Here comes
an old salty sea story onboard the USS Robert L. Wilson DD/DDE 847 as told by
Jack Scully of back in the 1950s’ Canoe Club Days …
Our ship was
on her way home from a pirate catching mission in the Caribbean early in 1961.
We were lollygagging along the equator coming north back to Norfolk. It had
been a really hard two weeks, and so the skipper (Lt Cmdr Holt - a prince!) had
the thought to hold swim call out there in that emerald green sea.
The water
was so clear you could see a dropped quarter for thirty feet or more under the
surface. The ship hove to and we rigged for the evolution and put the motor
whaleboat in the water.
The boat was
the standard US Navy, 26' wooden, motor whaler. It was a great sea boat and had
a Gray Marine diesel. It was the official Navy drill to have the boat wet, with
a corpsman and an officer aboard, for this sort of thing. Riflemen were
appointed to watch for party-crashers, and everyone was lined up on the port
lifelines ready to leap in when the Old Man gave the word. He himself was
togged out in swim bloomers and wife beater undershirt ready to go . . . when
somebody hollered "Shark!" It most certainly was, about 15 feet or so
in length. This focused everyone's attention until somebody else yelled,
"HOLY SHIT!" and another shark came out from under the ship, cruising
lazily out toward the boat, which lay parallel to the ship. This bugger was H U
G E. Big barrel and long as hell!
When he slid
under the boat, along the keel, we saw that his snoot and tail extended past
the ends of the boat. All interest in recreation evaporated instantly, and the
Gunner's Mates were looking for a shot with their M1's. Others ran off to grab
some concussion grenades. The sharks hadn't broken the surface, so the boat
crew was wondering what all the galloping about, arm waving and yelling was
about.
JC Cole was
the corpsman, and a black guy. He finally looked over the gunwale to see what
everyone was pointing at, and friends, I have heard all my life, about blacks
being scared white, but, buddy, I've seen it. JC literally blanched. The Chief
- no officer actually went out in the boat on chores - saw the
"little" one and they were alongside in a flea fart and hooked on.
And this time, and this time only, did they ride those monkey lines all the way
up to the blocks and swung inboard onto the chocks, before they let go and came
out of that boat.
From the 01
level, the chief looked back out there and saw the BIG one, and liked to crap.
No time was wasted in securing from swim call and the Wandering Willy was soon
shed of that place on the chart and headed home.
Nobody got a
picture, but when 'Jaws' came out, I know about 90 guys who were believers.
Thank you for that, and Merry Christmas.
ReplyDeleteDamn!
ReplyDeleteBut nobody thought to shoot the fucker and reel it in, have a steel beach picnic with bbq shark steak as the main course? ;)
(Seriously. Fall of '89, I was on USS Callaghan (DDG 994). We were in the Gulf for Earnest Will, and we'd had to head out into the Gulf of Oman for an emergency repair availability with the USS Prairie. We were nested with her in the center, us to her starboard, and, IIRC, the Benjamin Stoddart (an OLD DDG-2 class) on the Prairie's portside.
One day, I remember seeing a bunch of guys way up on the Prairie's fantail with a few HUGE fishing lines on the rails. Among the fish caught was a 6' baby Great White. They didn't even bother trying to take it down to the messdeck, they got their entire messdeck crew up there to carve it up and had seared shark steaks for dinner that night.
We Signalmen won a couple of cases of beer from a bet with the OPs officer on a NATO criuse (1973 USS Barney DDG 6). They couldn't give it to us on board ship so on the way back we were close to where Jack Scully was and the water was just exactly like he described. It was more like sailing on a lake than the ocean. They took the beer out on one of the small boats and it was offered to the whole crew. We had to swim out to it, drink it, and swim back to climb up a cargo net. I think most of us swallowed more salt water than beer. We had two riflemen out looking for sharks but never saw any.
ReplyDelete