Best Friends
TM2 Fred Bergmann BU1 Dennis England PH3 Natoka Peden TM2 Richard Kala MR2 Marshall Swing CM2 Steven Faszcza BM2 Roy Jackson GM1 Glenn Fletcher
Chain of Command
LCDR J. Clancy 1977 LCDR J. Dixon 1978 LCDR F.B. Montague 1979-80 LCDR K. Brooks 1981 LCDR F.B. Montague 1982 LCDR D. Johnson 1983
Other Memories
Unfortunately, when I left active duty in 1975 the economy was down, and jobs for unemployed marine biology majors and ex-torpedomans mate hard hat divers in Southeastern Massachusetts were a bit scarce. I landed a job as a lifeguard at a state beach in Westport, Massachusetts. Horseneck Beach is very crowded in the summertime, being close to the cities of Fall River and New Bedford and featuring over two miles of fine sand. It is also an exposed barrier beach, and when the weather was windy the sea pushed up choppy surf and formed rip currents. Every summer multiple people needed to be pulled out of the water. This meant that the lifeguard positions were competitive. Candidates had to pass stringent written, fitness, and proficiency tests to be considered. The other candidates were mostly college jocks. I was 28. I've never been much of an athlete, but I was still reasonably fit from my Navy days. The pool test was held at New Bedford High School, and it included swimming many laps for time and demonstrating blocks, releases, and rescue techniques. One of these exercises involved towing a swimmer the length of the pool while keeping him in control while he struggled. I managed to get the 250 pound football coach as my 'victim,' but I somehow managed to get him all the way across, even though my arms didn't quite fit all the way around his body when he began to struggle. The beach testing consisted of more exercises in the surf and ended with a mile swim just outside the surf line.
Each morning began with an hour of physical exercises, alternating every other day between beach running and water rescue/sprints. The beach exercises began with warmup exercises, then a mile run up the beach to the last lifeguard stand on state property. Each stand was 100 yards from the next. We did a series of exercises, such as jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and squats, then lined up and sprinted to the next stand. He who came in last had to do extra sets while the faster runners caught their breath. I wasn't always last, but it seemed like it. As soon as Slowpoke finished his 'remedial' pushups, it was an immediate other round of exercises and another sprint. Upon returning to the administration/concession building, we then filed back into the dunes, broke into two teams, and ran relay races up and down the steep sand hills. You guessed it, the losing team had to go back again. On the alternate day, we'd practice rescues in the surf, swim relay races, and end with a long swim.
Since I wasn't one of the 'hotshot' guards, I was usually stationed on the far end of the line of stands, well away from the prying eyes of the administration building and head guard. Early mornings during the week were a bit slow way out in the hinterlands. I developed a routine of doing extra situps and pushups when nobody was in the water in front of my stand. We were given a half hour afternoon break, so I'd use the time to jog along the beach to the end and back, a distance of about 4 miles. Needless to say, at the end of the summer I was in the best shape of my life.
Young college guys can be very inventive practical jokers. The new guys soon learned not to eat lunch too close to the administration building, because someone would toss a bucket of water from the flat roof onto the picnic tables underneath. Toward the end of the season, the pranks tended to escalate, as victims plotted to get even. One time, someone sneaked back into the guard room, carefully removed the luncheon meat from a sandwich, and replaced it with dog poop. Another time, a revenge-seeker put a dead skunk into a miscreant's locker, putting his toothbrush into the animal's mouth and his sunglasses over the face. Another fellow had a reputation of taking other people's soap and shampoo, so an offended party replaced the shampoo with hair removing gel. I was a little older and I'd learned that participation in such puerile pranks never ends well, so I was content to observe from a distance.
I can't remember the exact date, but sometime in the summer of 1976 I made a fateful scuba dive at King's Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. At the end of a pleasant dive, I removed my fins and began walking out of the water. As I neared the shoreline, a shortish, gray-haired man approached me and said, "You're a Navy diver, aren't you?"
"Well, yes, I was a Navy diver, but I got out about a year ago. How"d you know that?"
"Your UDT swimmer's vest gave you away. Nobody wears those except for navy divers!"
My cover was blown. I had enlisted in Uncle Sam's Navy in 1970, and I had served on active duty until 1975. I was a Navy diver first class when I got discharged. Since I didn't have enough money to buy one of those new-fangled buoyancy compensators, I used what I had. One of my souvenirs of service, besides a slightly rearranged nose (the result of an unfortunate Cam Ranh Bay bar incident) and a lifetime of 'sea stories' was my faithful, if antiquated, UDT swimmers vest, complete with 2 carbon dioxide inflator cartridges.
My King's Beach acquaintance was TM2 Fred Bergmann, or Bergy for short. We chatted about navy diving for a while, and then he asked me if I wanted to re-enlist. A new diving reserve unit was being established at the Fall River, MA Reserve Center. Since I was working as a seasonal life guard for the stingy state of Massachusetts, the prospect of some added income outweighed my qualms of returning to the world of inspections, haircuts, "YES SIR!" and spit-shined shoes. The rest, as they say, is history.
The new reserve unit was designated as Harbor Clearance Unit 2, Detachment 201. The parent command was headquartered just south of Norfolk at Little Creek, Virginia. Because it was still in the formative phase of development, I became a 'plank owner,' and I served until 1983. The name was later changed to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit, or as we called it: 'Mudsue.' LCDR Dan Daglio has written an excellent history of MSDU reserve units 101 and 201, and I've uploaded his paper as a .PDF file to my profile on this website.
We drilled at the Fall River Reserve Center for the first few months, spent a few weekends at Fort Rodman in New Bedford, but we soon moved into space at the SIMA (Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity) Pier in Newport.
Anyone who has served time as a minion of Uncle Sam can tell you what it"s like to stay in the infamous 'transit barracks' as a lower enlisted man. Transit barracks are temporary quarters for enlisted men and usually consist of open bays of up to 80 or so bunks (aptly called 'racks' in the navy), stacked three high. Every fart or buzz-saw snore echos from the walls. At about 0200 the first rowdy drunks slam-bang their way through the corridors. Actual sleep in such an environment is impossible. Transit barracks are the usual accommodations for reservists on weekend duty or ACDUTRA. Fred owned a nice home near downtown Newport and took pity on me. He let me stay with him during weekend duty, and later when I got married, my wife would use Fred's hospitality as well on my duty weekends. For that, I remain forever grateful.
Part of the routine for reservist navy divers included the dreaded Saturday morning physical training. Since I was appointed the unit Diving Supervisor and was in pretty good shape, I lead the torture. We warmed up with such delights as 8-count bodybuilders, pushups, and 'hello-darlings' (my favorite), and then a 4 mile run up the 'Burma Road' on the Newport Navy Base. In the early days, Fred struggled and earned for himself the nickname 'Old Pear Shape.' In the last year of my service, Fred had slimmed down and became quite fit, while the civilian life had been a little too good to me, so our situations reversed. He took glee in that, and he was extremely proud when he completed Phase Training and achieved qualification as U.S. Navy Diver.
I had only returned to civilian life for a year, but I learned that my uniform was already obsolete. On our first ACDUTRA to Little Creek, I had to wear a suit and tie while everyone else wore their dress uniforms on the flight. When we got there, I could switch back to my old Seebee-style greens for daily use. I've recently seen yet another change to the Navy enlisted uniform. I have no idea what possesses the good folks down in Washington, D.C., but I wish they'd stop mucking around with uniforms.
There were now a few reserve detachments of HCU, a lot of ex-sailor volunteers, but not a lot of qualified divers to fill the ranks. I returned to NSDS in Washington in 1977 to requalify as a Diver First Class. Since I was the senior enlisted diver at the time, our CO, LCDR F.B. Montague, appointed me as the first unit Diving Supervisor. Because we were primarily civilians, and the full Diver Second Class course lasted for 12 weeks, relatively few people could get the time off from their civilian employers. To address this problem, Reserve Command established a 'phased' training curriculum in which classroom topics were presented during our weekend drills using study materials provided by the dive schools. The monthly classes were one of my assigned tasks.
The practical waterwork was accomplished during our annual two week "Active Duty for Training" (ACDUTRA) deployments. These stints were always done at our parent command, Harbor Clearance Unit Two, in Little Creek, Virginia. 'Little Crack,' as we not-so-fondly called it, wasn't exactly paradise in late June, as it was always stiflingly hot and steamy. Still, it was a good opportunity to practice our skills using equipment that we didn't have at home. During the early years, we used the heavy Mark V helmets. HCU was headquartered on a large barge moored to a pier, and nearby was a training barge moored over about 20 feet of water. The visibility ranged from a coffee-colored one inch just below the surface to pitch black at 20 feet, and there were lots of stinging jellyfish called 'sea nettles.' Instructors from the dive school ran the water training.
One of the training projects we performed using Mark V gear was to survey, patch, and raise an old recompression chamber which had been re-purposed as salvage project for dive students. There was just enough room to squeeze into the pitch black hatch in 20 feet of water. If you were going to ever become claustrophobic, this was the place it was going to happen. The diver then had to feel every square inch of the interior to find the holes cut into the hull. Then, knots were tied in a line to measure the dimensions of the hole, and a patch was fabricated topside. The next diver would install the patch, close the hatch, and attach the air hose. On another occasion we got to blow stuff up with a little demolition training.
At that time, divers were authorized to wear Seebee-style green working uniforms instead of dungarees. I had kept my hat block from my active duty days and crisply starched my 'cover.' As any old salt will tell you, you don't enter an interior space covered. Instead of having to carry the billed hat, you could simply tuck it into your belt at your back. One day, the unfamiliar mess hall food affected my digestive system, and I had to 'make a deposit' in the worst way. As I rose from the throne, I looked down, and to my horror there was my hat underneath a mound of excrement. Of course, I had no immediate replacement, and I had to rejoin my team back outside. So, I reached in, shook it out, wash my hat with copious volumes of soap and water, and wrung it as best I could. I went into the head with a crisply starched cover, and I came out again with a limp, drenched, wretched green mass on my head. No words were necessary. Everyone instantly knew what happened and burst out in gales of gut-wrenching laughter as I slunk behind the last rank.
PH3 Natoka Peden (later her surname became Hussy), whose nickname was 'Cricket,' was one of the first female Navy divers. Of course, being amongst the first of any group to break into a previously excluded activity means that there are grumblings and reservations from some. She never complained and was able to perform as well as the guys in whatever task was assigned to her. On one dive, in the heavy old Mark V rig, she shut the grumblers up for good. Climbing up a near-vertical ladder with your air control valve shut off isn't easy for anyone. On this particular dive, though, she was coming up especially slowly. You could see the derisive grins starting to form on a few faces as we urged her up each rung. As her tenders assisted her in doffing her diving dress, the legs of the suit gushed water. A leak had completely filled the legs of her suit with water, meaning that she had carried an extra hundred pounds or so up the ladder -- as she was breathing the last of the air in her helmet!
There was a lot to do during ACDUTRA, so we didn't have a lot of free time, but every now and then we'd get a day off. A few of us drove down to Virginia Beach. Because June in Virginia is hot, the beach was pretty crowded. We were enjoying a nice day, with some body surfing and lazing around in the sun, when I noticed that the lifeguards had formed a line a few feet out from knee to chest deep and were walking parallel to the beach. They were looking for a child who had gone missing. One of them bent over and lifted an inert body. In less than a minute, almost everyone for hundreds of feet up and down the beach jumped up almost in unison and raced down to where the guards carried the little girl ashore. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and I still remember the incident as if it were yesterday. On the way back to Little Creek, we stopped at a famous all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant called Captain Georges (well, Captain somebody).
We also performed some useful tasks during ACDUTRA. One of our first missions was to inspect the positioning of a vessel in a drydock. This was the last time we used the old Navy spun-aluminum scuba cylinders. Another task involved plugging a sea suction opening underneath the USS Texas (CGN-39) at the Norfolk Navy Base. The ship was huge and the visibility was zero, so my buddy and I (we only had scuba gear) held onto our lifeline with a death grip as we searched the hull for a very small opening in the blackness far underneath the surface (or so it seemed) while sea nettles stung every exposed patch of skin. On another occasion, we drove up to Port Charles Virginia, a short distance up the DELMARVA Peninsula to meet HCU's salvage vessel, the YSD-53. From there we steamed into Chesapeake Bay to an artificial island and assisted a team of regular Navy divers in inspecting the steel sheet piling that held the island together. A team of us inspected the hull of a ship in the Mothball Fleet anchored up the James River and later toured the ghostly interior of one of the deserted ships.
Three of us were assigned to a job which required us to be transported in the back of HCU's well-equipped dive truck. There was Bergy, myself, and another guy from our unit (Chief Kennedy, maybe? Damn, I forget). Anyway, one of us -- I'm not saying who -- had a little gas, just a tad potent. By the time we arrived at our destination, Bergy, who was maybe a little fastidious, was wearing a facemask and was breathing through a regulator from a scuba tank while the other two howled in laughter.
Det. 201 performed useful tasks during our usual monthly duty weekends back in Newport as well. The unit actually received a letter of commendation for a propeller change done for USS Manley DD940 that had to be done in a timely fashion to allow the ship to meet her underway commitment. We dived with our sister detachment, 201 up in Portsmouth, Maine on one weekend. Another noteworthy mission involved inspecting some submerged trackway on a Navy-owned island in Newport Harbor and resulted in a few of us divvying up a large bag of quahogs to take home. They were thick on the bottom and practically jumped into our 'goodie bags.' I had clam chowder for a week! One weekend we drove up to a pond in Lakeville, Massachusetts to locate and mark shallow rocks. A few weeks earlier there had been a tragedy involving young kids, a motorboat, and excessive speed. I don't think the rocks were to blame.
The unit also drove down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to survey a barge hull. I was very, very happy that I was assigned to be the Dive Supervisor, because New York's East River at the time was nasty. We didn't have surface-supplied equipment available to us, so the guys dived in regular scuba gear. There were brown lumps floating on the water, as well as white absorbent, ah, pads, with bright red streaks in the middle. Fortunately, nobody got sick.
In the early days we used scuba gear despite the obvious drawbacks for certain missions because that was what we had. You're given a mission; you do it as best you can. Our workshop in the SIMA building included several full sets of gear. An active duty person assigned to the Reserve Center was responsible for getting routine maintenance done. It would have been much more efficient, however, if each of us had been assigned equipment exclusively for our use. Instead, it sometimes took half a day to get equipment checked out for a dive and check it back in at the end of the weekend.
The late 1970s marked the transition from the old Mark V and Jack Browne diving systems that had served the Navy for many decades to newer equipment: the Mark 12 helmet and the Mark 1 lightweight band mask. The unit acquired a portable compressed air system called the 'Roper Cart' so that we could deploy surface-supplied operations away from the shore facility.
I spent another summer, 1977, as a lifeguard at Horseneck Beach. Again, I ended the summer in tiptop (well, for me) shape. In early 1978, I was hired as a field biologist for Northeast Marine Environmental Institution. We collected specimens from the sea for various researchers and universities, and we lead field excursions for school groups from elementary schools through the university level. I had many adventures, but none pertain to this essay or this forum. One of my reservist shipmates from Det. 201, Jack Johnson, was employed at the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth on Cape Cod. On one weekend drill he mentioned to me that the current Diving Officer, Mr. David Owen, was retiring in 1980 and that I should apply for the job. I had earlier looked into employment at WHOI and it's sister institution the Marine Biological Laboratory with no success, so I wasn't too hopeful, but what the Hell... To my surprise, I was asked to come in for an interview -- with the entire Diving Control Board individually. In early 1980 I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had won the position of Diving Safety Officer at the WHOI. One of the requirements of my new job was to teach diving to scientists who needed to dive to further their research interests. I started work lacking a scuba instructor certification, but I was given some time to obtain the necessary 'ticket.' After researching the various 'alphabet soup' of scuba certifying organizations, I settled on applying to participate in an ITC (Instructor Training Course) leading to certification in the National Association of Underwater Instructors beginning in August at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Most of my colleagues at other universities at that time were NAUI instructors, and the organization enjoyed an excellent reputation. One of the other candidates at that ITC was my future wife, who later became employed at the MBL and later at WHOI as a Systems Librarian. On March 31, 2010, Maggie and I retired on the same day after a 30 year career. So, my Navy connections lead to my successful career and marriage.
In late summer or early autumn of 1980, an air force warplane crashed into the sea about five miles east of Jonesport, Maine with the tragic loss of both crewmembers. Salvage vessel USS Preserver (ARS-8) steamed up from Little Creek to recover what remained of the aircraft, which had broken apart upon entry and was scattered over a wide area in over 150 feet of water. The ship had been deployed on site for about two months, and the work in the stormy Gulf of Maine was becoming exhausting. Our parent command, MDSU-2 made a request to our detachment for volunteers to augment and relieve the regular Navy divers for a two week deployment. MR2 Marshall Swing, TM2 Fred Bergmann, and I volunteered on short notice, made arrangements at home and at work, and met the ship in mid November.
It was a bit of a drive from Newport up to Maine, but our adventure really started when we got there. Our first destination, the Bangor Reserve Center was dark and closed. We called the Bangor Police department to see if they knew where the ship was, and they sent us on to the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Jonesport. From there, we got directions to the pier where the Preserver was moored.
The water in the Gulf of Maine in November is challenging to say the least. The water is cold, winds can whip up a sea quickly, and at 150 feet it is as dark as night. All of the diving was surface-supplied using the new Mark-12 system. Instead of being inside a round copper dome with four small windows, the Mark-12 helmet was a lightweight yellow Lexan plastic with a large flat faceplate. Communications with topside were excellent, although the hat, having a continuously flowing air supply, was still noisy. The shoulder-zippered foam drysuit was warm and comfortable. In fact, it was warmer to be a diver in the water than tending topside in the bitter wind. A nylon jumpsuit on top of the drysuit provided not only chaffing protection, but it also had pockets for specially shaped lead weights. It was a lot more comfortable, if less romantic, than the old Mark V.
Because of the depth and bottom time requirements, all dives required mandatory stage decompression. Preserver carried a recompression chamber, and the decompression procedure, called Sur-D (surface decompression), involved an abbreviated decompression stop at 40 feet, a five minute time frame to get the diver topside, strip off his gear, into the chamber, and repressurized back to a pressure equivalent to 40 feet in sea water. There the diver could decompress in the relative safety and comfort of the dry, heated chamber while the dive station was made ready for the next team.
In dive school, you exit the water onto the training barge by climbing up a steep ladder. In the fleet, however, ascents and descents are done by means of a stage. After dressing into the gear while seated on a stool, the diver is guided by his tenders to the metal framework stage and stands while holding onto a railing. The other diver in the team enters the stage, and it is lifted by the use of a winched line over the ship's rail and into the water. After a final leak and communications check, the master diver gives the signal to lower the stage to the bottom. If a diver has ear equalization problems, he shouts out "Hold Red" (or yellow, green whatever color identifies him), and the stage is halted until he can clear. On the bottom, the diver shouts out, "OK Red" and the master instructs him to take a vent to purge any excess carbon dioxide from the suit. The divers always back out of the stage on the opposite side to that which they entered, so the umbilical always trails back to the divers' "elevator to the surface." The then search the bottom in the area surrounding the stage, and if something is found, they notify topside and place the object into a weighted bin that is also lowered to the bottom. Anything too large or heavy to be placed in the bin will need a cable or line to be secured to it.
In the week prior to us meeting the Preserver, one of the regular ship's divers had somehow fouled his umbilical underneath one of the aircraft's engines, and it took several hours to get him up. Salvage diving is no easy task.
Our unit received a nice letter of appreciation from the Commander, Naval Reserve Readiness Command Region One.
We were again requested to supply volunteers in 1981, this time as test subjects for an experimental chamber saturation dive at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut. Steve Faszcza (pronounced "fazz cha." That's OK, everyone butchers my French Canadian name, too), Marshall Swing and I volunteered for one of the two sets of experiments. Ours was called SUREX II, and the other was AIRSAT.
The purpose of the experiment was to gather information and develop procedures "for use in transferring from a pressurized submarine rescue craft to a decompression facility, should a pressurized submarine rescue become necessary, to further knowledge of nitrogen elimination and the relationship to decompression sickness, and to provide emergency surfacing and decompression protocols for both Navy and civilian operational nitrogen-oxygen saturation diving. " (quote from subject information document).
We reported to the Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Groton, Connecticut in mid-September and spent the first week obtaining baseline medical, psychological and physiological data for each of us. We performed a basal metabolism test on a stationary bicycle while breathing a measured amount of oxygen and expiring a measured amount of carbon dioxide. Then, we entered the experimental chamber, which was an extra-large double lock recompression chamber about 20 feet long by 8 or o feet in diameter. It was roomy, but remember, once pressurized, you couldn't leave. I have to admit to a very strange feeling when the outer hatch closed and I realized that, no matter what, I couldn't leave my metal prison for 8 days. The days, however, were filled with activities and passed quickly. We saturated at 45 feet for 24 hours, then the outside tenders quickly lowered the pressure back to sea level. After a few minutes, we were re-pressurized back to our storage depth. Various physicians and technicians then locked in with us and performed various tests. Blood was drawn to test for gas phase changes. An eye doctor looked into our retinas to look for evidence of tiny bubbles. We performed lung function tests using a spirometer. We tested our hand strength using a calibrated squeeze device. The pressure was increased several times during the week, and the surface excursion and various tests were repeated. So many blood samples were taken that the phlebotomist used our other arms. By the end of the eight day experiment our arms looked like they belonged to a junkie. In the evening, there was a movie. We got to choose our meals from a reasonable list, and the food was sent to us via the small medical lock.
What we didn't have was privacy. Our every move was monitored by cameras, and of course we couldn't get away from our fellow prisoners, err, subjects. A portable toilet was set up in the outer lock, but we were not allowed to shut the hatch to the main chamber. Everyone delayed the first bowel movement for a couple of days, because we all knew that each of us had a camera. Remember, you NEVER trust your shipmates with a camera! Marshall was the first to 'go.' I pity the poor lowly hospital corpsman who had to clean the toilet!
Unfortunately, I volunteered for one project too many. As a new hire, I couldn't get unlimited time off to participate in Navy games. So, I had to miss ACDUTRA one year, and that resulted in having a 'bad' (incomplete) year. I was also concerned that I couldn't progress in rank. For one thing, I'd never worked as a TM, and the training in 'A' school was on totally obsolete WW II-era fish. There was no way that I could or would reactivate to go to 'C' school. Also, the course book had a section of pink pages in the middle: confidential to secret material. This meant that I'd need to commute on my own time to the reserve center to study a subject for which I had no aptitude or interest. I put in a request for a change of rate and extended my enlistment for one year. The request passed from the command to the reserve system to BUPERS in Washington, but it eventually came back denied because the TM rate was 'critical.' So, I was at a crossroads. On the one hand, I had many adventures over 12 years and enjoyed the camaraderie of the part-time Navy, but on the other hand my Navy career was stuck. Others were getting promotions. I had a pretty good civilian career and wasn't as desperate for extra money any more, and weekends were getting more precious. So, I decided that it was time to move on. My last drill was in June, 1983.
My last Navy dive was a search and recovery mission at the SIMA pier in Newport. It seems that a Portapotty had gone missing from the pier, and we were asked to search for it. After swimming the entire periphery of the pier we failed to locate the missing 'shitter.'
I heard a few years later that my good buddy TM2(DV) Fred Bergmann was very ill. He had developed an abdominal cancer. He passed away in the summer of 1986. I received a telephone call from one of the guys in Det. 201 asking me if I'd like to participate in a memorial service and in scattering Bergy's ashes off his beloved King's Beach in Newport. Of course, my immediate answer was "Yes!" before he could finish his sentence.
Bergy was exceptionally proud of qualifying as a U.S. Navy diver, so it was fitting that his old shipmates bid farewell as we committed his remains to the sea. The uniform of the day was diver green work shirt and cap, UDT trunks, and gray coral shoes, just as we wore so often on dive station. Of course, being the packrat I am, I kept the stuff in my old seabag. I carefully starched the shirt and hat, as did everyone else. We were so squared away that you could practically cut your fingers on the sharp creases. We stood in a circle on the beach, while LDCR Simonson played taps with his bugle. About halfway through, a brief, but intense cloudburst drenched us. All the starch in everyone's uniform wilted and ran down in great white globs. To a man, we knew that Fred was up on that cloud having fun with us one last time. Then, we swam out about a hundred yards offshore in a column of two, formed a circle over the deep water, and passed the box containing Bergy's ashes to each man until it was empty, and silently swam back to shore. We then all drove downtown to Bergy's favorite watering hole, a place called Friends, toasted him liberally with his favorite beverage (Mt. Gay rum, seltzer water, and lime juice), and recounted our favorite Bergy stories.
Rest in peace, my friend. You are greatly missed.
Epilogue:
MDSU Two, Detachments 101 and 201 are now part of history, having been disestablished a few years ago. My old ship, the Coucal, was sunk as a target in 1991. NTC Orlando, where I attended TM "A" school, is now a civilian community. The dive schools at San Diego and Washington, D.C. have been moved to Panama City, Florida. Navy Diver is now a rate instead of an additional qualification. The equipment that I used, such as the Mark V and Mark 12 systems, have been obsolete for years. Naval enlisted uniforms have been changed yet again. Even my old rate, torpedomans mate, is no longer, having been consolidated with the Gunners Mate rating. Damn, I feel old! The world moves on, but people and places don't disappear as long as someone keeps their memory alive.
To bring this story full circle, I rummaged around in my basement and discovered that the fateful UDT swimers vest still existed over 3 decades since myfirst encounter with Fred Bergmann at King's Beach. Both the vest and its owner are a little corroded around the edges, but we're still here. By the way, it only has one CO2 cartridge. So much for my failing memory!
My wife and I occasionally get down to Newport. Parts of the city haven't changed at all. We always make it our obligation to walk up to South Baptist Street past Bergy's old house. A few weeks ago, I noticed that the name 'Bergman' is on the mailbox. Nice to see that it was passed to someone in the family.
----------------------------------------- Well, dear reader, we've come to the end of the saga about my military life. I hope that I didn't bore you too much. Yes, I realize that I was, shall I say, verbose (some might say, "diarrhea of the keyboard"). But, I didn't write this for you. I did it for me. A few years ago when I started to scan my collection of ancient pictures and memorabilia into digital format, I began to remember scenes of my lost youth, of times, places, and people now gone. As I began to type my recollections, the memories just flooded into my brain, and I couldn't stop until I came to the end. It was a catharsis, I guess. My getting 'stuck' in rate was a disappointment, even though I never intended in the beginning to make it my life. If I could have made E6, I would have stayed in the reserves for 20 years to collect some retirement benefits. If I could have made E7, I would have stayed in longer. But, still, I had some great times and opportunities. How many people can say that they trained dolphins in a war zone, or walked on the deck of a sunken submarine in a 'copper pot?' I found my civilian career and family through my Navy connections. I came back with all of my fingers and toes, no PTSD or other psych. issues (well, maybe some would argue with that), and I collected a lifetime of 'sea stories' with which to bore people.
Thank you, TWS, for allowing me to post my ramblings and photos. I really don't expect too many readers, well, none actually, to pore through it all. After all, with over a million profiles here, there is the anonymity of being in the crowd. But still, they exist here, rather than getting tossed into the trash when I go.
Criteria This medal is a continuation of the series of medals established by Congress to commemorate polar expeditions. Specifically, it is awarded to any member of the Armed Forces of the United States, any U... This medal is a continuation of the series of medals established by Congress to commemorate polar expeditions. Specifically, it is awarded to any member of the Armed Forces of the United States, any U.S. Citizen, or any resident alien of the United States who, after January 1, 1946 has served or serves on the Antarctic Continent or in support of U.S. operations there. MoreHide
Description I received this medal in 1995 as a civilian, long after my discharge from the USN and USNR. My civilian occupation, from 1980 until I retired in 2010, was Diving Safety Officer at the Woods Hole Oce... I received this medal in 1995 as a civilian, long after my discharge from the USN and USNR. My civilian occupation, from 1980 until I retired in 2010, was Diving Safety Officer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. I participated in a scientific research cruise sponsored by the National Science Foundation in October - November 1994 in the Southern Ocean from the South Shetland Islands to Palmer Station off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula aboard the R/V Polar Duke. Civilians as well as military personnel are awarded the Antarctica Service Medal for participation in research or support activities. MoreHide
Best Friends
OS2 Dan Aguilar GM2 Ben Goss RM2 Bob Faries RM2 Wayne Aaberg EN1 Ward
Chain of Command
CO LCDR Benites (1972- 1973) CO LCDR B. Barrows (1973 - 75) XO LT Fisher
Other Memories
I arrived at a new duty station in Hawaii for the second time in my Navy career on November 22, 1972. This time I was assigned to the USS Coucal (ASR-8). The Coucal was a Chanticleer class submarine rescue ship built during World War II. Her primary mission was to rescue trapped personnel from a sunken submarine, and she also had the capability to salvage the stricken vessel. Several submarine tragedies had occurred in the early years of the 20th century, and the Chanticleer ASRs were designed based on the lessons learned from the famous Squalus rescue of 1939. About one third of her 100-man crew was dive qualified. Coucal could also provide other towing, salvage, and diving services to the fleet.
I checked in during a maintenance period, and the entire exterior surface of the ship was painted in red lead. Since it was also approaching the Christmas season, the Deck Department had also painted the four 20-foot long salvage buoys, called 'spuds,' in a white and red candy cane pattern (they are normally a bright 'international orange' color). I was assigned to the Salvage Department, which was responsible for maintenance and repair of the diving equipment. We had over a dozen Mark V ('mark-five') helmets set up for either air or heliox operations as well as lightweight Jack Browne and scuba. The Salvage Department was located aft, below the fantail area of the ship.
Most of the divers were 'divers first class,' having passed an additional 17 week course in Washington, DC and qualifying in salvage, McCann Rescue Chamber Operations, mixed gas ((helium-oxygen), recompression chamber operations, and explosive demolition. Second class divers, also known as 'common air breathers,' were truly second class. ASR operations were so important to the diving Navy from before World War II to the early 1990s that a career navy diver would have served on at least one during his career, and indeed, it was mandatory for Master Diver Candidates to have extensive ASR experience. Many years later I learned through the Internet that Master Chief, Master Diver Carl Brashear (made famous as the subject of the movie 'Men of Honor') had served aboard Coucal ten years earlier than me.
The old girl displayed quite a few battle ribbons and commendations. She served during World War II, Korea, and the Vietnam wars. She also participated in the Bikini Atomic Bomb testing in the late 1940s. She spent time in Turkey training Turkish divers submarine rescue techniques. She never, however, fulfilled her primary mission, because after the Squalus, no submariner rescue operations were ever successfully attempted. I learned many years later that Coucal was decommissioned in 1977 (only 2 years after I left her), and her last service to the fleet was as a target for a ship-fired missile in 1991. The last of the ASRs were also decommissioned in the 1990s, so the entire class of ship is now extinct (I'm not there yet, but I'm sure getting creaky and grumpy).
Berthing was a little different than I had been used to while attached to the Naval Undersea Center or at various schools. E-5 and below berthing was open bay with the racks stacked 3 high. The sleeping surface was the thin mattress-covered hinged top of a thin aluminum box, which was your personal clothing locker. Ah, so that's why they make you learn how to fold all of your clothing in boot camp! A metal barrier separated me from the man next to my rack, and there was a privacy curtain running on a bar the length of the other side. About 2 inches separated my nose from the metal of the rack above me. On my first night aboard, the red emergency light was out, so at lights-out, it was pitch black. I remember waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat on the deck beside my rack. I had been dreaming that I was in a coffin. Of course, I put my hands up, felt cold metal, then rolled over to my right... more cold metal, gave a shout, and rolled off my rack. This happened one more time a few days later.
After New Year, the ship was back in active status, and we put to sea. My at-sea watch station was in CIC. OS2 Dan Aguilar was my usual co-watch stander. Mostly we tracked contacts on the radar screen and reported their movements to the bridge, taking periodic range and bearing readings. Sometimes the OOD would run a man-overboard drill, and the BMs would toss a dummy, called Oscar, over the side. Then, we'd have to track the ship's movement using a plotting board.
During peacetime, not a lot of submarines or other ships sink, but we spent a lot of time at sea anyway. When a submarine first went to sea after a major overhaul for sea trials, the Coucal would accompany her for a few days. Also, we played 'target' during war games or to give prospective submarine COs and XOs practice stalking their prey. Since submarines are not designed to moor at standard piers or to anchor easily, Coucal also provided rafting services. We would tie up at a pier or anchor offshore and a sub would tie up to us. Then, the submariners would use our quarterdeck to go ashore or our utility boat would ferry everyone to "the beach" for a well-deserved liberty.
On one occasion, Coucal performed a burial at sea a few miles off Pearl Harbor. Members of the deceased's family and a clergyman (can't remember if he was a civilian minister or a Navy Chaplain) were onboard. All crew members not on watch were in dress whites, and an honor guard stood at attention on the voyage out. The Deck personnel had installed a temporary platform. The deceased was shrouded in what looked like a weighted white canvas bag, and all was covered in a large American flag. We all stood at attention in ranks during a brief service, and then the board was raised and the deceased slid over the side under the flag. I remember that the sound of the canvas sliding was very unnerving.
Once a quarter, the ship steamed over to Lahaina, Maui to practice submarine rescue operations. A few years before I came aboard, the Navy had prepared and sunk a decorated WWII submarine, the Bluegill, about a mile or so off Lahaina in 130 feet of water. All of the hatches had been welded shut to keep curious sport divers from entering, and the sub had been perfectly laid right-side up on the bottom. During the trip over, the entire crew rigged the ship to perform a four-point moor. The heavy mooring chain had to be hauled from the chain lockers, inspected, set up, and laid out on the deck. There were four chains, one for each salvage anchor that made up the four-point moor. Each length had to be a certain length, depending on the depth of operation. The basic lengths, or shots, were 90 feet long and were secured together with removable links. Then, one end of the chain was secured to the anchors while the other was secured to a heavy nylon mooring hawser, which in turn was secured to the spuds. The spuds were hollow steel cylinders rounded at each end, painted 'international orange,' and clad with wood sheathing. It was hot, exhausting work that took between six and eight hours to set up. The ship steamed a cloverleaf pattern and dropped each anchor in a perfect box around the downed submarine. The spuds were not yet connected to the ship, so the utility boat was launched to connect mooring lines to the spuds. Once attached, the ship was a stable platform from which to search and conduct rescue and/or salvage operations. Instead of using the propeller to maneuver, the ship could be precisely maneuvered over the wreck using winches and capstans to let out or take in mooring lines.
As soon as Coucal was securely moored over the submarine, a team of scuba divers was deployed to clean off the escape hatch and install a cable. If there was a real emergency, the submarine would deploy an emergency buoy at the hatch, but we had to install a connection each time we practiced on the Bluegill. All divers then set up the surface-supplied dive stations. The hats, weight belts, dresses (yes, the canvas/rubber hard hat suits were called 'dresses') were carried up from the Salvage Locker, umbilicals connected and figure-eighted on deck, and the divers' stage was assembled. The first part of the dive operations used the air helmets, so all of the second class divers dived first. Diving operations used a lot of people to get one team into the water. Each diver had two tenders, who dressed/undressed the diver and tended his umbilical. A standby diver was 'hatted' first, seated and his helmet tied off to relieve the weight from his shoulders. Of course, the standby diver had two tenders. Then, there was a phone-talker, who communicated with the divers and wrote down data. In charge was the Master Diver. When everything was ready, the divers were guided to the stage, stepped in, and held onto a bar for support. The stage was lifted over the side and lowered into the water by winch (requiring a winch operator). If everything checked out, the stage was lowered to the bottom (or to the deck of the practice submarine) at a certain speed. The second phase of the diving operations was mixed gas using a helium-oxygen mixture specially formulated for the depth. Because the heliox Mark V helmets were much heavier than the air hats, the divers had to be hand-winched to the standing position so they could shuffle over to the stage.
Dives were usually conducted using "SUR-D" procedures (surface decompression), in which the decompression stops in the water were shortened, the diver brought to to the surface, stripped of his gear and brought into the chamber in less than 5 minutes, and decompression completed in the relative comfort and safety of the recompression chamber. Coucal carried two recompression chambers.
Nobody liked to be the standby diver. In an emergency the standby diver had to be ready to enter the water quickly, so he was completely dressed and hatted. Since it was inefficient to keep changing the standby, once you were hatted, you generally were in the suit for up to four hours. The Mark V helmets were heavy, and they painfully pressed down on your shoulders on the surface (the hat was buoyant underwater because of the air space). There was a cushion you could put over your head onto your shoulders, but nobody used it because it was considered a weakness to use the "pussy pad." So, your tenders would use manilla line to tie your helmet to the overhead. The little front port of the helmet was left open, but it still felt like you were encased inside a tiny cage. Many of the divers smoked. It was impractical to smoke in the usual way because you couldn't easily reach into the helmet while fully suited up, and you couldn't easily flick the ash outside. To satisfy nicotine cravings of the addicted, the tenders would light a cigarette and insert the base into the secondary exhaust port (spitcock). The smoker could then make a seal on the little hole on the inside of the helmet and inhale. Unfortunately for those of us who were nonsmokers, the stink lingered inside the helmet for a long time, so being hung up as a standby diver meant smelling an ashtray for several hours. You could, however drink from a cup by yourself, so if your tenders were kind (remember, you'd be their tender at some time), they'd bring you a cup of coffee. However, you had to be stingy with your liquid intake, because it wouldn't have been pleasant to pee inside your deep sea dress!
The third phase was deployment of the McCann Submarine Rescue Bell down to the escape hatch of the submarine for simulated rescue operations. All of this would take place over several days. When everything was completed, the utility boat ferried those not on watch to the 'beach' for liberty.
Lahaina was an especially popular liberty port, and everyone enjoyed the famous Pioneer Inn. The waters off Hawaii were once important whaling grounds for ships from New England. I was surprised to see the old whaling port of New Bedford, just across the Acushnet River from my home town (Fairhaven, Mass.) noted in a map on the Pioneer Inn walls, half a world away.
Although we spent a lot of time off Oahu and Maui, we also operated off Kaui as well. On my first cruise aboard the Coucal we anchored off the south side of the island and did some snorkeling and scuba diving. Unfortunately, I had duty the only night we had liberty there. I had shore patrol, though, and rode a police cruiser all around the island. Unfortunately, it was a pitch black moonless night, so although we drove just about everywhere, I saw nothing of the island. I think I still have a key chain from the Kaui Pizza Palace, though. Another time (March 1975) we were involved in multi-nation war games, called RIMPAC, north of the island, involving ships from the U.S., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Coucal's mission was to pretend that it was a Russian fishing trawler spying on the fleet. A contact on the radar turned out to be an abandoned life boat drifting at sea. We recovered it and returned the boat to Oahu.
We didn't always lay a four-point moor when we steamed to Maui. On one occasion, we anchored off Lahaina, and the Barbell tied up next to us while on a dependents cruise. Another time, we docked at Kahului for a few days and a Canadian submarine, the Rainbow tied up next to us. She was an ex-U.S. diesel sub. Those of us who toured the boat were in awe of the British Commonwealth alcohol policy on their ships. There was a beer machine aboard! In the evening while in port, the forward torpedo room was transformed into a bar! One night, I stood the 8 - midnight quarterdeck watch while the sub was recharging its batteries. The diesel smoke was blowing directly across our quarterdeck, and it was miserable until the watchstander on the Rainbow took pity on us and brought a few beers over for us. Well, it was after 10, and the duty chief and duty officer had already made their appearance and disappeared below, so what the hell. It made the rest of that stinky watch tolerable. A few of us chipped in the next day for a rental car, and we drove around the island. The road to Hana was a two lane country road with great views, but it often skirted vertical cliffs so it kept you on your toes while driving. We stopped and picked up passionfruit and guavas which grew alongside the roadway for snacks. Our rental agreement specifically forbade driving on the unimproved path past Seven Sacred Pools, but we were young & dumb and continued anyway. The terrain turned from tropical rainforest to grassland with horses and cattle and then into desert. A few sections were barely passable, but we finally made it to the highway on the other side.
We didn't always steam to Maui to lay a moor and to practice surface-supplied diving. One time we conducted diving operations off Pokai Bay, just north of Pearl Harbor. As I was kicking around the bottom in an air Mark V helmet, I spotted the most beautiful head of coral, and I decided to put it in the stage and clean it up later. After my tenders removed my gear, I went over to the fantail to inspect my prize. The master diver had thrown it overboard. Damn! What did he do that for?! Someone then explained to me that the coral head had grown up over a couple of dozen live rounds of ammunition! My buddy Wayne Aaberg took a photo of it and sent me a digitized copy a few years ago. Another time, we motored away from the ship for some scuba diving. It was a great dive, and I spent a lot of my time poking my head under coral heads looking for shells. When we ascended to our decompression stop line, I looked down and saw a very large shark patrolling the very spot we were in a few moments before. I poked my buddy and excitedly pointed. He was nonchalant. When we got back on the boat, I asked him if he had seen the shark, and he said, "Yeah, it was down there the whole time. You were closer to it, so I didn't worry."
Since I came aboard as a petty officer 3rd class, I didn't have to endure mess duty or become the butt of the many little practical jokes played on rookies. One fellow in particular was as dumb as a box of rocks, and he got tagged with just about every trick in the book: standing mail buoy watch in full battle gear on the bow; requisitioning a yard of waterline from the Deck Department; being sent to the engine room to get a bucket of steam. One day at sea, I heard the word passed over the 1MC, "A sea bat has just been captured. Anyone interested in seeing this creature lay aft to the fantail."
"OK," I thought, what the %&**@!! is this?" When I emerged on deck, there was a large group clustered about the fantail, most of them wearing ear-to-ear grins. There was a large cardboard box on the deck. I noticed that one sailor on the edges of the pack held a broom. The mark bent over the box to get a better look. WHACK! The broom landed squarely on his buttocks. Everybody howled in glee. But not the mark. "Hey, cut it out, I'm trying to see the sea bat." He bent over again. WHACK! This was repeated a few more times until the poor sap finally got the message.
Occasionally we practiced going to General Quarters. My station was as a phone talker for the gun mount. Coucal was a noncombatant ship, but she still carried two WWII-era 20 mm anti-aircraft machine guns. The Gunners Mates were happy that they actually had something to do in their rate. It must have been very hard during the last war to actually hit anything from a small vessel such as Coucal. First of all, if there was any swell, the ship would be rocking up and down while the gun crew was trying to aim. After the first few rounds were fired, there was a great cloud of white smoke which made further sighting impossible. The pilots who fly the planes that tow practice targets must be very, very brave. Another time we dumped bags of garbage, steamed off a distance, and practiced shooting at the bags. Sharks came up to investigate the bags, and seabirds deftly flew about while the bullets splashed nearby. I don't remember anything being hit.
Many of the younger sailors were Filipinos. One time, at noon mess, I was sitting at a table with a couple of other divers when one of these kids gingerly sat down with us. He had never been to sea before in his life, and he spent several days flat on his back in his rack unable to take any sustenance. He was a skinny beanpole of a kid to begin with. This was the first day he was able to crawl out of bed and bravely attempt to seek nourishment. He sat down, unaware that this was a divers' table, and stared glassy-eyed at the food on his tray. BM2(DV) Dave Terrell looked slyly at each of us divers, took a mouthful of peas, chewed for a few seconds, and made a noise in his throat which caused the poor skinny kid to look up. Just as he did, Dave spit the masticated green mush onto his plate. The kid turned white as a ghost and bolted out of the mess decks. Although we still had a couple of days left at sea, we never saw him again. (Dave has a profile on this site, but apparently he doesn't answer his messages!)
My hobby at the time was fancy sailors' knotwork. While I was waiting to go to boot camp, I bought a copy of "The Ashley Book of Knots," which is the Bible of practical and decorative knotwork. I carried the book with me during my enlistment. When I was in Saigon at the EOD villa, I noticed that some of the decorations at the rooftop bar were wine bottles covered with square knot netting and ending in a tassle. Hell, I can do that! So, I often traded full wine bottles for empty ones tied up with macrame and turks heads. One of the guys on the Coucal, RM2 Bob Faries, was a newlywed, and he claimed that his wife was a good cook. "Hey Bob, I'll trade a home-cooked meal for one of my fancy bottles." To my amazement, he said "Sure." I can still remember, after nearly 40 years, that she made scrumptious chicken Kiev. A year or so ago, through the wonder of the Internet, Bob and I touched base again. Not only did he remember the bottle, but he still had it tucked away in his garage. His wife, though, has no memory of that night. They've been married now for over 38 years!
Everyone who has worn the uniform is familiar with standing at attention and saluting the flag during morning and evening 'colors.' The Pearl Harbor Naval Base had the tradition of playing the anthem of every nation represented by a ship in port. There could be any number of foreign ships moored in the harbor. Some of the national anthems, such as that of Japan, seem to go on forever. So, morning colors could take a while as your saluting arm got heavier and heavier. If you didn't need to be out on deck around the time of morning colors, you made sure you were inside.
Sailors assigned to the submarine fleet used to go through escape training using the Stanke hood. Old time submariners will fondly recall saying "Ho, ho, ho" as they rose through the water. Sub bases since the 1940s maintained a round 100-foot tall tower filled with water for this purpose. One day, Master Chief Smith led a group of us divers over to the Pearl Harbor S.E.T. for some passive and active ascents. I'm sure there must have been an elevator, but we trooped up the outside stairway that encircled the tower to the top room. There was a recompression chamber that was always manned during training operations in this room. Submarine escape training is generally safe if done as directed, but it involves ascents from depth after breathing compressed air, so some arterial gas embolism cases have resulted. After receiving our briefing, we trooped down the stairway again to the 50-foot level and entered the compartment. The first exercise was to be a free ascent using only the buoyancy in your lungs. Since we were divers, we could use our facemasks. the compartment was pressurized, and once it was equalized with the pressure at that depth in the tank, the hatch was opened. Water entered the hatch up to our waists. An instructor from the tank staff exited the hatch and monitored each of us to make sure we performed the skill correctly. One at a time, we took a deep breath and exited the hatch into the water. There was a bar or line that we held onto as we got out. We then tilted our head upwards and began a slow exhalation through pursed lips. On a signal from the instructor, we let go and slowly rose to the surface, exhaling a thin stream of bubbles the entire way. You had to meter your exhalation, because if you let out too much, you would lose your buoyancy and begin to sink (we weren't allowed to use our hands or feet for propulsion), and if you didn't let out enough, the expanding air in your lungs could cause a potentially fatal diving injury called arterial gas embolism. There was another chamber, or 'blister,' at 30 feet and another at 15 feet, each manned by another instructor. The last ten or so feet were the most difficult, because the rate of ascent was very slow (maybe let the air out a tiny bit too much), and I really wanted to take a breath. We all made it, so this was a successful exercise. It is indeed possible to make an ascent after breathing compressed air by metering out just enough air without kicking or swimming up. The next exercise, also from the 50 foot chamber, was a buoyant ascent using our inflatable UDT vests. Unlike today's buoyancy compensators used by recreational civilian divers, these little vests, also called 'Mae Wests,' slipped over your head and were secured by D-ringed nylon straps around your waist. They could be orally inflated using a small inflator hose (which was difficult to use when you were very cold) and by pulling a lanyard which raised a little pin that punctured a small 16-gram cylinder of carbon dioxide. For this exercise, we were to exit the chamber and hold on, as before, while the instructor inflated the vest using a small air hose. Then, we would exhale, at a greater rate because the speed of ascent was much faster than before, let go, and take a ride to the top. An overpressure valve would release excess gas to prevent expanding air from bursting the vest. OK, this should be easy... Well, how embarrassing! I got yanked into the 30 foot blister. Wait a minute, the other guys who went before me are also in there. Another diver, then another got yanked into the blister until we all were there, a bit red-faced. That is, until the instructor explained that our facemasks broke our bubble stream and it was impossible for him to tell if we were exhaling continuously. The escape tank didn't normally conduct exercises for divers, so it was a learning experience for them, too. At the end of the day, we all felt that this was a very valuable training session. I learned later that, had I re-enlisted, my next duty station would have been the S.E.T. at Pearl Harbor.
In the early months of 1973, Coucal was scheduled for a major 6-month overhaul. We moored up at the shipyard in Honolulu and moved everything not nailed down onto a barge. Another barge served as enlisted berthing. We acquired a battered 17-foot Boston Whaler, and I was assigned the task of fixing it up. The bow was smashed in, and it was just a little bow heavy after repairs, but we used the boat for recreation when we could.
I really didn't want to spend the entire 6 months living on a nasty barge, and, as I mentioned earlier, second class divers had fewer opportunities during heliox diving ops. So, I made the decision to request Diver First Class School, which was then located in Washington, D.C. Because I was more than halfway through my 4-year enlistment, I had to extend for eight months. So, in March of 1973 I left sunny Hawaii for the banks of the Anacostia River, and I returned in August sporting a new pin and another chevron just in time for another 4-point moor off Lahaina.
Rooms at the enlisted barracks at the submarine base opened up for E5 and E6, so we eagerly took advantage of escaping daily fire drills and Saturday morning needle-gunning to move off the ship while inport. Although they were standard 4-man rooms, we got only one roommate. I shared quarters with OS2 Dan Aguilar. Wow, we could actually tape posters on the walls and have personal items on the desks! Instead of eating overcooked enlisted men's chow, our typical supper consisted of steaks grilled on our little hibachi, a six-pack of Primo beer, and half a jar of jalapeno peppers. Can you tell that Dan is from San Antonio, Texas? I'm also blaming Dan for getting me hooked on menudo, a Sonoran soup made from chile, simmered calves feet, hominy and honeycomb tripe, garnished with oregano and chopped onion. I still love the stuff. Before I retired, I made menudo whenever my wife left town for a conference. My orders were that it all had to be used up and the smell had to be out of the house before she returned! With all that spicy stuff we ate, Dan had the audacity to give me the nickname "The Green Mist." Dan and I still correspond after all these years, and it was he who invited me to join togetherweserved.com.
Pearl Harbor Special Services had a lot of activities to entertain off-duty sailors. Of course, there was always the Acey-ducey enlisted men's club, but drinking does get old after a while, and I was a little gun-shy after my unfortunate incident in Cam Ranh Bay. Some of the island headliners performed on base. I was particularly enamored of Carole Kai. A lot of the guys made tables from a slab of native koa wood layered with clear resin. Others used the gym. My buddy Wayne Aaberg was an avid body-builder, and he acquired the nickname "Herc." I went with him to the gym once, but I was so sore the next day that I realized that wasn't for me. One of the older guys on the ship, EN1 Ward, had a side business making ceramic coffee mugs. He was a talented carver and made all his own molds, carved with whatever insignia or design you wanted. He had his own shop with carving tools, mold-making materials, paints, and kiln. I helped him paint mugs and in return I was able to make my own, which I kept for many years. I was very sad when it finally dropped and shattered.I volunteered for the ship's pistol team. Our CO, LCDR Barrows bought some matched .45 caliber service pistols, and we'd practice at the Schofield Barracks range and sometimes at the Honolulu police range out near Makapuu Point. I don't recall our winning any matches, but we had a lot of fun, and I qualified for my expert pistol ribbon each year and as an NRA range officer.
In March of 1974, we embarked on a 6-month Westpac cruise. On our first leg, we towed a small tugboat from Pearl Harbor to Midway Island, which was still a Naval Air Station (it is now a National Wildlife Refuge). A few of us spent a few hours walking around the island. There were large fuzzy gooneybird (albatross) chicks everywhere, and little yellow canaries flitting through the trees. We only spent a morning at Midway, and then we were off again. Coucal was a powerful, but very slow vessel, and the next portstop, Yokosuka, Japan, wasn't reached for nearly another two weeks.
Passing the International Date Line at the 180th parallel qualified us for the Domain of the Golden Dragon certificate.Watching the radar spin around an empty screen at three o'clock in the morning in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is one of the most boring things I've ever done. Things perked up as we entered Tokyo Bay, though. The radar screen lit up like a Christmas tree with all of the 'contacts.' One spot was a maritime intersection, with all of the contacts lined up as if they were at a traffic light. One line of ships would be stopped, and the perpendicular line would move, just as if one side had a green light and the other had a red light. It was the most amazing thing to watch.
That wasn't the only amazing thing to watch. As we approached the coast of Japan, we began to pick up the local television signal. At first, the novelty of watching >>something<< on the long-blank screen of the recreation compartment TV attracted our attention.Then, there was the novelty of foreign programs, which merited a few minutes attention. At about 1000, a Johnny Carson/Tonight Show type program came on. Guys gazed up for a few seconds, then went back to their card game or whatever. At the end of the half hour, all of a sudden a nubile young woman appeared and started taking her clothes off! In about five minutes, the rec. room was filledto capacity with gawking sailors. Wow, a strip tease on commercial television! Unfortunately, it only lasted for about five minutes,and then the program went to commercials. We soon learned when the 'good stuff' began, and the crowds appeared and disappeared with great regularity until we left Japanese waters.
The recreation compartment was just aft of E1 - E5 enlisted berthing. An overhead hatch lead up to the quarterdeck area near the fantail, and the next compartment aft was the Salvage locker, where we stored and worked on the diving equipment. I didn't normally spend a lot of time in the rec. room because it was one of the few inside spaces where smoking was allowed on the ship. In those days, smoking was more tolerated if not outright encouraged by very inexpensive, tax-free cartons sold as soon as we left port. In the evenings, when the 'smoking lamp was lit,' the smoke would be visible about two feet off the deck and get thicker at it rose to the overhead. I didn't smoke, so my eyes would start watering and itching as soon as I stepped into the compartment. In my offtime, I'd spend it sitting on the deck next to my rack.
One of the 'improvements' made during the long overhaul period in 1973 was the installation of a ship's music system, which consisted of a turntable in the 'ET shack,' and each rack had a box into which you could insert a headphone jack. ET2 Kudymtook it upon himself to be the ship's DJ, and he'd play various rock and pop tunes in the evenings.
We spent the next six months visiting the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Sasebo, the Philippine ports of Subic Bay on the island of Luzon and Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao, The Taiwanese ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung, the Korean Port of Pusan, and the British colony of Hong Kong. One of my regrets about my naval service was that I never got my shellback certificate. Coucal's previous Westpac deployment took it to Australia, but, alas, not this one. Of course, there were memorable adventures at each port of call.
Subic Bay was somewhat infamous because of the many 'houses of ill repute' just off base. It was also worked by gangs of teenagers who were expert at relieving you of your watch and wallet. Because it was a major U.S. Navy port, it was also a maintenance facility, which we took advantage of. One afternoon a few of us rented little sailboats from Special Services for a little 'R&R' on the water.
On another occasion, a "rodeo" was scheduled on base. One of our guys, Randy Beeson, was from the West and was an experienced bull rider, and so he entered the competition. Was he ever surprised to see that the local cattle were small in stature, and the rest of us got a good laugh watching this 6-foot guy on the back of a miniature bull.
We performed joint training operations with divers from the Republic of China Navy at Kaohsiung. A few miles offshore we laid a four-point moor and conducted the full range of diving operations. Because there was no training submarine on the bottom for us, the ship carried a mock-up submarine escape hatch that we used for SRC training. Before our first liberty in this port, we were warned of the prevalence of venereal disease. It's funny that each port always seems to have the same little hole-in-the-wall bars and 'cat houses' with names like "The Kit Kat Club" or "Les Girls." There were also lots of little shops where you could buy souvenirs. Prices were not bad if our little ship was the only one in port, but we dreaded the times when a giant "Bird Farm" (aircraft carrier) came in, because the prices instantly went up! Our Morale and Recreation officer (can't remember who it was) often arranged for bus tours for those of us interested in the local culture or scenery. In Kaohsiung, we visited the neighboring town of Tainan. My strongest recollection of this excursion is that the water running in the Tainan River was purple! Not a lot of environmental rules in this part of the world. In fact, the streets of Kaohsiung were lined with open sewers.
While in Kaohsiung, our entire crew was invited to a harvest feast. I was used to Chinese food as adapted for picky-palated round-eyes, but this menu was eye-popping, and fantastically delicious, too. There were many strange and wonderful new taste sensations, such as sea cucumber, whole fish with the head still on, jellyfish and seaweek salads, and God knows what else. Luckily, today the wife and I live fairly close to Boston, which has a large asian community, so I can periodically satisfy my lust for "real" Chinese food.
Keelung is the on the northern coast of Taiwan. We docked near a 50-foot (at least!) statue of a goddess, which was hollow and you could peer out through an opening in the head. There was also what looked like an ancient temple on a hill. When you got closer to it, though, you realized that it was just being constructed. During our stay, we received an invitation to a public execution of some drug dealers. Eastern Asian countries don't kid around with drug enforcement. Nobody from our ship attended.
Wayne Aaberg, myself, and a few others took the train into the capital city of Taipei, where we visited the zoo and the national museum. As I was bending over to take a photograph of a macaque monkey, the lens hood of my 135 millimeter lens popped off and fell into the monkey pit. My subject immediately pounced on it, picked it up, and inspected it from every angle. As for me, I was cursing myself for not checking the damn thing to make sure it was on tight. The National Museum is absolutely spectacular, as the Nationalists made sure to loot the antiquities from Peking (Beijing) and other mainland sites when they evacuated to Taiwan. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside. As an example of the wonderful artwork, one piece of jade had been carved into a life-sized head of Chinese Cabbage. The artist had used the two-colored stone, green and white, to mimic the colors of stem and leaf of the real plant. A closer look at the work revealed three little perfectly-carved grasshoppers on the cabbage leaves! Jade is one of the harder minerals, and this piece, being hundreds of years old, was created without the benefit of the power tools we so take for granted today.
We were lucky on the Coucal to have enough people to be able to have 4-section duty. That meant only being stuck on the ship for one day out of four while in port if we didn't have a regular workday. I got Shore Patrol again when we were in Pusan, Korea. Since the ship was anchored out, I had to stay ashore all night, and there were no berthing facilities, I had to sleep on a pool table using the table's cover as a blanket until the first boat in the morning.
The nuclear submarine Sea Dragon tied up to us after we anchored in Pusan Harbor. The people of Pusan were fascinated with the appearance of us 'round-eye' sailors, and it was a little discomforting to be constantly stared at. Our bus excursion took us to the countryside, where we visited traditional villages and saw the traditional home manufacture of the Korean national dish, kim chee. I must be more gastronomically adventurous than most, because, here again, I got hooked on a strange-and-wonderful local food. I still purchase a jar whenever I'm at one of the big asian markets in Boston.
Myself and another diver were selected to perform a hull sweep using scuba gear of the Sea Dragon before she left our side, to look for anything a bad guy might have planted. A couple of weighted lines were suspended in the area of the nuclear plant, though, and we were instructed to keep clear of that potential 'hot' spot.
Every port had its own distinct character, marketplace, and type of traditional small boat. The Philippines had their outriggers (even some of the 'larger' ferries), the sampans of Taiwan had a double stern, Hong Kong had its distinctive junks. The marketplaces were also amazing to meander about in, with the exotic fruits and vegetables and open meat stalls. I made sure to buy souvenirs at every port I visited, as did most every one else (except for the 'old salts' who had been on previous Westpacs). I also brought back beer bottles from most of them, too and decorated them with macrame and sailors' knot netting.
My favorite port was Hong Kong. Dockage at the piers was limited to ships of the British Navy, so we anchored a couple of miles down the bay. A local 'bum boat' was hired to ferry us to shore and back. The main 'watering hole' was a multistory facility called the China Fleet Club, which also doubled as a great place to pick up trinkets. I still have some of them, including framed glassed-in little pictures made entirely from bird feathers, batik paintings, and little carvings. Our bus tour took us to the top of Victoria Peak, which has an amazing panoramic view, and also across the bay to the New Territories. Now, of course, we seem to have become dependent on The People's Republic of China to manufacture most everything, but back then, they were our mortal enemies. It was odd to be so close to the border of one of our most formidable adversaries. Little kids tried to sell us little red books filled with Mao Tse Tung's words of wisdom (kicking myself now for not getting one... must be a collectors item now). I don't know what Hong Kong looks like now, but back then there was a lot of farmland and undeveloped countryside in the New Territories. We also had a wonderful meal at a floating restaurant in Aberdeen Harbor, which was accessible only by hiring a local stern-oared boat from the dock.
Another favorite place was Tiger Balm Gardens, which began as a personal estate of a very wealthy businessman in the 1930s. It was filled with gardens and very strange cement statues of animals and Buddhist mythological figures. I recently read something on the Internet with some regret that much of Tiger Balm gardens was torn down in 2004 to make room for apartment buildings (the original mansion was saved).
The Deck Department of our ship were perfectly capable of painting. However, I think there was some rule that compelled American ships to hire a local company to paint the exterior of the ship. The local workers showed up every day, did a few hours of work, and played -- loudly -- mah jongg until it was time to return to shore.
The XO of the Coucal ASR-8 in 1974-75 was an officious twit of a Lieutenant, the type of an officer that, if you saw him before he saw you, you'd cross the street to avoid having to salute. I never liked the guy. One time we were at anchor in Hong Kong Harbor, and I was off duty on the fantail with my camera. A junk in full sail was coming close by our stern. Just as I was focusing the lens, I heard him say: "Hey you! I want you to go..." I forget exactly what it was, but is was some unimportant little errand.
"Yes, sir, but could I just..." The junk was almost in focus....another second...almost...
A fat hand was slapped over my lens. "NOW, SAILOR!!!"
"Yes, sir!" and off I went, thinking to myself as I went, "Asshole!"
So, a few years ago, I was mindlessly watching a late night movie on the tube. I think it was the 1976 remake of King Kong. A shot of the bridge of the Elk River (LSMR-501) came up and I'll be a son of a gun, there was a quick cameo of him, now a LCDR, who must have been assigned to be CO of the ship after he left Coucal.
One of the memorable experiences in Hong Kong involved a short, skinny, pasty-white Irish kid from South Boston, who earned the nickname 'Killer.' He was a wise-ass punk on his best behavior, but when he had a few alcoholic beverages under his belt, he was ready to take on the world. Killer was escorted back to the ship by Shore Patrol a few times. On one morning just after reveille, I went up on deck to the fantail just in time to see him being released from temporary confinement. It seems that he picked a fight with a very large specimen of Shore Patrol the night before, and he was still out of control when he was dragged back to the ship. The duty officer was unable to calm him down, so he used sailor's ingenuity to keep the wild lad from causing more havoc. Killer was encapsulated into two metal mesh Stokes stretchers like a clam in his shell and secured to the deck until morning. I think Killer was confined to the ship for the remainder of our cruise, and he was definitely a bit more subdued in temperament after that incident.
Another memorable experience involved the Case of the Phantom Shitter. I was on the USS Coucal ASR-8 for a Westpac cruise in 1974. We spent some time anchored in Hong Kong Harbor. A water taxi, A.K.A. a 'bum boat' was hired to ferry guys on liberty ashore and back. One evening during our Hong Kong stay I had the 2000 - 2400 quarterdeck watch. All was quiet until the bum-boat arrived with the last two sailors coming aboard from liberty: CWO3 Bright and EN3 Newman.
A half hour later, my Sound & Security watchstander came by and said, "There is somebody up on the radar mast. I think you better check it out."
Oh, shit, the watch is almost over, and I just want to go below and hit the rack.
"OK," I said to my messenger, "you stay here and I'll go investigate."
I could have gone up to the 02 deck by the outside ladder, but I chose to go inside, through the mess deck, and up the inside stairway, past the captain's stateroom, and then up one more ladder. Just as I passed by the CO's stateroom, I smelled something terrible, and I looked over to find a huge pile of shit on the captain's pennant just outside his door. Oh, I'm pissed now, as I'll have to take care of that, too (maybe quietly make it disappear over the side).
I arrived at the base of the mast and looked up. There was someone up there, all right, happily spinning the radar around and around. It's Newman.
"Newman, I order you to come down immediately and go to bed!"
Poor choice of words. He climbed down slowly, but as soon as his feet hit the deck, he bolted for parts unknown. I made my way back to the quarterdeck and sent my messenger to wake the duty chief, who waked the duty officer, Ensign Bunn. The miscreant was finally located and convinced to calm down and hit the rack. Of course, he's also on report, and I had to write up a narrative of the evening's 'festivities.' The Ensign dumped the mound o' poop from the pennant overboard and put it in the laundry (I love Ensigns!).
A few days later, I had to testify at Captain's Mast in the wardroom (yes, it really is a green table!). The Skipper was not amused, to say the least when the full story including the defilement of his pennant was revealed. Newman lost his crow, got many hours of "Extra Military Instruction" (probably could eat off the engineroom deck after he was done), and he was restricted to the ship for the duration of the cruise. We were formerly on friendly terms, but after this incident he never spoke to me again.
While we were operating in Philippine waters, we steamed from Subic Bay, past Cebu Island, to Cagayan de Oro City in northern Mindanao Island for a good will port stop. The ship was dressed with pennants, and readied for a public open house. Ours was the first American warship to visit the city since World War II, and enormous crowds showed up. At first, a few of the guys thought it would be fun to toss coins into the water at the pier for the small boys to dive in and recover. Unfortunately the little brats quickly became nuisances as they climbed all over the ship and had to be swatted off. We also toured the city and its markets. A cute young Peace Corps worker came aboard, and a few of us chatted with her for many hours. I corresponded with her a few times, and when I mustered out of active duty at Treasure Island, I met up with her for lunch in San Francisco. Nice kid, I wonder what she's doing now.
Although it was chilly enough at our first port of Yokuska, Japan in late March to require pea coats on quarterdeck watch, for the most part we enjoyed glorious, hot weather. We did encounter the outskirts of a typhoon off the Philippines and spent much of the day either tying down everything in sight or holding onto anything solid for dear life. Most of us by that time had our sea legs, but one inexperienced watchstander threw up all over the ship's wheel. I was very glad that I could sit down at the radar screen, but I could only bear to look at the cursor circling round and round for a few seconds every minute.
If transit time between ports permitted, the CO slowed the ship down to trolling speed for a few hours to permit the fishing enthusiasts amongst the crew to try their luck. On one glorious afternoon in the China Sea, we lucked into some fine mahi mahi (also known as dorado or dolphin fish). They were filleted and immediately transported to the galley. The cooks made a delicious mustard sauce and we all had fresh mahi mahi sashimi on the spot. Experiences such as this make up for a lot of the inconveniences and tedium of spending time at sea. We also looked forward to the occasional cookouts on the fantail when we could eat barbecue and drink the one beer allotted per man for the occasion.
Our last port before returning to Pearl Harbor in mid August was Sasebo, Japan, which has had a U.S. naval presence since the end of WWII. A few hours before I had to return to the ship, I was perusing the bookshelves of the Navy Exchange for something to read. I came across a book on origami (Japanese paperfolding), and it was in English. It was only a few bucks, so I bought it. I managed to fold most of the models in the book, but the only one that I actually memorized was the traditional frog. Now, this frog was one of the few old style designs that could be made three dimensional instead of flat. This is done by holding his little rear legs apart and blowing air into the hole in the middle. It gets a lot of laughs at parties, especially after everyone has imbibed sufficient alcoholic refreshment. Fast forward about 20 years, and I have done this little comedy act one too many times for my exasperated wife. "You know, you're just a one-trick-pony! Why don't you learn something else?!" A few months later, we were in New York City visiting the American Museum of Natural History. We had learned through the Internet that the national origami group, Origami-USA had an office in the bowels of the building, which we found with a little effort. Eventually, we both joined, bought a lot of origami books, and attended a few conventions. So, today, one of my strange little pastimes is folding paper.
Wayne Aaberg and I took advantage of the great Navy Exchange prices at Yokosuka and bought 450 cc Honda motorcycles, which were crated disassembled. The Coucal was a relatively small ship, but we were allowed to store our Westpac treasures as space permitted. On the cruise back to Pearl Harbor, both recompression chambers were stuffed with our souvenirs. As soon as we got back, Wayne and I sent our bikes to the local Honda dealer for assembly, and in the next few months we explored just about every road on Oahu. Unfortunately, the enlisted barracks were now unavailable to us, and we couldn't use the ship as permanent storage. Luckily, one of my buddies, GM2 Ben Goss was in married housing and let me store my stuff at his place.
I wrote or called home once a week or so. My mother sometimes mailed home made mint chocolate chip brownies, which were very popular when they arrived. On one phone call home, in November, I mentioned to my mother that, if they wanted to take a vacation in Hawaii, I could arrange very affordable lodgings. I had found out about four recreational facilities run by the DOD that charged according to your rank. As an E5, my charge would be $5.00 apiece a night, and we could stay a week at each facility. There was Fort DeRussy, in the heart of Waikiki Beach, which was a large Quonset hut style building. There were individual cottages on the beach at Barbers Point on the Waianae side of Oahu, and similar cottages at Bellows Field on the windward side. Finally, there was Kilauea Military Camp on the big island of Hawaii. I didn't really think it would happen, though. Neither of my parents had ever flown before, and my mother was a nervous type, even in the car. A week later, though, I called home again, and my mother exclaimed, "Your father is very excited about the trip. When can you set it up?" We decided that I'd delay my 30 days leave that I'd accumulated until February.For the next few months, with the help of Wayne and some of the other guys, I researched restaurants and attractions all around Oahu and made reservations at the military R&R facilities. My mother's birthday was in early February, so I planned with Ben Goss to present her with the many gifts I had acquired during Westpac. When their flight arrived at Honolulu International Airport, I met them at the gate with fragrant flower leis, and we drove over to Fort DeRussy.I had made my mom a puka shell necklace using a newspaper photograph of one given to Elizabeth Taylor. It was a three-tier strand using about a hundred sorted puka shells, pencil urchin spines, and a cowrie shell that I had gathered from the shore. Our first trip was to the Ala Moana shopping center, where she bought a brightly colored mu-mu, and my father bought a very loud Hawaiian shirt. The first evening we went to a tourist luau at one of the Waikiki hotels, and I'm sure we were quite a sight.
The next week we stayed at Barbers Point and spent a lot of time at Electric Beach. My parents loved the beach and had a ball sifting for puka shells. Our third week was spent at Bellows Field, and we spent a lot of time at Kailua Beach Park, body surfing at Makapuu Beach Park, and snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. They had never been anywhere tropical in their lives, and the crystal blue water was a revelation. In addition to the beach, we went to the Honolulu zoo, Waikiki Aquarium, Polynesian Cultural Center, Paradise Park, Iolani Palace, Arizona Memorial, Punchbowl Cemetery, Bishop Museum, and Sea Life Park. I took them to the many restaurants that I had checked out including Top of the I restaurant, the Monkey Bar, and my personal favorite, Buzz's Steak House in Kailua (they had the best grilled mahi mahi I've ever had). I presented my mom with all of the Westpac treasures at Ben Goss's house. We drove all around the island in my beat up VW hatchback. I did manage to take my dad for a ride on my motorcycle once.
At the end of the third week of their stay, we again drove out to Honolulu Airport and from there flew to Hilo, rented a car for the week and drove over to Kilauea Military Camp. KMC was located at the edge of the vast, smoking caldera of Kilauea volcano. It was peaceful at the time, although there were sulfurous steam vents hissing within a short hike from the cottages, and there was an occasional road that was blocked by a layer of black lava that had flowed across. Accommodations were individual cottages with a fireplace, and Ohia firewood was supplied to take the chill of the evenings a few thousand feet up in the mountains of Hawaii. In the distance were views of the snow-capped peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Morning and Evening meals at a central mess was provided. The first few days we spent hiking and exploring the trails near the camp, one day we drove down to Hilo and explored the city, and another day we drove completely around the island. They were amazed by the many climate changes there were in just a few miles of driving, from the tropical rain forest near Akaka Falls, to the grasslands and cattle country, to desert. We stopped at black sand beaches, painted churches, and hiked over pahoehoe lava fields to see petroglyphs from before Captain Cook first 'discovered' the islands.
This was the vacation of a lifetime for my parents, all for $5.00 a day for lodging! They talked about this trip for the rest of their lives. My dad passed away in 1990, and my mom nine years later.
Tourist photographs of Waikiki Beach nearly always include the scenic cliffs of Diamond Head in the background. Very few tourists realize that Diamond Head is actually a hollow cone and is part of a National Guard base. In the early 1970s a local radio station organized a highly attended rock/folk concert inside Diamond head, called the "Sunshine Festival" on New Year's Day. Of course, a contingent of sailors from Coucal attended, mostly the younger guys. It being the 1970s, most of them drank a bit and got high from smoking weedy substances. One of them produced a rubber fire-fighting mask 'borrowed' from the ship which had been slightly modified with a little tinfoil to contain some of said dry weedy material in a little bowl on the outside. The user donned the mask, lit the material, and inhaled deeply. One instant you could look into the mask and see his face, the next all you could see was dense smoke! After a pause of a few seconds, off came the mask, there was much coughing, and exclamations of "Good stuff, man!"
I had an underwater camera, macro lenses, and strobe light on the Coucal. One night in early 1975, our master diver, Chief Hall, got me out of the rack about 2200 and told me that he wanted some underwater photographs taken under the ship. There was a leak coming from a small hole. So, I and another diver geared up in scuba, jumped in, and swam over to the location the Chief had told us. There was his finger protruding from the hole. I took a few shots, and we climbed up a Jacobs ladder to get out. I rewound the film and gave the roll to the Chief. A few days later, we found out what the problem was. When Coucal was built in 1943, the builders failed to weld an extra plate, called the striker plate, at the bottom of the sound and security tubes. Every 30 minutes for 32 years a young engineering watch stander lowered -- dropped is likely more accurate -- a small weight attached to a graduated metal tape into this tube to check for water that might have leaked into the space. There were maybe 30 more S/S tubes around the ship. Over the 32 years, a small hole had been worn into the hull plate. I didn't hear anything more about this, and I left active duty later that year. Fast forward another 30 plus years, and I found out via the Internet that Coucal had been decommissioned in 1977, only two years after I snapped a photo of the Chief's finger sticking out of the bottom of the ship. I wonder if more holes were found, and that this might have contributed to the retirement of this old ship.
I found a girlfriend and lived off base in late spring of 1975, and I used up my remaining leave allotment, especially when the ship deployed. The only adventure that I missed was when Jack Lord filmed part of an episode of Hawaii Five-O aboard the ship. I knew that this was not going to be my career, and I was getting anxious to muster out. My last enlisted reviews mentioned a "short-timer's attitude." I looked around for employment, but I couldn't find anything, so I left Hawaii and returned to my home town.
I didn't think so at the time, but in hindsight it was a privilege to serve on the old girl. We used to joke that "ASR" meant "Assholes and Submarine Rejects." The ship's name was an embarrassment. Other ships were called "Resolute," "Intrepid," "Preserver," or after historical places like "Iwo Jima," or after famous heroes such as "Eisenhower," but our ship was named after a tropical cuckoo bird. I've learned a little bit of the history of submarine rescue from researching around the Internet. After several peacetime submarine disasters, there was great pressure directed at the Navy to develop a means of rescuing survivors who might be trapped in the vessel on the bottom. Early ships available for retrofitting into salvage platforms were Lapwing class minesweepers left over from World War I. Back in the day, ships of a particular class were named by theme. For example, battleships were named after states ("Arizona," "Massachusetts"), submarines were names after sea creatures ("Skate," Sculpin"), and so on. The Lapwing class minesweepers were named after birds. The Naval History and Heritage Command web site states: "the development of mine warfare necessitated the introduction of a new type of ship, the minesweeper. A new type of ship required a new name source. The then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, took a keen interest in amateur ornithology. This led him to select bird names as the name source for these new ships, and "F.D.R." signed the General Order assigning names to the first 36 ships of the Lapwing class. The ships that bore these colorful names served as the backbone of the Navy's mine force for the next quarter century; many earned honors in World War II" ( http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq63-1.htm ). Apparently enough of the Lapwing class minesweepers were retrofitted for the new mission of submarine rescue that the tradition was continued for the Chanticleer class ASRs.
I also learned that that the few Congressional Medals of Honor awarded for extreme valor during peacetime were presented to Navy divers involved in submarine rescue. We trained hard and were always prepared to take action, but the opportunity never came.
I've corresponded with a few of my shipmates over the years. I spent a few days visiting Dan Aguilar at his home in San Antonio, Texas the week I got discharged from active duty in 1975, and about fifteen years later he, his wife and son visited my wife and I for a few days in Falmouth, Massachusetts (unfortunately I only spent an evening with them because I was staffing a NAUI scuba instructor course in Rhode Island that week). In 1986 Ens. Dennis Bunn and his wife kindly put me up for a couple of days after a conference I attended at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. After his service ended, he was a swim coach at FSU. I learned that he passed away from cancer several years later. He must have been a much loved coach, because his students put up a tribute web page to honor his memory. He died way too young. Wayne Aaberg and I still correspond via email. After spending months scanning my many color slides, I burned and sent CDs filled with my Coucal photographs to other former shipmates. Coucal's CO, LCDR Blair Barrows now lives in Maine and is a published author! He penned a novel in 2004, "The Deep Steal," involving, you guessed it, a submarine adventure.
Sometimes in life there are phenomena that just can't be explained. There are two noteworthy coincidences pertaining to my Navy career. In high school my mother gave me a 2-inch model of a torpedo made of monel, complete with tiny rotatable propellers. An old flame of hers had given it to her during the early part of WWII. I have it to this day. The school I was assigned out of boot camp was torpedoman's mate, even though I hadn't requested it.
I replaced David Owen as the Diving Safety Officer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1980. David established the dive program in 1953. He was a prolific correspondent, writing letters to most of the 'who's who' in diving for almost 30 years, and he saved almost every scrap of paper. A few years before I retired in 2010, I began to open up and examine the contents of boxes full of papers. It was a treasure-trove of history. I found hand-written notes from Jacques Cousteau, letters from George Bond (Papa Topside), Conrad Limbaugh from Scripps, and many more. Some papers had already been damaged from a renovation project, and since my office was on the waterfront in Woods Hole, I realized early on that it was vulnerable if a hurricane hit us at high tide (we've been lucky...Hurricane Bob in 1991 hit at low tide). I wanted to keep the content, but I felt that I no longer could keep the artifacts. So, whenever I had some time, I began scanning some of the more significant documents that chronicled the history of scientific diving at Woods Hole. I eventually delivered the papers to the WHOI archives. In the early days of scientific diving, there were no NAUI or PADI agencies, and indeed no scuba textbooks to go by. The authority for all diving knowledge was the U.S. Navy. WHOI had done much research useful to the Navy during and after WWII (bathythermographs, which showed where submarines could hide from sonar detection below the thermocline, for one), so there was a close cooperative association. Our early divers all received training at the Submarine Escape Training Tower in New London, Connecticut, and I found many letters between the CO of the tank and Dave. One of the letters drew my attention. In it, the CO informed Dave that he was leaving New London because he had received orders to be the CO of the USS Coucal in Pearl Harbor! It was amazing to read this letter of long ago that involved the same ship that I served on many years later.
The Vietnam war was winding down in 1975, but antiwar sentiment reached its peak. Unfortunately, our own peer group in the civilian world misplaced their animosity onto those of us serving in uniform. Nobody wore the uniform off base. Men's hair styles were long and largely unkempt, so everyone knew who we short-haired people were. It's been many years, but I've never forgot the lack of respect or recognition servicemen of that era received from the public. Today, whenever I see someone in a military uniform, I always go up to him/her, shake his hand, and say, "Thank you for serving."
As it turned out, the Navy wasn't quite finished with me yet, but that is the topic of another essay.
Criteria The Navy Good Conduct Medal (NGCM) is a decoration presented by the United States Navy to recognize members who have completed three years of honorable service. Medals awarded before January 1, 1996 r... The Navy Good Conduct Medal (NGCM) is a decoration presented by the United States Navy to recognize members who have completed three years of honorable service. Medals awarded before January 1, 1996 required four years of service. MoreHide
Comments
...otherwise known as the 'getting through 4 years without getting caught' medal!
Description RIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, is the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise. RIMPAC is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii. ItRIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, is the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise. RIMPAC is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii. It is hosted and administered by the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet, headquartered at Pearl Harbor, in conjunction with the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and Hawaii National Guard forces under the control of the Governor of Hawaii. The US invites military forces from the Pacific Rim and beyond to participate. With RIMPAC the United States Pacific Command seeks to enhance interoperability between Pacific Rim armed forces, ostensibly as a means of promoting stability in the region to the benefit of all participating nations. Described by the US Navy as a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans.... More
People You Remember
CO: LCDR Barrows XO: LT Fisher
Memories USS Coucal (ASR-8) participated in the March 1975 multinational exercise in waters north of the HawaUSS Coucal (ASR-8) participated in the March 1975 multinational exercise in waters north of the Hawaiian island of Kaui, along with ships of the U.S., Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand navies. Her mission was to play the role of a Russian trawler. For most of us, it was just another week at sea. Coucal found and recovered an abandoned lifeboat at the end of this exercise.
Many years later, I was able to be in contact with one of my old shipmates, RM2 Bob Fares. He sent me a chilling photograph, from, I believe, this exercise. It was a shot of the Coucal through the periscope of a submarine. I was onboard at the time!... More
Criteria The U.S. Navy has issued two marksmanship ribbons: the Navy Pistol Marksmanship Ribbon and Navy Rifle Marksmanship Ribbon, since 1920. The pistol ribbon is currently awarded for qualification on the B... The U.S. Navy has issued two marksmanship ribbons: the Navy Pistol Marksmanship Ribbon and Navy Rifle Marksmanship Ribbon, since 1920. The pistol ribbon is currently awarded for qualification on the Beretta 9mm pistol, while the rifle ribbon is currently awarded for qualification on the M14 and M16 assault rifle variants. The Navy issues the marksmanship ribbon in three levels, that of Marksman, Sharpshooter, and Expert. The basic ribbon is awarded for the Marksman level while the specific Marksmanship Device is awarded for qualification as a Sharpshooter or Expert. Those receiving an Expert qualification receive the Marksmanship Medal, in addition to the Marksmanship Ribbon. MoreHide
Comments I was on the Coucal's pistol team. We shot matched .45 pistols. We used the shooting facilities at Schofield Barracks and the Honolulu police range near Makapuu Point. I don't think we ever won any c... I was on the Coucal's pistol team. We shot matched .45 pistols. We used the shooting facilities at Schofield Barracks and the Honolulu police range near Makapuu Point. I don't think we ever won any competitions, but it was fun. I earned it two years in a row, but I got my discharge before getting it for a third time. It is listed on my DD-214 form. MoreHide
Description A Western Pacific Cruise is a ship's deployment from her home port, usually lasting between 5 and 8 months. Ships visit different ports such as Phuket, Thailand; Salalah, Oman; Darwin, Australia, BaliA Western Pacific Cruise is a ship's deployment from her home port, usually lasting between 5 and 8 months. Ships visit different ports such as Phuket, Thailand; Salalah, Oman; Darwin, Australia, Bali, Jebel Ali, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong. The ships hosted foreign militaries, performed numerous underway replenishments-at-sea and conducted general quarters drills, fire drills and maritime patrols.
US Navy provides during these deployments provocative "freedom of navigation" operations, known as FONOPS, that send warships into the disputed areas around the world on any given year.
Any cruise is hazardous with sailors injured or killed during flight, refueling, ordnance, operations or weather; day or night. Foriegn military vessels threatening by fast approach to ramming. Often at times ships are endangered by low fly overs from hostile aircraft.
... More
People You Remember
LCDR Blair Barrows, CO LT Fisher, XO
Memories We left our berth at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor on March 26, 1974 for a six month cruise (18We left our berth at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor on March 26, 1974 for a six month cruise (185 days, to be exact) to the western Pacific. Our first mission was to tow a tugboat from Oahu to Midway Island. We only stayed a morning at Midway, so those of us who didn't have the duty got off the ship and walked about. There were large, gray, fluffy 'goony bird' (Laysan albatross) chicks on the ground everywhere, and little yellow birds flitting through the trees. I took a roll of photos, but, unfortunately, I lost them when I left Hawaii after my enlistment expired. It took 12 days to steam from Midway to our second port call, Yokusaka, Japan. During our 6 months, we spent 52 full days steaming, 37 partial days at sea (either departing or arriving from/to a port), 4 days at a four-point moor for a total of 93 full or partial days at sea. 92 days were spent at various ports of call, including Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan; Subic Bay and Cagayan de Oro City, PI; Kaohsiung, Tsoying and Keelung, Taiwan; Pusan, Korea; Hong Kong, and Midway Island. The four days at four point moor were spent in joint training with ROC navy divers off Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The reason I know the details of our cruise after so many years is that I kept a simple log, which I recently found buried in my old stuff in a closet. When we got back to Pearl Harbor on September 21, 1974, we spent a month in port in stand-down/maintenance status before commencing operations again. I kept writing in my little logsheet as something of a 'short-timer' calendar until I got out in June, 1975. I took lots of photos during our Westpac, and the only ones I lost were the ones taken at Midway. On some of our inport times, our Recreation and Morale officer (I think it was Ens. Dennis Bunn) set up tours for those of us not on duty, so we got to see a lot of places like Pusan, Korea, Tainan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, which was still a British Crown Colony then. A couple of us took the train from Keelung to Taipei and toured the National Museum and the zoo. Of course, I bought souvenirs at each port stop, many of which I still have. We were allowed to keep our treasures in one of the recompression chambers for the last part of the cruise. Of course, we usually had some spare change left over in local currency, and that was another type of souvenir. My buddy OS2(DV) Wayne Aaberg and I also purchased boxed Honda motorcycles from the base exchange in Sasebo. As soon as we got back to Pearl Harbor, we took them to the nearest Honda dealer for assembly and used them to explore just about every place on the island. He bought a 750 cc machine, I think, and I had a 450. One souvenir that I didn't get was, um, a 'social disease.' The funny thing is, the majority of the guys lining up at the ship's dispensary for shots just before the end of the Westpac were the married guys! The most lasting souvenir from this cruise was a new-found respect for the cultures of the far east, and especially for the cuisines. I had been used to the usual Cantonese/American fare at Chinese restaurants, but there nothing like actually being in the Far East to experience the food. We're lucky to have a robust Asian community nearby, and my wife and I love to haunt the dim sum restaurants and markets of the Boston area. We are quite adventurous. We've had jellyfish salad, seaweed salad, chicken feet, char siu, and we even bought a durian fruit once (make sure you cut it up OUTSIDE, though...you've been warned). We stir fry with nuok mam all the time.... More
Best Friends
Unfortunately, I didn't write down all of my classmates' or instructors' names. I did jot down a few of them in the margins of the color slides that I shot:
Other Memories
My ship, the USS Coucal (ASR-8) began an extended overhaul period in March, 1973. The prospect of spending several months living in barge berthing was not very pleasant. Also, most of the divers aboard were first class, and second class divers spent a proportionately greater amount of time as tenders instead of in the water. Second class divers were also somewhat derisively referred to as 'common air breathers.' I had used up my school time, so if I wanted to attend the Naval School of Diving and Salvage, I had to extend my enlistment for eight months. It seemed like a good trade-off, so I put in for the school and got my orders fairly quickly. I flew from Honolulu to my parents home in Massachusetts where I had stored my car and drove down to Washington, D.C.
Berthing was at a large, but comfortable (well, compared to other lower enlisted military facilities, that is...) barracks at Bolling Air Base, only a short distance from the school which was located on the Anacostia River at the Washington Navy Yard. There were only two to a room, which was a nice change from the crowded berthing compartment on the ship. My room was on an upper floor, which had an excellent view of the Potomac River.
NSDS consisted of a large brick building, a dive barge on the river, and several salvage barges. In addition to classrooms, the school building contained two freshwater training tanks about 12 feet deep, a substantial compressor/air/gas bank system, and a hyperbaric training system called the 'Igloo.' The Igloo was a large vertical steel containment vessel capable of being pressurized in excess of 300 feet of seawater (about 150 psi) and consisted of two sections. The top section was dry, while the bottom section, separated by a pressure hatch, was flooded. The purpose of the Igloo was to simulate the conditions of deep diving for the mixed gas part of the training course. Connected to the top section was a recompression chamber which could immediately treat a casualty of decompression illness. The Experimental Diving Unit (EDU) occupied a building next door to the school.
Decorating the interior of the building was some totally awesome artwork. My favorite painting was a depiction of two divers in heavy Mark V gear gambling over a treasure chest in an ancient submerged ship. Another very large painting showed a large shark attacking a pair of hard-hat divers. One diver was prostrate on the bottom, his severed air hose gushing air, and the other was prepared to defend himself from the menacing sea creature with his knife at the ready. This painting was the usual backdrop for class graduation photos. Of course, there was 'Oscar,' a mounted Mark V helmet and full diving dress. The most impressive knot board I've ever seen was another display, and it included a knotwork Mark V helmet covered with macrame, sennits and other fancy knots.
There were three heads, labeled "Men," "Women," and "Officers." We enlisted serfs wondered how the, ah, equipment, of officers differed from the other two genders!
One of the first experiences at the school was the 'pressure and oxygen tolerance test' in a recompression chamber. We were seated in the chamber, accompanied by an instructor, and pressurized on air to a simulated depth of 180 feet. As the pressure increased, the air got very warm and noticeably thicker. We were told in advance that we had best be on good behavior and not to joke around. Of course, the first thing that the instructor did when we go to depth was say, "Everyone try to whistle." We tried, but you can't whistle under pressure, and everyone, very tipsy from narcosis, cracked up. The outside tenders vented the air by simultaneously cracking the vent valve with one hand and the supply valve with the other, keeping the pressure steady. We would learn how to do this later on during the recompression chamber technician phase. Venting was a very noisy procedure, and it was done often to avoid the buildup of noxious carbon dioxide. The pressure was then slowly released until we got to the next step, at 100 feet, then another vent and a wait of a few minutes. Each time the pressure inside the chamber dropped, the air got quite cold and foggy until the outside tenders performed a vent. At about 60 feet, we were told to put on a breathing mask, and we breathed pure oxygen for a few minutes. We had learned that one of the signs of oxygen toxicity was muscle twitching, especially around the face. The instructor would come by each of us and stare into our faces. Of course, when it was my turn to be under observation, my nose began to itch, and it took a lot of effort not to move a muscle. It was a very long time ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure that we removed the oxygen masks at this time and returned to breathing compressed air. The chamber vents this time removed any excess oxygen from the chamber, which greatly increased the risk of fire. As the pressure slowly was reduced to the next stop, all of us felt an itching sensation starting at the top of our ears. After a few seconds, the itching went away. On the next ascent segment, the itching began again at the top of our ears and progressed a little further down. It took a little longer to go away. By the time we got to the surface, everyone was itching from about the level of our shoulders to the top of our heads. No amount of scratching brought relief. It lasted for about 30 minutes, and then went away. This was our first introduction to skin bends.
There were several advanced diving courses offered at NSDS in addition to the diver first class training: diving medical corpsman, diving officer, and master diver qualification. The diver first class course was 17 weeks in duration and included advanced physics, physiology, salvage, submarine rescue (including operation of the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber), deep mixed gas using helium/oxygen, and demolition. Physical training was the first activity of the day, but it wasn't as intense as it had been in diver second class or scuba school, and we were too busy once we started the salvage phase of training. The first few weeks alternated with intensive classroom sessions and projects in Mark V gear in the training tank. Of course, there were the usual single-man and overhead flange projects, pipe square, and cutting/welding. One activity was particularly challenging. The mission was to nail together six pieces of wood to form a box around a partially inflated balloon, and then release the box to the surface without the box falling apart. The challenging part of this was not only the time limit, but the wood and balloon were very buoyant, and the three-finger inflated Mark V gloves offered very limited hand dexterity. We could stash the wood (four long pieces for the sides, two short for the ends) underneath a metal table on the bottom. We also had a hammer and a limited number of nails. I remember getting chewed out because I uttered some bad words in frustration.
From the training tanks where we could see, we graduated to diving from the barge into the Anacostia River where we could not. About five inches below the surface, the water was a deep chocolate brown color, and within a foot or so, it was pitch black. The bottom consisted of deep, sticky mud. I can tell you that the underwater scenes in the movie 'Men of Honor' (set in Bayonne, New Jersey with comparable abysmal visibility conditions and no cliff for a training project to fall off!) were completely bogus! Everything underwater was accomplished completely, utterly blind.
In, I think, the fifth week of training, we started the salvage phase. After a week or so of classroom sessions, we boarded the school's salvage barge and motored a few miles down the Potomac River to Oxon Cove, Maryland. There, sunk in about 20 feet of water, with only the 01 deck above the surface, was an old minesweeper. Our mission was to survey the entire vessel to locate various holes cut into the hull, fabricate patches using materials and tools found in the barge's workroom, patch the holes, build a cofferdam if needed, and use compressed air hoses to lift the wreck to the surface. An oversized copy of the schematic plans of the wreck were provided for us to mark our progress. The first task was to survey the outside of the vessel using the lightweight, or Jack Browne mask. This mask was triangular in shape and had an air supply valve operated by a handwheel. There was no wired communication, so everything was done using hand signals on the umbilical. Then, one at a time, a student in Mark V gear penetrated into the interior of the vessel to search hand by hand for defects. My compartment was the engine room. Of course, it was totally, utterly black. None of the piping, cables, or engines were removed, so it was very realistic, if a bit nightmarish, training experience. A Jack Browne diver was stationed just underwater outside the hatch as a secondary tender, and of course, two tenders, a phone talker, student dive supervisor, standby diver, his tenders, and the instructor were topside.
It was well into June when we began our salvage phase. June in the D.C. area is oppressively hot and humid. Standby diver duty meant that you had to be completely dressed in the Mark V dress, helmet in place, seated on a stool in the hot sun for several hours. We stoically endured this duty when it was our turn. A jury-rigged gallows frame was constructed to tie up the gooseneck fittings in the back of the helmet to take the weight off of your shoulders. We draped an old sheet over the frame to protect the standby diver from the hot sun, and every now and then one of the tenders splashed a bucket of river water over the standby diver in an effort to forestall hyperthermia. At the end of the day, the instructors left us to our own devices on the barge, which had no air conditioning. Our tasks for the evening would be to plan the next day's mission or to manufacture a patch based on measurements taken by the diver, as well as prepare our evening meal from supplies in the galley. While we didn't have the overt 'harassment' of Diver Second Class school to weed out the weak, one had to have a lot of endurance to get through this phase. Nobody wanted to go back to his ship or station in shame!
Of course, I had to have a "hero picture" taken of me in a Mark V helmet. All of my civilian dive buddies back home were common scuba divers, and the old copper pot was a macho piece of gear. Remember, at the time, you had to buy film which at best yielded 36 pictures, then pay again and wait a week or so to see the results. So, with great expectation, I handed my camera off to one of my classmates and did my best to impersonate a rugged, salty diver. Much later, when I had a chance to look at the photos, I got a couple of good 'hero pictures,' but also quite a few butt shots -- and worse -- taken by the practical jokers. One of them, however, I've actually used for many lectures as my 'The End' slide. The butt in this shot had a tattoo of a propeller on each cheek with the caption on the left "69 knots" and the caption on the right "no smoke." PO1 Bucho, your tattooed behind is now famous!
The wreck was finally raised, and we returned to the classroom for mixed gas lectures. Our first training dives were done in the Igloo. The first dive was a deep -- 180 or 200 feet I think -- pressurization using air as a breathing medium. Our task was to pull down a counter-weighted submarine escape air fitting and secure it to it's female twist-lock mate on a metal table. Of course, at that depth, you get quite drunk with nitrogen narcosis, and it was difficult to focus on the fitting as I could see at least two of them. There were two of us in the wet pot at a time. One of my classmates was a teetotaler, and he really got snockered from narcosis, so much in fact, that he began running around in circles in the chamber, and his partner had to tackle him and get him calmed down. The next day, we did the exact same task under pressure, but this time we used a helium-oxygen ('heliox') mixture, and did the task much faster with a clear head.
The open water dives were conducted on another of the school's vessels several hours steaming time down the Potomac River off Dahlgren, Virginia, which was home to the U.S. Navy Weapons Laboratory. The water in this area is quite deep, and although the visibility was a little better than the opaque Anacostia River, it was still pitch black at the bottom, except for the blue flash of bioluminescent organisms disturbed by our movement. The heliox-modified Mark V helmet was a semi-closed circuit system, meaning that a tiny stream of bubbles escaped from a special valve at the top of the helmet. By contrast, the air Mark V was open-circuit, with air steadily passing through the system and released into the water. In the semi-circuit system, most of a diver's expired breath was recirculated through a carbon dioxide absorbent material, called 'baralyme,' with a small amount of fresh helium/oxygen mix injected into the stream. The exact percentage of oxygen had to be calculated depending upon the diving depth, and the class mixed it's own cylinders at the school before leaving for the training cruise. Another gas-saving procedure involved brushing the divers' fittings, suit, and hoses with soapy water to check for leaks.
The heliox Mark V rig was 100 pounds heavier than the air Mark V, at about 290 pounds at the surface. The helmet was a lot heavier because of the bronze recirculator cannister, and each shoe weighed 35 pounds. A hand winch snapped into a small eye on top of the helmet assisted the diver to get to his feet from being seated on the dressing stool so that he could shuffle over to the dive stage. The stage was hoisted over the side, and the divers rode the stage to the bottom, with the descent rate controlled by the master diver at the surface. No more climbing a vertical ladder with the air shut off as we did in the air rig. Most of us were content with this situation. Of course, one of the students had to make a bet with one of the instructors that he could make it up a ladder back onto the ship. It took a lot of time, and a lot of grunting, but he actually made it. I'm not sure if the case of beer was ever delivered, though.
In addition to our training, a secondary goal of the mixed gas deep diving training cruise was to evaluate master diver candidates. On some of the later training dives, one of the divers would be instructed to feign a problem, and one of the candidates had to figure out a solution.
The next phase was demolition training. After a few days in the classroom learning about various explosives, detonation cord, shape charges, igniters, and other pertinent topics, we spent a few days at the Explosive Ordinance Training Facility at Indian Head, Maryland. Everyone had a really great time on this trip, although, in reality, we mostly learned enough to get ourselves in real trouble if we tried to do it by ourselves.
Friday afternoons were spent by all hands in performing a top to bottom field day. Everything was scrubbed and polished, and yes, the instructors did wear a white glove on one occasion to check the tops of the piping for dust! We sometimes referred to 'NSDS' as meaning "Naval School of Dusting and Sweeping."
Washington D.C. offered plenty of diversions on the weekends that we didn't stand duty. There were the many monuments, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Zoo to explore. The presidential yacht Sequoia was docked one pier over from the school, and they often got underway with important guests aboard wearing formal attire. President Nixon did not use the vessel while I was there.
Our last week in school was spent learning the construction and operation of the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber. This armored one-atmosphere vessel was designed before World War II to rescue any trapped personnel from a disabled submarine on the bottom. Coucal, and all of her sister ships, carried one. The SRC was used for the only successful rescue during the salvage of the Squalus off New Hampshire in 1939. If a submarine found itself trapped on the bottom, the crew could either raise a buoy from its escape hatch, or divers from the surface could install the downhaul cable. The ASR securely anchored itself above the stricken vessel using a four-point moor. Two operators, always divers first class, lowered the chamber and made a seal over the hatch and expelled sea water from the lower compartment. Rescued sailors, four at a time, climbed up a ladder into the upper compartment, and the chamber was raised along the cable to the surface and safety. The operation was reasonably simple, but there were a lot of valves and gauges to learn. Our training dives were done in shallow water next to the NSDS training barge.
After graduation, I drove back north and enjoyed a 30-day leave before returning to my ship.
I returned to NSDS for two weeks in the summer of 1977. I needed to requalify as a diver first class because I had left active duty two years earlier and then affiliated with a diving Reserve unit, HCU-2, Detachment 202. EDU had already moved from Washington to Panama City, Florida, and NSDS would follow in a few more years as the Navy consolidated its diving training into one facility. The venerable old Mark V was still being used in the fleet, but the school was introducing two new systems into the training course. The Mark 12 was specially designed for the Navy to replace the copper hat as a heavy deep sea helmet. It was constructed of yellow Lexan plastic, and unlike the old Mark V, a diver could wear a specially designed dry suit with a weight-bearing nylon oversuit in 'bottom mode,' or he could dive in a wetsuit or even a bathing suit in 'swimmers mode.' A story circulated around the school that some of the old master divers resisted the retirement of the old copper hat, and one of them reportedly repeatedly whacked his head against a ship's hull in an attempt to crack the helmet and thereby to prove its unworthiness. Another new piece of diving gear was the lightweight helmet, the Mark 1, which was a modification of the Kirby Morgan Band Mask. This replacement for the Jack Browne Mask consisted of a full face mask attached by a special stainless steel band to a neoprene hood, which was held securely onto the diver's head by a rubber strap system called a 'spider.' The Mark 1 could be used by continuously flowing air through it like it's predecessors, but the usual way of breathing was by a special demand regulator installed into the mask, which used a lot less air and was much quieter.
I've learned that all of the Navy dive schools (Washington, Little Creek, San Diego, Pearl Harbor, etc.) have been consolidated into one campus in Panama City, Florida. The times and equipment that I experienced and am sharing with the reader now are long past. You know that you're getting old when you can present a history lesson using your own material!
Best Friends
Without a doubt, SM2(EOD) Arthur Kamehameha "Charlie" Wongdock was a fellow you never forget! His mother was full Hawaiian, his father was half Chinese, half Irish, and the family lived in a traditional tin-roofed house in a banana plantation near Kaneohe, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In another life, he could have been the 'Crocodile Hunter.' My introduction to Charlie, on my first day in Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, was watching him handle a 9-foot water monitor lizard (don't believe me? check out the photos I've uploaded to this page!) The day before, he and our CO, Lt. Frye, were returning to our quarters in our Boston Whaler, and Charlie saw this thing swimming in the bay. Without a second thought, he jumped over the side and wrestled the thing into the boat!
Another time, I was doing some fiberglass work on one of our boats and was inside our equipment cage. A group of guys had gathered in front of a glass aquarium in front of the container, which had a glass plate on top of it. Suddenly, a reptilian head emerged from a gap on top. It was frantically beaten back inside with a broom. When I went around front to see what the %^&#!! was going on, there was a cobra in full striking position inside the aquarium glaring in rage. Yup, you guessed it, Charlie had caught it! To give him some credit, he saw a snake on the side of the road, stopped, and picked it up before the thing spread it's hood and wrapped around his arm! There was an airforce guy nicknamed 'Jungle Bob the Bug Man' who would buy such critters. What he did with them, I have no idea. How Charlie got the snake into the aquarium, I have no idea.
Charlie would lead us in many adventures around Cam Ranh, including diving, shell collecting, even water skiing (sometimes a little too close to unsecured areas, a.k.a. 'Indian Country'!).
Back in Hawaii, Charlie invited me to a family luau at their house near Maunowili Falls near Kaneohe. They killed and butchered a large pig, prepared it, put it into a pit with hot rocks, covered it over, and in 3 hours or so the meat was so tender it literally fell off the bones (see the photos I've uploaded). I was introduced to traditional Hawaiian fare such as haupeia, chicken lau-lau, and other delicious tidbits. Then, I spotted what looked like chocolate pudding in small cups. I plunged a spoon into the cup, scooped up a very generous helping, but when I tried to chew my jaws were glued together by what tasted like library paste. That was my introduction to poi. After he nearly split his side from laughing, Charlie explained the proper way to eat poi. You take a bite of the Kahlua pig (or chicken), then scoop a little bit of the poi with two fingers, and mix it in your mouth. Ohhhh, OK, well that's actually pretty good.
I lost track of Charlie over the years, and I'd love to touch base with the crazy guy again!
Other Memories
For many years I didn't tell anyone much about Project Short Time because it was classified. I recently learned that it was declassified in the early 1990s, so I guess I can loosen up a bit. If I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the details, remember that this all happened 40 years ago as I write this in 2011.
I arrived in Honolulu in September, 1971 and was met at the airport by one of the members of the unit, Chief Foster (Navy chiefs are the friendliest guys on the planet. You can always call them by their first names. Funny thing is, they all seem to have the same first name, "Chief"). I remember being totally blown away by the ride over the Pali Highway. I didn't travel much before joining the Navy!
The Naval Undersea Center (NUC) occupied the far side of the peninsula of the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station (KMCAS), across the main runways. You had to stop before crossing and wait for clearance because it was a very active base. The phantoms, in particular, were awesome to watch at such close range. They would make a deafening roar and spew a cone of flame as they took off.
NUC consisted of a few prefabricated trailers and piers with lots of cages and pens at the waters edge. The cages contained sea lions which were being trained to recover practice torpedoes and missiles while the occupants of the pens were Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus for you science buffs). Civilian trainers, many from the tourist dolphin shows in Florida and California, were employed to modify the behaviors for military purposes.
The dolphins were used in a new swimmer defense system to locate and neutralize enemy sappers who would plant explosives on a ship's hull and sink it to disrupt the supply chain of war material in the Vietnam Theater of Operations. Dolphins are highly intelligent animals and have such an amazing sense of echolocation that they can distinguish between, say, a log, a shark, a turtle, or a human swimmer. Because it was risky -- and expensive -- to use civilian trainers in a war zone, the Navy established a military detachment to test the system in a war setting. The civilians trained the animals. We in the military detachment were tasked with maintaining these behaviors.
I spent several weeks in Hawaii learning the animals and the system. My civilian mentor was Mike Braget.
A unique vessel, called a Sentry Vehicle Station (SVS) had been designed for Project Short Time. It was a pontoon-type boat, about 30 feet long, with a flat deck. A large cutout enclosed below with mesh netting housed the dolphin during a watch. A small cabin which could fit 2 people was just aft of the animal's pen. Propulsion was supplied by twin outboard motors. The boat would be motored out to the sentry site and anchored by a 2-point moor. First, a Danforth anchor was let out aft, the boat eased forward and the anchor set, and then carefully moved forward, letting out almost all of the stern rode. The forward anchor was then let out and set, and the boat was positioned at the center. The operator would then set a net extension to make the pen larger and open the gate. He'd then set the paddles in the water (more on them later), turn on the 'black box' in the cabin and test the electronics. Meanwhile, back at base, other members would release the dolphin from its home pen and it would follow a 17 foot Boston Whaler to the SVS. It would swim inside the SVS pen, the operator would close the gate, and he'd give the animal its reward: a couple of thawed frozen smelt, which they loved. The first couple of the day contained several vitamin pills.
Communication between the human operator and the dolphin was accomplished using underwater sound transducers and three paddles which projected underwater into the pen. When the operator wanted the animal to conduct a search, he'd press a button on the 'black box' which would cause the transducer to make a sound at a specific frequency. When the dolphin heard the sound, he (or she, we had both genders) would press the paddle on the aft center of the pen, just below the cabin window, and search the water for swimmers. A yellow light would illuminate on the box to let the operator know that it was functioning. The animal would then rotate on its side and scan in a 180 degree arc. It would appear to nod its head up and down. It was transmitting a loud sound beam into the water. If the sound encountered an object, it would bounce back and alert the dolphin --just like a submarine's or destroyer's sonar, but way more sophisticated -- which knew exactly what the objects were. Dolphins can actually tell the species, size, etc. of any fish in this way. That's how they hunt in the wild. This would take about 20 - 30 seconds. If the animal 'saw' nothing, it would press a paddle on the forward right side of the pen with its 'beak' (actually called it's rostrum), and a green light would illuminate on the box in the cabin. If the operator was satisfied that the animal performed a good search, he'd toss a couple of fish through the window into the eager mouth of the animal as a reward. The trick, of course, was in determining if it was a good search, because the animals sometimes got bored and would screw off just like any red-blooded enlisted sailor! The dolphin's sonar is very loud, but most of it is in the ultrahigh frequency that humans can't hear. It was in the detailed observation of the behavior that you could tell. Of course, every now and then, an actual human swimmer would have to be taken far away and try to sneak up on the system to test it.
If the animal did locate a swimmer, it would press a paddle on the left forward side of its pen, and a red light would go on on the box. The operator would then press the button again to re-interrogate the animal, and it would search again. This was done to prevent false positives. The operator would immediately radio the news back to base. The dolphin by this time would be very excited, like a dog wanting to chase a ball. The operator would come out of the cabin, gently place a special sleeve over the dolphin's rostrum, and then he'd open the gate to release it. The animal would swim directly toward the target and would ram near the center of the person's back.
The sleeve was in two parts. The sleeve itself was specially designed to fit over the animal's rostrum (OK, what you'd think of as the snout. Remember, the actual breathing hole is back up on top of the head. Attached to the distal part of the sleeve was a detachable cone. When the animal pushed the cone into the back of its target, it pressed a button which triggered a wicked little spring-loaded stainless steel barb (a mini-harpoon!) and a long wire cable, and the cone would separate from the sleeve. As soon as the cone was free, a bright strobe light began flashing, which alerted the operator of the location of the target. As soon as the animal returned to the SVS, the gates were closed, the sleeve removed, and a bucketful of tasty fish would be given to the now ecstatic dolphin. An armed boat would be dispatched to secure the target. Although the device wasn't specifically designed to be lethal, at the very least the barb would have to be surgically removed. One of the guys demonstrated the effectiveness of the device by pressing a loaded cone against a frozen slab of meat; it penetrated!
Of course, for the test, the nasty cone was replaced by one that simply separated and flashed! Even so, one of our guys suffered separated ribs from an over-enthusiastic ramming. Remember, sometimes the animals messed up. I think they could recognize us individually, as we often swam with them. So, sometimes, instead of poking us in the back, one would simply lean on our shoulder. Then, we'd have to signal back to the SVS that he didn't do the operation properly. The operator would then recall the animal with a special frequency. Of course, the critter was expecting a big reward. Instead, the operator would pull the paddles, turn his body to face away from the pen, and stand for a few minutes. "Hey, jerkoff, where's my fish?!" you could imagine him thinking. After a few moments, the operator would replace the paddles, return to the cabin, and reinterrogate. Another 'positive,' reinterrogation, 'positive,' place the sleeve, open the gates, and the dolphin would take off like a shot. By this time, the guy in the water, far off, is thinking, "Ohhhh shit!" Now, some of the dolphin's sonar is actually within the human hearing range. You can hear a far-off 'click,' then another 'click,' and as the animal approaches the clicks get a little louder and closer together. Just before the dolphin makes contact, the clicks turn into a humming sound. At this time, you reach down and cover your balls with your hands, just in case the critter misses... Whack! He really, really wants his fish. You painfully signal that this time he's got it right, the operator on the SVS presses the recall button, and the grey torpedo makes a mad dash back.
As you can see, this was a big fun game with snacks to the dolphins. They weren't killers or sacrificial torpedoes. But, the enemy had no clue what we had. They knew we had something. The civilian trainers posted political cartoons from Pravda and other newspapers depicting killer sharks and the like. Even today, you can do a search on the internet and find all manner of crazy stories about the unit. Before this system, the supply piers at Cam Ranh Bay were protected by hand grenades tossed randomly into the water.
Ultrasound is used in medical imaging to 'see' inside the body of patients. For example, sonography is often used to check the status of the fetus inside the mother. It is odd to think that the dolphins could actually 'see' inside of our bodies as they scanned us. Dolphins are intelligent, sophisticated animals.
The system was designed to locate and mark surface swimmers, not scuba divers, because the VC didn't use underwater equipment. I have no doubt, though, that the animals would have located and marked any subsurface swimmers.
While in Hawaii, I stayed at the crash boat enlisted berthing at the KMCAS and ate at the enlisted marine corps mess hall. The crash boats were rescue craft which would be deployed if one of the marine aircraft got into trouble in the waters off the base. The guys were Navy, but of course, most of the personnel on the base were marines. Being vastly outnumbered, I never heard any disrespect of the corps from us squids. Now I know why marines are so tough, though. The food was terrible, and they only gave you one helping!
When the time came for my deployment, I flew to Travis Air Base in California. In about a 24 hour flight, we had one refueling stop at Wake Island and another at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, with the final destination Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon. A year and a half earlier, I figured that if I joined the Navy, I wouldn't be sent to Vietnam, and here I was, a volunteer no less! After checking in, I didn't have a clue as to what was next. All of a sudden there were two camouflage-clad arms around me in a bearhug. It was my greeting party. I'm not sure what kind of an impression I made, because halfway across town, I realized in a panic that I didn't have my personnel records packet on me. We turned around and made our way back to the airport, and luckily they were still on the check-in desk.
So, finally, I arrived at my temporary quarters, which was the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) villa in the old French part of Saigon. I and our medical corpsman were the only non-EOD qualified personnel in the NUC military detachment. If a charge was ever found on one of the ships we were protecting, the EOD guys would be tasked to remove it. I only spent a couple of days in Saigon, getting my jungle camouglage uniforms, sidearm, steel pot, etc. The villa itself dated to French colonial times. There was a memorial shrine set up in honor of EOD sailors who perished in the line of duty. The roof of the building was set up as a bar. One of the most surreal evenings of my life was spent up there drinking gin and tonics with some of the local, ah, ladies, listening to the dull thud of artillery explosions in the distance. During the day, as I was getting ferried about getting my stuff, we were ordered to keep the windows of the jeep closed, despite the stifling heat. There were student protests going on, and they were worried that a grenade or Molotov cocktail would be tossed in. A few days later, I was aboard a cargo/passenger transport headed for the air base at Cam Ranh Bay.
I arrived in late afternoon and in the evening I went with some of the guys in our Boston Whaler to the Army dive barge anchored in the bay a mile or so away. Yes, the army had lots of hard hat divers. There were quite a few of the, ah, local ladies there, and it looked like money was flowing like the booze swirling about. All of the ladies were very happy. I had noticed a couple of days earlier that the familiar greenbacks were not used in Vietnam. Instead, special scrip, called Military Payment Certificates (MPC) were issued as pay to prevent the growth of the black market. The bills were much more colorful than the usual dead American Presidents. Every so often, everyone was restricted to base and had to turn in their old MPC for new designs, so all the mamma-sans and black marketeers would be stuck with useless paper. So, strange money was the norm. I looked a little more carefully at the funny money being passed around by the crazy Army divers. It was funny all right: a seal balancing a ball on its nose told me right away that they were paying the hookers off in play money! I was glad I didn't have to be the one to return the ladies to the cat house. One of the crazy guys from my unit that I met that night was a big guy called Charlie Wongdock.
The next morning, I heard a rap on my cubicle door. It was Charlie. "You want to see my lizard?" he said. Even in my bleary hungover state, I knew that navy guys like to play tricks on the rookies. "Well, OK I guess," I said with a little skepticism in my voice. OK, so what practical joke am I to be the butt of? I got dressed, went outside, and saw a group of guys looking at something. When I finally managed to focus my eyes, there was Charlie holding the tail of a giant lizard. The thing had to be 9 feet long. It's tongue flicked out every few seconds, and it didn't look too happy. I found out later that it was a water monitor lizard. Charlie had seen the lizard swimming in the bay from our Whaler, jumped into the water, and wrestled it into the boat. So, this was my introduction to Project Short Time!
The Project Short Time compound (also known as our 'hooch") consisted of a few roughly made plywood shacks located on the southern tip of the Cam Ranh Peninsula, adjacent to the Naval Communication Station. Each of us had our own private room in our berthing building, even me, the lowest rated man there (E3). There was an office for the CO, a radio, maintenance shed protected by a chain link fence, a small mess, and, of course, the guys built a small bar. The bar itself was made from a huge empty wooden spool (originally for cable or mooring line) which had been darkened by a light flame and then coated with clear resin. We even employed a couple of local girls as maids for a couple of dollars a month apiece. Sailors in the field know how to take care of themselves! We shared the compound with some other EOD guys who were not in our unit.
Our mission was to protect the ammunition jetty located just south of the Cam Ranh Air Base a few miles north of our compound. Our barge was moored a few hundred yards to the west of the pier. The dolphin pens were secured to the barge. There were four animals, although at this late date I can only remember the names of three: John, Slan, and Toad. We had excellent views of the bay from our position. During the day and on nights when there was no ship at the pier, there was just a watch on the barge, and the SVS boats were tied up. If a ship was in port, we deployed the SVSs before sundown for our nightly vigil. The three SVSs were anchored near the pier so that all 360 degrees around the pier was monitored.
We also had several 17-foot Boston Whalers, painted all black. A 50 mm machine gun mount was mounted on the bow. Attached to the console were several holsters made from cut out sausage buoys into which were inserted an M79 grenade launcher ('thump gun') and M16s. After the SVSs were moored, the animals were lead one at a time from their pens to the sentry boats. They freely followed the Whaler. Only one animal failed to return during the year Project Short Time existed in Cam Ranh Bay.
I shared my watch and the dolphin John with Charlie Wongdock. One of us would get some rest while the other would stand the watch. Every few minutes we'd press the transducer button to 'interrogate' the animal, who would perform his search and get his reward snack. We also were equipped with the new high-tech Starlight scopes, which allowed us to scan the darkness around us for sampans skulking about.
Every other day or so, one of us was selected to make a test swim on the system, always in the dead of night. The Whaler would take the pretend sapper a long way from the barge, practically across the bay, and drop him off, alone, with only a small strobe light to signal in case something went wrong. I can admit that it was an unnerving experience to be swimming on the surface in a tropical bay in near total darkness by yourself. The waters teemed with sharks, barracuda, rays, sea snakes, and, of course, we didn't want to meet any small brown humans towing packages, either. We had to swim slowly and as quietly as possible, and it took a lot of resolve not to shout out at the slightest ripple in the black water surrounding you. It was actually a relief when you saw the signal from the SVS that the animal had 'seen' you and was on its way. One time I could see a line of red tracers in the distance fired up a mountain and bouncing off the rocks. It was a Korean unit attempting to keep the VC from setting up a mortar attack on the air base across the bay.
If we saw a sampan entering restricted waters near the jetty through our Starlight scopes, we'd radio the barge, and they'd send out the black Whaler to intercept it. Before getting too close, the boat crew would launch parachute flares to illuminate the sampan using the grenade launcher. One night I was assisting our first class BM by handing him the rounds from the ammo box, when one of them didn't feel right. I looked down at it, and it had an orange top (explosive grenade) instead of a white top (flare)! Oops, put that one back! Once the sampan was inspected, it was towed back to shore and the local police notified. I felt sorry for the folks, because in every case it was a local fisherman who'd been fishing the area for many years. But, it was Vietnam, and you never knew...
The sampans were small primitive craft, filled up with monofilament line. I have no idea how they managed to keep it from tangling. Another time we picked up a couple of kids in a sampan, and towed them back to shore. They were scared witless and crying while waiting for the cops. Unfortunately, I carelessly stepped a little too close to the water and slipped on a slick patch of algae. SPLASH! As I hauled my fully clothed drenched self onto the quay, the tears quickly turned to belly laughs.
The unloading operations for the munition ships usually went on around the clock. Locals did the work, including operating the ship's cranes lifting containers out of the holds and onto the quay. It wasn't uncommon to see boxes whack against the ship or the dock. In the early morning daylight, after one of my first overnight watches, I happened to notice some jelly-like goo smeared on the ground. "What the &&@!! is that?" Without skipping a beat, our first class BM said, "Better not light a match. That's spilled napalm." On another night, I was standing watch in an SVS when the radio crackled that a sampan had been spotted. Rmmmm! The Whaler cruises past. Pretty white lights floating down on tiny parachutes appeared in the sky. One of the parachutes floated down into one of a munition ship's cargo hold. Several dozen small men scrambled off the ship for their lives. I'm only a few hundred feet away. Tense moments. Phew, the workers get back aboard. I was drenched in sweat though.
During the day, we had to do maintenance back at the compound. If you didn't have barge duty, you'd drive back by jeep or sometimes use the Whaler. Cam Ranh Bay is a beautiful area, and in other times would have made a wonderful resort. Heavily jungled hills and small mountains and valleys met crystal clear sea. Near the air base and in some other areas, though, the terrain looked like a desert, the result of agent orange defoliant. This was a pacified area, not a hot spot. However, the air base and ammo jetty were certainly tempting targets, and earlier in the year there was a mortar attack at the base. I always had at least a .45 pistol with me in the jeep.
I only heard gunfire once. I was sleeping in my cubicle at the compound. BLAM BLAM BLAM! I hit the deck, locate my pistol, and carefully peer out of my door. It turns out one of our guys spotted a RVN navy guy trying to break into one of our buildings, and he was sent on his way.
I did sustain an injury during my involvement in Project Short Time. I went with one of the guys to the enlisted club over at the Naval Communication Station. I had many screwdrivers. Then, we went back to our little bar back at our hooch for more. A few of the other guys were already there drinking. I really don't remember too much about that night, except that one of them said, "You'd better get out of here, NOW." I remember saying, "You can't make..." POW. I woke up the next morning in my cot with a very sore, rearranged nose (to this day, my septum is slightly twisted to the left). Thank you, PO1 Art Turnbough, wherever you are, for teaching me a hard, but very valuable life lesson. You drink too much, you do stupid things, you piss off the wrong person, you are very vulnerable. Lesson learned.
When we could, a group of us, always lead by Charlie Wongdock, would go diving, surfing, water skiing. It was great to have your own boat! You just had to be careful not to get too close to the dense vegetation on the other side of the bay. One of our favorite pastimes was to collect shells: cowries, murex, augers, you name it. We saw highly venomous sea snakes, lionfish, the occasional shark. If we heard the particular motor thrumming of the RVN navy patrol boats, however, we got out of the water fast. They liked to fish by tossing hand grenades into the water.
It seems strange today when smokers are pariahs, but at one time the habit was not only tolerated, but encouraged. Cigarettes were given out during flights on commercial airlines. Combat rations contained a half-dozen or so cigarettes. When we were on barge duty, our meals were provided courtesy of a box of c-rats. I've never been a smoker, so I'd save the cigarettes and trade them to the Vietnamese navy guys for military patches.
Our first class BM, whose name I unfortunately can't remember, taught one of our maids how to cook food that was actually palatable to 'round-eyes.' They themselves loved rice which they would drench with a foul-smelling potion called nuok mam ('nook mam'). It is made by pouring layers of sardines and salt into a barrel, and after letting it ferment for a couple of weeks pressing and filtering the liquid stench. It smelled like low tide in Boston Harbor. It took a while, but I actually developed a taste for the stuff. Many years after leaving the service, I discovered that the local asian markets in Boston carry the stuff. My wife has even developed a taste for it (but not our kid the chef!).
In early December, we had to pack everything and prepare to redeploy to Guam. The NUC military detachment experiment in Vietnam was coming to a successful close (meaning we didn't get blown up), and we were to train and turn over the dolphin swimmer defense system to another unit, a detachment of the Inshore Undersea Warfare Group. Charlie had an altercation with one of the chiefs, so he was sent back early to Kaneohe. Someone then said that we had to get rid of the snake. I hadn't seen it yet, but I had heard about it. We had a small storage shed for canned and dry goods. It was a very large rock python. It had been there some months, and every so often someone would bring a duck in and toss it into the shed. I don't know who put the snake into the shed in the first place, but I suspect Charlie Wongdock had something to do with it. Anyway, we had to get rid of it, because we were giving the compound over to another group, and the maids wouldn't go in the shed. So, since I was the biology guy, and Charlie wasn't with us, I got elected to come up with a plan. About 5 of us cautiously opened the shed, and in the gloom we could see this large reptilian head glaring at us from one of the shelves between the canned peas and beans. The head was as big as my hand; the body as thick as my arm; I don't know how long it was, but you could see parts all around the shed. I decided that I would grab the head and everyone else would grab the rest of the body and we would expel the beast to the outdoors. I slowly approached the head. All of a sudden it opened its toothy head wide and lunged at me, missing my right nipple by about 2 inches. I was out of there like a shot. Plan B worked, which was to take a broom handle and beat the thing about the tail until it lunged out the door. The last we saw it, it slithered rapidly into the thick vegetation behind our hooch.
Yes, I know what the reader is thinking: "The difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is that one begins with "Once upon a time" and the other begins with "This is no bullshit, lad." The old salts will remember, though, that the crazier a navy story is, the more likely that it is true. You simply can't make this stuff up!
The dolphins had been trained before they left Kaneohe to swim into a transport sling. They were loaded into a special transport canister, which sprayed a mist to keep their skin cool and moist. We all got into a large C130 cargo plane, and flew to the island of Guam, where a barge and pens had already been set up in the Inner Apra Harbor of the Navy Base. A few other dolphins had already been transported there from Kaneohe. It was a long, tense flight, and we had to monitor the animals and their containers constantly. A NUC veterinarian was also on the flight. We arrived at Anderson Air Force Base at night, transported the animals onto flatbed trucks, and drove very slowly south towards Apra Harbor. We made one stop for the island's only stop sign.
Several of us returned to Kaneohe for a few weeks and returned on the first of January.
During the next few months, we set our SVS boats up alongside the submarine base at Apra Harbor. The IUWG guys were great fun and learned fast. Charlie Wongdock had rejoined us, but most of the chiefs in our unit did not. The CO of the IUWG group was an odd fellow who sported a long beard and wasn't too regular with his haircuts. We nicknamed him "Lieutenant Groovy" (but not to his face, of course!). I still had John the porpoise. Some of the new animals were Nemo, Snorkel and Rounder.
Rounder was a big male, and he would often be seen in the early morning when we got to the barge masturbating himself on a rope toy strung across his pen. Male dolphins are very horny creatures, sort of like sailors. During my initial indoctrination as a marine mammal handler, we had access to lots of reading materials. One funny story came from a tourist 'seaquarium' in Florida. The dolphins exhibited to the public were younger, perfect specimens while older, scarred animals were kept in tanks behind the scenes. The trainers sometimes taught these old guys different tricks than the ones on display. Apparently, one male was taught to respond on command to roll over on his back, pop an erection, and hold it while the trainer tossed a plastic ring onto it. The signal was a hand wave. Well, all went well until there was a shortage of display animals, and this one was brought out front. As soon as the dolphin exhibit opened, a large group of girl scouts entered, laughing and waving their hands. It was not recorded what happened next.
We had a behavior problem with one of our females, Slan. Inner Apra Harbor was loaded with tasty fish, and she soon learned that it was easier to go after her own dinner than do her work. Instead of following the boat to the SVS, she'd take off, and we'd see her surface in a few minutes tossing a fish at the surface and eating it. The training gurus tried making a special harness/muzzle for her. I left the island before the issue was fully resolved.
The good part of the move to Guam was that the hours were not as exhausting and the likelihood of getting blown up was greatly diminished. We'd hop in the boats and go diving as often as we could. Our favorite sites were Orote Point, where I've never seen so many sharks in my life, and a few of the reefs in the outer Apra Harbor, where we'd go shell collecting. Our favorite shells to collect were spider conchs, augers, and map cowries. One time I snorkeled down into a small cavern, looked around me and discovered that the walls were covered by lionfish. Lionfish are beautiful fish and are popular in the aquarium trade, but they have long, venomous spines you definitely do not want to touch. I beat a hasty, but careful retreat. Another time, I was on our barge when I spotted a large octopus crawling up a rock protruding above the water. I hopped into the water to grab it, whereupon it grabbed me by the arm and delivered a painful bite. I eventually got it, though, and Charlie cooked it for a barbecue that night. Occasionally we'd take the jeep and go snorkeling at Tumon Bay or Talafofo. There were WWII Japanese pill boxes hidden in the rocks in several places. It was sobering to think of the marines who had to take these beaches.
Three of us took a few days of leave and flew over to the neighboring island of Rota. Ensign Pine, Chief Cepowski and myself stayed in a quaint motel in Songsong Village. We rented a truck , toured the island, and went snorkeling for lynx cowries. There were lots of pockmarked Japanese ruins in the now overgrown bush, and again, we were reminded of the violence of war which took place here less than 30 years before. The Japanese used the island to mine phosphate, and we encountered a rusting locomotive in the forest. Normally, when we collected live seashells, we'd bury them in a shallow pit in the sand for a few weeks and let the ants clean out the meat. Since we were there for only a few days, we put the shells in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box, and somehow convinced Ensign Pine bring it on board the Air Micronesia plane as carry-on luggage. About midway through the flight, very stinky goo started to drip from the box, and he got some hard looks from the other passengers as we disembarked on Guam. Luckily, it wasn't a very long flight!
While I was on the island in 1972, the last Japanese soldier was captured hiding out in the bush at Talafofo. Guam is not a very large island, but there is rugged terrain in some areas. There are several large military installations nearby. It is amazing that this fellow hid out for 27 years. A few of our EOD guys got to examine his weapons. His name was Shoichi Yokoi, and there is an article about him in Wikipedia. He died in 1997.
The bad part about Guam was that we weren't a small independent group out in the sticks anymore. That meant a return to haircuts, pressed uniforms and shined shoes. We were berthed in open-bayed transit barracks next door to the marine brig. Charlie decided to play a joke for one inspection. He put a small spool of thread in his breast pocket and led the end out through the buttonhole. Loose threads, or 'Irish Pennants,' were as bad as scuffed shoes or off-center belt buckles. Sure enough, Lieutenant Groovy stopped in front of Charlie, frowned, and pulled on the thread....and pulled....and pulled until the entire company burst out with hysterical laughing. That was the last of the inspections while I was there.
After about three months or so, the IUWG operators were up to speed, and it was time to return to Hawaii. The NUC military detachment of Project Short Time, which was officially designated CTU 115.9.1 (Coastal Surveillance Testing Unit), had accomplished its mission and it was time for it to disband. Most of the team had already dispersed back to the EOD teams or the fleet. I spent a month or so training sea lions as part of the Quick Find project. Sea lions were trained to recover practice missiles up to 500 feet deep. They wore a sleeve on their muzzles that had a spring-loaded grabber arm secured to it and a thin, long line leading back to a small inflatable boat. The spent practice torpedo emitted a locator pinging noise when it hit the bottom. The sea lion would accept the sleeve and follow the ping down to the device. It was trained to press the center of the sleeve against the narrow after-body of the missile, which depressed a button which released the arms of the grabber to secure the ordinance. The seal would then shake off the sleeve, swim back to the boat and get his fishy reward. The animal I worked with was named 'Spooky,' because sometimes he'd turn suddenly and give you a nip on the leg. He was being retrained from another project in which he was deployed from a helicopter. The chopper would hover, and his cage was lowered to the surface of the water. The cage's door would open from a radio signal, and he'd swim out, do his thing, and return to the cage. I was selected to accompany Spooky to his new home at the Point Loma, California NUC campus. This project was being handed over to the SEAL team, so I stayed at one of the guys' apartment in Coronado for a week.
Of course, I dived as often as I could with Charlie, the civilian trainers at NUC, and the marine corps dive club. There were huge tiger cowries and the rare tesselated cowries in the Kaneohe area. I'm a lot more environmentally conscious nowadays, so I feel a pang of guilt when I look at my collection. Still it was a lot of fun.
Not long after returning to Kaneohe, I received orders for the full 10-week course at the Second Class Dive School at San Diego, 30 days leave back in Massachusetts and then to the USS Coucal at Pearl Harbor. I certainly can't say that the Navy didn't provide enough adventure!
EPILOGUE
After my time in the Navy, I enjoyed a 30-year career as the Diving Safety Officer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Before I retired in March, 2010, I was interviewed for an article featured in Oceanus Magazine. I mentioned that I had been a dolphin trainer during the Vietnam War in Cam Ranh Bay, RVN. The article appeared in print and also online (as of this writing in February 2012, it is still available at http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=71347&preview=true ). A year and a half later, in September 2011 I received an email message from the WHOI Public Information Office:
From: information@whoi.edu Subj: Fwd: Atten: Joanne for Terry Rioux Date: 9/20/2011 8:08 AM Hi Terry, I received this request below. This person is trying to get in touch with you. Regards, Joanne Tromp Info Office
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Atten: Joanne for Terry Rioux Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:10:33 -0700 From: Hal Goforth
To:
Joanne,
I am a retired Navy EOD Officer and was the first Marine Mammals Officer assigned to NUC Military Detachment in May 1969-1971. I have been researching and writing a book on the Navy's Swimmer Defense System. I'd like to communicate with TM-2 Terry Rioux about his experiences in Cam Ranh Bay after I left there in early June 1971. I have interviewed many others who were part of this unit. His experience with Charlie Wongdock and the marine monitor was told to me by Chris Frier (now a Vet. in California). I'd like to confirm what Chris told me about this. I would really appreciate hearing his full story. Thanks much, Hal Goforth, Jr., Ph.D., CAPT (Ret), USNR-R
It was like a bolt out of the blue! I hadn't known him personally, as he had rotated out of the detachment before I arrived, but Goforth had been the first commanding officer of Project Short Time in Cam Ranh Bay. I quickly returned his message:
---------------------------------------------------------------- To: hgoforth Subj: NUC Military Detachment Date: 9/20/2011 1:48 PM
Hi Hal,
Joanne Tromp, of the WHOI Public Information Office, forwarded your email to me, dated 16 Sept 2011. I just got back from 3 weeks abroad and found it as I was going through a couple of hundred emails that had piled up in my absence. I retired after a 30-year career at WHOI in 2010, and the wife and I have been doing a bit of traveling.
It's a funny coincidence that you contacted me. I recently posted photographs and 'sea stories' of my Navy experiences to a veterans' web site called togetherweserved.com . The link to my profile is:
In order to access specific photos and essays pertaining to my NUC experiences, click on the icons "1971-1971 Vietnam War" (my photos from CRB), "1971-1972 Kaneohe Bay..." (photos from NUC Hawaii and Guam, and my rambling prose describing my experiences), and the Navy Achievement and MUC ribbons (scans of the certificates and citations). If you click on "Voices Profile," I described how I managed to get into the unit.
I certainly remember your name, and of course LTJG Frier and Charlie Wongdock. I've been trying to contact Charlie for years, but without success. Would you have any contact information for him? It would be great to get members of the group together again, even if only virtually via the net.
I'm glad to see that you are planning to write a book. It's a great story. For years I didn't divulge anything about the unit, because it was classified. I couple of years ago, though, I found out that it was declassified in the early 1990s. I scanned most of my old slides into JPEGs, and since none of us are getting any younger, I wanted to do something with them instead of them being shoveled into the trash some day. If you can use any of my stuff for your book, I would consider it an honor to be included, and you have my permission to use it. All I ask in return is attribution for materials used (e.g., "photo by Terrence M. Rioux"). Well, a copy of the book would be nice, too!
If you have trouble accessing the files from the link provided, I've retained copies on our home pc, and I could send them to you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We corresponded quite a bit during the next year, and he visited me at home (he was in the area participating in the Boston Marathon). I burned off a CD with my photos and recollections. I told him to use whatever I had sent for his book project. He sent a message in December 2012 again asking permission to use one of my photos of a dolphin leaping, to be used as the cover photo! The book was published in February, and I received my copy from Hal in the mail a few days after our area was hit with the 'wintercane' Blizzard of 2013. I devoured the book, despite having to read it by flashlight and wearing many layers of clothing. It is available from Amazon.com as "Defender Dolphins / The Story of Project Short Time, by Harold W. Goforth Jr., ISBN 978-1-937592-30-1. It is a fascinating and comprehensive history of Navy dolphins, and I'm not just saying that because several of my photos (also seen here on my TWS page) are in it.
Other Memories
Diver Second Class School, Naval Station, San Diego, California:
I was assigned to this school twice. The first time I only had orders for scuba training. There was no separate scuba course, so the training consisted of the first four weeks of the 10-week Diver Second Class course. These weeks were part dive training, part survival of the intense physical exercises designed to weed out the weaker candidates. The first Tuesday, called "Black Tuesday," was the first taste of what was to come. The morning was spent in sweating through punishing physical exercises. For example, I never thought the simple game of leapfrog would be such a sadistic game, and then came the 'hello darlings,' pushups until your arms felt like putty, 8-count body-builders, sit-ups, etc., etc.... and then the 4-mile run!
The goal in the pool was not to be separated from your buddy. If you were, you and your buddy had to run linked with a heavy mooring line over your shoulders during the morning 4-mile fitness runs. Everyone had to run in a column of two. If your team fell behind, the instructor would turn the entire column so it was behind you, and he would scream in your face "Do you want to quit?!!! Just ring the bell!" Most of the people who dropped out did so in the first four weeks. We also did long surface swims in the bay. One of our instructors would lead the column swimming backwards facing us while smoking his cigar.
If you or your buddy surfaced during 'final harassment in the pool, you flunked. The first time I went through scuba phase we used double hose U.S. Divers regulators with double spun aluminum cylinders yoked together. There were shoulder straps, a waist strap, and a chest strap secured by D-rings. The strap was looped through the D-ring with a quick release. During harassment, the instructors would pull off your masks, most of your fins and turn off one of the team's air manifold so that you had to buddy breathe, then they would pull and release all of your straps. You then had to put all of your gear back together underwater all the while buddy breathing and holding onto each other with a death grip (remember the mooring line!). The session before final harassment, my buddy surfaced in a panic. Apparently, in my zeal to hold onto him, I grasped both sides of his air hose under his chin, cutting off all of his air!
Our first open water dive was a night dive the same day as our final harassment pool test. The dive was a search and recovery dive off the training barge that we used. Since the bottom off the barge was soft mud, you couldn't tell night from day anyway! Then we did various projects using scuba. For our final dive, we motored out to 130 feet of water off Point Loma. The kelp was awesome, and I still remember being fascinated by the bright orange garibaldi fish.
After graduating from scuba phase, I moved across to Coronado to Vietnam Orientation school and then reported to the Naval Undersea Center in Kaneohe, Hawaii.
The second time I went through the Diver Second Class School in San Diego was after I was transferred to my second duty station, the USS Coucal in July, 1972. Unfortunately, I couldn't skip the scuba phase, so I knew in advance all of the fun exercises in store. The good part of this was, I was prepared and pretty much aced the exams. I eventually made Honor Man in my class.
My surname is French Canadian, but we pronounce it with an Anglicized accent, so that it rhymes with "rio," as in "Rio Grande." The extra "u" and "x" confused most people when it appeared in, say, a class roster, so I got used to people butchering the pronunciation. I'd raise my hand if, during roll call, I'd hear an initial "R" sound, then just about any combination of vowels, and often with a final "ex" sound. I've been called Roo, R-eye-o-ix, Row, Rix, Rocks, Rucks, etc. So, on the first classroom roll call at dive school, the instructor read off the names in alphabetical order, and finally said "Ro" (long "o" as in "Rome"). I raised my hand. The instructor looked at me, then at someone else in the back of the room. I looked around, and another student had also raised his hand. The instructor looked at me quizzically, and said, "Isn't your name pronounced "rio?" "Yes," I said, as my face turned beet-red. The other student's name was Rowe.
Since this was my second time around the block in scuba phase, I noticed more things in the pool. The school had finally replaced the ancient double hose regulators with more modern single hose regulators made by the U.S. Divers Company. However, the round-bottom high pressure spun aluminum cylinders yoked together as doubles with the D-ring strapping was still used. Instead of being constructed all in one piece, the spun aluminum tanks had a small round plug in the bottom. I noticed bubbles coming out of this plug on one dive. I was a bit apprehensive when we students had to fill the cylinders on our duty nights.
After scuba, the next week was light weight surface supplied using the triangular Jack Browne mask. Then, it was 5 weeks of Mark V training. The first few dives were done in a shallow training tank, then we graduated to dives off the training barge moored to the pier.
On our first Mark V dive off the dive barge, we did the infamous 'hose stretch.' Once you got down to the bottom (which wasn't long, because it was only 20 feet deep), you had to face your lifeline/airhose to orient yourself in the green gloom, and back straight out until you got to the end of your umbilical. It was only 100 feet, but it was hard work because you sank down into the mud nearly to your knees. You could make it just a little easier on yourself if you pulled in on the exhaust button with your mouth, thus holding back a little air in your dress (yes the sort-of-human-shaped dry suit attached to the breastplate of the helmet was called the 'diving dress'), and you wouldn't sink down so far. If you kept too much air in the suit, you could balloon up to the surface. Of course, the visibility was absolutely pitch black zero with all of the muck kicked up. If anybody got claustrophobic enough to panic on that first dive, they were said to have encountered 'Harold the Mud Monster,' who was said to live under the dive barge and dine on 'pollywog' divers. On another dive, we actually did a 'controlled' ascent to the surface by pulling in the exhaust button, and then we had to 'swim' back to the barge while our tenders pulled in the excess umbilical. Another dive was the 'hogging line' under the barge. Tunneling -- using a water hose to burrow under the mud -- was not a fun experience. Tunneling was sometimes used in salvage to pull a lift cable underneath a wreck. If the water cut off, or you turned it off by accident (or direction from 'topside'), the mud would settle around you in pitch blackness. One of our instructors, PO1 Olson, told us the story of his experience inspecting a barge in shallow water in Vietnam using Mark V gear. They weren't paying attention to the tide, and Olson was pinned under the barge when it settled on top of him. Luckily, the mud was very soft, but he had to lie there unable to move for six hours until the tide returned. I still get the creeps thinking about this. There were other projects, such as the single-man flange, underwater cutting and welding, and the overhead flange.
Access to and egress from the dive barge was via a nearly vertical, 12-foot ladder from the deck to the water surface. The exhaust valve of the old 'copper pot' was set at about 1/2 psi over ambient pressure, which kept the suit from squeezing you under water. However, when the diver was out of the water, he had to shut off his air control valve to keep the suit from ballooning out and making it impossible to hold onto anything. So, when you arrived at the surface after a dive, you had to shut off the valve and ascend the ladder wearing 190 pounds of gear without any fresh air coming in. This was fine for about 3 or 4 rungs, as there was some air still in the suit and helmet, but after a while, the air got increasingly stale. By the time you got to the top of the ladder, the glass ports were completely covered with condensation, and you were rapidly gasping. The tenders guided you back to the stool, turned you around and sat you down. Then, using a special t-wrench, one of the tenders loosened the wing nut of your face plate, and you could finally get some fresh air. Of course, as soon as the faceplate was opened, you had to clearly say, "Red (or whatever other color your umbilical was) Diver OK," while still gasping in CO2 deficit.
The Mark V helmet was quite heavy in the air, and the metal breastplate rested right on top of your collarbones. This got a little painful after a few seconds. If you tried to alleviate the pressure by slouching, the instructor would immediately yell into the open face port, "SIT UP STRAIGHT, SAILOR! YOU'RE MAKING THE SUIT LOOK BAD!" Now, each suit did come with a cushion that fit over your head and rested on your tender shoulders, but nobody ever used it....ever. You see, the nickname for this device was the "pussy pad," and nobody wanted to endure the merciless ribbing that would have ensued. Therein, I learned another important life lesson from the Navy: 'testosterone poisoning' (in which your good sense is overridden by your need to look tough and manly) is inevitably painful. Many years later, in my old age, I don't have much testosterone anymore, and my new motto is, "I was built for comfort, not for speed."
Our final dive was a deep dive off Point Loma. The vessel was a self-propelled dive barge fully equipped for surface-supplied operations. We anchored in about 130 - 150 feet of water, and a weighted descent line was lowered to the bottom. The visibility was amazing after spending weeks in the muck. We didn't use a dive stage, so the divers had to use the line to get to the bottom, being careful not to spiral around it and get their umbilical fouled. For the ascent, the two tenders had to haul the diver up, keeping the rate to 60 feet per minute. This was heavy work!
San Diego was a great city to be stationed at. There were a lot of great attractions in addition to the usual 'sailortown' bars and cat houses, such as Balboa Park and Sea World, and the bus system was efficient.
If the reader is interested in more details of the training, I've uploaded a set of the student handouts to this site. The handouts are from a few years later than my class, but the training was very similar.
Criteria The Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal may be awarded to members of the Armed Forces in the grades of lieutenant commander (or major) and below. It is awarded for meritorious service or achieveme... The Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal may be awarded to members of the Armed Forces in the grades of lieutenant commander (or major) and below. It is awarded for meritorious service or achievement in either combat or noncombat based on sustained performance or specific achievement of a superlative nature but which does not warrant a Navy Commendation Medal or higher. It may not be awarded for service involving participation in aerial flight after January 1, 1969. MoreHide
Comments "For professional achievement in the superior performance of his duties while serving with the Naval Undersea Center Research and Development Center, Hawaii Laboratory, from 17 September 1971 to 30 Ap... "For professional achievement in the superior performance of his duties while serving with the Naval Undersea Center Research and Development Center, Hawaii Laboratory, from 17 September 1971 to 30 April 1972. While serving as a member of Task Unit 115.9.1, Project Short Time, from 1 October to 8 December 1971, Seaman Rioux contributed invaluable assistance and resourcefulness in the development and deployment of the project, and was instrumental in providing protection for ammunition ships and piers at Cam Ranh Bay..." MoreHide
Criteria The Meritorious Unit Commendation may be awarded by the Secretary of the Navy to any unit of the Navy or Marine Corps that distinguishes itself under combat or noncombat conditions by either valorous ... The Meritorious Unit Commendation may be awarded by the Secretary of the Navy to any unit of the Navy or Marine Corps that distinguishes itself under combat or noncombat conditions by either valorous or meritorious achievement which renders that unit outstanding compared to other units performing similar service, but not sufficient to justify the award of the Navy Unit Commendation. MoreHide
Description "For meritorious service while participating in special project development in support of harbor defense in Southeast Asia from 18 December 1970 to 6 December 1971. During this period, the Naval Unde... "For meritorious service while participating in special project development in support of harbor defense in Southeast Asia from 18 December 1970 to 6 December 1971. During this period, the Naval Undersea Center, Hawaii Laboratory, Military Detachment, deployed, evaluated, and developed a new harbor surveillance system in defense against enemy forces in Souteast Asia, and later integrated the system into the Fleet operational forces..." MoreHide
Other Memories
While I wasn't excited about becoming a torpedoman, it was definitely nice to get away from the frozen north of Great Lakes. I had never been to the South before, so Florida was a new experience.
As with BE&E school, I didn't write down any of my classmate's names, and after 40 years I've forgotten them all. Since BE&E was a preliminary course for torpedomans mate "A" school, some of the guys I already knew.
Arriving a week or so before the start of class, I was introduced to the concept of "awaitee work parties." There is no such thing for a lowly enlisted man as idly sitting around waiting for school to start. There are toilets to clean, brass to polish, floors to strip and polish, grounds to clean. It was a relief to begin training and only have to put up with a weekly quarters inspection and field day at the school. Then, of course, there was the standing at attention for 4 hours every couple of days in full tropical dress white uniform guarding the school quarterdeck. One morning after getting off watch just as the sun was rising, I looked out over Lake Baldwin and saw a large alligator swimming close to shore silhouetted against the sunrise -- an awesome sight!
The course covered WWII-era steam torpedoes and tubes and was mostly forgettable except for one incident which turned out to be a life-changing moment. As I've already said, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic when I got orders to the TM school. I don't have anything against the rate, but I simply didn't have any interest in it. I admit that I didn't push myself too hard, but I stayed out of trouble and passed all the written and practical tests. Apparently, too many of my classmates did worse. One day we were summoned to an All-Hands meeting. The CO of the school was there, as well as a civilian mucky-muck from DC. They told us that the fail rate at the school was unacceptably high and wanted to know from the students why this was so. We could speak freely, they said. Total silence. Then, a hand from the back of the room was raised, and the speaker -- I'm not admitting anything! -- said, "Well, maybe it's because some of us got stuck with this school and don't want to be here." Total silence. All eyes were on the miscreant, including the laser eyes of the CO. Uh-oh, the big mouth did it again!
A week later, a messenger interrupted class and told the instructor that I was to report to the CO's office. "Oh man, you're in trouble now," everyone said almost as one. I was expecting to get thrown out of the school and sent to the fleet as an I.B.M ("instant boatswain's mate").
The CO was looking at my records and said, "I see you studied marine biology in college."
"Yes, sir!"
"Well, there is a unit requesting volunteers to train marine mammals. Of course, it is in a certain hot country that has hostile action. Are you interested?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Of course, you will need to satisfactorily complete this course..."
So, I got three sets of orders. One, to a 4-week Scuba Class at the 2nd Class Dive School at San Diego. From there, a 10-day Vietnamese Orientation school at Coronado, CA. Then, a flight to Oahu to the Naval Undersea Center for several weeks of Marine Mammal Training and then to Cam Rahh Bay as a member of Project Short Time.
My military diving experience and contacts eventually resulted in my successful career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as Diving Safety Officer. I met my wife while I was going through NAUI scuba instructor training course the summer I began work at WHOI. So, you could say that my entire life changed because of this single incident. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of the CO of TM-A school, but if I could talk to him today, I would thank him.
The barracks were new and quite comfortable with 4-man rooms. I only had one room mate for much of the time. He was a real uniform nut. Even his work dungarees were tailor fit and you could cut your finger on the creases.
Disney World was being built but had not yet opened while I was stationed at NTC Orlando. Orlando itself was a sleepy little city with an almost Western feel to it. We'd spend our non-duty weekends swimming at one of the little ponds near the base, or driving to Daytona Beach or Busch Gardens in Tampa. One of my classmates (damn lousy memory, forget who it was) had relatives in Palmetto. About 4 of us spent a weekend helping out building a cement retaining wall around a little pond at the guy's house.
Many of the guys, me included, were going to Launcher Technician School in Norfolk. However, my orders got changed, and so after completion of the TM course, I spent a couple of weeks in work details. During school I had bought a new 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle ($2,000), and drove from Orlando to my parent's house in Fairhaven, Massachusetts for 30 days leave. Interstate 95 hadn't been completed yet, so there were some diversions in Georgia and South Carolina. I remember seeing the signs for the South of the Border tourist trap for a hundred miles along the highway. I had to stop at a rest area in Virginia for a couple of hours shuteye, and I was tired again midway through the New Jersey Turnpike. Then, all of a sudden the giant tractor-trailer trucks heading for New York City started whizzing past my little bug and woke me up for sure.
After my leave, I went through the Diver Second Class School in San Diego and then spent about 9 days or so across the Bay in Coronado at the Vietnam Orientation School. This course introduced navy enlisted personnel who had orders for shore duty 'In Country' to some Vietnamese history, customs and courtesies and some useful phrases. ... such as 'Lai dai' for 'come here,' or 'Dung lai,' for 'stop' ('dung lai mother fucker' is g.i. for 'You better stop right now or I'll kill you...not part of the course). You motion for someone to come to you with the fingertips down instead of up like we're used to in the West. Things of that nature. Mostly what I remember about the course is the good ole awaitee work details. The berthing was in a WWII-era wooden 3-story building. There were sand and water buckets for the smokers when the 'smoking lamp was lit.' However, most of them simply flicked their butts out of the windows. One of the more memorable work details I can remember from my service is picking up the grounds around this building and filling up five large trash bags with nothing but cigarette butts.
Epilogue: My wife and I vacation in Orlando every other year or so, with the most recent visit this past February (2011). My, how the area has changed! Instead of the sleepy cowboy and citrus town I remember from 1971, it is now a sprawling metropolis with busy highways and strip malls everywhere. We went down Colonial Drive, but the NTC base is no longer there! It's been converted to civilian housing. I guess you really can't go back home again, can you!
Best Friends
Unfortunately, I didn't write anyone's name down, and I have a leaky memory.
Other Memories
When we received our orders in boot camp, I was hugely disappointed, not only because TM was not in my list of desired rates, but also because it meant that I was only moving across the street to NTC. Other classmates got orders to places like California or Hawaii but I was stuck in the frozen tundra. At least we had only 4 men to a room in the school barracks, which was a major improvement over the 80 man open bays. The school was a little boring. Our text was an experimental 'Program Instruction' booklet. You read a page, then answer some questions in the fill-in-the-blank format, then take a quiz at the end of the section. We learned some great mnemonics, though, like "bad boys rape our young girls, but violet gives willingly" (color banding denoting resistor strength). I wonder what the 'politically correct' version is in today's 'New Navy?' There was a pool on base. A sign just outside the shower said, "Welcome to our ool. Notice that there is no 'P.' Keep it that way." Sorry to say, I don't remember the names of any of my classmates. One weekend I and 3 others took the train to Milwaukee and stayed over in a hotel downtown. We went to the Natural History museum one day, but mostly we did a lot of drinking in our room. The trip back to Great Lakes was momentous, though. About halfway there, there was a sudden bang and several minutes of metallic grinding noises coming from beneath us. Slowly the train came to a dead stop, and we sat there for what seemed like a couple of hours. The train then started moving backwards very slowly. In a few minutes we passed half a car with red stains coating the snow around it. Finally, in March I found myself on a flight to McCoy Field in Orlando, Florida to attend Torpedomans Mate 'A' school.
Criteria The Vietnam Service Medal was awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served at any time between July 4, 1965, and March 28, 1973, in Vietnam or its contiguous waters or airspa... The Vietnam Service Medal was awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who served at any time between July 4, 1965, and March 28, 1973, in Vietnam or its contiguous waters or airspace; or, for any period of service during the same time period in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia or the air spaces thereover and in direct support of operations in Vietnam. MoreHide
Description I was attached to the Naval Undersea Center, military detachment at MCAS Kaneohe, HI from September 1971 until June 1972. I was sent to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam as a marine mammal handler (bottlenose po... I was attached to the Naval Undersea Center, military detachment at MCAS Kaneohe, HI from September 1971 until June 1972. I was sent to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam as a marine mammal handler (bottlenose porpoise) from October - December 1971 in support of CTU 115.9.1. The purpose of this unit was to test a swimmer defense system. At the end of the test phase, the unit redeployed to Apra Harbor, Guam where we trained and turned the system over to a detachment of Inshore Underwater Warfare Group. MoreHide
Criteria The Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation (Gallantry Cross Colors) was authorized to be worn by units individually cited for service in military operations in support of the government of Sout... The Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation (Gallantry Cross Colors) was authorized to be worn by units individually cited for service in military operations in support of the government of South Vietnam. The actions cited are for the same services that would have resulted in the award of a Valorous Unit Citation by the Army or a Navy Unit Citation MoreHide
Description This medal was awarded to the Naval Undersea Center, Military Detachment for service in Cam Ranh Bay. It is listed on my DD-214 form, but I was otherwise never officially notified of my eligibility t... This medal was awarded to the Naval Undersea Center, Military Detachment for service in Cam Ranh Bay. It is listed on my DD-214 form, but I was otherwise never officially notified of my eligibility to wear it during my active duty service.
When my unit redeployed from Cam Ranh Bay to Guam in December, 1971, my service record indicated that I was authorized to wear the Vietnam Service medal and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign medal. So, I wore both ribbons on my dress uniform. Then, a few months after I reported onboard the USS Coucal, the ship's PN said, "Hey, you don't rate that, since you didn't complete 6 months in-country." So, even though the VCM is listed in my DD-214 form, and thus I am 'officially' entitled to it, I really didn't earn it, so I have deleted the ribbon image from my profile. Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation
While all these ribbons might look pretty, I was only in-country for a couple of months at the end of the unit's deployment, and I was the lowest-rated man there.
There are two medal/ribbons listed here on TWS that are not listed in my DD-214. One is the Antarctica Service Medal. I received that as a civilian long after I separated from the Navy. The citation that came with it said that I could have added it to my ribbon rack if I were still attached to the Navy, so, what the hell, I decided to add it here on the TWS site. I've included a copy of the certificate under the Antarctica medal. The other ribbon (no medal comes with this one) is the Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation. Apparently, it was authorized for all sailors & marines who earned the Vietnam Service Medal along with the Gallantry Unit Citation. If I'm wrong to add it to my rack, someone will undoubtedly let me know. It really doesn't mean much of anything, anyway. MoreHide
Criteria
The unit citation of the Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Medal was awarded certain units by the Vietnamese government for meritorious service during the period 1 March 1961 to 28 March 1974.
Description Another 'been there, done that" ribbon. Not in my DD-214, but see SECNAVINST 1650.1H:
"4. Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation a. Authorization. Awarded by the Chief of the Joint General St... Another 'been there, done that" ribbon. Not in my DD-214, but see SECNAVINST 1650.1H:
"4. Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation a. Authorization. Awarded by the Chief of the Joint General Staff, Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces in two colors: Gallantry Cross Color with Palm and Frame (8 February 1962 to 28 March 1973) and Civil Actions First Class Color with Palm and Frame (1 January 1965 to 28 March 1973). SECNAV has specifically authorized certain units of the Naval service to accept and wear these awards. Such authorization is required in all cases for participation. b. Eligibility Requirements. The ribbon bar with palm and frame are authorized for wear by personnel who served with certain cited units in Southeast Asia during the approved periods. Lists of eligible units are maintained by CNO and CMC. c. In addition to those specific ships/units cited, all Navy and Marine Corps personnel who served "in country" Vietnam during the eligibility periods are eligible for both awards." MoreHide
Criteria This medal is awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who: 1. Served for 6 months in South Vietnam during the period 1 Mar 61 and 28 Mar 73; or 2. Served outside the geographical l... This medal is awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who: 1. Served for 6 months in South Vietnam during the period 1 Mar 61 and 28 Mar 73; or 2. Served outside the geographical limits of South Vietnam and contributed direct combat support to the RVN Armed Forces for an aggregate of six months. Only members of the Armed Forces of the United States who meet the criteria established for the AFEM (Vietnam) or Vietnam Service Medal during the period of service required are considered to have contributed direct combat support to the RVN Armed Forces; or 3. Did not complete the length of service required in item (1) or (2) above, but who, during wartime, were: a. Wounded by the enemy (in a military action); b. Captured by the enemy during action or in the line of duty, but later rescued or released; or c. Killed in action or in the line of duty; or 4. Were assigned in Vietnam on 28 Jan 73, and who served a minimum of 60 calendar days in Vietnam during the period 29 Jan 73 to 28 Mar 73. MoreHide
Description The naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, in the Republic of Vietnam, served as the nerve center of the Navy’s MARKET TIME anti-infiltration operations during the war. With one the largest natural harbors in tThe naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, in the Republic of Vietnam, served as the nerve center of the Navy’s MARKET TIME anti-infiltration operations during the war. With one the largest natural harbors in the Far East and centrally placed on the 1,500-mile coast of South Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay was long seen as a strategic site.
In the early 1960s American naval leaders evaluated the bay as a possible fleet anchorage and seaplane base from which to support the South Vietnamese nation. During 1964 seventh fleet reconnaissance aircraft, seaplane tender Currituck (AV-7) and Mine Flotilla 1 units carried out hydrographic and beach surveys and explored sites for facilities ashore.
This preparatory work proved fortuitous when a North Vietnamese trawler was discovered landing ammunition and supplies at near by Vung Ro Bay in February 1965; the incident led U.S. naval leaders to develop Cam Ranh as a major base to support the Coastal Surveillance Force. During the following years, the Navy deployed the fast patrol craft (PCF), and patrol gunboat (PG) units.
The site became the center of coastal air patrol operations with the establishment in April 1967 of the U.S. Naval Air Facility, Cam Ranh Bay, and the basing there of SP-2 Neptune and P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. In the summer of 1967, Commander Coastal Surveillance Force and his staff moved their headquarters from Saigon to Cam Ranh Bay and set up operational command post to control MARKET TIME effort. Countrywide coordination also was enhanced with establishment of the Naval Communications Station.
In the beginning the shore facilities at Cam Ranh Bay were extremely limited, requiring interim measures to support assigned naval forces. Army depots provided common supplies, while Seventh Fleet light cargo ships USS MARK (AKL-12) and USS BRULE (AKL-28) delivered Navy-peculiar items from Subic Bay in the Philippines. Until mid-1966 when shore installations were prepared to take over the task, messing and quartering of personnel were handled by APL-55, anchored in the harbor. Also, a pontoon dock was installed to permit the repair of the coastal patrol vessels. Gradually the Naval Support Activity, Saigon, Detachment Cam Ranh Bay, improved the provision of maintenance and repair, supply, finance, communications, transportation, postal service, recreation, and security support.
With the concentration at Cam Ranh Bay of MARKET TIME headquarters and forces during the summer of 1967, the demand for base support became extraordinary. Accordingly, the Naval Support Activity Saigon, Detachment Cam Ranh Bay, was re-designated the Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay, a more autonomous and self-sufficient status. A greater allocation of resources and support forces to the shore installation resulted in an improved ability to cope with the buildup of combat units. In time, the Cam Ranh Bay facility accomplished major vessel repair and dispensed a greater variety of supply items to the MARKET TIME anti-infiltration task force. In addition, the naval contingent at the Joint Service Ammunition Depot issued ammunition to the coastal surveillance, river patrol and mobile riverine forces as well as to the Seventh Fleet’s gunfire support destroyers and landing ships. Seabee Maintenance Unit 302 provided public works assistance to the many dispersed Naval Support Activity, Saigon detachments.
As a vital logistics complex, Cam Ranh Bay continued to function long after the Navy’s combat forces withdrew from South Vietnam as part of the Vietnamization program. Between January and April 1972 the Naval Air Facility and the Naval Communications Station turned over their installations to the Vietnamese Navy and were disestablished. The headquarters and naval operations center for the Commander, Coastal Surveillance Force redeployed to Saigon, thus ending the Navy’s seven-year operation at Cam Ranh Bay.... More
Description Project Short Time is the never-before-told eyewitness account of a unique and daring SECRET project during the Vietnam War involving the first-ever military use of dolphins.
Even though the facts co Project Short Time is the never-before-told eyewitness account of a unique and daring SECRET project during the Vietnam War involving the first-ever military use of dolphins.
Even though the facts contained in DEFENDER DOLPHINS were declassified in 1992, no one has attempted to document the amazing project — until now. Myths and lies have filled the void, calling into question the integrity of the program that saved lives in Vietnam, added to scientific knowledge, and laid a foundation for modern-day partnerships with trained dolphins, many of them descendants of the original defender dolphins. Ten years in the making, DEFENDER DOLPHINS corrects the misconceptions by spelling out the true story.
DEFENDER DOLPHINS begins with the early days of nascent marine mammal research at California’s Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake and Point Mugu Naval Missile Center, and follows the “Secret Fish People" at the Naval Undersea Center Hawaii Lab, to deployment of the Swimmer Defense System at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. Behind-the-scenes stories bring to life the men and women who sacrificed to make Project Short Time a success. The book also effectively refutes many of the rumors, distortions, and misinformation still floating around about military use of dolphins.... More
Description This Campaign was from 1 July 1970 to 30 June 1971. In July the Vietnamese Navy assumed sole responsibility f or the Ready Deck operation, which was given a Tran Hung Dao designator like the other forThis Campaign was from 1 July 1970 to 30 June 1971. In July the Vietnamese Navy assumed sole responsibility f or the Ready Deck operation, which was given a Tran Hung Dao designator like the other former SEALORDS areas. Also in July, the U.S. Navy ceased its combat activity on I Corp's Cua Viet and Hue Rivers. The Americans then transferred the last combatant vessels of Task Force Clearwater to the Vietnamese. A final turnover of river craft at the end of 1970 enabled the Vietnamese Navy to take charge of the Search Turn, Barrier Reef, and Breezy Cove efforts deep in the Mekong Delta. Except for continued support by HAL-3 and VAL-4 aircraft and SEAL detachments, the U.S. Navy's role in the SEALORDS campaign ended in April 1971 when Solid Anchor (previously Sea Float and now based ashore at Nam Can) became a Vietnamese responsibility.
The Vietnamese Navy, which grew from 18,000 men in the fall of 1968 to 32,000 men at the end of 1970, instituted organizational changes to accommodate the new personnel, material, and operational responsibilities. The Vietnamese grouped their riverine assault craft in riverine assault interdiction divisions (RAID) and their PBRs into river interdiction divisions (RID) and river patrol groups (RPG). They also augmented the existing RAGs and coastal groups, the latter now consolidated into 20 units for lack of sufficient patrol junks.
This dramatic change in the nature of the allied war effort reflected the rapid but measured withdrawal from South Vietnam of U.S. naval forces. NAVFORV strength dropped from a peak of 38,083 personnel in September 1968 to 16,757 at the end of 1970. As Admiral Zumwalt transferred resources to the Vietnamese Navy, he disestablished U.S. naval commands and airlifted personnel home. With the redeployment of the Army's 9th Infantry Division and the turnover of 64 riverine assault craft in June 1969, the joint Mobile Riverine Force halted operations. When the Riverine Assault Force (Task Force 117) stood down on 25 August 1969, it became the first major naval command deactivated in Vietnam. By December 1970, COMNAVFORV had transferred to Vietnam the remaining river combatant craft in his command, which included 293 PBRs and 224 riverine assault craft. That month, the River Patrol Force was disestablished and the Task Force 116 designator reassigned to Commander Delta Naval Forces, a new headquarters controlling SEAL and naval aircraft units still in-country.... More
People You Remember
Ltjg Friar, CO
Memories Task Unit 115.9.1, Project Short Time at Cam Ranh Bay, RVN, Military detachment, Naval Undersea ReseTask Unit 115.9.1, Project Short Time at Cam Ranh Bay, RVN, Military detachment, Naval Undersea Research and Development Center, Hawaii Laboratory. Project involved atlantic bottlenose dolphins trained to protect ammunition piers. Later pulled back to Guam to train and turn over operations to Inshore Undersea Warfare Group. I've written a more detailed description in the duty station section labeled "1971-1972 ... Kaneohe Bay/Naval Undersea Research and Development Center."... More
Chain of Command
CAPT Floyd M. Symons, CO, RTC Great Lakes
CDR Dale P. Helmer, XO, RTC
LCDR J.R. Thomas, Brigade Commander, RTC
LT J.A. Hamel, Regimental Commander, 1st Regiment
CWO-2 R.L. Kershner, Battalion Commander, 13th Battalion
BTC H.D. Pfaff, Company Commander, Company 383
SA Calvin Johnson, RPOC, Company 383
Other Memories
It's something of a shock to realize that, at this writing in 2011, more than 40 years have passed by since I started boot camp.
Three of us arrived from Providence on November 2, 1970 -- Robert Pray, Andrew Stohlbom and myself -- and we were bussed in with others from around the country from the airport to Boot Camp at Great Lakes, Illinois. The greeting was less than cordial. The first few days we were berthed in Camp Barry, consisting of wooden WWII barracks. We all got our buzz haircuts, clothing issue, first shots, and met our company commander, gruff Boilerman Chief Pfaff. The newer campus was accessible from Camp Barry by a tunnel under the road, and we had to sing Anchors Aweigh as we marched through it. I admit that I was a little apprehensive with what I had signed up for the first night after our rather gruff greeting and with armed guards at each end of the berthing room. It took a day or so to realize that the 'armed guards' were simply fifth week recruits on their service week, and we quickly learned to take over the watch. "Halt! Who goes there? Advance to be recognized!"
Marching and standing in line occupied much of the first few days. On our first mess hall experience, the line of us raw recruits outside the building stretched out a bit until we were put in close order by instructors yelling in our faces, "NUTS TO BUTTS! MAKE THAT MAN IN FRONT OF YOU SMILE!"
The new campus consisted of recently built concrete battalion buildings housing four companies of 80 men each. I was selected to be battalion clerk, which meant that I spent a considerable part of the day in the battalion headquarters typing papers, being a 'go-for' (go for this, go for that) and disbursing supplies such as toilet paper and cleaning supplies to the four companies in our quad. I had to attend all the classes with my company and do all of the other chores such as stand watch, make my rack so that you could bounce a dime off it, wash and dry clothes by hanging them precisely spaced, but I did have some significant privileges. I got to wear a RPOC insignia, which meant that I could cut in the chow line so I could get back to the office. I didn't have to do all the marching drills, I didn't have to do mess duty during Service Week, and I didn't get the antibiotic Vicillin shot. Everyone had a sore arm for a week after that shot, so I didn't let on that I got to miss it.
There was a lot to learn about our new profession. Since my dad was a commercial fisherman, I already knew that the pointy end in front of the ship was called the bow, the blunt end in the back was the stern, right was starboard, and left was port. Ah, but terms like 'gedunk,' 'smoking lamp,' and 'midwatch' greatly expanded my vocabulary. And then there is the term 'piece,' as in "This is my piece, and this is my gun. One is for war, and one is for fun." If the reader doesn't understand the meaning of that rhyme, I will not be explaining it here.
In the early 1970s a greater percentage of people smoked. We got occasional breaks, and smoking was allowed in the passageway (oops, I almost said 'corridor') between our company's berthing and our neighbor's. Both of my parents smoked, so I should have taken to the habit, but I can't stand the smell, so I tended to stay in the berthing compartment.
Navy chow is not noted for the 'fine dining experience.' The morning staple of creamed chipped beef on toast isn't called 'shit on a shingle' for nothing! Veggies are usually out of a can and boiled down to the consistency of mush. However, I was introduced to some tasty fare that I had not experienced before. Since my father was a commercial fisherman, I ate a lot of fish (and lobster!) when I was growing up. My mother was a good cook (she knew how to cook fish and vegetables), but she did not like spices much at all. So, I never had, say, pumpkin pie before ( we did have home-baked apple and blueberry pies, made from freshly picked fruit). Then, there was this cuisine called 'Southern,' including fried chicken, collard greens, etc. Another 'novel' dessert for me was cottage cheese mixed with canned fruit cocktail.
I almost volunteered for submarine duty until our first free weekend when a group of us took the train into Chicago. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, and after touring the captured German U-boat, I politely rescinded my offer. Yes, I realize that there are only two types of ships in the fleet: submarines and targets. But, I'd still like to see the sun every day, thank you very much.
When we got off the train at the terminal in Chicago, we took tickets for a free lunch from some very friendly elderly folks who greeted us as we stepped off the train. Of course, the first thing we did was look for a liquor store and filled our pea coat pockets with flasks of booze, you know, to ward off the cold. About noonish, we got hungry and so decided to check out this free lunch provided so nicely for us recruits. The food was hot, if not anything special (chicken a la king or something like that). We were soon joined at our table by a man who made small talk, such as asking our home towns, etc. After about 5 minutes he took out a bible and proceeded to loudly proselytize for Jesus. Halleluiah! So, we bolted our meals and excused ourselves as quickly as we could and split out of there like a bullet out of a gun. We had to be a little careful in getting our pea coats back on in order not to clink the bottles in our pockets. Other than this and the visit to the MSI, I don't remember much about that weekend.
A visit to the dentist resulted in two wisdom teeth being pulled. This resulted in the entire right side of my face swelling up like a balloon and an overnight in the dispensary just before our boot camp pictures were taken.
Outside the base gates were shops selling things of interest to sailors. Most of us bought a pair of "liberty cuffs," decorative embroidered cuff bands for our dress blue uniforms. They were unauthorized, of course, which means that it was forbidden to use them on our uniform, but we all bought them anyway and sewed them into the inside of our cuffs. That way, if we were off base away from prying eyes, we could impress the girls by unbuttoning and inverting our cuffs to look salty -- or that's what we thought, anyway. I still have mine, a fierce looking pair of sharks.
RTC shut down during the Christmas season, so boot camp was interrupted as we got to spend two weeks at home. Unfortunately, we had to go back to finish up. Winter is a miserable time to be in Great Lakes because of the bitter cold wind that easily penetrated our uniforms. I wasn't able to take any photographs, but I did purchase the RTC picture book The Keel which included pictures of my company as well as generic boot camp photos (Unfortunately, my flatbed scanner is breaking the spine of the yearbook).
Criteria The National Defense Service Medal is awarded for honorable active service as a member of the Armed Forces during the Korean War, Vietnam War, the war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf, and for service... The National Defense Service Medal is awarded for honorable active service as a member of the Armed Forces during the Korean War, Vietnam War, the war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf, and for service during the current War on Terrorism. In addition, all members of the National Guard and Reserve who were part of the Selected Reserve in good standing between August 2, 1990, to November 30, 1995, are eligible for the National Defense Service Medal. In the case of Navy personnel, Midshipment attending the Naval Academy during the qualifying periods are eligible for this award, and Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) Midshipmen ae only eligible if they participated in a summer cruise that was in an area which qualified for a campaign medal. MoreHide
Description
AKA the 'gedunk' medal, because everyone got one out of boot camp.
TM2 Fred Bergmann
BU1 Dennis England
PH3 Natoka Peden
TM2 Richard Kala
MR2 Marshall Swing
CM2 Steven Faszcza
BM2 Roy Jackson
GM1 Glenn Fletcher
LCDR J. Clancy 1977
LCDR J. Dixon 1978
LCDR F.B. Montague 1979-80
LCDR K. Brooks 1981
LCDR F.B. Montague 1982
LCDR D. Johnson 1983
Unfortunately, when I left active duty in 1975 the economy was down, and jobs for unemployed marine biology majors and ex-torpedomans mate hard hat divers in Southeastern Massachusetts were a bit scarce. I landed a job as a lifeguard at a state beach in Westport, Massachusetts. Horseneck Beach is very crowded in the summertime, being close to the cities of Fall River and New Bedford and featuring over two miles of fine sand. It is also an exposed barrier beach, and when the weather was windy the sea pushed up choppy surf and formed rip currents. Every summer multiple people needed to be pulled out of the water. This meant that the lifeguard positions were competitive. Candidates had to pass stringent written, fitness, and proficiency tests to be considered. The other candidates were mostly college jocks. I was 28. I've never been much of an athlete, but I was still reasonably fit from my Navy days. The pool test was held at New Bedford High School, and it included swimming many laps for time and demonstrating blocks, releases, and rescue techniques. One of these exercises involved towing a swimmer the length of the pool while keeping him in control while he struggled. I managed to get the 250 pound football coach as my 'victim,' but I somehow managed to get him all the way across, even though my arms didn't quite fit all the way around his body when he began to struggle. The beach testing consisted of more exercises in the surf and ended with a mile swim just outside the surf line.
Each morning began with an hour of physical exercises, alternating every other day between beach running and water rescue/sprints. The beach exercises began with warmup exercises, then a mile run up the beach to the last lifeguard stand on state property. Each stand was 100 yards from the next. We did a series of exercises, such as jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and squats, then lined up and sprinted to the next stand. He who came in last had to do extra sets while the faster runners caught their breath. I wasn't always last, but it seemed like it. As soon as Slowpoke finished his 'remedial' pushups, it was an immediate other round of exercises and another sprint. Upon returning to the administration/concession building, we then filed back into the dunes, broke into two teams, and ran relay races up and down the steep sand hills. You guessed it, the losing team had to go back again. On the alternate day, we'd practice rescues in the surf, swim relay races, and end with a long swim.
Since I wasn't one of the 'hotshot' guards, I was usually stationed on the far end of the line of stands, well away from the prying eyes of the administration building and head guard. Early mornings during the week were a bit slow way out in the hinterlands. I developed a routine of doing extra situps and pushups when nobody was in the water in front of my stand. We were given a half hour afternoon break, so I'd use the time to jog along the beach to the end and back, a distance of about 4 miles. Needless to say, at the end of the summer I was in the best shape of my life.
Young college guys can be very inventive practical jokers. The new guys soon learned not to eat lunch too close to the administration building, because someone would toss a bucket of water from the flat roof onto the picnic tables underneath. Toward the end of the season, the pranks tended to escalate, as victims plotted to get even. One time, someone sneaked back into the guard room, carefully removed the luncheon meat from a sandwich, and replaced it with dog poop. Another time, a revenge-seeker put a dead skunk into a miscreant's locker, putting his toothbrush into the animal's mouth and his sunglasses over the face. Another fellow had a reputation of taking other people's soap and shampoo, so an offended party replaced the shampoo with hair removing gel. I was a little older and I'd learned that participation in such puerile pranks never ends well, so I was content to observe from a distance.
I can't remember the exact date, but sometime in the summer of 1976 I made a fateful scuba dive at King's Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. At the end of a pleasant dive, I removed my fins and began walking out of the water. As I neared the shoreline, a shortish, gray-haired man approached me and said, "You're a Navy diver, aren't you?"
"Well, yes, I was a Navy diver, but I got out about a year ago. How"d you know that?"
"Your UDT swimmer's vest gave you away. Nobody wears those except for navy divers!"
My cover was blown. I had enlisted in Uncle Sam's Navy in 1970, and I had served on active duty until 1975. I was a Navy diver first class when I got discharged. Since I didn't have enough money to buy one of those new-fangled buoyancy compensators, I used what I had. One of my souvenirs of service, besides a slightly rearranged nose (the result of an unfortunate Cam Ranh Bay bar incident) and a lifetime of 'sea stories' was my faithful, if antiquated, UDT swimmers vest, complete with 2 carbon dioxide inflator cartridges.
My King's Beach acquaintance was TM2 Fred Bergmann, or Bergy for short. We chatted about navy diving for a while, and then he asked me if I wanted to re-enlist. A new diving reserve unit was being established at the Fall River, MA Reserve Center. Since I was working as a seasonal life guard for the stingy state of Massachusetts, the prospect of some added income outweighed my qualms of returning to the world of inspections, haircuts, "YES SIR!" and spit-shined shoes. The rest, as they say, is history.
The new reserve unit was designated as Harbor Clearance Unit 2, Detachment 201. The parent command was headquartered just south of Norfolk at Little Creek, Virginia. Because it was still in the formative phase of development, I became a 'plank owner,' and I served until 1983. The name was later changed to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit, or as we called it: 'Mudsue.' LCDR Dan Daglio has written an excellent history of MSDU reserve units 101 and 201, and I've uploaded his paper as a .PDF file to my profile on this website.
We drilled at the Fall River Reserve Center for the first few months, spent a few weekends at Fort Rodman in New Bedford, but we soon moved into space at the SIMA (Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity) Pier in Newport.
Anyone who has served time as a minion of Uncle Sam can tell you what it"s like to stay in the infamous 'transit barracks' as a lower enlisted man. Transit barracks are temporary quarters for enlisted men and usually consist of open bays of up to 80 or so bunks (aptly called 'racks' in the navy), stacked three high. Every fart or buzz-saw snore echos from the walls. At about 0200 the first rowdy drunks slam-bang their way through the corridors. Actual sleep in such an environment is impossible. Transit barracks are the usual accommodations for reservists on weekend duty or ACDUTRA. Fred owned a nice home near downtown Newport and took pity on me. He let me stay with him during weekend duty, and later when I got married, my wife would use Fred's hospitality as well on my duty weekends. For that, I remain forever grateful.
Part of the routine for reservist navy divers included the dreaded Saturday morning physical training. Since I was appointed the unit Diving Supervisor and was in pretty good shape, I lead the torture. We warmed up with such delights as 8-count bodybuilders, pushups, and 'hello-darlings' (my favorite), and then a 4 mile run up the 'Burma Road' on the Newport Navy Base. In the early days, Fred struggled and earned for himself the nickname 'Old Pear Shape.' In the last year of my service, Fred had slimmed down and became quite fit, while the civilian life had been a little too good to me, so our situations reversed. He took glee in that, and he was extremely proud when he completed Phase Training and achieved qualification as U.S. Navy Diver.
I had only returned to civilian life for a year, but I learned that my uniform was already obsolete. On our first ACDUTRA to Little Creek, I had to wear a suit and tie while everyone else wore their dress uniforms on the flight. When we got there, I could switch back to my old Seebee-style greens for daily use. I've recently seen yet another change to the Navy enlisted uniform. I have no idea what possesses the good folks down in Washington, D.C., but I wish they'd stop mucking around with uniforms.
There were now a few reserve detachments of HCU, a lot of ex-sailor volunteers, but not a lot of qualified divers to fill the ranks. I returned to NSDS in Washington in 1977 to requalify as a Diver First Class. Since I was the senior enlisted diver at the time, our CO, LCDR F.B. Montague, appointed me as the first unit Diving Supervisor. Because we were primarily civilians, and the full Diver Second Class course lasted for 12 weeks, relatively few people could get the time off from their civilian employers. To address this problem, Reserve Command established a 'phased' training curriculum in which classroom topics were presented during our weekend drills using study materials provided by the dive schools. The monthly classes were one of my assigned tasks.
The practical waterwork was accomplished during our annual two week "Active Duty for Training" (ACDUTRA) deployments. These stints were always done at our parent command, Harbor Clearance Unit Two, in Little Creek, Virginia. 'Little Crack,' as we not-so-fondly called it, wasn't exactly paradise in late June, as it was always stiflingly hot and steamy. Still, it was a good opportunity to practice our skills using equipment that we didn't have at home. During the early years, we used the heavy Mark V helmets. HCU was headquartered on a large barge moored to a pier, and nearby was a training barge moored over about 20 feet of water. The visibility ranged from a coffee-colored one inch just below the surface to pitch black at 20 feet, and there were lots of stinging jellyfish called 'sea nettles.' Instructors from the dive school ran the water training.
One of the training projects we performed using Mark V gear was to survey, patch, and raise an old recompression chamber which had been re-purposed as salvage project for dive students. There was just enough room to squeeze into the pitch black hatch in 20 feet of water. If you were going to ever become claustrophobic, this was the place it was going to happen. The diver then had to feel every square inch of the interior to find the holes cut into the hull. Then, knots were tied in a line to measure the dimensions of the hole, and a patch was fabricated topside. The next diver would install the patch, close the hatch, and attach the air hose. On another occasion we got to blow stuff up with a little demolition training.
At that time, divers were authorized to wear Seebee-style green working uniforms instead of dungarees. I had kept my hat block from my active duty days and crisply starched my 'cover.' As any old salt will tell you, you don't enter an interior space covered. Instead of having to carry the billed hat, you could simply tuck it into your belt at your back. One day, the unfamiliar mess hall food affected my digestive system, and I had to 'make a deposit' in the worst way. As I rose from the throne, I looked down, and to my horror there was my hat underneath a mound of excrement. Of course, I had no immediate replacement, and I had to rejoin my team back outside. So, I reached in, shook it out, wash my hat with copious volumes of soap and water, and wrung it as best I could. I went into the head with a crisply starched cover, and I came out again with a limp, drenched, wretched green mass on my head. No words were necessary. Everyone instantly knew what happened and burst out in gales of gut-wrenching laughter as I slunk behind the last rank.
PH3 Natoka Peden (later her surname became Hussy), whose nickname was 'Cricket,' was one of the first female Navy divers. Of course, being amongst the first of any group to break into a previously excluded activity means that there are grumblings and reservations from some. She never complained and was able to perform as well as the guys in whatever task was assigned to her. On one dive, in the heavy old Mark V rig, she shut the grumblers up for good. Climbing up a near-vertical ladder with your air control valve shut off isn't easy for anyone. On this particular dive, though, she was coming up especially slowly. You could see the derisive grins starting to form on a few faces as we urged her up each rung. As her tenders assisted her in doffing her diving dress, the legs of the suit gushed water. A leak had completely filled the legs of her suit with water, meaning that she had carried an extra hundred pounds or so up the ladder -- as she was breathing the last of the air in her helmet!
There was a lot to do during ACDUTRA, so we didn't have a lot of free time, but every now and then we'd get a day off. A few of us drove down to Virginia Beach. Because June in Virginia is hot, the beach was pretty crowded. We were enjoying a nice day, with some body surfing and lazing around in the sun, when I noticed that the lifeguards had formed a line a few feet out from knee to chest deep and were walking parallel to the beach. They were looking for a child who had gone missing. One of them bent over and lifted an inert body. In less than a minute, almost everyone for hundreds of feet up and down the beach jumped up almost in unison and raced down to where the guards carried the little girl ashore. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and I still remember the incident as if it were yesterday. On the way back to Little Creek, we stopped at a famous all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant called Captain Georges (well, Captain somebody).
We also performed some useful tasks during ACDUTRA. One of our first missions was to inspect the positioning of a vessel in a drydock. This was the last time we used the old Navy spun-aluminum scuba cylinders. Another task involved plugging a sea suction opening underneath the USS Texas (CGN-39) at the Norfolk Navy Base. The ship was huge and the visibility was zero, so my buddy and I (we only had scuba gear) held onto our lifeline with a death grip as we searched the hull for a very small opening in the blackness far underneath the surface (or so it seemed) while sea nettles stung every exposed patch of skin. On another occasion, we drove up to Port Charles Virginia, a short distance up the DELMARVA Peninsula to meet HCU's salvage vessel, the YSD-53. From there we steamed into Chesapeake Bay to an artificial island and assisted a team of regular Navy divers in inspecting the steel sheet piling that held the island together. A team of us inspected the hull of a ship in the Mothball Fleet anchored up the James River and later toured the ghostly interior of one of the deserted ships.
Three of us were assigned to a job which required us to be transported in the back of HCU's well-equipped dive truck. There was Bergy, myself, and another guy from our unit (Chief Kennedy, maybe? Damn, I forget). Anyway, one of us -- I'm not saying who -- had a little gas, just a tad potent. By the time we arrived at our destination, Bergy, who was maybe a little fastidious, was wearing a facemask and was breathing through a regulator from a scuba tank while the other two howled in laughter.
Det. 201 performed useful tasks during our usual monthly duty weekends back in Newport as well. The unit actually received a letter of commendation for a propeller change done for USS Manley DD940 that had to be done in a timely fashion to allow the ship to meet her underway commitment. We dived with our sister detachment, 201 up in Portsmouth, Maine on one weekend. Another noteworthy mission involved inspecting some submerged trackway on a Navy-owned island in Newport Harbor and resulted in a few of us divvying up a large bag of quahogs to take home. They were thick on the bottom and practically jumped into our 'goodie bags.' I had clam chowder for a week! One weekend we drove up to a pond in Lakeville, Massachusetts to locate and mark shallow rocks. A few weeks earlier there had been a tragedy involving young kids, a motorboat, and excessive speed. I don't think the rocks were to blame.
The unit also drove down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to survey a barge hull. I was very, very happy that I was assigned to be the Dive Supervisor, because New York's East River at the time was nasty. We didn't have surface-supplied equipment available to us, so the guys dived in regular scuba gear. There were brown lumps floating on the water, as well as white absorbent, ah, pads, with bright red streaks in the middle. Fortunately, nobody got sick.
In the early days we used scuba gear despite the obvious drawbacks for certain missions because that was what we had. You're given a mission; you do it as best you can. Our workshop in the SIMA building included several full sets of gear. An active duty person assigned to the Reserve Center was responsible for getting routine maintenance done. It would have been much more efficient, however, if each of us had been assigned equipment exclusively for our use. Instead, it sometimes took half a day to get equipment checked out for a dive and check it back in at the end of the weekend.
The late 1970s marked the transition from the old Mark V and Jack Browne diving systems that had served the Navy for many decades to newer equipment: the Mark 12 helmet and the Mark 1 lightweight band mask. The unit acquired a portable compressed air system called the 'Roper Cart' so that we could deploy surface-supplied operations away from the shore facility.
I spent another summer, 1977, as a lifeguard at Horseneck Beach. Again, I ended the summer in tiptop (well, for me) shape. In early 1978, I was hired as a field biologist for Northeast Marine Environmental Institution. We collected specimens from the sea for various researchers and universities, and we lead field excursions for school groups from elementary schools through the university level. I had many adventures, but none pertain to this essay or this forum. One of my reservist shipmates from Det. 201, Jack Johnson, was employed at the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth on Cape Cod. On one weekend drill he mentioned to me that the current Diving Officer, Mr. David Owen, was retiring in 1980 and that I should apply for the job. I had earlier looked into employment at WHOI and it's sister institution the Marine Biological Laboratory with no success, so I wasn't too hopeful, but what the Hell... To my surprise, I was asked to come in for an interview -- with the entire Diving Control Board individually. In early 1980 I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had won the position of Diving Safety Officer at the WHOI. One of the requirements of my new job was to teach diving to scientists who needed to dive to further their research interests. I started work lacking a scuba instructor certification, but I was given some time to obtain the necessary 'ticket.' After researching the various 'alphabet soup' of scuba certifying organizations, I settled on applying to participate in an ITC (Instructor Training Course) leading to certification in the National Association of Underwater Instructors beginning in August at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Most of my colleagues at other universities at that time were NAUI instructors, and the organization enjoyed an excellent reputation. One of the other candidates at that ITC was my future wife, who later became employed at the MBL and later at WHOI as a Systems Librarian. On March 31, 2010, Maggie and I retired on the same day after a 30 year career. So, my Navy connections lead to my successful career and marriage.
In late summer or early autumn of 1980, an air force warplane crashed into the sea about five miles east of Jonesport, Maine with the tragic loss of both crewmembers. Salvage vessel USS Preserver (ARS-8) steamed up from Little Creek to recover what remained of the aircraft, which had broken apart upon entry and was scattered over a wide area in over 150 feet of water. The ship had been deployed on site for about two months, and the work in the stormy Gulf of Maine was becoming exhausting. Our parent command, MDSU-2 made a request to our detachment for volunteers to augment and relieve the regular Navy divers for a two week deployment. MR2 Marshall Swing, TM2 Fred Bergmann, and I volunteered on short notice, made arrangements at home and at work, and met the ship in mid November.
It was a bit of a drive from Newport up to Maine, but our adventure really started when we got there. Our first destination, the Bangor Reserve Center was dark and closed. We called the Bangor Police department to see if they knew where the ship was, and they sent us on to the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Jonesport. From there, we got directions to the pier where the Preserver was moored.
The water in the Gulf of Maine in November is challenging to say the least. The water is cold, winds can whip up a sea quickly, and at 150 feet it is as dark as night. All of the diving was surface-supplied using the new Mark-12 system. Instead of being inside a round copper dome with four small windows, the Mark-12 helmet was a lightweight yellow Lexan plastic with a large flat faceplate. Communications with topside were excellent, although the hat, having a continuously flowing air supply, was still noisy. The shoulder-zippered foam drysuit was warm and comfortable. In fact, it was warmer to be a diver in the water than tending topside in the bitter wind. A nylon jumpsuit on top of the drysuit provided not only chaffing protection, but it also had pockets for specially shaped lead weights. It was a lot more comfortable, if less romantic, than the old Mark V.
Because of the depth and bottom time requirements, all dives required mandatory stage decompression. Preserver carried a recompression chamber, and the decompression procedure, called Sur-D (surface decompression), involved an abbreviated decompression stop at 40 feet, a five minute time frame to get the diver topside, strip off his gear, into the chamber, and repressurized back to a pressure equivalent to 40 feet in sea water. There the diver could decompress in the relative safety and comfort of the dry, heated chamber while the dive station was made ready for the next team.
In dive school, you exit the water onto the training barge by climbing up a steep ladder. In the fleet, however, ascents and descents are done by means of a stage. After dressing into the gear while seated on a stool, the diver is guided by his tenders to the metal framework stage and stands while holding onto a railing. The other diver in the team enters the stage, and it is lifted by the use of a winched line over the ship's rail and into the water. After a final leak and communications check, the master diver gives the signal to lower the stage to the bottom. If a diver has ear equalization problems, he shouts out "Hold Red" (or yellow, green whatever color identifies him), and the stage is halted until he can clear. On the bottom, the diver shouts out, "OK Red" and the master instructs him to take a vent to purge any excess carbon dioxide from the suit. The divers always back out of the stage on the opposite side to that which they entered, so the umbilical always trails back to the divers' "elevator to the surface." The then search the bottom in the area surrounding the stage, and if something is found, they notify topside and place the object into a weighted bin that is also lowered to the bottom. Anything too large or heavy to be placed in the bin will need a cable or line to be secured to it.
In the week prior to us meeting the Preserver, one of the regular ship's divers had somehow fouled his umbilical underneath one of the aircraft's engines, and it took several hours to get him up. Salvage diving is no easy task.
Our unit received a nice letter of appreciation from the Commander, Naval Reserve Readiness Command Region One.
We were again requested to supply volunteers in 1981, this time as test subjects for an experimental chamber saturation dive at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut. Steve Faszcza (pronounced "fazz cha." That's OK, everyone butchers my French Canadian name, too), Marshall Swing and I volunteered for one of the two sets of experiments. Ours was called SUREX II, and the other was AIRSAT.
The purpose of the experiment was to gather information and develop procedures "for use in transferring from a pressurized submarine rescue craft to a decompression facility, should a pressurized submarine rescue become necessary, to further knowledge of nitrogen elimination and the relationship to decompression sickness, and to provide emergency surfacing and decompression protocols for both Navy and civilian operational nitrogen-oxygen saturation diving. " (quote from subject information document).
We reported to the Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Groton, Connecticut in mid-September and spent the first week obtaining baseline medical, psychological and physiological data for each of us. We performed a basal metabolism test on a stationary bicycle while breathing a measured amount of oxygen and expiring a measured amount of carbon dioxide. Then, we entered the experimental chamber, which was an extra-large double lock recompression chamber about 20 feet long by 8 or o feet in diameter. It was roomy, but remember, once pressurized, you couldn't leave. I have to admit to a very strange feeling when the outer hatch closed and I realized that, no matter what, I couldn't leave my metal prison for 8 days. The days, however, were filled with activities and passed quickly. We saturated at 45 feet for 24 hours, then the outside tenders quickly lowered the pressure back to sea level. After a few minutes, we were re-pressurized back to our storage depth. Various physicians and technicians then locked in with us and performed various tests. Blood was drawn to test for gas phase changes. An eye doctor looked into our retinas to look for evidence of tiny bubbles. We performed lung function tests using a spirometer. We tested our hand strength using a calibrated squeeze device. The pressure was increased several times during the week, and the surface excursion and various tests were repeated. So many blood samples were taken that the phlebotomist used our other arms. By the end of the eight day experiment our arms looked like they belonged to a junkie. In the evening, there was a movie. We got to choose our meals from a reasonable list, and the food was sent to us via the small medical lock.
What we didn't have was privacy. Our every move was monitored by cameras, and of course we couldn't get away from our fellow prisoners, err, subjects. A portable toilet was set up in the outer lock, but we were not allowed to shut the hatch to the main chamber. Everyone delayed the first bowel movement for a couple of days, because we all knew that each of us had a camera. Remember, you NEVER trust your shipmates with a camera! Marshall was the first to 'go.' I pity the poor lowly hospital corpsman who had to clean the toilet!
Unfortunately, I volunteered for one project too many. As a new hire, I couldn't get unlimited time off to participate in Navy games. So, I had to miss ACDUTRA one year, and that resulted in having a 'bad' (incomplete) year. I was also concerned that I couldn't progress in rank. For one thing, I'd never worked as a TM, and the training in 'A' school was on totally obsolete WW II-era fish. There was no way that I could or would reactivate to go to 'C' school. Also, the course book had a section of pink pages in the middle: confidential to secret material. This meant that I'd need to commute on my own time to the reserve center to study a subject for which I had no aptitude or interest. I put in a request for a change of rate and extended my enlistment for one year. The request passed from the command to the reserve system to BUPERS in Washington, but it eventually came back denied because the TM rate was 'critical.' So, I was at a crossroads. On the one hand, I had many adventures over 12 years and enjoyed the camaraderie of the part-time Navy, but on the other hand my Navy career was stuck. Others were getting promotions. I had a pretty good civilian career and wasn't as desperate for extra money any more, and weekends were getting more precious. So, I decided that it was time to move on. My last drill was in June, 1983.
My last Navy dive was a search and recovery mission at the SIMA pier in Newport. It seems that a Portapotty had gone missing from the pier, and we were asked to search for it. After swimming the entire periphery of the pier we failed to locate the missing 'shitter.'
I heard a few years later that my good buddy TM2(DV) Fred Bergmann was very ill. He had developed an abdominal cancer. He passed away in the summer of 1986. I received a telephone call from one of the guys in Det. 201 asking me if I'd like to participate in a memorial service and in scattering Bergy's ashes off his beloved King's Beach in Newport. Of course, my immediate answer was "Yes!" before he could finish his sentence.
Bergy was exceptionally proud of qualifying as a U.S. Navy diver, so it was fitting that his old shipmates bid farewell as we committed his remains to the sea. The uniform of the day was diver green work shirt and cap, UDT trunks, and gray coral shoes, just as we wore so often on dive station. Of course, being the packrat I am, I kept the stuff in my old seabag. I carefully starched the shirt and hat, as did everyone else. We were so squared away that you could practically cut your fingers on the sharp creases. We stood in a circle on the beach, while LDCR Simonson played taps with his bugle. About halfway through, a brief, but intense cloudburst drenched us. All the starch in everyone's uniform wilted and ran down in great white globs. To a man, we knew that Fred was up on that cloud having fun with us one last time. Then, we swam out about a hundred yards offshore in a column of two, formed a circle over the deep water, and passed the box containing Bergy's ashes to each man until it was empty, and silently swam back to shore. We then all drove downtown to Bergy's favorite watering hole, a place called Friends, toasted him liberally with his favorite beverage (Mt. Gay rum, seltzer water, and lime juice), and recounted our favorite Bergy stories.
Rest in peace, my friend. You are greatly missed.
Epilogue:
MDSU Two, Detachments 101 and 201 are now part of history, having been disestablished a few years ago. My old ship, the Coucal, was sunk as a target in 1991. NTC Orlando, where I attended TM "A" school, is now a civilian community. The dive schools at San Diego and Washington, D.C. have been moved to Panama City, Florida. Navy Diver is now a rate instead of an additional qualification. The equipment that I used, such as the Mark V and Mark 12 systems, have been obsolete for years. Naval enlisted uniforms have been changed yet again. Even my old rate, torpedomans mate, is no longer, having been consolidated with the Gunners Mate rating. Damn, I feel old! The world moves on, but people and places don't disappear as long as someone keeps their memory alive.
To bring this story full circle, I rummaged around in my basement and discovered that the fateful UDT swimers vest still existed over 3 decades since myfirst encounter with Fred Bergmann at King's Beach. Both the vest and its owner are a little corroded around the edges, but we're still here. By the way, it only has one CO2 cartridge. So much for my failing memory!
My wife and I occasionally get down to Newport. Parts of the city haven't changed at all. We always make it our obligation to walk up to South Baptist Street past Bergy's old house. A few weeks ago, I noticed that the name 'Bergman' is on the mailbox. Nice to see that it was passed to someone in the family.
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Well, dear reader, we've come to the end of the saga about my military life. I hope that I didn't bore you too much. Yes, I realize that I was, shall I say, verbose (some might say, "diarrhea of the keyboard"). But, I didn't write this for you. I did it for me. A few years ago when I started to scan my collection of ancient pictures and memorabilia into digital format, I began to remember scenes of my lost youth, of times, places, and people now gone. As I began to type my recollections, the memories just flooded into my brain, and I couldn't stop until I came to the end. It was a catharsis, I guess. My getting 'stuck' in rate was a disappointment, even though I never intended in the beginning to make it my life. If I could have made E6, I would have stayed in the reserves for 20 years to collect some retirement benefits. If I could have made E7, I would have stayed in longer. But, still, I had some great times and opportunities. How many people can say that they trained dolphins in a war zone, or walked on the deck of a sunken submarine in a 'copper pot?' I found my civilian career and family through my Navy connections. I came back with all of my fingers and toes, no PTSD or other psych. issues (well, maybe some would argue with that), and I collected a lifetime of 'sea stories' with which to bore people.
Thank you, TWS, for allowing me to post my ramblings and photos. I really don't expect too many readers, well, none actually, to pore through it all. After all, with over a million profiles here, there is the anonymity of being in the crowd. But still, they exist here, rather than getting tossed into the trash when I go.