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Sailors sometimes drink too much also

We were over in Scotland in the winter time. January as I recall. We went over on a ''Good Will Tour'' and visited several of the Scandinavian Countries.

On a Navy pier there is no hand rail or guard rail of any kind. There is however a ''kick rail'' attached to the pier. There are ''bolards'' that the ship is tied to when in port but no types of safety devises to keep you from falling off the pier...... Here in lies the sea story.....

I had the dirty duty and when I secured from the eve watch (about eleven thirty at night) I wandered up on the after brow. (rear quarterdeck) to watch the guys come back from liberty. Scotland is famous for two things. Good Scotch and friendly people. The ''friendly people'' want you to try their Scotch so it is fairly easy to get totally plastered with little effort on your part. They also love to hear someone from ''down south'' talk. If you have a southern accent they will buy you drinks just to hear you talk. (there is another sea story here but that is for later. It concerns two lovely ladies. nuff said right now)

Anyhow, our gangway (access to the ship) went out from the ship to a landing and then down to the pier. The taxies would pull up to the base of the gangway and the sailors would ''ooze'' out and amble up the gangway and ''request permission to come aboard Sir''..... So many of the guys were having trouble climbing the gangway , or even finding it, that they had placed guards on the pier to help these guys ''find the gangway''. As I leaned on the lifeline watching the show a taxi pulled up and a sailor backed out of the rear door of the cab. Obviously, he was drunk as a skunk.. He handed the cabbie some money, kissed a red headed lady good night, and stood there for a few seconds trying to get himself presentable so he might come aboard. He came to attention, straightened his hat, hitched up his tie, brushed off his uniform and turned to come up to the end of the gangway. He was doing real good until he stumped his toe on something on the pier. With that he totally lost his balance, stumbled sideways, tripped on the ''kick rail'' and promptly tumbled into the bay, head first. The guards at the foot of the gangway was on him like a flash. The ''guards'' dropped a lifering over him and the sailor latched on to it like a snake. Three guys dragged him back up on the pier. All the drunk sailor could say was ''' Can you guys find my bottle of Scotch?? I think I dropped it when somebody pushed me off the ship''. They escorted his dripping body up to the quarter deck and escorted him down to his quarters and to bed.

So it went onboard the Norton in Scotland......

Seajay the sailor man.....

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Guest Wayne77590

I guess telling on oneself after 40+ years has to come under statue of limitations.

Alcohol on board a Naval vessel is prohibited, except by the CO. So there were times when good ol' Doc would make up some spirits. Now let me tell you - these spirits were haunted, to say the least, but that is not this story.

Being on liberty, and knowing that the next day you are going to sea for a few months, does something to the taste huds when thoughts of alcohol are involved. So, on our return to ship one evening we smuggled a Texas Fifth aboard using a rain coat. We had gone on liberty and it had been raining, so of course we were in our raincoats, but on the return, it was not raining and this idea came to one of us (I will not say who). A Texas Fifth of burbon was purchased for something like $12. Now a Texas Fifth, at the time, was one bottle of more than 2 gallons of burbon. To get it aboard it was held between the raincoat, draped over the arm. All went as planned and the bottle was aboard. Now we just had to make sure there was no shakedown.

We had a coke machine that dispensed 4-6 ounce cups of Coke Cola. The nice thing about this machine was that you pulled the dop out about 5 inches from the wall and let it snap back and it would dispense a cup of Coke Cola. This was the radio gangs coke machine and no one messed with it except us.

Anyhow, we are out to sea and and decide to take in a move on the "movie deck." Depending on weather depended if it was inside or outside. The weather was great and we proceeded to spike our cokes with the burbon and go up to the 0-2 level to watch the movie on the 01 level. Now mind you, we are sitting there nice and comfortable, drinking our concoctions when some sailor on the 0-1 level shouts out, "I smell alcohol!" Tere was some scurrying around and another "dumb" sailor shouted, "It's the Marines! It's the Marines!

The madness is on. Now there were about 75 sailors and only 6 or 7 Marines, so the odds were in the Marines favor, but we didn't want to hurt anyone and hastily retreated to our compartment. Unfortunately we were in hot pursuit, as the swab jockeys wanted some alcohol. We were still concerned for their safety, but now we had to take some measures to ensure the alcohol was safe.

Marines aboard ship maintain all their combat equipment, so we had our M1's, and that included our bayonets. So the first Marines down the ladder well fixed bayonets and rushed back to the ladder well.

Now picture this. Two Marines at the bottom of each of the two ladder wells into the compartment, holding M1's with bayonet's attached, and at the top of each ladder well are about 25 sailors each. The ones in the back are yellow, "Push, push, get those S.O.B's." The sailors at the front are hollering back, "Don't push, don't push, don't push, they have bayonets." This lasted about 4 to 5 minutes when the sailors decided that the alcohol was not worth what they would have to endure to get it. Of course, there was not intention on our parts of hurting those poor, dry mouthed, harbor ducks.

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Sneaking Booze on board .....

One trick we would use was to buy pints of booze and hide them in our ''P'' coat lining. Up in Norway and Sweden we always wore our winter uniforms and that included ''P'' coats. Some of the guys would carefully slit the lining of the coat and sew pockets in it. These could be used for smuggling sea store cigarettes off the ship and booze back on the ship. Over there you could get fifteen dollars American for a carton of Camels and with the right arrangement you could smuggle four cartons of Camels off the ship in your ''P'' coat pockets. Back then in 60 forty dollars was big money. Close to half a months pay for some of us. The ''smuggle'' worked well as long as you didn't get really stupid. Four cartons were easy to buy and easy to smuggle. Four pints were easy to hide and easy to bring back on board as long as you didn't fall down or ''jingle''...... All went well until some of the guys started trying to smuggle ten cartons off the ship. They looked really stupid going up to the quarter deck looking like they weighed four hundred pounds. One guy came back on board with eight pints hidden in the pockets. As he stepped off the gangway he tripped and fell on the steel deck and broke about half of the pints.. Booze ran out of the ''P'' coat like a river and they hauled him off to the brig. From then on when you went ashore you had to put your ''P'' coat over your arm for inspection and the same when you came back aboard. We could still smuggle off a carton of Camels by taping them to the small of your back vertically up your spine but the tape sure was fun to remove ....... We could also smuggle a pint of booze back on board the same way.

So it went aboard the Norton with the blue eyed blonds of Norway ......

Seajay the sailor man .....

GOD BLESS THIS NATION

GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS AND BRING THEM HOME SAFE ....

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HIDING PLACES......

one problem with booze on the ship was that ''surprise locker inspection'' sometimes after we would leave a foreign port. Usually the Master at Arms would single out a few guys occasionally and march your butt down to your locker and demand you ''open up'' for inspection.... They had no time to ''prepare'' so some got caught with booze in their locker. Now I want it understood at this point that to my knowledge NO ONE EVER GOT DRUNK ON OR OFF. We just liked a little ''taste'' to keep the ''skeeters'' away. Maybe just a little ''swish'' to ward off a cold, or malaria, or bubonic plague, or the rickets or because it was a weekday or the weekend or what ever........ It didnt take too long to figure out that there was an ''UPTAKE SPACE'' that ran thru our compartment. It had a lock on the hatch that looked like it hadnt been opened since the ship was new. No one knew where the key was for this UPTAKE SPACE. HUMMMMMMMM,

We cut the old lock off and replaced it with ''our lock''. Inside the UPTAKE SPACE there is a ladder, landings, wires, pipes for air, water and lots of other interesting things. The good part was that there was not another access door for at least three decks up or down as I recall. The bundles of pipes had just the right amount of space between them and bulkhead so that a pint would fit nicely in that space. You could cram paper in first, then a bottle, then more paper and you had a ''hide'' that no one ever found even if they inspected the UPTAKE SPACE.... We were on the honor system to never touch another mans stash without permission from said sailor. Like Wayne, we had a cola machine on the 01 level that dispensed colored water that fizzed for a nickle. It made a good mixer if we could not get tomato juice for the vodka. I will not say for sure but I suspect there are bottles still hidden in that uptake space left there by forgetful sailors that got transferred and didnt take their ''stash''.

There was nothing so nice as to get off an eve watch, go to midnight rations and then make yourself a ''mixer'' and take your blanket out on the main deck. We would spread the blanket on the head of the ''wildcat'' (the thing that retrieved the anchor), kick back and watch shooting stars on the darkened ship (no lights exposed outside) until you got relaxed.

We did have one problem that we quickly resolved. We had a Master at Arms named ''Pappy'' He was a third class gunners mate that had been in the Navy since before they used sails. He was sharp as a tack and mean as a snake. No one liked 'Pappy'' even he didnt like himself. You could be walking down a passage way with a ''cup of cola'' in your hand and he would pop out and yell....''STAND TO SAILOR'' He would take the cup from your hand and sniff it. It better come up cola or you were in deep trouble with ''PAPPY''. He even enforced a ruling that if you bought a cola on deck you had to stand there and drink it and toss the cup in the trashcan......We outfoxed him by using coffee cups for our mixers. Lots of guys walked around with a coffee cup in hand. He never caught on to that...... I will say this for the old S.O.B., he would drop a piece of paper on the deck and hide and watch it. If you came along and picked it up, he would hand you a dollar. Been there, Done that...... Heck of a surprise....

So it happened on the Norton, steaming in a circle a thousand miles from nothin..........

GOD BLESS OUR VETS ....

GOD BLESS OUR SERVICE PERSONNEL AND BRING THEM HOME SAFE ........

Seajay the sailor man.....

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HIDING PLACES......

one problem with booze on the ship was that ''surprise locker inspection'' sometimes after we would leave a foreign port. Usually the Master at Arms would single out a few guys occasionally and march your butt down to your locker and demand you ''open up'' for inspection.... They had no time to ''prepare'' so some got caught with booze in their locker. Now I want it understood at this point that to my knowledge NO ONE EVER GOT DRUNK ON OR OFF. We just liked a little ''taste'' to keep the ''skeeters'' away. Maybe just a little ''swish'' to ward off a cold, or malaria, or bubonic plague, or the rickets or because it was a weekday or the weekend or what ever........ It didnt take too long to figure out that there was an ''UPTAKE SPACE'' that ran thru our compartment. It had a lock on the hatch that looked like it hadnt been opened since the ship was new. No one knew where the key was for this UPTAKE SPACE. HUMMMMMMMM,

We cut the old lock off and replaced it with ''our lock''. Inside the UPTAKE SPACE there is a ladder, landings, wires, pipes for air, water and lots of other interesting things. The good part was that there was not another access door for at least three decks up or down as I recall. The bundles of pipes had just the right amount of space between them and bulkhead so that a pint would fit nicely in that space. You could cram paper in first, then a bottle, then more paper and you had a ''hide'' that no one ever found even if they inspected the UPTAKE SPACE.... We were on the honor system to never touch another mans stash without permission from said sailor. Like Wayne, we had a cola machine on the 01 level that dispensed colored water that fizzed for a nickle. It made a good mixer if we could not get tomato juice for the vodka. I will not say for sure but I suspect there are bottles still hidden in that uptake space left there by forgetful sailors that got transferred and didnt take their ''stash''.

There was nothing so nice as to get off an eve watch, go to midnight rations and then make yourself a ''mixer'' and take your blanket out on the main deck. We would spread the blanket on the head of the ''wildcat'' (the thing that retrieved the anchor), kick back and watch shooting stars on the darkened ship (no lights exposed outside) until you got relaxed.

We did have one problem that we quickly resolved. We had a Master at Arms named ''Pappy'' He was a third class gunners mate that had been in the Navy since before they used sails. He was sharp as a tack and mean as a snake. No one liked 'Pappy'' even he didnt like himself. You could be walking down a passage way with a ''cup of cola'' in your hand and he would pop out and yell....''STAND TO SAILOR'' He would take the cup from your hand and sniff it. It better come up cola or you were in deep trouble with ''PAPPY''. He even enforced a ruling that if you bought a cola on deck you had to stand there and drink it and toss the cup in the trashcan......We outfoxed him by using coffee cups for our mixers. Lots of guys walked around with a coffee cup in hand. He never caught on to that...... I will say this for the old S.O.B., he would drop a piece of paper on the deck and hide and watch it. If you came along and picked it up, he would hand you a dollar. Been there, Done that...... Heck of a surprise....

So it happened on the Norton, steaming in a circle a thousand miles from nothin..........

GOD BLESS OUR VETS ....

GOD BLESS OUR SERVICE PERSONNEL AND BRING THEM HOME SAFE ........

Seajay the sailor man.....

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All respect to Wayne, but I sat and watched this back in 1960 I believe ....

EAST MAIN ,,,,,, NORFOLK, Va.

If you were stationed in Norfolk, Va., during the early '60s you know about EAST MAIN STREET.

For those of you who don't know, East Main was a street that was about four blocks long. It consisted of bars on both sides of the street from one end to the other. There was one place that was not a bar. It was one of those Salvation Army places.

I know really good drinkers that tried to go to East Main and drink a beer in each bar on both sides of the street from one end to the other and just could not make it. I use to go down there just to watch what was going on. There was one bar that advertised itself as the WORLD'S LARGEST ASH TRAY. All kinds of names to get you to come in if possible. Really nice looking bar girls with several pretty teeth, sometimes.

I think the bar was the Krazy Kat that I settled into a booth with a beer to just watch what went on. A very large Marine corporal came in with his cuffs rolled up, his tie slack and his hat on the back of his head. He flopped on a stool and ordered a beer in a very loud voice. He appeared to be very drunk. He sat there soaking his beer when the Shore Patrol walked in. For you civies the Shore Patrol is the military police of the Navy. They cruise the bars to prevent trouble and keep service personnel straight. The two shore patrol guys walked over to the Marine and requested he straighten his uniform, fix his hat or remove it and shape up.

The Marine turned around on the stool and faced one average-size sailor and one Philippine sailor a little over 5 feet tall. This guy probably just barley made the height and weight requirements for the service. The Marine was a little over six feet and would weigh something over two forty and was mostly muscle as I could tell. He looked at the shore patrol and told them where to go and what they could do when they got there. With this the larger shore patrol guy stepped back and the short one again requested that the Marine shape up or feel the consequences.

At this point the Marine made a very big error. He swung at the little guy. His ham hand would have smashed the little guy if he had connected. The little guy simply stepped aside, rolled under the punch and tossed the Marine on the floor like a sack of beans. The Marine leaped to his feet and bull-charged at the little guy. As the Marine came at him the little guy simply stepped aside and tripped the Marine, again dropping him like a sack of beans. The first shore patrol guy was simply standing to one side watching the whole commotion. I asked him if he was going to help his buddy and he smiled and said no but he probably should help the Marine to make it a fair fight. This went on for several more swings and charges until the Marine ran out of steam. He, the Marine, was covered in dirt from the bar floor, bruised probably all over from the falls and completely embarrassed for letting himself be whipped by someone probably smaller than his sister. They cuffed the marine and carried him to the paddy wagon.

Sometime later I was over at the gym in the Naval Air Station. We went over to shoot some hoops and goof off for half a day. I walked into the gym and in one section they had a large mat on the floor. Guys were throwing themselves at this mat and flopping around like crazy. They would run and deliberately hurl themselves hitting so that their leg and arm and side hit at the same time. I figured they were nuts until I noticed the instructor. He was the same Philippine guy that was on shore patrol that night in the Krazy Kat bar on East Main Street. I think the sport is called Jiu-Jitsu , the art of using one's opponent's weight against himself, or something like that. I called it beating the heck out of someone without losing your white hat.

So it went on the Norton on shore in Norfolk Va.

Seajay the sailor man

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Well, now SeaJay sucked me in, I couldn't let this thread go without a snipe's sea story.

For those of y'all that are somewhat unfamiliar with the 'Nav even with all the wisdom that CJ has imparted, his stories are kind of skewed, see, he thinks there is no intelligent life below the main deck of the ship, and the ship had some magical motive force that moved it along the surface of the water. Then again, he enlisted while they still used oars.... :)

Anywhooo, on with the story, and it begins like this: This is a no "splitter" (insert appropriate lettering here) guys; I did my boot camp in Great Mistakes, IL in the middle of the winter Jan-Apr and the 3" thick ice on the inside of the barracks windows is a fact, guys! Camp Moffitt where CJ lived was being de-commissioned and torn down while I was there, we had most of our shots done in the old dispensary there though. We had what was called a "snow watch" and if you weren't too lucky that would be the watch you got stuck with instead of the barracks watch. As soon as 1 1/2" of snow collected on the ground, the snow watch was outside with shovels, this watch was a 4 hour watch and if it was over breakfast, the snow watch missed breakfast and had to hustle back to the barracks to get into clean utilities (oh yeah, Zumwalt went through 3 uniform changes for us over the course of 5 years) then it was on to our classes. Don't nod off in classes even though you had the barracks watch until midnite and snow watch rolled you out of your rack at 2:30 am, or it was off to marching party that night for ya! But, on from there, boot camp conquered and on to "A" school to learn the intricacies of the job. Propulsion Engineering Schools Command, again in Great Mistakes. This was pretty easy, we learned how to steam boilers, main engines, evaporators, pumps, valves, different repairs, steam theory and so on. No matter the steam plant we learned on was an old WWII plant that was not on the ships that most of us were going to. I was a good boy, so I became a dreaded "push button" (I extended my enlistment for a year and put on my "crow"), I was a 3rd class petty officer with the stroke of a pen!!!!! :rolleyes:

Onward to the first real duty station, the "Might J", the USS Juneau, LPD-10, a 5 year old ship with 5 year old boilers and 45 year old peripherals (pumps, evaporators, main engines, Ship's Service Turbo Generators....) see, I'm a kid next to CJ, he was out and the Navy was but a pleasant dream by that time, the "J" hadn't even had the keel laid when he was terrorizing the poor civilian ladies in Norway and the Med. I had never crossed a quarterdeck on a real Navy ship before, so I was pretty nervous as I lugged my 180 lb seabag up the ladder to the brow. She was way up there, 5 flights of ladder steps to the gangplank onto the quarterdeck. The quarterdeck watch called down to the firerooms (from now on affectionately called "the pits") and the LPO of the forward pit sent up a non-rated fireman that had just been inside the boiler cleaning firesides. Now, if you've never been inside a boiler in your life, the firesides are the tubes that carry the water for steam generation that interface with the firebox where fuel oil is fired to produce heat and steam. To say he was filthy was an understatement. He took me to the Master At Arms office to get my bedding, then down to the engineering berthing compartment where I tried to stuff everything into a too small locker, left my bedding on the top rack that I was assigned and was off to see the Chief and a quick whirlwind tour of the ship. By the end of the day, when I returned to the berthing compartment all I had left of my bedding was one sheet, no blanket and no pillow. Seems the compartment cleaners had heisted them for themselves. I had to physically fight to retrieve most of my bedding. I, of course, returned the favors so I had bedding for my rack.

We were preparing for deployment to the Western Pacific when I reported aboard, so the ship was loading supplies (the ship was smaller than a cruiser of the heavy variety like CJ was on) Here's the stats on this ship:General Characteristics: Awarded: May 23, 1963

Keel laid: January 23, 1965

Launched: February 12, 1966

Commissioned: July 12, 1969

Decommissioned: October 31, 2008

Builder: Lockheed Shipbuilding Co., Seattle, Wash.

Propulsion system: two boilers, two steam turbines

Propellers: two

Length: 569 feet (173.4 meters)

Beam: 105 feet (32 meters)

Draft: 23 feet (7 meters)

Draft: ballasted: 34 feet (10.4 meters)

Displacement: approx. 16,900 tons

Speed: 21 knots

Well deck capacity: one LCAC or one LCU or four LCM-8 or nine LCM-6 or 24 amphibious assault vehicles (AAV)

Aircraft: none, but telescopic hangar installed aboard. The hangar is not used to accommodate helicopters but on the flight deck there is space for up to six CH-46 helicopters.

Crew: Ship: 24 officers, 396 enlisted

Crew: Marine Detachment: approx. 900

Armament: two 20mm Phalanx CIWS, two 25mm Mk 38 guns, eight .50-calibre machine guns

As you can see, we carried gyrenes too, one in ships's company enlisted, and one (a captain) with the officers. Once we lit off one plant, the real fun began, engineering liberty was secured and we steamed underway watches from that point on. My shipmates tried to play a lot of those fun "newbie" tricks on me, but I knew better, that there was no such thing as a "mail buoy", bilge rats (the only bilge rats we had were sailors or marines on extra duty), I knew what fallopian tubes were so that didn't work on me and the one that worked for most of the "boots" reporting aboard didn't work for me either. The new Boiler tech messenger of the watch (from the forward pit) on his break in watch would be sent to to the after pit for a container of "gland seal". Now, gland seal is steam pressure applied to the outer surface of the main engine shaft glands. It can't be carried or transported by hand. In the after pit, they had a JP-5 (volatile aviation fuel) sample point, the watch back aft would fill a styrofoam cup with it and send the break in messenger back across the well deck to the forward pit, and of course, the styrofoam cup would disentegrate, and the newbie would get chewed out from the entire watch team, starting with the Engineering Officer Of the watch on the throttle deck down. Now, since I knew what was up, I poured that JP-5 into a cut open soda can, set it aside, went up to the ship's store, bought myself some snacks and a 10 cent soda out of the soda machine, and got back with the "gland seal" in time for the turn over of the watch. More of my sea stories to follow.........

Oh yeah, before I forget, SeaJay had to breathe that rarified atmosphere up there on the bridge, he also had some of the proliferation of khaki infect him, so he's got excuses for his afflictions........ ;)

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That first WestPac deployment was a real hoot! More fun than two barrels full of monkeys with their tails tied together! :rolleyes: To tell the truth though, I wasn't a real happy camper getting underway then. I'd just gotten married to my honey (whom I'd met and fallen in love with only 6 months earlier), but there was no getting out of it.

I got to experience Honolulu, HI on my way over, the seedy sailor bars of Waikiki, got to see sunken WWII Japanese ships with the hulls and props sticking out of the water at Kwajalein Atolls where we played (our whole Amphibious Group did this) Ace moving & storage, taking whole deckloads of trailers from there to the Phillippines for offices and temp housing. From there, I got to ride out my first typhoon, I loved it, the clouds came right down to the ocean and sat there then the wind started, and the sea churned up. We were making good on 15 kts plowing straight into the waves, the Large Slow Targets (LST) that were part of our group had to tack back and forth to make any headway at all. Most of them had to turn tail and run back to HI because of machinery breaking loose in the engine rooms. They lost all of their trailers out there too. The best part of the typhoon was the fact that all the grunts we had on board were laying in their racks puking for three days and we didn't have a huge chow line filled up by non-watchstanding Marines.

We crossed the Int'l dateline, and soon after made it to our overseas home port, White Beach, Okinawa, all of our holidays except Christmas were spent there. We stayed long enough to bring stores on board and fuel up, then got underway for our first taste of Liberty in the Phillippines!!!!!! More to come in a later installment :)

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MAIL BUOY WATCH......

''HAY GUY, ITS YOUR TURN TO GO ON ''MAIL BUOY WATCH''......... ''WHATS MAIL BUOY WATCH????''........ ''YOU STAND ON THE BOW OF THE SHIP AND WHEN YOU SEE THE ''MAIL BUOY'' YOU HOOK IT WITH A BOAT HOOK AND THEY STOP THE SHIP AND TAKE THE MAIL ABOARD. ITS KINDA LIKE A MAIL BOX AT SEA''..... So it was on the Norton.... a thousand miles from nothing .... steaming in a circle.....

Seajay the sailor man...

I'm not sure if this forum is still active, but I'm on duty and bored out of my gourd. Your story reminds me of a time back in 2003 when I was on watch as the Officer of the Deck onboard US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) ALERT.

We were steaming box ops, which for those unfamilar is they plot a box for the night on a chart, and your whole purpose in life is to stay in the box and not hit anything. We had just got a new seaman onboard and this was his first underway. He was definately an Okie from Misokie. My Boatswainmate of the watch wanted to pull a prank on him because he truely felt that gullible was the kids middle name. I was an ensign, and saw no harm of a little joke off the coast of mexico in the middle of nowhere.

So we tell the SN that he's going to recover the mail buoy and we'd be coming up on it soon. First however, he had to get the approprate PPE on. We got him all decked out in a type one PFD, flash gear and hood, battle helmet and clipped a radio to his jacket. We put him down on the bow with a boat hook and started to commence our prank. Now it was about 2am at this time, and pitch black, I had the foresight to clip a glow stick to him so we could see him.

We radio down, approaching the buoy 200 yds port side. The SN looks in vain. We tell him he missed it. We turn the ship about, tell him it's coming down the starboard side. The kid runs across the deck, and we tell him he missed it.

Well that went on for about four attempts. I'm trying my best not to bust out laughing while the boatswain mate of the watch is making the radio calls. Well suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder. It's the Captain. I figure I'm sunk and there goes my qualification. Well it turns out that the SN on the bow had run into the CO earlier the day before and made the CO spill coffee all down the front of his uniform.

The CO turns to me and says... "Recovering the Mail Buoy huh?" I say yes sir. He grabs the radio out of the boatswain's mate's hand and transmits to the SN... SN Jones this the Captain, you better get the buoy on the next pass or your butt is grass.

Semper Paratus,

Bill

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Guest Wayne77590

Bill,

Seajay continues his stories on the iRV2 forum. He no longer posts, unfortunately, on this one.

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Sooo many sea stories! I suppose a book could be written, which could be very interesting! I have a few myself, but let me tell you all one a BMC in charge of the lifeboat station told me when he was in the Navy in WW2.

It was toward the end of the war and his ship was in port tied up to the dock. He being a seaman, or as we used to say, "a deck ape" was over the side in a bosn chair painting the side of the ship. He heard a voice down on the dock, in a loud tone say: "that looks like ****!". Not turning around to see who said that, the seaman said: "well, you can kiss my ---." then turned to see. Standing there was Admiral Bull Halsey! The seaman turn back to his work, and the Admiral walked on and that was the end of it!!!

Looking back, from when I was in the service, and talking to men I worked with through out my working life. I wish I would have written down all the stories I have heard about the war, stories that were not in history books, but real stories, from real men that are gone forever because our WW2 veterans are living us at the rate of 1000 a day now. God bless them, heroes everyone.

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Two part story...

Part one...somewhere just outside of the Straights of Juan de Fuca, mid-'70's....dependents cruise on diesel submarine. Highlight of the trip was an EMBT blow from periscope depth. Can you say ooops? On the way to the surface, the boat slowly turned partially on it's side. I was with my girl in the engine room, and I instructed her to face starboard, and "walk" up the outboard engine. The mess was in the aft battery, just forward of the engine room, and all you could hear was the scream of children and loud clatter of ice cream bowls hitting the deck.

Part two...somewhere off coast of SoCal, again in mid-'70's....sea trials, COMSUBPAC aboard....prep for EMBT blow...I was messenger of the watch, standing my watch, facing port side. Immediately to my left was the admiral, facing starboard into the conn. The order was given for EMBT blow. Can you say ooops? On the way to the surface, the boat slowly rotated partially on its starboard side. In the space of several seconds, I was in a semi-reclining position, and the admiral was just about in the push up position. I looked over at him, he looked at me, I just winked. Not my first rodeo.

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I got another...tales from a diesel submarine...

On an island just off the coast of SoCal...anchored off shore about a hundred yards. Crew went ashore for some libations. We were shuttled back and forth on a launch, center steering, big brass wheel.

Sometime in the evening, one of the crew slipped away, went down to the pier, removed the brass steering wheel, and swam out to the boat with it.

When the bar closed up, we all went down to the pier, only to find the launch without a steering wheel. Looking out into the darkness, we could make out the figure of our shipmate, holding the steering wheel above his head..."Come and get it" he yelled to us...

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this aint no sh*t, one time while stationed aboard the tender in Kingsbay Ga., coming off a port and report rotation for a one week "evolution", the port duty section decided to all go out to the bar. The bar maid was a really good looking sweet little blonde southern belle named Trish. one of our single shipmates really took a liking to her and was hitting on her hard. After about two hours most of us had just about our fill of liquid carbs and were ready to get home, it was a long a week of port and report and most of had wives and families we hadn't seen in that time. Our single shipmate gave it one last try to get a date with the bar maid. The bar maid had enough at this point and had the bouncer eject our party. After being escorted to the parking lot I turned to our forlorn shipmate and tell him " Silly sailor, everyone knows that Trish aren't for squids".

 

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On 6/26/2011 at 9:32 PM, Guest Wayne77590 said:

Bill,

Seajay continues his stories on the iRV2 forum. He no longer posts, unfortunately, on this one.

Cecil hasn't updated his blog since 2012. I'm going to attempt to send him a PM through irv2.com if I can locate one of his posts there. The last email I received from him Willa had passed, and he wasn't doing well. Another version http://seajaythesailorman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

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