I always had a great deal of admiration for you guys in Tin Cans...
When I was up in the North Atlantic above the Arctic Circle in 1976 on the JFK, it was a beautiful, frigid late October day, the water was a beautiful emerald green, and the wind whipped up the surface so it was uniformly white and frothy with specks of emerald green showing through it.
Nobody was allowed on deck (and we sure couldn’t fly) and all the planes had 24 point tiedowns. Me and two of my buddies wanted to see what it looked like at the bow, so we went out in the catwalk (keeping our heads down so they couldn’t see us from the bridge)
I looked off the starboard side, and saw one of our escorts on station several hundred yards abeam of us, the bow was taking green water, then you could see the screws come out, and the whole time, the ship was rolling and yawing at the same time..
It was one of those old Knox class, and it was plunging into the ocean, huge waves of solid green water running aft down each side of the superstructure, while the screw came out of the water and you could see the damn thing going chug-chug-chug-chug-chug until it went back into the water, and the bow came up out of the water. And the whole time, that thing was corkscrewing though the water.
It was the first time I had ever seen weather like that, and a ship making its way though that ocean. I recall thinking it must be absolutely insane inside that tumbling vessel-how the hell could someone even take a piss in that, never mind eat, or even sleep!
We looked down from the catwalk, and we saw the white and green water through those now seemingly flimsy strips of metal that made up the catwalk we crouched on, and we watched the big bow of the carrier come ponderously up out of the water, and TONS and TONS of water cascaded off of it looking like Niagra Falls...it was stunningly unbelievable to me,, as I had no frame of reference for that! Then the ship paused at the peak of its upward motion, almost as if it was in super slow motion, and that bow went back into the water-very slowly and ponderously at first on the downward stroke, then faster and faster as it plowed into the water...the only thing I can compare it to is that picture of the North Sea lighthouse with the wave crashing around it....
As the bow accelerated into the greenish water, it looked like the whole bow of the carrier was going to submerge the way the bow entered the water and kept going...the three off us hurriedly retreated back into the ship, stepping on each other and leaving footprints on each others backs trying to get through the hatch!
Needless to say, we weren’t in any danger. No way the bow was even close to going under, but it sure didn’t look that way to us. Without a doubt, that was the most vivid memory I have of all the time I spent at sea.
The Knox class rode like crap in heavy seas. Much much worse low on fuel. To answer your question —no one ate or slept when it’s rough like that. Pissing? you did while hanging on. On the bridge when we heeled over 30 degrees there was dead silence . You could cut the tension with a knife. I think everyone on the bridge had the same thought— is this the one?
I like reading stories from old salts about their time in the Navy that are in this thread. It doesn’t have to be some heroic story, or war story. Just random odd stuff that happens in a military.