Once again I'm going through the Panama Canal
This picture carried me through the War
Me and my Sweetie
The training was complete. The shakedown was a success and the crew had transformed from a bunch of indivuals to a cohesive team. Our time was up and it was time to get down to business. As most of us had correctly assumed, our job would certainly keep us busy but basically we wouldn't be part of the shooting. This was reassuring for mom (my wife) and that was one less thing I would have to worry about: Her peace of mind.
We picked up our first tow and my God, it was a doozie. Bear in mind the none aboard had any experience at towing anything. I felt pretty confident that with a little OJT (On the Job Training) we would in short order perfect the art of towing. When I laid eyes on this first tow, I wasn't so optimistic. We were going to tow 1 section of a Battleship Dry Dock to Guam. It's kind of difficult to put into words just how huge this thing was...so...I'll just say, "IT WAS BIG!". It dwarfed our ship. I figured that if we could get this monster to Guam safely, our training on towing would be complete.
Our first major obstacle turned out to be the Panama Canal. Our tow was too wide and just wouldn't fit. The only thing we could do was remount the dry dock on the barge and stand it up on it's side. Sparing you all the technicalities, we managed to get it done and finally made the transit through the canal. Panama was still as beautiful as I remembered it. I had me another good case of de'javu and thoroughly enjoyed the trip even while sweating bullets about this momster we were towing. Once we cleared the canal we were in the Pacific and on our way. The first two weeks was prettty smooth sailing. The ocean was like a millpond and we were scooting right along at 3 knots. We even managed to catch a few fish which really delighted the crew at chow time. But I started to notice that our tow seemed to have a mind of her own. Most of the time, she was trailing us way to the port side and then to the starboard.
Well, we continued on and we steamed and steamed and steamed some more and 30 days later, we were still at it. Then one day the skipper asked the Warrant where we were. After taking some star shots and finished plotting the course, he advised the skipper that we were actually behind where we were the day before. The skipper just totally lost it and committed a cardinal sin. In front of the crew, he belittled the Warrant calling him all typesof sarcastic names such as being a total incompetent and what a stupid ass he was. He then relieved the Warrant and confined him to his quarters. Now, this was a serious breach of protocol as well as military courtesy and it was compounded by the fact that it was the Commanding Officer. What had happened as it turns out was that we picked up a head wind and slipped into an unfavorable current. Combining this with that big sail of a thing we were towing, we were actually making negative headway. The skipper took over as navigator. It seems somewhere in his past he had taken a two week course on navigation. I personally don't think anything sunk in because nothing changed and no one could convince the skipper that he shall we say "was NOT up to the task". It had been explained to him later that if he changed the course slightly and got out of the unfavorable current, we could start making some headway.
I am no Navigator. Never claimed to be one. "But", I'm not stupid either. I had noticed something one day that I felt would assist the skipper see the error of his ways before he lost total confidence of the crew as well as his own. It was somewhat of a personal risk on my part but I was the only Chief on the boat and it was my job... so off to the bridge I went. When I got there, I asked the skipper if we could speak in private outside. Once outside, I played it dumb to ease the jolt and I asked him if we were still doing 3 knots. He responded that we were. We were both sorta leaning on the railings and looking out to sea when I told him that I was really confused. He asked me what I was confused about and I said: Well skipper, If we are doing 3 knots how is it possible that our garbage is keeping pace with us"? At the same time I pointed out the garbage which I had seen dumped over a few minutes earlier an sure enough, it looked like it was floating beside us. He never directly answered me but I saw the light bulb in his brain turn on. We just stood there and shot the bull for a while. All the crew could see was the skipper and the Chief having a casual conversation and I figured that's all they needed to know. I bid my ado's and told the skipper that I needed to get back to my engines and he answered me with a "Very well Chief, carry on". I was pretty sure that I succeeded in making my point. I was right but I never expected in my wildest imagination what happened next.
The skipper sent a messenger down to the Warrant's berth telling him to report to the bridge. A little later a very nervous messenger was back on the bridge holding thre Warrant's hat. When the skipper noticed him standing there he asked where the Warrant was. The messenger handed the hat to the skipper and very calmly advised him that the Warrant had advised him to deliver his hat to the skipper with specific instructions on where he could place his hat. Seem's the Warrant had some Moxey and a large set of brass ones and was enjoying the cruise quite well where he was.
The skipper spent some time stewing and then he made a personal visit to the Warrant's berth and instructed him to report to the bridge. The Warrant stood his ground and the brief conversation turned into a negotiation. The Warrant calmly told the skipper that seeing as how he had so grievously insulted him before all hands then he could apologize to him before the crew at quarters or he would just sit out the cruise in his stateroom and let the chip's fall where they may.
Damned if that isn't exactly what happened. After all the ruffled feathers were smoothed out, the Warrant was back on the bridge. Come nightfall, he got a good star shot, plotted out the course and very professionaly and very discretely informed the skipper that we had missed Guam by 300 miles but worse yet, we were on a heading that was closing on the area where the opposing team was known to hang out. The skipper seemed to pretend everything was ok, gave the Warrant a "Very well" and advised the helm to come about. Very wise on the part of the Warrant because it's impossible to keep anything from the crew, especially one so small on such a small ship. After the course change, we plodded along and 11 days later after 44 days at sea we reached Guam.
I think that first cruise was a real eye opener for the skipper because he seemed to be a new man after that. I ended up kinda liking the man but I still didn't trust his judgement on a lot of occassions and I let him know how I felt. He kinda took a liken to me and came to me on numerous occasions to ask my opinion about something. Whenever I felt the crew didn't need to know, we would have one of our casual conversations. On one of them I remember at the end of the conversation, out of the clear blue sky he made the statement:"Confused my ass, Chief" and walked away. I think that was the only way for him to thank me about the garbage and I just chuckled. Seems I was breast feeding a Lieutenant.
Since we were already late, we didn't get much turn around time and we were off to the Solomon Islands to pick up our next tow. So, after replenishing the ship's stores and refueled, we were off again.
This little tug buggie would really cruise along with nothing tied to her butt. Upon our arrival we found out that our tow would be a tandem with one barge loaded with ammunition and the second with battleship anchorage buoy's and chains All the chains and anchors were down in the hold of the barge. Our OJT training was continuing. The buoy's which were huge were on deck. We had the tandem tow rigged up with anchorage buoy first with the ammunition barge trailing behind the first.
We had a one night layover with nothing to do but visit a native village. However, even on a one nite layover my people managed to come up with a little excitement. Actually it was only one man, our 2/c boatswin mate but like me, ole boats never did anything half assed. I had stayed aboard while most of the crew went ashore. Long about midnite the Master at Arms summoned me to the gangway. When I got there I found ole boats loaded to the gills or as we used to say back then: he was commode hugging drunk. No big deal there except he had a small monkey with him as a new pet. Well, I tried to take the diplomatic approach to the situation and calmly explained to boats that the animal was just far to young and small to weather the rigors of the sea. Boats just stood there taking in every word. I told him he would have to take the animal ashore. He agreed with me and off he went. I felt pretty smug for handling that situation so, well: Diplomatic. An hour or so later I was on the fantail having a smoke still chuckling about boats and his monkey. It got me thinking about all the silly, stupid or just plain outrageous things that I had seen sailors pull. Then I got called back to the gangway again. When I got there still feeling pretty good, there stood ole boats with what looked like a half grown gorilla. Boats stood there with this stupid drunk grin on his face and with true sincerity asked: "K, Chief, think he's big enough"? I bellowed at him to get that animal off my ship and that was the wrong thing to do because it spooked the animal and he charged off and ole boats was to drunk to hold him. The problem was he didn't charge off the ship. He climbed up into the riggings. The chaos that followed would take to much time but he eventually took a leisurely leap to a building on the dock and was last seen heading inland. I restricted ole boats to the ship until we departed. I placed no charges against boats because of the stupidity of a drunk. Besides, he was one hell of a sailor and he had certainly earned a little fling.
The following morning we were underway and nothing was going well from the start. Shortly after we got the barges played out, the weather started turning sour. The winds started picking up as well as the sea which is definitely bad new for a tow much less a tandem tow. At dawn the next morning I was checking the towing machine and the tow. Something wasn't right. I couldn't figure it out so I lit out for the bridge and took a look through the glasses. Low and behold, I was right. The lead barge had a pretty severe list going on (leaning to one side). I gave the glasses to the skipper and he agreed and he ordered us to lower a boat and go check her out. When we got to the barge, it was immediately known that she was taking on water. We returned the ship and I advised the skipper of the problem. He told us to grab a p-500 pump and start draining some of the water. Meanwhile, he would start looking for a place to make repairs. It turned out to be Fintchaven, New Guniea. With a bit of luck and lots of work, we finally made port. Upon inspection of the barge they found a tear in the bow so the repairs were made,as we pumped out the bilges and then we headed back to sea. It was still rough out there but that's life on a tugboat.
Two days later, I was checking things over and one of my people gave me the word that it seems we were having more problems with the same barge. I headed up to the bridge and when I got there I found the skipper using the glasses to see the barge. The sea were up and the only time we could see the barge was when we were both on the crest of a wave. I picked up some glasses and took up the watch as well. After a while we saw her and sure enough we had a problem. To be more to the point, we had the same problem. The barge was listing pretty severely. This time we had no place to put in so we had a pretty serious problem. As we continued the watch we got the word that the strain on the towing cable had nearly doubled. Shortly after that we got our second look at the barge and she was laying on her side. Our troubles really began because that damn barge was sinking. At this particular time we didn't realize how much trouble we were in. However, in a few short minutes we would find out our problem was life threatening and we would only have a few short minutes before all was lost. I made my way back down to the towing machine. We had the 3" steel tow cable played out about 1,000 feet and the strain on the cable was increasing.
When I saw some anchorage buoy's pop to the surface I knew the lead barge had sunk and advised the skipper. About the same time someone sang out he could see the other barge and it was making serious headway straight for us. I tried to pick up the barge on the horizon but couldn't see it yet. As I was trying to find the second barge someone told me that the strain on the towing cable was far exceeding it's maximum limits. Events were outrunning our capability to react. I finally spotted the second barge and my heart dropped. Not only was she heading straight for us but she was down at the bow. The only conclusion possible was the lead barge had sunk and being hooked in tandem was pulling us into a collision course with the trail barge. We only had a few short minutes left. I took a quick look around and saw that we were down at the stern. It was getting difficult to stand or walk and our bow was starting to rise out of the water. There was no doubt, we were going down and damn soon.
One thing at this moment that I distinctly remember was that everyone was concerned, some even looked scared. Everyone was doing something even if it was no help but there was no sign of Panic and we were at a pretty steep angle by then. The skipper ordered us to cut the cable even while we were tryin to get the emergency torch on the damage control man. We managed to get him to the cable and that was a bit scary because the stern was now under water. Several of us had to hang on with one hand and hold him with the other. He was able to get the torch on the cable and he cut one strand which snapped under the strain and tore up the glove on his hand. That glove saved him from loosing a hand I believe. I think it would be a safe thing to say that everyone was finding religion about that time. We were starting to get a bit frantic because we wanted to launch the life rafts but we couldn't get to them. About the moment I felt that all was lost and we were going swimming I felt something let go and we came out of the water and immediately slammed back in. Absolutely one hell of a ride. Then it was over. Just like that. It was like death let us go and flew away. We weren't sure what gave because we still had a tow line on the ammunition barge. She was sitting there just drifting slightly. In less than 10 minutes we had passed through a near death experience and it hadn't even sunk in yet.
The whole crew was suffering with a major adrenalin surge and it's hard to describe the mood of the crew at that moment. We just stood there for a bit, some wiping sweat, some just looking around confused. Everyone was shaking, but slowly, the smiles started to break out. We were alive and we were pretty amazed about that considering what just happened. We had no time to celebrate however because we now had a new problem that had to be dealt with immediately. All 14 of those anchorage buoys were on the surface and posed a serious threat to navigation. We had to set about sinking them even with our remaining tow. The skipper had the radar man start a track on each of them. We went to General Quarters and set about sinking those buoys. I was on the bridge watching the fire show and thats about all it was. We would lay off about a hundred feet or so and pound them with the 20mm. I just stood there shaking my head and chuckling. You could see the hit because of a minor dent and smudge in the paint but that was it. I kept my mouth shut and watched the boys shoot,while sipping on a cup of java. They were pretty good shots. I guess I finally got on the skipper's nerves because he shouted at me over the noise: "OK, Chief, what now?" I smiled and pointed my coffee mug at the buoys and told him: "You got to be seeing the same thing I am. It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than those pea shooters to drop one of them buoys but, boy, our guys are pretty good shots." Now, I have in the past let my mouth write a check my backside couldn't cash and this was one of them. I knew I had stepped over the line and was prepared to take my punishment but it didn't come.
The skipper ordered the helm to lay off the buoy about 300 yards and ordered the main gun crew to make ready. At that range, that buoy seemed to be a mighty small target. Combine that with the ship pitching and rolling as well as the sea I was looking at the skipper trying to figure out what he was thinking. When all was ready, he ordered the gun crew to open fire. After 3 or 4 shots we weren't even close. Another problem was creeping up on us and that was the time. It was around 3:30 and we had to sink them buoys before dark. They were spreading out and the radar man was already having problems tracking them.
I was now getting pretty frustrated and I kinda sarcastically told the boss that at this rate and range, we would be out of ammo shortly. He remarked, "Just what would you have me do?" With that opening I suggested point blank shots. I told him to give the boys a sporting chance. He ordered the helm to close on the closest buoy. I had left the bridge and made my way to the main gun. When they lit off the first shot, it punched a hole clear through the buoy. I figured it would take 3 or 4 shots each to put one down. I asked the gun captain what type of ammo he was using and he advised me it was armor piercing rounds. I asked him if he had anything with more poop and he said he had some HE (High Explosive) rounds but he didn't think the skipper would ok it at this range. I instructed him to try one and let me worry about the skipper later. They locked and loaded, took aim and fired. There was a tremendous bang and the buoy was gone. I could see a big grin on the skipper's face as he hollered down to the gun crew: Good shooting. Then he asked what type of round that was and the crew captain told him it was an HE round. The skipper's grin disappeared and he asked where they got the authorization. The crew captain got real nervous figuring he was in real trouble with either the skipper or me. When he looked at me I told him the skipper just asked you a question son, answer up. He looked up at the skipper and sounded off: the Chief, Sir. The skipper just sorta shook his head and responded: "Might have known, carry on and lets go kill some buoys." The crew captain looked at me and asked if I had a beef with him. I told him: "Son, if I had a beef with you there would be no doubt in your mind. Good shooting. Now you have your orders. The skipper told you to kill some buoys. Let's show him just how damn good you guys are!" .... I walked off.
With that, we started hunting and killing those buoy's. The skipper, the radarman and the gun crew worked together to get the job done. The radar man would find the buoy and pass the word to the skipper. The skipper would guide us in and the gun crew would blow the buoy out of the water and the whole process over. This continued on until dark but we had only sunk 12 buoy's. The skipper decided to break it off and head for our destination. I knew this wasn' right leaving those two buoy's. I checked with the radar man and confirmed that he still had a plot on the remaining buoy's. I then went to the skipper and argued my posotion on leaving those two. He asked if I had a plan to get the last two. I explained that the radar man could get us close enough for us to locate the buoy and we had the most powerful search lite in service. It was a matter of getting close, pick up the buoy with the lite and then kill it. I told him it would be damn good training for our gun crew. The skipper asked me if it was doable and I responded by saying we will never know unless we try. It was a bit risky to turn a spot light at night but the skipper decided that the need outweighed the risk in this case. Had to admire him for that one . So, off we went, at night, hunting the last two buoy's. Those last two buoy's were located and sunk in fairly rough sea's with a spot light with the gunner's using open sights while using only 4 rounds. That's damn fine shooting in any man's book. After that ordeal, the skipper ordered a course for our destination and told me to join him in the wardroom for a coffee.
I really figured that this time I was gonna have to bite the bullet because I had been on the border of insubordination through this series of events and he could make a damn good case against me so I thought I'd try the tactic of humility. I really liked being a Chief. When we were in the wardroom, I got to looking at the skipper and something was wrong, out of place. Then it dawned on me. His hair. It was pure white. Prior to our problems with the sinking barge, it had been grey. Now, it was pure white. Strangest thing I had ever seen. When he started talking, I was snapped back to the present as he was saying that I had on many occasions really pissed him off.I felt: here it comes. But all he said was: If you weren,'t right so often, I"d go after your crow. Then he said to me: Thanks. And that was the end of a very long day.
The next morning we were doing great. Our remaining barge was trailing in our wake. The rough sea's had ebated and we were again scooting along at 3 knots. It was a pretty dull trip from there all the way to Ulithi. I am just short of positive that our action report had a great deal to do with having Gun Cable Cutters installed on all future tow wires.
© 1997 ervd@hotmail.com
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