Front Matter
Prior to starting this wild expose of my naval career, I probably should explain a few things. In December of 1950 a friend of the family who was on the draft board told my parents that I was on the March list for the army. I went to the nearest navy recruiting station and took the test for Electronic Technician. Now this was a lark because I held a Commercial First Class Radio Telephone License from the FCC. I signed the enlistment papers and told them about the March draft date. It turned out I already had friends at Great Lakes, because a Yeoman from my home town, who was recalled for reserve duty during the Police Action in Korea got my test results and promptly expedited my enlistment. I was half way through boot camp when the letter to report for a pre-induction physical arrived. Now the Chief who was in charge of our company thought it would be real funny for me to show up for the physical in dress blues, of course the Captain of boot camp did not see it that way and said a letter to the draft board would suffice. This chief, was an officer who had reverted back to his permanent rank Chief Boatswain Mate so he could retire, ran a different kind of instruction than most of the others who had the same duty. He said he did not care if we could march or do the manual of arms, but we would know our seamanship when we left boot camp. He never liked the way I tied the bowline knot, to him I tied it backwards. I told him an old horse man taught me how to tie it so it would not chafe the horses neck with the bitter end of the rope on the outside of the loop. I also taught him how to tie it with only one hand which I had learned in Boy Scouts.
When I got to service school, the instructor was reading the résumé's of all the students and asked me to accelerate to the second half of the course. I asked him if he would give up 5 months of shore duty to get me to the second half, and he said no, so I asked him why he was trying to get me to give up 5 months of shore duty. It was not until the thirtieth week of the course in the Sonar Section that I found out why he wanted me to accelerate. The Commander in charge of ET school called me into his office and wanted to know what it would cost him for me to accept a zero lab grade for Sonar. I told him all I wanted was a ships company liberty card for the last 6 weeks of school. He gave me the card and said I saved him from flunking out half of the class. He also assured me that it would not affect my standing in the class as it only would cost 4 percentage points on my final average and no one in the class was close enough to pass me. The final test in the Sonar Section was on a day on which I did not get back from liberty in time eat breakfast and take my dress blues off so I went to school in Dress Uniform. I took the test and even got a perfect score. I went back to the Sonar Lab and tried to find a place to get a nap. The Commander happened to come through and when he asked Fink, who was third in the class, how he did on the test and the kid lit up saying he had got 100 on the test. He spotted me and came over to see how I did and when he smelled my breath and saw the dress uniform, he almost had a heart attack when I said got 100. When we started, the class has 137 members and when we graduated we still had 67 members we started sonar with.
The last three months on the USS Collett were also very interesting because they had started a First Class Mess in addition to the normal Chiefs Mess in hopes of keeping some of the First Class aboard even though most of them were reserve fleet with a couple of hash marks. The first class mess was a designated table in the enlisted mess, but we ate off plates and had a mess cook who fed us like a family style restaurant. I sure looked out of place at that table, just a kid and only three years, nine months in the navy. The Captain almost cried on my last day aboard the USS Collett because in addition to me he lost one chief, another first class, three second class, and five third class plus a seaman who had been busted several times. The chief was taking a discharge on the west coast and driving to Virginia to reenlist, the navy would not transfer him to the ship he wanted. The rest of us were just going home.
Coming Aboard
The USS Collett was actually the second ship I had served on, the first being PCE 899 (38 feet wide and 168 feet long may not really qualify it as a ship) based at 528 North Water Street Milwaukee Wisconsin. I came aboard the USS Collett in early October 1953 and served until February 1955. My naval career was a bit checkered in the assignments and various screwups therein. In March 1952 I had graduated top in my class at ET school, so consequently had first choice of billets. The Ninth Naval District had three billets listed so I chose one of them. Here is the first of the assignment screwups, I did not ask for leave, but they gave me 10 days to get to my new duty station, two city blocks away. I took my papers and promptly lit out for Minnesota. I showed up about an hour before the orders said were the latest I could report, and found out the next day that they really only had two openings so I was expendable. The Yeoman at the Ninth Naval District took me to Great Lakes Ships Company for reassignment to sea duty and then the fun began. He left me with a Yeoman who had a dire need for an ET at Great Lakes, and when he saw the paperwork he told me to sit down, he would process all of it and then personally deliver me to each place for check-in in his car, now when is ETSN going to argue with a Yeoman 1st class. When we finally arrived at Public Works Administration, he told the chief that he owed him a drunk (not a DRINK) because here was a living breathing ET. Now for the next 18 months, except for a summer hiatus on the PCE, I was fixing radios and television sets on the base. And on weekends I had to run movies in Boot Camp which paid $30 a month extra. Two nights a week I had to work in the service school hobby shop, another $30 a month. You may think that this was great duty, but it had its drawbacks, as the only Saturday and Sunday I had off were to attend my Grandmothers funeral.
When I left Great Lakes for the USS Collett, I had already taken and passed the test for ET2. Of course with the other screwups, the job code for me on my orders was listed as a striker. It seems that the Bureau of Ships did not like the job code I picked out of the book at Great Lakes, and they did not want to send me to Pearl Harbor for another 18 months of shore duty. They did not have sense of humor and listed my job code as a striker. Thirty one months in the navy and had not seen salt water yet. The PCE did not even use the evaporators to make fresh water, we just pulled out of line on the Lake Michigan or Superior and pumped fresh water aboard.
Crossing the big pond
The 1953/54 jaunt of the USS Collett started as usual at Long Beach, with a fast run to San Francisco to meet the carrier USS Ranger we were to escort to Hawaii. After we met the carrier, total radio silence was established and we took off slightly north of the path that would take us to Pearl. When we were northwest of the islands, the carrier launched two aircraft. The idea of the run was to make a sneak attack to test the readiness of the forces at Pearl. Those two pilots just flew in and landed at the airbase and parked the planes. They apparently went directly to the Officers Club and said nothing to any one. About an hour after the time they should have arrived at Pearl, the Admiral on the carrier broke radio silence and called Pearl looking for his planes.
Honolulu
The base personnel found the planes and when they found the pilots, they received a message that they were all dead because they had carried out an atomic attack on the base. This rattling of the cage of the base plus the earlier incidents after the Inchon invasion did not set well. To put it bluntly, when we arrived at Pearl, we were on their shit list.
At Pearl, the navy screwups came into play again. It turned out that I was the only person in section 3 that had a navy drivers license. Guess what, I got to haul the mail, prisoners to and from the brig, and the Captain wherever he wanted to go, and the other ET's had to do all the work.
One nice day in Pearl, we sent a few people to a submarine as observers for an ASW exercise. The rules of the game were the sub had to stay within a certain specified area, and they got a one hour head start from port. Now the four destroyers and the carrier took off looking for the sub and of course we were running fast to minimize their lead. The carrier puts up its helocopters with the dunking sonar and we all are pinging like mad trying to find the submarine. This lasted till about 1500 when the submarine called the group with her position in longitude and latitude and stated she had been on the surface at that position since 0930. It seems that they went out of the harbor and around the point until they saw us leave, then went back to the pier, which just happened to be in the specified area.
I happened to meet a few guys I knew on the USS Ranger in Honolulu and as we were walking down the street we see these signs "Out of bounds to DesDiv 91" or "Out of bounds to a particular ship in the division", and they asked me "What the Hell did you people do?". I told them it predated me, but the sitting ducks really had a party when they finally got to Pearl. There were about 9 from the USS Ranger and when we went into a bar I always hung near the back so they would figure I belonged with them and not check my liberty card.
The only pictures I took at Hawaii were at sea and the closest was about 8 miles out on the way to Japan. On the way back to Long Beach we did not stick around for 10 days of training. Quick liberty and head for home.
Midway Island
The stop at Midway Island on the way to Japan was a liberty stop. We were allowed to leave the ship while it was being fueled if we were not needed. I took my camera and went for a walk. That was about all we could do.
On the way back to the states, I did not take any pictures at Midway. We were the inside ship at the pier and therefore would be refueled last, before the run to Hawaii. The first one to Hawaii got to tie up to the pier and the rest tied up to her. The other three ships had been refitted with the 3 inch 50 caliper guns but we still only had the 40 mm guns. We were probably 100 tons lighter than the rest so we could get a bit more speed. I did not take a picture of the fan tail after we left for Pearl, but now I wish I had. The rooster tail we had as we were passing the other three ships must have been 30 feet high. We were in Pearl, tied up, and starting liberty before any of the other three showed up.
Japan
In 1953 the Sub nets from WW2 were still in use. The first thing you saw as you entered Tokyo Bay were the nets. The fishing fleet used boats that had a one cylinder engine that did not always fire on the compression stroke, and they would load up on fuel and belch giant smoke rings when they did fire. I only took a pair of pictures in the bay.
Yokosuka
This was our normal port of call when we were not sent to a specific city for liberty.
One of our wild escapades occurred when we came into port for replenishment from a ship that left the East Coast for a round the world tour and arrived about two hours ahead of us. Now at the time we were to be replenished, we had been in the Seventh Fleet for 30 days without coming to port. The Bos'n Mate went for an M boat and they rounded up every petty thief on the ship for a duty party. That M boat came back to the ship with no more than 6 inches of free board. When the Storekeepers saw this they called for all First Class and above for Master at Arms duty. It seems the work party also had be the record keeper for the supply ship. They took cases of steaks and yelled 20 pounds of hamburger as they went by to the M boat, and a case of fresh eggs was 15 pounds of powdered eggs. They got everything aboard and stowed and we got rid of the M boat and headed back to sea. The Captain decreed that everyone aboard would eat the same food. Some of the food that was brought aboard was destined for the officers club on the beach. For the next week all trash and garbage was in body bags and weighted down. We had eaten everything that was ill gotten goods before we were in port again.
I had Shore Patrol duty in Yokosuka and we were taken to the Marines who did most of the SP duty for indoctrination. They told us that we should just walk slowly in our assigned area. They said the SP's are not called unless it is a full blown riot, because they are carrying loaded billy clubs and the word in the bars is the marines will say he ducked when the sailor swung at his shoulder. Now as they began the lecture for the evening duty they had several demonstrations, such as, a 5 ft. 4 in. sailor moving a 6 ft. 3. marine anywhere he wants him to go. It was all a matter of placement of the end of the billy and how you grab the neck of his shirt.
We were tied up along side a tender in Yokosuka for some repairs that required the services of a tender. We asked the tender ET's to check the repairs we had jerry rigged on the air search antenna. Somehow the feed tube for the rotating joint had gotten broke. Our ship fitters welded it and the radar seemed to work fine, but until the new one arrived we wanted to be safe. They spent half a day on the mast and pronounced it in fine shape and probably will go downhill when we get the real part. A couple of days later we head back to Task Force 77 and are about an hour out of port when they are calling for the ET's to report to the bridge. When Curt Hinshaw and I get there they point up at the air search which is not rotating and said we had CIC stop the antenna. Then they pointed at the forward stack and said see the oil, something is leaking up there. I looked at Curt and pulled a quarter out of my pocket and said call it in midair. He won the toss and I said well I will climb up and find out what is wrong, but he said no he won so he gets to go. He is about half way up the mast when the Captain sees that he does not have a safety belt on and calls him back down. The Captain said he must be wearing a safety belt when climbing the mast at sea. So Curt goes for the belt and returns to climb up to find the problem. As soon as he opens the trapdoor on the pedestal and puts his head through the hole he starts to laugh and said the tender screwed up big time. He reaches through and picks up a 5 gallon pail and flings it over the side of the ship. When he gets down from the pedestal the Captain wants to know why he did not fasten the belt to anything up on the mast. Curt smiled and said you told me to wear it, not fasten it to anything. We had not climbed up in port after we tested the air search. It was probably as much our fault that the open pail of grease was left up there.
Shimone Seki Straits
When you left Yokosuka for Sasebo or the Seventh Fleet you went through the Shimone Seki Straits. We made several trips through them and one evening passage, about 2200 the collision alarm was sounded. I looked out the door of the ET shack and it was wall to wall fishing boats in the channel reserved for the military traffic. Some of them went down the side of the ship with only feet to spare, but we never hit a single one of them. We were leaving the Task Force 77 and heading for Yokosuka for liberty and not about to slow down.
Sasebo
We stopped several times in Sasebo for liberty. Two hills come to mind when I think of Sasebo, the navigational fix called Jane Russell Hill (It was on the navigation charts that way), and Heart Trouble Hill that led up to the EM club. Several of us just went walking around looking the city over one day and I took a few pictures. Of course we found some of the local bars.
This trip also determined exactly how many people it took to run the USS Collett. We were in Sasebo Harbor when somebody spotted a submarine in the harbor entrance. The powers to be on the beach called and wanted to know if we had steam up. The answer was we are tied to a buoy not the pier. They came back with get underway immediately, even though the Captain and Executive Officer were on the beach along with two sections of liberty party. I think it was the DeHaven who was tied up with us got the same orders. In getting ready to leave we found out they needed an officer and we were short a cook. If I recall correctly it was assumed that an Ensign at least rated a Cook striker. We got underway with about 110 enlisted men and half a dozen officers.and within 30 minutes had found the submarine. At the time the Operations Officer was a Mustang and he was the highest ranking officer aboard. We sent the recognition signal challenge to the submarine and got the proper response from the codebook that had been compromised earlier. He called the beach for authorization to fire on the submarine. They said no, but keep him down and follow him out to sea. After keeping the sub down for almost 24 hours we broke it off and went out to meet the ammunition ship that was coming over and escorted it back to Sasebo. When we entered Sasebo harbor, the blues were strictly dungaree and not Dress Blue as called for in the harbor protocol. The Lucky ones who were on liberty got to wear the same clothes for almost four days and they were getting a bit ripe by the time they got back to the ship. One bit of luck was that none of the ET's were ready for liberty when we got to port the first time and we were all aboard to help out where other operations division people were missing I was qualified for both radar and sonar watches at the time this happened, so I ceased being an ET and stood both radar and sonar watches and then slept for four hours before starting over. Everybody on the ship was doing double duty of some sort, and luckily nothing broke down while we were out to sea. Curt Hinshaw had to put up with Bloom and Gazins when he worked as an ET. He also could help out in CIC.
R and R
In early spring of 1954 they sent some of us up to Mt. Fuji for a rest. We took a train to Gotemba and a bus from there to Mt. Fuji. The pictures listed as Gotemba fall into two categories. Those that were taken on the way to Fuji View and those that were taken on the way back to the ship.
We were sent to the Fuji View Hotel for R and R. I culled the pictures from there to 20 for this because most of them were scenery of Japanese mountains. We rented motor scooters and went sight seeing around the lake. The picture of the school boy laughing is because we had an accident where on of the guys in front stopped and the guys behind did not and just plain ran over one of the others.
Nagasaki
We made a stop in Nagasaki and the one picture I would liked to have taken was the monument at the spot called ground zero. It had a plaque on the monument that said there would never be any vegetation growing here again. Funny thing, it had a great big vine rowing up and around the monument. It was too dark for colored film when we got there.
Hong Kong
We spent about a week in Hong Kong while Mary Sue painted the ship for us. The guy that built the Tiger Balm Gardens made his money with a hair tonic called Tiger Balm. As a kid I thought it smelled like a dead or dying tiger.
China Sea Patrol and Liberty in Formosa
After we left Hong Kong, we relieved the ship on patrol in the China Sea for our 4 days of boredom. The previous week had been nothing but bad weather and when we took over, the weather left and it was like glass on the surface. One day the weather was so nice the Captain stopped the ship and put the gig in the water as a rescue boat and let the off duty personnel go swimming. The duty section people that were not actually needed were to stand a shark watch on the bridge and O1 deck. We never saw a sign of a shark but we saw a lot of guys having a ball swimming in the China Sea. When we were relieved we headed for Kaoshung for liberty. I got woke up twice that night because the radarmen were reporting contacts that did not exist. It was one of those night where the surface search radar was getting second pulse echo. When I saw the picture on the repeater, all I did was switch to 150 mile range and show them Formosa. Then I turned down the power on the surface search radar so they didn't see the second pulse echo and went back to bed. That worked until about 0500 when the same thing happened. When I got up to CIC, I turned down the power again and asked the radarman on watch where his problem was. Then I went into the ET shack and asked if the ones on watch had ever heard of second pulse echoes. We had a course for the ones on watch in the morning about ghost echoes on the radar.
High Line Transfers
Twice during our sojourn in Task Force 77 we made high line transfers of people that I was able to get pictures. The first was for someone transferred to the USS Collett and we got him when we refueling from the USS Mispillion. The second time was for someone going home on emergency leave and we sent him to the USS Cone, DD 866, who was going into Yokosuka for liberty.
We did transfer some pilots to carriers via high line, but if we did not get Ice Cream in the high line basket when it came over the poor pilot had wet feet when he stepped on the carrier. It does not take a lot of slack in the rope if it timed correctly.
Refueling
At the time I came aboard the USS Collett, they still had not quite figured out if the ET's were part of the engineering force or some other division. Our fueling station was as talker on the ship to ship phones on the forward fueling station. As a newby I got the privilege of being the talker. They told me to listen to the Engineering Officer for guidance on the phone conversation.
The first refueling was from the USS Ranger and they were just giving use enough fuel to ride lower in the water till we got to Pearl Harbor and it was one of the more colorful refuelings and it took place while I was doing the phone duty on the forward oil station. The captain of the USS Ranger made the Band get out on the flight deck and serenade the troops. Now at the time the USS Collett had a pretty good Hillbilly band, a Hawaiian steel, a couple acoustic guitars, a fiddle and a banjo if my memory is correct. The guys went out on the torpedo deck and started serenading the carrier. This was not uncommon for the ship. Where it really become funny is when I met a couple of buddies I had on the Ranger on Liberty. The two ET's I knew on the Ranger had seen the band and heard them. They thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen because the Ranger Captain made the Musicians play as they did not have anything else to do during refueling, but a destroyer does not rate having musicians aboard. They also commented on the uniforms that were visible from the carrier. These poor souls had to work in undress blues and they counted nine different combinations of clothing on deck, but when the guy climbed out of the hatch leading to the forward boiler room with a railroad engineers cap and striped bib overalls it almost blew their minds.
The next refueling was from a fleet oiler and when I went out to the forward fueling station the officer in charge said start at 50 pounds and increase by 10 until I say stop. We get the hose over and in the pipe to the bunker and I asked for 50 pounds in the hose. The fuel is coming over nicely and the Engineer says pick up the pressure. I start adding 10 pounds and nobody complains. Well, when I got to 180 PSI in the forward hose the Captain of the oiler calls the bridge wanting to know what is going on. We were told to promptly reduce the pressure. All I was told is the Engineering Officer could tell by the whistle how the fuel was going into the bunker. We had the forward bunker full before the guys back aft even got the hoses secured. I had one more underway refueling before I wound up with a new striker.
One of the replenishments was from the USS Mispillion who was also refueling the USS Philippine Sea when we pulled up along side of her. I took 8 pictures of this operation, 6 along side and 2 after we returned to our position in the screen.
We refueled from the USS Guadeloupe in some rough weather. I took 6 pictures of this operation. For some one reading Frank Olderr's tale of replenishment the pictures here of the line handlers will illustrate what he was talking about.
Our collision with the USS Astabula did not leave as spectacular damage as other collisions on the USS Collett. All we had was a split in the hull about 40 feet long right though officer country. They used mattresses to plug the hole until we got to port. The split was above the waterline so it was not considered as a serious damage. The collision, however did get me invited to the Captains cabin.
We got a new striker aboard fresh out of ET School and we were going to refuel on the edge of a typhoon. The USS Astabula was ready to refuel the cans. We lost our port wind break in the storm the night before, so we were going to try to refuel starboard side to the oiler which was up wind. I told the striker not to worry if we got close to the oiler as we usually bounce off the about every third time we refuel. As we go in and hit the USS Astabula the Captain is yelling clear the bridge. Now the striker is standing there watching the USS Astabula go up and down as we are moving aft along her side. We tore a railing off one of her gun mounts and caved in the area where she has a windbreak.
After the Captain had everything settled down he called for Gazins to report to the his cabin. When he asked Gazins why he did not clear the area, his reply was Kiesling said not to worry because we hit the oiler about every third time we refuel. The next thing was for Kiesling to report to the captains cabin. The Captains only question was why did I say something like that. All I could say was I didn't want him to be scared out there.
While we were riding out the storm, I took some pictures from just outside the ET shack from behind the hedgehog mount. These six pictures were taken within a couple of minutes. I had no intention of getting soaked. I do not remember if they were taken the day we hit the USS Astabula or the next.
Training
When DesDiv91 was not part of the Task Force 77, we did independent steaming and training exercises. We had to tow a sled for target practice for the other three ships. With nothing better to do, I was watching the shells explode and counting the number of seconds from the gun firing to hitting the water. I decided to take a few pictures of the target practice.
Later on in this sequence of training exercises we had torpedo practice. I do not remember who our target was, but when we fired a torpedo at them it left the tube and everyone outside yelled that one was painted black. Our intended target was given a new course to steer and they turned before asking why. The torpedo was set to run at 8 feet and if the target happened to be there we would be a 3 ship group.
Plane Gaurd
The first few times we were on plane guard duty it was kind of interesting but after a few months it lost its glamour. I could not find the slides for Good Friday 1954 when a plane landed on the wrong carrier and sent a few pilots swimming in burning water. I will keep looking for them.
Mount 52 firing
When the new Captain relieved Captain Madley he stated that all ships orders will remain in effect until he changes them. It seems that when Peter Madley got his promotion to where he had scrambled eggs on his visor the officers under him presented him with his new hat. A little later they were having target practice and mount 52 fired back over the bridge blowing the Captains hat in the ocean. He immediately put in a ships order that mount 52 was not to fire beyond 90 degrees from the bow. I heard about this so when I had to work on the radar repeater on the bridge it did not bother me. Of course earlier mount 52 quit firing at the beam and the new Captain wanted to know why. He was told ships orders. He said if the gun can fire while he is Captain it will so no more stopping at the beam. I am all bent over with the back of my shirt tight working on the repeater when they fire mount 52 back over the bridge. My shirt split from the neck to my belt and I stood up wanting to know why they fired over the bridge. After the laughter stopped they said that order was rescinded and no longer in effect.
QM and BAR firing at Wiggle Boat
One of the ships standing orders was that a burst across the bow of a wiggle boat meant six feet back of the bow. We were steaming off Korea just outside the twelve mile limit when we came across this boat. They used the loudspeaker to hail him to stop, but it did not get any action. The Captain told the Quartermaster on the bridge to fire a burst from the BAR across the bow. The QM did his duty and neatly stitched a row of holes in that wiggle boat. Then the occupant came out with his hands in the air to surrender. All the Captain could see was his career going down the tubes after he shot up a neutral parties boat, but the QM said the ships orders are 6 feet back and that one did not explode. He changed the ships orders on that one in a hurry and said I think I had better read all the standing orders.
Gunnery Practice in Task Force 77
When we left for Japan, the USS Collett had not been completely refitted like the other three ships. We still had the old quad forty mounts where they had the newer 3 inch 50's. A quartering shot aft could get four mounts to bear on the target from a single gun director. The carriers all had these 6 foot wing span models that were supposed to simulate an actual aircraft. Some afternoon when the admiral had nothing better to do, he would have gunnery practice for his destroyer screen. The carrier would launch one of the model airplanes and they would go waltzing in and out of the cans until they got to us. The first time they would come in on the beam where the director could only use three mounts, but he would stand up behind that optical director and follow that target until it got in close and then he would hose it down with the 40 mm shells. After we had shot two of them out of the sky they called us and said we were supposed to shoot behind the target. The Captain immediately responded on the radio in person, saying I want my gunners to kill what ever they are shooting at, not scare hell out of it.
Cap-Con in Task Force 77
The ET's stood an all night watch and got to sleep during the day while the rest of them took care of the normal chores. I was not about to spend my nights in the ET shack so I went into CIC, drank their coffee and tried to help where possible. I was taught how to stand a radar watch for surface ships as well as the air search watch. When we had Cap-Con the lead radarman taught me the fundamentals of aircraft control. One night he put me on the repeater and stood back to check how I did on my own. The pilot up there was not one who took orders from an enlisted man freely. All he was supposed to do was fly a bow tie pattern, but he was all over the sky. I would give him a course to fly and he may not even come close. I kept calling him to change course until he called down wanting to know my name, rank and serial number. I promptly sent it up to him and before he could say a thing, another voice come over the radio wanting to know what his name rank and serial number was because he just had a conversation with the Flag Admiral. The rest of the night until a relief aircraft went up, I never had a bit of trouble with that guy.
Captain and Where are we?
One evening while we were steaming of Korea, the lead radarman asked me to take over for him for a couple of minutes while he went to the head. I was standing on the back side of the plotting table and the Captain who had been in CIC the whole time asked me "Where are we Kiesling?" and with a perfectly straight face I looked the chart for the 2000 fix and put my thumb over it pointing in the general direction that we were moving and said right about there Captain. About 30 minutes earlier he had asked an Ensign the same question, but the Ensign pointed at the chart with a sharp pencil. The Captain told him to prove it. This Boot Ensign had the audacity to ask the Captain why he did not make an ET prove it too. The Captain just smiled and said his thumb was covering 10000 square miles of ocean and we were under it.
North Star, Vega and the tail light of an airplane.
One evening while steaming in Task Force 77, the Captain wanted to find out how good his new Ensigns were on celestial navigation and had them all shoot the stars and calculate our position. The one that had his calculation done first apparently did not look at the chart on the plotting table in CIC or he would have noticed his error. It seems he shot Polaris, Vega and the tail light of an airplane. His position was in the middle of Greenland. For the next two weeks he shot the stars with the lead Quartermaster to learn which stars to use.
Gazins and the Radar Main Frame
Gazins the striker had been aboard about a week when he asked where the main frame for the air search radar was so he could grease it. Now there is nothing to grease on the transmitter so I told him it was in the after chain locker. Well he wanted to know where that was because no one had pointed it out during his indoctrination. I sent him back to the damage control men, and when he asked them where it was they knew they had a patsy and sent him down into the void above the shaft alley. Down in the bottom is a hatch cover secured with about 24 bolts and to get at it he had to move about two dozen flak jackets. When he got all of the bolts loosened on the hatch cover and lifted it off he got mad and started to climb out. The Chief said put all of the bolts back tight and put the flack jackets back like they were. Then the Chief told him to stop and think about how gullible he was falling for practical jokes like this.
Relative Bearing on a station change
Once during station change for plane guard duty an Ensign in CIC sent a relative bearing course for steering to the bridge. This took us right across the bow of the carrier, who backed down emergency to miss us. Now this carrier was the one that ran over the USS Hobson in the Atlantic Fleet and she almost got us. He received a long lecture on the difference between true bearing on the compass and relative bearing from the bow of the ship.
From this point on all of the descriptions are for things that happened after we returned to Long Beach.
Parallel the Shore Power and then drop our generators off line.
It was standard practice for the ship to come in and tie up to the pier, parallel the shore power and then switch over to shore power so they could shut the boilers down. This is not a simple operation because the light will go out if you are in phase with the shore generator of exactly 180 degrees out of phase. We came into Long Beach on day and an EM striker made the change over. We heard a loud Bang as the lights flickered on the ship, but went out on the beach. We still had power, but it seems half of Long Beach was in the dark. Our generator won the argument until the breaker popped. The next day after they figured out what had happened, a message was sent to all ships in the harbor that in the future they would power down connect to shore power and power up.
Sitting Ducks at Long Beach
In 1954 on the anniversary of the Inchon invasion we were tied up to a buoy in Long Beach Harbor. About noon a message arrived for the division as a whole from the Admiral on Terminal Island wanting to know if we were on his side or we belonged to some other navy. He listed the weekly list of weird things that happened. The USS Collett had the Captains gig tied to the fantail like a dingy behind a sailboat, and he never saw anyone wearing a normal uniform. The USS Swenson had left its masthead lights on all day. The USS Mansfield was flying the Union Jack upside down. The USS DeHaven had not bothered to turn on her masthead lights. And all four of the ships were flying a flag with Donald Duck on it at the Yardarm.
Reserves at San Clemente
During the summer of 1954 we had to pick up reserves at San Diego and take them on Kiddy cruises of a couple of days. One bunch was scheduled for gunnery practice at San Clemente Island. I was designated as a Master at Arms to keep a group of the on the torpedo deck to observe the gun fire. I had them all put on flak jackets and helmets. I told them precisely what to do when outside during the firing of the 5 inch guns, but they knew better and promptly wadded up cotton and stuck it in their ears and left the helmets unbuckled with no liner in it. I heard the bridge say commence firing but they did not and the first 5 inch broadside let go. Mount 51 crew had screwed up and loaded the gun with smokeless powder, and of course the place lit up. They fired star shells to light up the island, but some of charges were a little strong and the shells cleared the island, and lit up the bay on the other side where all the Mexican fishing boats anchored for the night. The guys in radio said that the transceiver we had on 2716 Khz really came to life with the chatter from the boats. The next broadside also produced an effect that I heard about in the Hofbrau Hous in Long Beach the following Saturday night. A couple of the rounds were white phosphorus shells and they hit close to the marines on the island who were watching a movie outside. One Sergeant I knew said he was on the island and he dug a foxhole with his bare hands when saw that Willy Peter explode. Now after two broadsides I asked the reserves what they thought of naval gunfire. Some of them were hurting so bad they had tears in their eyes. It seems those helmets like to bounce up and down if you don't have a liner in them and cotton in your ears does not help if you keep your mouth shut. They became believers in a hurry. After this escapade we always called the marines when were hauling reserves for gunnery practice.
Crusader Testing
This operation was a three day affair where we would go out at 0800 and meet the carrier that came out of San Diego. 5 Crusaders would fly out and land on the carrier and then we could go back to Long Beach. This does not sound bad, except the carrier was at anchor and we had to assume the normal plane guard stations with steam for 30 knots. When a plane would land, they would let us run in circles to burn off some excess steam. When the next plane was ready to land we would repeat the whole operation. On the way back to Long Beach we would request a water barge meet us at the breakwater. When we met the barge, we were generally down to a few gallons of fresh water. Everyone that was not needed in the engine rooms was sent up to the torpedo deck. All of us were scared that the boilers would explode while using super heaters while standing still in the water.
Cap-Con at Long Beach
On one of our training sessions while at Long Beach in the summer of 1954 we were out on radar testing where would try to find an aircraft flying in window. Now I wandered into CIC to get a cup of coffee and sat down at the new repeater to see if it was working correctly. Now we had been doing a lot of training so we knew the area pretty well by memory. I looked at where the target plane was and where the one dropping window was and told the CIC officer that the Swenson's radar was about to fail. He asked me how I knew that and I told him that if I remembered correctly, those two planes were flying through an ADIZ area. He brought the chart over to the repeater and we made a few measurements and he agreed with my assessment. One speaker in CIC had the Swenson calling us that their air search had failed and would we pick up the control of the aircraft. I was the only one in CIC that was qualified to control aircraft at the time, so I called the pilot and told him we had control. At the same time another speaker let us know that San Diego had scrambled two jets toward the intruder. I called the pilot that was dropping the window with the news. All he wants from me is the range to the jets. I start calling of the range in 10 mile increments and tell him my estimate of the speed is 600 knots. He said call him when they are 5 miles away and 1 mile away. This guy was flying an old TBM from WW2 and when I said 1 mile that plane literally stopped dead in its tracks. He called back and said thank you because he had never seen 2 jet jockeys that surprised. He said I dropped my landing gear, full flaps and hung it on the propeller.
Blowing Tubes in Long Beach Harbor
I was working on a radar repeater in CIC late one night in Long Beach Harbor and we were tied to a buoy. The night was overcast and the wind was blowing in from the sea, About 0100 I heard the loudest screech I had ever heard and it lasted nearly a minute. The next morning the Admiral on the beach sent a message to all ships in the harbor that blowing tubes was done only at sea. Most of the soot apparently came down near Rainbow Pier and the city was not happy. At sea all of the other noise from the ship kind off masks the sound of blowing tubes.
Whistle on New Years Eve.
They did not want the ships horn to sound at midnight on New Years Eve 1955. The procedure was to post a guard on the bridge, and lock the doors to CIC. Did this stop a determined bunch of sailors from tooting the horn, not on your life. They never even thought about the door to the chart house from the ET shack and we told them about the six inch gap in the pipe that the horn cable ran through in the overhead of the chart house. Promptly at midnight the horn sounded and it started horns going like wildfire in the harbor. To the best of my knowledge they still had not figured out how that horn blew when I left the ship in February.
GM hurt in Ammunition Hoist
If I remember correctly GMSN Brown got his hands caught in the ammunition hoist for mount 52. His hands were pretty well mangled up and he need to get to the hospital in a hurry. No matter what the radio room tried they could not get an answer from San Diego. I happened to be in main radio when this happened and said I can fix that, I went to the transmitter and tuned it just a bit off frequency and told Rudy Harrell to call San Diego with his priority message. NEL at San Diego answered him to tell him he was off frequency but they would forward his message on a land line. As soon as he was done with the traffic I put the transmitter back on frequency. Rudy said we could both get arrested for what we had done. He also held a First Class Radio Telegraphers license. The USS Collett was probably the only ship in the Pacific Fleet with two commercial radio operators aboard.
San Diego Hospital said they would dispatch an ambulance boat when we entered the harbor. San Diego Harbor has a 5 knot speed limit, but when we came around the end of North Island at nearly 30 knots we did not slow down. We had a big bow wash and the fishermen in the little row boats just acted like they were riding on a surf board as they headed for the beach dragging the anchor. They were all shaking their fists at us. We called when we entered port for the ambulance boat and we were almost to the dock where they tied up when we met them. When we went passed the end of the runway, a pair of jets were taking off. The tower saw us enter the channel and figured that we would not be a problem moving at 5 knots. Those two jet jockeys were really surprised when they met us at the end of the runway.
The ambulance boat came along side and Brown who was full of morphine for pain just climbed down the ladder to the ambulance like he was not even hurt. It was 3 weeks before they let him out of the hospital.
My quick trip down from the mast.
I had to check the feed horn on the air search radar and tagged all of the equipment to let the people know I was on the mast. As I crawled through the hole in the platform I flipped what I thought was the interlock switch as a secondary precaution. No one ever owned up to spinning the Air search antenna, but it rotated and sailed me off the platform into thin air. I hit the signal halyards and grabbed one. It slowed my fall so that when I hit the pipe on the pilot house where the halyards are tied off I did not break anything. All I had were a bunch of bad rope burns, so I picked my self up and headed for the transmitter room to find who was playing with the radar antenna. I suppose the racket of me hitting the pilot house got everybody out of the transmitter room. I then went to sick bay and all the medic could do was tell me to wash my hand with green soap and when they were dry stick them in the big jar of Vaseline he had on the table. He wrapped my hands in gauze after they were well coated. He gave me some pills and said come back in the morning when the Chief is back. Then he started bitching about why does everything have to happen after the Chief goes in Liberty. At the time this happened we were tied up to a tender in the harbor. The Captain was talking to the skipper of the tender and wondering how they could get more ET's when I went flying through the air, they thought it might be an omen that God was going to send some because they saw the whole thing.
The next morning, Saturday, I went to sick bay as directed and scared the Chief because he had not heard about the accident. His comment was I sure went to a lot of trouble to miss a Captains Inspection. He put new bandages on my hands and said go over to the tender until the Inspections are finished, and don't expect liberty this weekend. We went back out on training again Monday morning and on the first signal hoist of the day the halyard that held me broke with only four flags flying.
Ensign Carribini
It seems everytime I had a problem with an officer, it was Ensign Carribini. During one exercise where we were supposed to be changing frequencies for communication, Mr. Carribini took it upon himself to go into main radio and start changing which radio was going to which speaker in CIC. In the process he managed to get about four circuits tied together and a few not connected. When I got into the radio room, I told him to get back to CIC and out of the way so that I could straighten out his mess. He said he was going to put me on report for insubordination, and I told him he was not going to get a virgin, but if he insisted, I would place him under civil arrest for disrupting radio communications according to the Communications Act of 1934, because of my commercial licence.
He also had angered one of the Stewards in the Officer's Wardroom. One evening this stewaard brought him a very small piece of meat, a meager portion of potato and 3 peas. When Mr. Carribini said something about the portion sizes, the steward just said "Sir the navy said they would feed you, they did not say they would make you fat". This broke the Captain up and he told Mr. Carribini, "You have just been had."
When the Mustang who was the Operations Officer was transferred to another Can as Executive Officer, Mr Robinson was moved to Operations, and Mr. Carribini became the Electonics Officer. Now some place he got hold of an old book about preventive maintenance on electronic equipment and started to read it so that when he asked a question it would sound reasonable. That book was about equipment used before WWII and had nothing in common with the gear we used. He came up to the ET shack and wanted to know how many crystals we had aboard, I gave him a rough estimate of 600. Then he wanted to know how you clean a crystal, and I saw where this was leading. In the drawer of the work bench was an old crystal of the type you actually took apart and cleaned, so I told him I would show him how to clean a crystal. I took the screws out of the cover and showed him what the inside looked like. Then using a tweezers, I carefully removed the mounting tabs so the quartz could be removed. I told him you use an old toothbrush that is soft and alcohol to clean the quartz. I said you might need about one drop of alcohol for each crystal counting drips etc. on the average to clean it. He left and seemed happy with his new found knowledge. That evening he informed the Captain at dinner that he had written a chit to the Hospital Corpman to issue one pint of medical grade alcohol to the ET's every six weeks. About an hour later the chief steward was up in the ET shack stating that when we drew that alcohol, let him know before hand so that he could have the grapefruit juice ready and we all enjoy it. That Ensign must have sat down and calculated how much 600 drops was and wrote the chit out for that amount. The funny thing about the whole mess was he never asked if we cleaned crystals. Except for the old one in the ET shack all of the rest were hermetically sealed.
Miscellaneous
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