Posted on 04/17/2003 3:09:50 PM PDT by piasa
Thanks for reviving the thread and the bump.
When I served on the USS JFK back in the Seventies, there was a sailor on watch one night on the Port Quarter (Left side of the ship, all the way towards the back, for you lubbers out there...:)
It was about 0300, the sailor was sitting in a chair, peacoat on, soundpowered phones on, looking out at the ocean and...he fell asleep. A couple of his buddies came down to say hello, saw he was sleeping, and had a great idea for a prank.
They crawled over and tied the shoelaces on his boondockers together. They retreated back into the hatch and then called out in semi-hushed tones “Man Overboard! Man Overboard!”
Well, it had the desired effect. The sleeping sailor jumped to his feet and fell flat on his face.
Unfortunately, someone on a catwalk above heard them, and raised the alarm. The entire battlegroup came alive, 6000 men on the carrier, and thousands on the destroyers, cruisers and support ships were rousted from their beds and ran to their battle stations to report in as the ships maneuvered in unison to come about.
Needless to say, the men were court martialed.
Thanks :
The driver’s name was Struck.....and it went into our FU Log permanently and he was assigned to washing the A/C for the duration of his TAD.
When I was on the USS Kennedy in the mid to late 70’s, there was a black Marine Top Sargeant in charge of the Marine detachment on the ship. He was one of the most physically imposing men I had ever seen. Downright scary looking guy.
One night, while on the dock in Naples trying to get on a liberty launch back out to the ship, it was pouring rain and the water was rough. They had to stop the boats for a period of time.
Now, here it is, 0200, raining, hundreds of men drunk on Peroni beer, and things started getting disorderly. Fights broke out, and it was bordering on turning into complete chaos. One scene out of this, there was some drunk guy who had one of those stanchions you pass a rope through to set up lines of people, well he had that stanchion and was swinging it all around him, while a whole group of Shore Patrol guys had him surrounded trying to grab him, but none of them dared get close enough, because the guy was drunk and unruly enough to really brain them with this thing he was swinging.
Guys who were still standing line were cheering the guy on, yelling out things like “F*ck the Shore Patrol...nail one of em...hit em...” And so on. It was unreal and nearly completely out of control.
Out of nowhere, this Top Sargeant just wades right through the circle of Shore Patrol up to this guy with the swinging stanchion, and decks him. I mean, literally, nails the guy in the face, and he goes down like a ton of rocks.
The Marine then turns to this mob of hundreds of guys and bellows at the top of his lungs: “YOU MEN SHUT UP!”
Complete and total silence...I swear you could have heard a pin drop! One of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.
I got out of the Navy in 1979. After the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beruit, the newspaper up here had a list of all the men killed, along with their picture (remember, this is the Boston Globe, as antiwar as a paper can get)
As I looked at the pictures, I saw the face of that Marine Sargeant. It completely sent shivers down my spine...a face like that you never forget. I didn’t know his name, but I sure knew that face. When I looked up his bio, sure enough...it was him. His name was MSGMJ Frederick Douglass
of Cataumet, MA.
I have since read a few things about him, and he sounded like one hell of a guy. Widely respected by the men who served with him. But I remember him using his powers of persuasion to shut up hundreds of drunk and unruly men one night.
Navy ship is anchored out in a calm bay, boat boom out, liberty launch and captains gig riding easy.
As dawn breaks a deck watch sailor boards the Captains Gig to wipe down the dew.
Horrified to find someone has defecated in the Captain’s Gig he reports same to his Petty Officer. Works its way up to the Captain who, understandably is upset, orders all hands on deck.
Captain wants to find out who did it. Chief Boatswain Mate looks over the side into the boat and tells the Captain it was not anyone in the deck department.
How do you know that the Captain responded!
Chief Boatswains Mate points to IT and says, IT is a left hand coil.
Ping!
PING !!
This is a Supply story.....
I was on the USCGC Boutwell out of Seattle back in the 70’s. The story as it was told to me was this.
The ship had some excess funds at the end of the fiscal year. It was use it or lose it. So a new towing hawser was ordered and was placed in our private storage section of the warehouse on base. Now mind you we had a perfectly good one already on board but it had never been used. Well a couple of years went by and the new towing howser was just left there in the warehouse for us.
We had a SAR call where we eventually had to tow a freighter back to port. Now the howser on board was torn up by the long tow so the First Lieutenant and the Chief Bosun decided to get our new howser out of storage. Well to our surprise the 1000’ towing howser we had bought was only 100’ feet or so we received it.
It turned out that there had been a order issued at one time to cut in half the unused or unissued supplies being held at the warehouse. So the warehousemen dutifully cut our howser in half every quarter that we left it in the warehouse.
LMAO . This one I can picture, like a scene from a good war movie.
Most of the ships I sailed to Viet Nam were bomb ships. One of the ships was a general cargo ship on which we carried a deck load of one airplane wing.
Probably “yours”
About twenty years later I met an ex-pilot who claimed that was for his plane. He didn’t elaborate but said something about an on the ground accident.
No $%#@. One time my ship was supposed to pull into Pusan. The CO heard grumblings about it so they decided to take a vote. The sailors on the ship voted to remain underway instead!
Trying to remember back. I remember taking the wing to a lot of ports in Viet Nam where we kept off loading it to get at cargo below decks and then reloading it. Seemed nobody wanted it. Our last port finally took it off our hands.
Naples, remember Humpty Dumpty and the campfire girls?
Oh good, sea stories.
(Pours beer)
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My Ensign tour was aboard a can. My stateroom-mate and best friend was a stereotypical Boston-bred Italian. Being from the South, I'm not sure why we were such good buds, but Service has a way of doing that.
Anyway, after a tough cruise we were rewarded with a Liberty Call in Pattya, Thailand. My friend and I were particularly excited, as the old hands had told us about the massage girls who specialized in bath-time fun.
Sadly, I had first day duty (and he had the next). I was on the Quarterdeck when he climbed off the liberty boat looking like hell. I'll never forget what he said:
"Buddy, if I was allergic to soap and water, I'd be a dead man."
LOL...ACK! Not HUMPTY DUMPTY! And, of course...The Castle...
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