Funny Things I Did in the Navy

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

(Cub Scout -1975 for 3 longggg years - no badges awarded )
(Sea Scout - 1978 for 1 evening )

LOL
........

[SkiprJohn]

John 540,
Ok, sorry, I realized flammable and inflammable are the same after I'd posted. That's a bit of strange English, eh? How about unflammable or non-flammable?

Navy story - I was chipping and scraping the 01 deck midships with a chipping hammer and scraper as a seaman apprentice. I found a large piece of what I thought was rust in a clump and started chipping around the edges, chip, chip chip and finally a large piece of paint let go and I turned it over. There, to my surprise, and the surprise of everyone nearby was a mumified hot dog that had been painted over and over again. The ship was WWII vintage and this was in the early 60s. I always wondered how many years and how many coats that hot dog had been painted over.

regards,

JohnL

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha John540,
That is a great link! Thanks for that. I think I'll buy the book.
Kind regards,
JohnL

[Hud3]

OK, David, fess up. What the heck did you do to get drummed out of the Sea Scouts in a single evening?

[Sailbad]

In much the same situation as Mule, many years ago I was the seamanship instructor for a class of midshipmen and at sea on a training cruise we had taken another minesweeper under tow. The mids had done well and all went according to plan.

The time came to release the tow and the gear was prepared to pay out when the ships first Lt told the mid at the slip to slip the tow. He looked at me and I said NO.

The officer looked at me and said slip.. I said No. He then turned to the mid and said slip so the mid hit the slip and the tow wire quickly followed by the rest of the gear dissappeared through the fairlead.

I was still the seamanship instructor ,the first Lt got moved! It took several hours to recover and sort out the mess!

[cosmosmariner]

Ok this is a long one so get a beer:

After getting out of Navy Boot Camp and Basic Electronics and Electricity School I was stationed for 16 weeks at Radioman ‘A’ School, Naval Training Center Bainbridge, MD. They requested anyone interested to join the Drill Team. One incentive was that you would be exempt from ‘field days’ aka cleaning the barracks. Another incentive was free transportation off the base every weekend during parade season to attend parades and parties. This being the spring of 1969 we had Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day as well as a raft of other local celebrations to look forward to. I volunteered immediately. Checkout my thread in Destinations for some related info you may enjoy reading, especially if you were military in that era.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ake-28328.html

We used old Springfield rifles and practiced basic routines; rifles at order arms, slap the stock twice, right shoulder arms, slap twice, order arms, slap twice, spin counter clockwise, slap once, spin counter clockwise, slap once, holding muzzle bang but on tarmac twice, order arms...etc. We went to our first parade where there were Drill Teams from everywhere participating. We were humbled by the routines they were performing. We also were snickered at by the other teams because they performed their routines with bare fixed bayonets and we did not use bayonets. We returned from our first outing determined to add bayonets.

When we told the RM Chief in charge of the team of our plans he straightened up, raised one eyebrow, paused a moment and said, ‘Just don’t kill anyone!’ For the type of routines like the one above it was no sweat and we were feeling pretty good. We all knew that something was missing and we all knew what it was and we all were hesitant to be the first to point it out. The most impressive routines were the ones that involved throwing the bayoneted rifles at each other, repeatedly. We only had 16 men on the team so we were limited to one or two routines.

We decided on the routine where we would march single file at a slow but deliberate cadence doing pretty much the routine described above but after tapping the rifle buts on the ground we thrust the muzzle forward and the man in front reached back to receive your rifle as the man in front of him did the same and so on to the front of the column. It may be apparent that the man in front had no one to hand his rifle to. The man in front raised his rifle by the barrel swinging the stock in a wide arc in front of him, over his head then releasing the rifle and bayonet spinning over the heads of 14 men behind him. It may also be apparent that simultaneously the 16th man at the rear had no rifle to grab from behind so he was to snatch the spinning weapon hurling at him from the air and continue with the routine. This process would repeat until each man had his own rifle again. Piece of cake!

We were in fact young and foolish but not stupid so we practiced with the bayonets sheathed. Of course we dropped the first few but after a while we got really good and were feeling cocky. So after a few days of practice with no dropped weapons we took the sheaths off. It was an awesome sight, 16 polished steel bayonets flashing menacingly in the Maryland spring sunlight. Apparently everyone was impressed and started looking at each other when someone finally said, “Who’s going to catch first?” A few seconds of intense flitting eye contact followed. No one was jumping out there to be the first. As I alluded to in another post I was, at 19 years old, ‘one balls to the wall MF’ so I volunteered to be the first catcher. Hell, of course I could do it, we’d been doing it for a week now.

We started marching and began the routine –slap, slap, tap tap, pass the piece…. As I looked up to see the rifle I was expecting what I saw I was definitely NOT expecting. Removing the hard plastic bayonet sheaths had altered the balance of the rifle. What was hurling at me too high, going too fast and spinning eccentrically was 10 pounds of wood and steel with a glistening 7 inch sharpened blade slicing its way through the air. I immediately grabbed for the muzzle but missed and the unguided but deadly missile paralleled my outstretched arm and the bayonet point caught the loose material of my long sleeve dungaree shirt at the elbow, wound itself inside the material and emerged again at the cuff slicing the sleeve open then continued on and buried the bayonet point in the tarmac chipping a large piece out and clattering to the ground.

I didn’t have much time to think about the event because there was a second weapon spinning eccentrically in my direction. As training and practice are supposed to do I reflexively reached for the missile and almost got it right. In stead of catching the rifle at the muzzle just behind the bayonet I caught the blade of the bayonet near the hilt. By this time the man in front of my had turned around wondering why there was no rifle to grab from behind and what was that clattering all about. What he saw was the blade cutting my right hand between thumb and fore finger, not deep enough to cut muscle or connective tissue but enough to turn my hand red with blood.

Feeling the pain I immediately let go, looked at my hand then the man in front of me. At this point I was yelling, ‘SQUAD HALT, SQUAD HALT!’ Everyone stopped and turned in time to see me step quickly to my left holding my bloody hand as the third dagger of death flashed by and clattered to the ground adding to the trail of grounded weapons each with a little divot of tarmac at the end of the bayonet point. After a group expletive event and determining that the team leader would not have to tell the Chief that we had killed someone we all started laughing until we cried. We finally had a discussion as to weather or not to keep the routine. Keeping it would mean practicing with bare bayonets. I again volunteered to be the catcher and we all agreed that if anyone had any doubts about any movement that they should drop the piece rather than getting cut. So we kept the routine. Other minor close encounters of the bayonet kind occurred, mostly bloodless with only a stitching job to the shirt sleeves being necessary. We never told the chief about any of the close encounters but he looked silently and thoughtfully at the increasing amount of black thread repairs to our shirts.

[David M]

Great story! I'm curious, why sharpen something intended for show purposes only?

[cosmosmariner]

That's the way they came, never issued, got them special so they would gleam in the sunlight, we just polished them ... carefully.

[cosmosmariner]

Originally Posted by cosmosmariner

That's the way they came, never issued, got them special so they would gleam in the sunlight, we just polished them ... carefully.

Ok that isn't self explanatory. We ordered them not issued so they would already BE sharp. Part of the macho drill was that before the parade each team sent a couple of guys around to visit the other teams. They would ask if they could inspect our gear. They would always get around to testing the edge with a thumb. If it was sharp they would give the team captain a , 'good luck' then move on. If not they would snear and move on. So we did the same. We even had at least one guy appearing to be sharpening his edge with a small stone when they would visit. OH the good old days!

[Québec 1]

We use to throw stale bread slices overboard and wait till a seagull or as we use to call them a s--- Hawk tried to pick it up and then pelt them with raw eggs.

We also use to fish small sharks tie a light bulb around them and throw them back in and then watch when they dove back into the water and then popped back up about 6 inches into the air.

We also learned how to open a can of coke empty it... put in a starter tot of rhum and re close it as if it was still full of coke and then stand in line for our tot of puser rhum make as if we poured coke into the glass just filled with our daily tot and save up enough rhum to get a good feeling when we watched the evening movie!

We also trashed the fleet club at Pearl Harbour (1969 I think) with the Australians(they are a savage lot aren't they) It stayed closed down for 3 days and was off limits to the Canucks and the Aussies for the duration of our stay at the islands.

We once set up a jack stay between our destroyer and a russian destroyer at the request of the Russian Commander in international waters after chassing it out of Canadian terrtorial waters . He send us a bottle of Canadian Club our old man not to be outdone sent him a bottle of Smirnof Vodka.

When we crossed the equator we had the officer of the watch called out and made him walk the plank cause he rammed a seagull.

We use to go swimming in the ocean with sharp shooters watching for sharks. I forget the signals but when we got the signal I think it was 3 rapid fire shots in the air we had to swim for our lives (sharks in the area) to the rope ladders and climb on board..Fun



We did lots of other really bad stuff too even if we are Canadians but you will never know cause we didn't ever take pictures and I won't tell.

Don't know what todays sailors are like but in my day we were a private males only club with free rhum every night and drank rose's lime juice when in the tropics.....and we trusted one another with our lives..but if some guy stole or went out of line he was black balled and kicked off the boat. I faintly remember the red light districts at some good ports and am glad I eventually became a civil servant

[mmckee1952]

The following three items are from the quarterdeck IMC that I was aware of but thankfully not responsible for.

1. While along side the carrier America I noticed the ships Command Officer coming down the pier, now we all know that whoever is the designated 1MC is to be somewhat qualified in the do's and don'ts for speeking on it, BUT just as I was going in the deck hatch I heard this over the America's topside 1MC "Capitan America Arriving" to which I looked down the pier and saw the CO lower his head and turn around and walk back to the front of the pier to start over and give the Command Duty Officer a chance to get things corrected.

2. Another 1MC mess up was when the anouncement the the wet garbage truck was on the pier for pick up and delivery.

3. As I was getting off quaterdeck watch on day I looked up the pier and saw our CO walking towards us and I hollered back to the Petty Officer of the watch that the captain was coming, who then told the messenger of the watch to use the 1MC and anounce it. Well it was really something to hear over the 1MC, "Captains Coming - Captains Coming". Our CO just shook his and looked up as to say "WHY ME LORD"

Keep em coming

Mike

[Mule]

I had forgotten about the 1mc:

The mobile canteen, a wheeled refreshment coach that sold various non alcholic treats...

The Announchment was, 1 time and one time only: The RoachCoach is Making its Approach. The actor had very little ass left after the chweing.

New Navy, after women were welcomed aboard, in the name of political correctness the morning deck cleaning crew was welcomed to a modification of the centurys old Sweepers Sweepers MAN Your Brooms to Sweepers Sweepers START Your Brooms.

Yep you guessed it, the whole deck crew yanking on an imaginary pull strings like on a weed eater trying to start their brooms.

[cosmosmariner]

Originally Posted by Mule

...The RoachCoach is Making its Approach....

Wild! In four years in I never heard it announced as anything else and that includes Westpac and stateside. Some times it was really brief though like 'RoachCoach' so maybe it didn't get noticed.

[mmckee1952]

Here's one that will bring tears to your eye's "Do not raytate or rodeate while men are working aloft" , and yes I've heard the phrase "The RoachCoach is Making its Approach" mostly while we were in PI during the Vietnam War.

Mike

[pjop]

Not so funny at the time, but after finishing medic school, I received orders to report to Camp Johnson, N.C. I told the PO that he had my order mixed up with some Marine's orders, a camp being a Marine base. He asked me where in hell did I think the Marine Corp. got their field corpsman. That 12 weeks showed me why they send in the Marines first, intense, but those jar heads are really great to their corpsman.