKED reasonably presentable when I got there.
It was a great two weeks and, just before I had to return to Pearl Harbor, I dropped a bombshell on my parents, I told them that I was to be married the next January!
My poor Mother had to sit down and Dad's eyes nearly popped from his head. I had given neither of them any warning, they did not even know I was dating anyone seriously!
They both looked as if they had been pole-axed.
Yeah, I know that was a dirty trick, but, well, it certainly did cause a stir!
I flew out of Travis Air Force Base on a MATS flight that got me into Honolulu in the wee hours of the morning. My ship was in, so I took a taxi over to the Navy Base and checked in with the Quarter Deck Watch.
It was too near Reveille, so I changed into my working uniform and went in search of a cup of coffee.
I stopped by the Engineering Log Room and read up on what had taken place since my transfer to our sister ship, it had evidently been a routine patrol, and other than a stack of requisitions for me to sign, everything had gone peacefully during my absence.
Just after Reveille, I checked in with the Executive Officer and then went looking for my senior petty officers to find out the real condition of MY Engine Room.
We were scheduled to be "in port" for the next two weeks, that would give us a chance to work on the main engines a bit and replace the leaking boiler feed water pump that had been spraying water into the bilges for the last two months!
Of course, I made time for my Fiancée; I needed to tell her that our secret was out. She was a nurse at a local hospital and worked hours almost as crazy as my own.
I had left my little car with her while I was gone, she had never driven a standard shift car before; I hoped it still had some gears in the transmission.
It was not a real good car, it was a 1958 Morris Minor and should have been kept in England! It needed new rings every 10,000 miles and it went through clutches in an alarming regularity.
A brand new shiny Ensign had been assigned to my department while I was gone, he had been a farm boy in Nebraska and the only water he had ever seen was in the bathtub.
I could have said, "Why me, Lord", but he was a pretty good fellow and worked hard at learning about the ship and how it worked. It was a relief to be able to share some of the work routine with someone else.
While we were in port, I got two liners changed out in two of the main engines, as I went through the operating records while I was gone, it was evident that a couple of the cylinders were not producing their share of power. A reliable sign of a sloppy liner is when the cylinder exhaust temperature begins to fall off.
When we had pulled the liners, we could certainly see why. It is not a huge job to change a liner, although the upper crankshaft has to be raised to get it out. In a pinch, a liner can be completely changed out in about ten hours.
My Fiancée and I set January 20th as our wedding day; we were supposed to be back from our patrol at that time, so we went ahead and started making our plans.
We departed for station on November 2nd and we headed for the North Pacific. The weather was awful from the "git-go"; we rolled and pounded our way north as I watched our fuel oil supply go down. I knew before we ever got on station that we were going to have to swing by Midway to refuel on our way home.
The weather was bitter cold and we had to chop ice off the decks every day, otherwise, the ship would get top heavy and could turn us over!
I was running both boilers full blast in attempt to keep the crew from freezing in their bunks; that was not helping the fuel level, either.
The winds were so bad, we had to stay underway with one main engine idling for days on end, the Log Yeoman was getting as nervous as a hen in a snake farm every time he had to report the morning fuel consumption; the poor youngster actually began to stutter!
It was a good thing the ship's guns were next to useless, they were old WW2, 3 inch anti-aircraft guns and they would jam from overheating every time more than three shots were fired inside an hour.
There was so much ice built up on the guns and their turrets, it was not possible to get close enough to even load them, let alone fire them! We finally gave up even trying to keep them operational.
With the seas crashing over them, any sailor who tried to work on them was in danger of being washed over the side. They finally froze over and were not seen again until we were at the fueling dock in Midway.
Our patrol was finally over when a sister ship from our squadron relieved us and we could head for home.
It was going to take us an extra three days by having to go to Midway for fuel, but I sure wasn't going to try my "lube oil for fuel trick" again anytime soon!
We finally made Pearl Harbor on the 14th of January. I had to have blood tests taken for the Wedding License and that normally took 7 days, but a good friend helped rush the tests through the lab and I had to chase the judge before he left for the day, to get the wedding license!
His secretary was holding him in the office as I was racing across downtown Honolulu!
To make those days just before we got married even more "interesting", my parents flew out of Oakland, California on Tuesday evening and by Thursday afternoon, they were still not there!
TBC
A wedding nearly delayed and a quickie honeymoon before the ship sails again!