Sea Stories

[KnightSailor]

Russian Badger
One day were out in the Atlantic, far from any sovereign lands. I was on deck and I saw a Russian Badger flying over. I took out my Minolta 16mm spy camera, and took a photo of it. (don’t tell anyone). I went down to the radar room and told the First Class about it. He talked to CIC (Combat Information Center) who said they were tracking it. We asked the XO if we could do an electronic shoot down on the plane if it came back. They said OK.
An electronic shoot down includes tracking the target with the ship’s Air Search Radar, locking onto the target with the Missile Radar, missiles run out on the launcher rails, and the launcher actively tracking the target. That is everything except firing the missile. The target aircraft is well aware that they are locked onto and being tracked.
After the Badger left the area, I asked the Weapons Officer if I could paint the silhouette of the Badger on our Radar Director. That is usually reserved for actually shooting down a target aircraft. They are commonly seen on the sides of Fighter Aircraft. He OK’d it with the Captain. The next day I climbed up onto the side of the Radar Director and pained the silhouette of the Russian Badger on the side in red. It is probable that was the only Badger Silhouette ever painted on any US Warship Radar Director. Of course we had to paint over it when we went into port. But here is a photo of that Director, and the photo I took of the Badger with my spy camera.

[socaldmax]

Awesome stories!

My father was an RMC (RIO) on an A-3B attached to the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) when he died in Vietnam in Feb. of '65. I was only 4 at the time, but his best friend told me some funny stories about the shenanigans the 2 of them got into just before he died in 2000. He said even 50 yrs later, if his wife ever found out about the stuff they did, he was a dead man, as he looked over both shoulders!

My stepdad was a TMC and he only told me a couple of stories. One involved the entire torpedo division drinking torpedo juice (back when they distilled alcohol out of it) and passing out. Another story was when they were on a carrier and a big storm hit them. They were taking green water over the bridge and he said he never realized there could be waves that huge. I vaguely remember another story where everyone on the flight deck was wearing green glow sticks and the lookout had to count them every 15 or 30 minutes to ensure no one got swept overboard. They all decided to play a prank and hid their glow sticks under their uniforms at the same time. The next time the lookout checked for them, he didn't see a single one out of the entire flight deck crew! He about had a heart attack until they all started reappearing!

I joined the Navy as an Electronic Technician and unknowingly gave up my first set of orders to an Australian Radio installation (shore duty) filled with female radiomen as my first set of orders, by requesting sub duty. I don't regret being an ESM (electronic warfare surveillance measures operator) but I sometimes wonder just how many horny women they had on that remote, isolated shore site.

I requested and got orders back to San Diego, my home town and was stationed on board USS Plunger (SSN-595) in Jan. '86. She was one of the oldest in the squadron and the next in line to be decommissioned in July '89. In the meantime, she was a hot runner and we became the most decorated sub in history and we won the Battle "E" 4 out of 5 yrs in a row, among many other awards. If you've ever seen "Down Periscope", the diesel boat crew looks like they were modeled after crew members on my boat. The first Capt. was a maniac, he drove that boat like a 16 yr old kid with his first motocross bike! If the OOD wasn't swapping paint with our prey, he was a chicken! When we did ASW exercises, the CO wasn't afraid to push the boat to the limits and they never had a clue which way he went, he was a tactical genius! Meanwhile, the XO was wound tighter than a guitar string, a lot of the crew (all of the chiefs)were old diesel boat sailors, saltier than seawater and one of the cooks actually looked exactly like the cook in the movie - dirty t-shirts, cigar ashes in the soup, hairy belly hanging over the food - all of it! The first day I reported onboard, we were loading stores and there was a guy with hair down to his shoulders, new dungarees with no rank or rate or name on them. He was looking at the canned goods and anything he didn't like, he chucked it over the side into the harbor! The Supply Officer (chop) went ballistic and sent a couple of guys in a small dinghy out to gather up the large collection of floating cans!

At that time, knowledge was power on a sub, and that guy was the first class LPO of the FT division and he knew every detail of the boat, so he was untouchable. They would ask him nicely to go get a haircut after a long deployment and he'd go get one as soon as he went ashore, but he might not go ashore for 3 or 4 days, after all of his work was squared away. The whole crew looked like McHale's Navy, but we were the most well trained, professional, highest performing boat in the squadron.

There were a bunch of funny events on the boat, I'll try to add them later.

[Tillikum]

I know where there's a plaque on the wall with the motto "The Past is Prologue". No idea how it got there either!

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Tillikum

I know where there's a plaque on the wall with the motto "The Past is Prologue". No idea how it got there either!

That wouldn't happen to be a bar, would it? LOL

Were you a crewmember? When were you onboard?

[Tillikum]

No sir, I'd never even heard of her before I saw the plaque, but it stuck in my mind as an interesting motto for a naval vessel. It's on a washroom wall in a welding shop!

You may have some stories that reference what I remember reading in "Proceedings" many years ago about sub captains with photos of carriers taken through their periscopes on exercises and how multiple torpedo hits on a flattop might cause the exercise referees to grudgingly award some minor diminutions in the fighting capacity of the said carrier?

[garyfdl]

Know how to tell the difference between a fairy-tale and a sea-story?

A fairy-tale begins with: "Once upon a time"...

A sea-story begins with: "This is no $h*t"...

An OLD MM2(SS) A-ganger.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by garyfdl

Know how to tell the difference between a fairy-tale and a sea-story?

A fairy-tale begins with: "Once upon a time"...

A sea-story begins with: "This is no $h*t"...

An OLD MM2(SS) A-ganger.

Absolutely!!

Back in the day, most of the subs were named after fish, like Tarpon, Pompano, etc. The older guys on my boat would call their previous boat the "usetafish" and they would start their seas stories with, "Yeahhh, back on the old usetafish..."


Shortly after reporting to the boat, we went on WestPac and I was standing a UI watch in control. The A-gang chief came in and told me that there as a big oil spill in main lube oil bay back aft and I had to go back there to help clean up. Being a young, cocky, ignorant punk, I replied, "No chief, you got it all wrong. You guys are in charge of the oil, I'm in charge of the electrons. If you ever end up with a bunch of stray electrons running around, come get me and I'll take care of it, but I don't do oil spills."

He looked at me for a second, then he gave me a huge smile and a nod and left. One of the other ETs leaned over and told me, "We're all gonna end up back there, and you just guaranteed yourself a spot in the dirtiest area!"

A short while later our Senior Chief came up to control from the Chief's Quarters (goat locker) and walked right up to our ET division and he started rolling up his pantlegs and sleeves. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "There's an oil spill back aft, and I'm going in the bilge to help clean it up. We're all going." I said, "Senior Chief, I already straightened this out. I told the A-Gang chief he was responsible for the oil and we would take care of the electrons." "Nope, we're all going, and the last one in the bilge is buying all of the beer in Yokosuka!" As soon as the words left his lips, the entire ET division took off tripping over each other to get back aft! We were all in the bilge, cleaning up oil when the Senior walked in, climbed down right next to us and said, "Well, I guess I'm buying the beer!"

Shortly after that, he made Master Chief, which helped a lot when I became division LPO shortly after and I ended up butting heads with other chiefs or LPOs. One thing I always loved about him was he never gave orders. He'd casually ask me what I thought I should do about a particular situation. Then he'd nod at my answer, then suggest a modification to my solution, then I'd suggest going a little further long the lines of his suggestion. Then he'd tell me I came up with a great plan. Right about when we'd finished up with the project or evolution, I'd realize he gently nudged me into the direction he wanted, convinced me that it was my idea, then congratulate me on such a wise course of action! LOL He was the master of smoothly getting his way and making me want to make him proud, all without saying it out loud or putting any pressure!

[garyfdl]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

Back in the day, most of the subs were named after fish, like Tarpon, Pompano, etc.

That tradition started with the WWII boats and is going pretty far back. My first boat was one of the original '41 for Freedom' boomers, (ballistic missile subs for you sand crabs). I did 6 runs on the USS Thomas Jefferson, SSBN 618. Until the Ohio class SSBN's were launched in the 80's, boomers were named after significant historical figures.

SSN's (hunter-killer/attack subs) started to transition away from 'fish' names in the 70's. My second boat was the USS William H. Bates, SSN 680.

One of my jobs as an A-ganger was to'shoot' the TDU (trash disposal unit). Again, for the sandcrabs, the TDU is essentially a small diameter, vertical torpedo tube. The subs trash goes into special cans, which are then weighted (so they sink - don't want to leave a trail of 'bread crumbs' for Ivan to follow). Weighted cans are loaded into the TDU and then 'shot' to sea. Anyway... I would always have the mess cooks save me a few mayonnaise jars with the lids. Now on the Jefferson, our Sonar men were 'on the phones' - literally wore head phones and listened to what was going on outside the boat. I would take a jar, put the lid on, and put it in a trash can. The can would sink, and in about 40 seconds, sea pressure would implode the jar, which (I have been told) was like an M80 (large firecracker) going off in the sonar man's headphones. This was followed by a scream from the sonar shack "YOU BASTARD!"

[socaldmax]

On my boat, the TDU was broken almost as much as it worked. When it was jammed up, the cooks would take the weighted TDU bags and freeze them in the walk in freezer, but our boat was really small and the freezer wasn't very big. Whenever this happened on station, we'd break off, leave the Oparea and surface to start throwing trash from topside if the seas were calm, or we'd throw them from the sail if it was too dangerous to be on deck. One time, we picked up a Russian surface ship hoping to catch one of our trash bags floating. They trailed us for a while and all of our trash had plenty of weight, but I got an idea. I asked a couple of guys to grab all of the old girlie mags and double bag them with no weights. We tossed it over the side and it floated nice and high. They fished it out, opened it up, then sped up and pulled up next to us, close enough that I could see that most of them looked like the kid next door from Nebraska, or Kansas - they were just like us. They waved, whistled and showed us how much they appreciated the little gift. Sailors at sea are the same the world over, no matter how much animosity there is between their governments. Ever since then, I've been convinced that most of the world's problems are created by governments, not the people.

The sonar LPO and I weren't the best of friends. It might have had a lot to do with my giving them crap about swapping parts and not being able to troubleshoot down to the component level like we did. It also might have had something to do with 6 of them being on watch at a time and sending one of their guys down to crews mess with a waitress tray to get 6 coffees several times per watch. I'd say, "Hey waitress, I'll take a blonde and sweet!" That never went over well. LOL A few times their LPO and I butted heads over who was going to clean which spaces, wax which decks. I kept telling him, "I've got 5 guys, you have 21 guys in your division. I'm not splitting all of the cleanup with you 50/50. We'll do 1/4 of the area, and your crew of 21 waitresses can do 3/4 of the area, that's fair." He'd argue and I would tell him to go tell his Chief to talk to my Master Chief and we'll see what they agree on. We ended up with more like 1/3 of the area, which was close enough for me. My ETCM would stroll into control and say, "Geez, I don't know how you do it, but you really get the sonar Chief and his LPO all riled up. Why?" "I'm not positive, but it might have something to do with calling them waitresses or sonar girls..." LOL

There were quite a few times when we were in port (pretty rare, we were deployed a lot) and my ETs had completed all of their work by lunch. I'd do a few spot checks to make sure nothing got missed and then I'd cut loose everyone except the duty ET to go home at lunch. The sonar LPO would go crying to his Chief that all of my guys except one was gone by lunchtime. I'd get called to the Chief's quarters to explain and I told them, "All of my guys are cross trained and outstanding technicians. They've done all of their maintenance and training, all of our equipment is 100% operational, so there's no reason to waste their time standing around doing nothing all afternoon, I felt they all deserved to go home and see their wives and girlfriends." Then my ETCM would wink at me and say, "Sounds good to me, good job! I think I'll go home too!" Then I'd tell the sonar LPO, "You know, if your guys were better trained, I bet they might be able to get all of their work done before lunch and you could let them go home, instead of worrying about what I'm doing with my division. It works well for me!"

One time, we had a new guy in deck division and he took all of the boat fenders and stored them in lockers exposed to sea pressure. After we pulled out of the harbor, we started to submerge and we weren't very deep before we could all hear loud explosion sounds through the hull! The sonar techs reported explosions close aboard, but it didn't take long to realize what was really going on!

[KnightSailor]

Bay of Biscay
The USS Wm. V. Pratt was running Plane Guard for the Aircraft Carrier USS Shangri-La CV/CVA/CVS-38. That means that we followed behind to pick up any survivors if one of the Shangri-La’s aircraft crashed into the sea. None of her aircraft crashed, so we never had to pick up anyone. However, we did encounter a fierce storm. The seas were so high that the Shangri-La was dipping her flight deck into green water. During the storm which was unusually violent, and perhaps because we had to steer a course that was not optimal for our safety, our main hull was split wide open. I was told the split was 20 feet long and 4 inches wide.
We had to leave the Shangri-La and limped down to Naples Italy. Apparently that was the closest base where the repairs could be made. We were in dry dock in Naples, with the Pratt out of the water being repaired for a couple weeks. We all had a great time in Naples.