101 Sea Stories and Some Assorted BS from All Ye Scoundrels Who Ought to be Keelhauled Part IV

Blackshoes, Airdales, Bubbleheads, Snipes, Jarheads, etc. ^ | 9/20/2000 and on and on and on.. | Ronin

[piasa]

(Repost : See Previous threads for context) After obtaining permission from Commodore Jim Robinson, I hereby dedicate this thread to 101 or more sea stories.

For the innocents among us, a sea story is an experience (or a good lie) that a person associated with the Naval service either remembers personally or has had told to him at one time in the past.

It has been said that the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is that a fairy tale begins with "Once upon a time..." while a Sea Story begins with "This is a no-shi++er..."

I personally prefer stories to be true, but given the entertainment value of a well told sea story, I doubt if anyone is going to cry "foul" if a moderate amount of creative embellishment creeeps it's way into the account.

Also subject to Jim Rob's approval, normal standards of language usage may be relaxed for this thread. This is, in my opinion, necessitated by the fact that a sea story without a bit of salty lingo is about as interesting as flat warm beer.

So have at, shipmates! Let's hear your best one!

-------------------------------------------------------

In the interests of modesty, I will refrain from tooting my own stories until a few responses get posted. That way I can take all the credit for a neato thread if it turns out great and can save my best ones for another time if the thread flops.

1 Posted on 09/20/2000 17:29:32 PDT by Ronin

[PatriotCJC]

I'll never forget the time we were pulling into Pusan Korea and as we were pulling into port (I was conning Officer) a bloated body passed down the staroard side. When we pointed it out to the pilot he just shrugged his shoulders and said "huh". We kept on going.

[rabidralph]

have to come back to this one in a bit...

Me, too. Gonna hop in the shower.

[piasa]

Sometimes I think the Navy has long tried to see just how many coats of paint it would take to sink a ship with the weight... here's one I heard:

As if the engine room crew didn't have enough to do trying to keep an old Liberty ship going with its old boilers, practicing for various situations, standing watch, playing pranks on Marines, cutting off hot water to the folks in the laundry, finding time to attend to their uniforms and bodily functions, writing notes home begging for Bazooka bubble gum, etc., all short of a normal complement of men ... some busy body who worked on the bridge decided the engine room needed to be painted.

The annoyed junior officer grumbled under his breath but told his crew to go ahead and paint the engine room- any color but GRAY or that infamous pale green. Shortly after, one of the sailors came up and said there wasn't enough paint, to which the response was something along the lines of "What do you mean, there's not enough paint? This is the Navy!"

The sailor said that except for gray, they didn't have enough of any one color of paint to get the job done.

So they were told, "Mix it together- I don't care what color you end up with so long as it isn't GRAY or that godawful government green."

So the sailors found some white and red paint and the amphibious ship became- to the XO's embarassment when he took some visitors on a tour of the ship- the only one in the fleet with a hot PINK engine room.

[visitor]

The Perfect Storm: an Intrepid night landing...rto

[quietolong]

Didn’t that make a movie about that..

Operation Petticoat

[RaceBannon]

Does it have to do with blowingout the candle without using your....hands?

[RaceBannon]

In oredr to get mail at sea, we had a navy or Marine 46 drop off mail and whatever on the back flight deck on the USS Lamoure County, LST 1194.

When there was an aircraft coming in, we wouldhear the call over the 1MC, "Flight Quarters, Flight Quaters, man your flight quarters stations"

One day, we heard the call for Flight Quarters. 5 minutes later, we heard another call over the 1MC:

"Will the person holding the kyes to the Flight Quarters Gear Locker please lay the same?"

That sailor who had the keys for the locker with all the helmets and vests didnt show up for Flight Quarters!

[RaceBannon]

We had a Staff Sergant Harris in our unit, and a Captain Harris.

To play a joke, we were supposed to have Staff Sergant Harris report to Capt Dodt's stateroom.

So, being the red Blodded Marines we were, we had the 1MC page our man:

"Staff Sergant Dodt, Please report to Capt Harris's stateroom"

We got away with it about 3 times...

[sit-rep]

Arriving to the U.S.S. St Louis LKA-116 in 82. I had the world by the ass... Fresh out of bootcamp, reporting to my first ship. It was grand to say the least. I did not care about much of the boat, all I wanted was to get to my job...the engine room.

The first week was educational and I'll never forget it. I walked up on some guys working on a pump. I watched as they tried to free it from it's mount. The taper pins in it's base were a clear cause for it's stubborness. They told me to go over and see BT1 and get a BT Punch. With my natuaral abilities with mechanical equipment, I thought that this indeed was the proper tool. A punch to knock the pins out of the base of the pump.

I finally found the BT1 and told him the guys sent me over for a BT Punch... ...the next thing I knew I was picking myself off the deck. I got my BT Punch alright, right square in the chest!!

Believe it, or not!!

SR

[sit-rep]

I'll throw in one more this morning...

As time went on, and the knowledge of the do's and don'ts of sea life embeds it'self, entertainment was a neccessity. At the time, there were a lot of folks onboard who still induldged(smoked a little weed). Well, it just so happened that my sea and anchor detail was on watch in shaft alley, and this was the best part of the boat to "catch a little buzz".

One time, about 6 or 7 guys were down there with me. We burned one and then one of the clowns showed me and the other boot a neat little trick...

Be fore a ship gets underway, there is a period where main control in the engineroom, "spins the main". This is a periodic spinning of the main turbines to keep the rotors from bowing due to very high steam temperatures. A few revolutions in the forward direction, followed by a few revolutions in the reverse direction by the main propeller shaft(s). This will maintain a straight rotor in the turbines.

Down in shaft alley, you would see the main propeller shaft turn a couple revolutions and then stop. So, that is when these guys jumped on and held on real tight... Sure enough, the shaft would turn a couple times both ways and the stop. A couple minutes later, it would do it again and so on... Untill we got an "Ahead 1/3" bell. I was entertaining to see these dorks fly off the shaft and hope they timed it right. If you do not, you'll end up 10 feet below in the bildge, or slammed up against the bulkhead!!

After this little surprize, we did not do it very much after that!!

SR

[75thOVI]

BubbleHead Bump for later. (Can't have all these skimmers and targets hogging the good stories.)

[Eastbound]

Naw, it has to do with the Bos'n making a bet with the skipper. It's one of those old classics and I didn't remember all the details. It's best told using all of the ...uh... deleted expletives. It involved two skippers and a medical examination for hemmorhoids. I think I'll just pass on it, being this is Easter. :)

[AlaninSA]

Back in my enlisted days (I'm what the Marines would call a "mustang") I did basic and AIT on a "split option." That is, I went to basic one summer and AIT the next.

One of the nice bennies of this was that we went to basic as slick sleeve privates, but returned as PV2s or PFCs.

Now those of us with Army backgrounds know that cadre wore stipped pistol belts to mark themselves from the trainees. We decided to combine our "senior" ranks as PFCs/PV2s with the pistol belts we brought from home station and then mess with the real newbies while we were at the reception battalion.

We took PV2 "mosquito wing" pins and placed them on top of PFC rank (a stripe and a rocker). We then grabbed stripped pistol belts and waited for the time in the evening when most of the cadre had gone home.

Dressed now as "staff corporals" (a take on the SSG rank), we went upstairs to create havoc on the guys who'd been in the Army for all of a week.

We went upstairs, started yelling "I'm Staff Corporal ___ ."

We got away with this for about 20 minutes, got a bunch of guys to stand at parade rest and dropped several for pushups.

And then we got caught.

I spent the next hours "pushing up Fort Dix."

[AlaninSA]

OK -- and there's some other stuff we pulled.

At my officer's basic course at Fort McClellan, we "mustangs" messed with the heads of the straight USMA/ROTC commissioned guys with some old Army tricks.

Most of this consisted of sending guys out on fool's errands like:

-Getting a roll of contour line

-Finding a box of grid squares

-Telling guys that, before they fired an M203, they had to do a "boom check" on the launcher

-Convincing guys that they were supposed to wear the patch of their last unit on their right sleeve. We got a few of the straight ROTC guys to wear their "Leadership Excellence" patch -- you're only supposed to wear combat patches on your right sleeve.

[kilowhskey]

This old sea dog has a few of his own. What follows is the first of many:

I spent two years in Viet Nam sailing aboard a 338-foot Army freighter, functionally similar to a Navy LST. Our skipper, CW4 Carter C. James, was an outstanding leader. He expected nothing less than perfection, and got it most of the time. He shaped his crew into a sharp, confident, squared away outfit; and the men loved him for it. His ship handling skills were absolutely superb. I hope that at least once before I die, I will be able to make love to a woman with as much finesse as he routinely displayed in docking, landing and departure maneuvers. As his rotation date neared, a collection was taken up among the men in order to buy him a going away gift. A huge amount of money must have been collected. The day before the formal Change of Command, the men invited
Mr. James into the enlisted mess. The First Sergeant presented him with a small box which he opened revealing a diamond-encrusted wristwatch so gaudy that it would have made a Texas Oilman blush. I caught a momentary look of revulsion on his face, but he quickly recovered and accepted it gracefully and said a few kind words to the crew.

The next day, at the formal Change of Command Ceremony held on the main deck, command was transferred from Mr. James to CW4 Martin J. Hord. Hord was a rather striking contrast to the courtly Mr. James. With the formalities out of the way, he turned and addressed the formation: “I’m a man of few words. You don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you.” He abruptly walked away, leaving the Chief Mate to dismiss the formation. He was true to his word until payday, when he ordered the crew to dress in starched khakis to report for pay. The officers and senior enlisted men complied because they had families at home to support. The junior enlisted men complied because they spent their monthly income on booze and loose women. Because I had been spending about $10 per month, I had accumulated more than $2,000 in $10 bills (the largest denomination MPC) in a shoebox that I kept in my locker. While everyone else was starching, ironing and polishing, I did my laundry and read my mail. About 2:00pm, the skipper got on the ship’s PA system and summoned me to the wardroom. I sauntered in, wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt, Bermuda shorts and flip-flops. The skipper was dressed in khakis, seated stiffly behind the Officers’ Dining table. Taking note of my casual attire, he asked, “What’s the matter, Myers? You don’t want to
get paid?” Slowly I took the shoe box from behind my back, placed it on his table, opened it and shook it gently so he could see the 200+ $10 bills sitting loosely within.
“I don’t need the money, sir. I have enough here to last me until I get back to the States, so go ahead and take it back up the hill and I’ll get it later.” The skipper’s face turned beet red. Pointing at the pay voucher and speaking through clenched teeth, he commanded “Sign here!” I signed the voucher. He counted out a couple hundred more dollars. I folded the voucher and placed it and the additional cash in my shoebox with a flourish. I then snapped off a salute, performed an about-face, and walked out. Within minutes, the whole crew knew that Hord had been had. The crew never again was ordered to dress in khakis to get paid. I extended my tour of duty and had the pleasure of observing Hord’s departure. One of the officers made a half-hearted attempt to solicit funds for a going-away gift. No one would contribute. No formal Change of Command ceremony was organized for him. He departed in obscurity, leaving behind a farewell letter on the crew’s bulletin board.
That letter quickly found its way into a urinal in the forward head where it remained until it disintegrated into pieces small enough to be flushed into the South China Sea.

[kilowhskey]

Here is another one for your amusement:

It is going to take more time to set this one up than it did to execute it, so bear with me. I sailed for two years aboard the USAV Page, a 338-foot freighter functionally similar to a Navy LST. The ship had two sets of throttle controls--one set on the bridge and one set in the engine room. During landing and departure, the engines would be controlled by seamen on the bridge responding to the commands of the captain. Once underway, the bridge would call the engine room to transfer throttle control below. A pneumatic switch in the engine room would be thrown and the engine room throttles would then take over. With experienced people at both ends, the engines would deviate less than 50 rpm when the switch was thrown. Crews on the bridge and in the engine room took great pride in their ability to make that transition smooth, whether the control was going from the engine room to the bridge or from the bridge to the engine room. One day about sunset, the question arose in my mind "What would happen if throttle control was passed to the bridge and they weren't expecting it?" We were offshore near Hon Tre Island, en route to Vung Ro Bay. A check of the horizon showed no traffic in sight. I snuck into the machine shop, picked up the sound powered phone and rang the engine room. When they answered, I gave the command "Throttle control to the bridge." They immediately complied. Up on the bridge, their throttles were set to idle, so when the engine room threw the switch, the engines slowed to their idle speed. That triggered the engine alarm sirens which require a crewman to run to the panel to throw the override switches. By then the ship was bobbing like a cork on the ocean swells. The officer of the deck is on the phone shouting to the engine room officer of the watch "What's going on down there?" He replies "Whaddya mean, what's going on down there? You guys called for throttle control to the bridge, so we gave it to you." "I did no such thing, Vencill" the officer of the deck said. "OK, we'll take 'em back." So the engine room restored cruise power to the two 1,200 horsepower diesel engines and the voyage continued as before. They never did find out who gave the command...

[Ahban]

OK, I got a 1MC one....

I was trying to get some shut eye after a brutal midwatch one morning. I heard "Ensign Moore, Quarterdeck" coming over a speaker. I was a mess and I knew I had just gotten off watch coming into NYC.

Could it have been Ensign McInerney playing a joke one me? I dialed the quarterdeck on our "growler", the shipboard phone. "Did you want me?" I asked. "Yes, come ASAP" was the reply. I threw on a uniform and staggered to the Quarterdeck.

McInerney was doubled over with laughter when I got there. He had a bullhorn outside my stateroom door, which he had used to make the initial call. Anticipating me, he then went down to the quarterdeck and answered the growler when I called up- in a false voice.

He was a lot funner when he was doing it to other guys. One guy hid his uniform when he was in the shower. Mc waited intill the guy had to be somewhere, then folded each uniform item into an incrediably small package. He was really good at floding a shirt small enough to fit in a shirt pocket! He hid these packages in the guys stateroom. The fellow came back dripping wet with 20 mintues to get ready-uniforms gone.

With about 10 minutes to go Mc told the wet and naked panicked junior officer "each of your uniform items is within one yard of your seat, good luck finding them."

[kilowhskey]

Vietnam, 1968, During the USS New Jersey's RVN exploits, I sailed for two years on the USAV Page, a 338-foot beach discharge lighter, functionally similar to a Navy LST. We were a bunch of seagoing dogfaces, as "USS" is the designation given to Navy Ships with Navy Crews, and "USAV" stands for United States Army Vessel. Anyway, we had just delivered a 2,000-ton load of napalm to the Air Force in Phan Rang and were sailing at night toward Cam Ranh Bay.
Naval security Regs in force at the time called for all vessels to challenge each other by flashing light signal, day or night, by signaling "What Ship? Where From? Where To? and the "word of the day." Ships unable to answer were immediately reported to Market Time and subject to armed confrontation. Late one night we picked up a radar contact dead ahead and about three miles out began challenging by flashing light. No response. At about two miles out, the skipper called us to General Quarters, while continuing to challenge the unidentified and unresponsive vessel. At about one mile out, the skipper spoke quietly to us on the bull horn. "I don't know what we have out here, but let me say again "Fire only on my command."
I was on the foredeck strapped into a 20mm cannon. The skipper maneuvered us to within 75 feet of this huge, totally darkened monster of a vessel. As we passed starboard (right side) to starboard we realized that we had encountered the USS New Jersey preparing for a night fire mission. We never saw them fire. Don't know if we messed up their plan. Glad that our guys were not trigger happy that night.

[GATOR NAVY]

ST LOUIS bump ('90-'92 decomm) Sasebo, Japan.

[sit-rep]

Sasebo, Japan.

We brought her over there in '83.