|
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:
http://navy.togetherweserved.com/bio/Terrence.Rioux
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.
|
