"Fire When Ready Gridley"

 

Two girlfriends were chatting over coffee…

“Whatever happened to that nice Navy Gunnery Officer you used to hang around with?”

… One girl asked …

“Oh, we broke up.”

… She sighed …

“Lieutenant Gridley always fired before I was ready.

"Breaking Colors"

 This one comes from John Reitano who served on the USS Joseph Hewes FF1078 from 1972-75.’ I hope you enjoy…

We were on our way to WESTPAC '72, by way of the Panama Canal. The USS Joseph Hewes was the least senior ship in our group, so we were the last to go through the canal. We were told once through, we could hit the beach at a sort of club for a couple hours before getting underway for our next leg across the Pacific.

We made the canal crossing and it was already getting dark. A few shipmates get to this club and notice a lot of dead empty beer cans sitting on the tables. The other ships that had previously gone through bought up all the beer in the place. We had to see who are friends really were to get a few cans of suds.

Long story short, we got back to the "JOEY" just in time to shove off. It's pretty dark now and we had to shift colors up on the signal bridge. Fellow signalmen will know that we keep the underway ensign ready for "breaking colors" by pulling on the line, and the good old Red, White, and Blue flies free. As I said...it was dark!

The next morning at Quarters, SM1 "Pappy Lee" is pacing back and forth as Ensign Carneval is reading the POD. When Quarters was dismissed, Pappy, through gritted teeth said…

"Take down that ensign now!!"

Me, as the one who broke colors...in the dark, spoke up and said …

"Pappy you can't take the colors down when we are underway!"

I remembered my "A" school training!

"Take down the ensign before the Captain sees it flying upside down!"

OOPS!!

Everyone knows flying the ship's ensign upside down is a sign of distress. Got it straightened out, without Captain Klee noticing. All's well on the signal bridge...so I thought! We get a flashing light message from the Tripp...

“You guys need help!!??”

Captain wants to know what the message was. Lee jumps up on the light, and starts flashing faster than the speed of sound!

"No problem Skipper, they just want to know if any boot camp signalmen want to practice flashing light drills!"

So who gets to do light drills for a solid two hours SMSN Reitano, SMSN Caldwell, and SMSN Crosier. "Pappy" always' used to say he had the best boot camp signalmen in the NAVY, and he taught us!!! And that's a "NO SHITTER!!"

"Shipwrecked"

 

A young Australian lad is shipwrecked on a desert island. The following morning he walks around the island to see if there are any survivors and is delighted when he finds a young woman on the beach. He is even more delighted when he rolls her over and realizes it is Elle McPherson.

Having restored her to health, they set about making their accommodation comfortable, and with a steady supply of water from a stream, coconuts, fish, and wild pigs they are soon living in some style, being Australians, they even set up a small brewery and a bar.

Throughout this, the lad behaves towards her as a perfect gentleman, but one evening, after a long day of fishing, sunning themselves, and sampling the brewery, he looks at her, she looks at him, and nature takes its course.

Three enjoyable months later they are sitting around the campfire when he asks if he can borrow her eyebrow pencil and draw a mustache on her. When she asks why, he tells her that he wants her, for a short time, to look like his old mate Fred.

She is, quite naturally, disturbed by this, but allows him to do so. He takes a look at his handy work and then leans on the bar and says,

"Fred, mate, you will NEVER guess who I have been sleeping with for the last three months!"

“Waterlogged Logbook of Foolhardy and Forgotten Sea Battlers”

 By - Bruce McCall

 “Poland’s Sub Goes Glub”

Poland succumbed just a tad later than most nations to the epidemic of submarine fever that engulfed the navies of the world around the turn of the 20^th century. Twenty-three years later, to be precise, a large explained by Polish Naval Chief of Staff Pzdyndzk as the consequence of forgetting to renew the defense ministry’s subscription to Jane’s Fighting Ships in 1901 and prodli plap dzynubi,(“just plain missing out”) on world naval developments ever since. But then Poland awoke; a subscription to Jane’s was fired off. Within months, submarine fever gripped the Polish naval soul.

Now all Poland needed was a submarine. The used-sub market proved a bust; those submarines not lost in a devastating World War had since been broken up under terms of one or another disarmament pacts. By 1924, a good used one-owner U-boat was not to be found. Poland must build her own, just as Poland built her own steam-powered aircraft in 1917.

A vigorous research and test program followed; the 16 citizens who had them volunteered their bathtubs and hundreds of individuals participated in exhaustive underwater trials. Who can forget citizen Jerzy Sdudz of Zakopane, who set an underwater record of better than 23 hours, and whose widow still treasures the medal brave Jerzy posthumously earned? And what of the student body at Krakow’s Polytechnical Institute who performed the painstaking task of scaling up a four-inch kazoo to 88 feet of gleaming, full-sized sub?

At last, the big day came the dockside scene, a glitter of pomp and circumstance, Polish style. One token crash dive, then Poland’s pride and joy would surface and head out for sea trials. Or … would it? The dive was flawless, but eight hours later the band still stood poised. Dignitaries squirmed and doubts dawned, but the Prime Minister’s eulogy one week later was upbeat.

“Popli, Polski!” it began … “Good try, Poland!”

And went on to stress the importance of all Poles banding together to design and build a truly modern lug wrench.

 

 “Plucky Ecuador’s Daring Bluff”

It all began when Colombia violated the 1908 Jute Treaty with neighboring Ecuador by dumping her jute production on world markets at rock-bottom prices. Six months later, in the spring of 1941, Ecuador’s jute industry faced ruin, and out of the bedlam on the floor of Quito’s Jute Exchange rose a cry for justice. Colombia must pay reparations! But Colombia, under the iron heel of Generalissimo Lopez “Iron Heels” Lopez y Lopez, was in no mood for conciliation. Quite the opposite. Claiming “intolerable insults,” Lopez demanded free passes on Ecuador’s new railway for all his military officers.

Rather than comply, the proud Ecuadorians blew up the railroad. There was no invasion as Ecuadorian roads could kill a man. Tensions mounted, then Ecuador acted. Colombia’s coastline would be blockaded; the naval embargo would throttle her into a more reasonable state of mind. An Ecuadorian blockade? Generalissimo Lopez scoffed. What would Ecuador do for a navy? It is not recorded what Iron Heels said a few days later when aides puffed into the presidential mansion in Bogota with stunning news. Hundreds of Ecuadorian ships were sitting offshore in a line that stretched farther than the eye could see! His words, happily, are lost to posterity, but it is known that Lopez quickly ordered Colombia’s fleet, the pocket battleship Conchita, a converted banana boat, home from a two-year goodwill visit to Havana, with orders to run the blockade. A gesture was better than nothing to the honor-conscious Latins; indeed, it was everything. But even the gesture came to naught. One sight of that forbidding string of Ecuadorian sea power fronting the coast of his homeland and the Conchita’s Captain paled. A few token barrages from a good safe distance and Colombia’s sole sea-born sentinel streamed away on a goodwill visit to New Orleans. Months dragged by, increasing Colombia’s hardship and her strangled economy. Army colonels mumbled junta. Tons of unshipped and unsold jute lay rotting, or whatever jute does, on the docks. Ecuador’s own just industry revived, then flourished and nine months after it began, the blockade ended. There it has remained, a sacred symbol of the chutzpah of a doughty nation. And to this day in Colombia, anybody caught building or displaying a cardboard cutout of a ship is shot on sight! 

“SWASHBUCKLERS OF THE SEA, BUCKLED IN ONE SWASH”

Gleaming cannon mingling with fluttery awnings, the fighting summer yacht Tanya Chebovka Smirbovka plied the limpid waters of Lake Gnip in the restless summer of 1909 on a double mission of pleasure and vigilance. Pleasure because Lake Gnip was the summer playground of Czar Nicholas’ court; vigilance because not even a yacht was safe in these parlous times from attack by the anarchist Bubkin Clique. Hence an armed pleasure craft. But it was no use. Engineering dropout Bubkin merely waited for the Tanya and her cargo of aristocrats to reach the middle of Lake Gnip—then drained the lake, liquidated his trapped victims, and made the beached yacht his headquarters. But no use again; days later, czarist police reflooded Lake Gnip and surrounded the refloated Tanya with armed punts. The hapless Bubkin and his henchmen were nabbed high and wet.

The USS Mrs. Millard Fillmore carried a crew of nine and one giant Mode-O-Tone table radio, left over from an exhibit in the Hall of Sparks at the fabulous 1933 Chicago World's Fair. Entertainment was her mission; the fleet was in and “Mrs. F.” was on, serenading American gobs. The Pugh Custard Harmonica Hour or Church of the Air —no sailor could escape the ubiquitous Mrs. F. and her high-decibel jollity, blaring across the water for more than a mule. From Pearl Harbor to Panama resounded that unmistakable din. Not even gunnery practice brought relief. The merry-making marauder of the U.S. Navy was unstoppable—until one fateful August night in 1936. Nobody knew which ship sneaked up in the dark and rammed Mrs. F., tying up her tubes forever; but the immediate scramble within the fleet to claim blame was, to say the least, unseemly.

Water-borne man has dreamed of the unsinkable ship since the day he first capsized. And ever since Nazism first sur- faced, Hitler’s minions plotted to put the idea afloat for the perverted purpose of war. Thus was born one of the Third Reich’s most diabolical secret weapons: the heavy cruiser Graf Himmelfarber, with her ingenious reversible hull. Ach, let the British swine tear her to bits below the water line; the Graf would simply roll over and start on another hull while a team of experts patched the damaged one. Let the English scum riddle her again; over she would roll once more. She had just been launched when a workman fishing off the bow caught a carp; little did he realize that his “catch” was, in fact, one more Nazi trick, a bait-seeking torpedo dis- guised as a fish. Up with a roar went the Graf Himmelfarber. Down in flames came another of Hitler's evil dreams.

It was more than just seagoing lingo when tars aboard H. M.S. Contagious were summoned up to the bridge. Much of this cast-iron leviathan of the sea lanes was a bridge over England’s scenic River Wumble until 1923 when dire flaws in the navy's new Fitz & Blithery Sea Mouse carrier biplane fighter called for drastic cures. The defense ministry saw the bridge as just what it so desperately needed; its arched structure was the key. By giving the plane a rolling downhill start, that steep forward deck did what a 91-hp engine couldn't ... got it airborne. Success? No, disaster, for aviation’s unbending rule says that what takes off must sooner or later land. Sea Mice by the droves took off without a hitch. Sea Mice by the droves landed, rolling uphill on that steep aft deck, hesitated, stopped . . . then rolled right back down again like stones into the sea, kerplunk! Bad show, gentlemen.

“Albania Girds for Four-Way War”

What did it matter that uny Albania was not really men- aced from all four sides, so long as tiny Albania thought she was? Enemies were everywhere the keyed-up Albanians looked in 1927, and they looked everywhere: to the north and Yugoslavia; to the east and more Yugoslavs, not to mention Romanians and Bulgarians; to the south and Greece; and west lay Italy. Some called it Balkan paranoia, but the Albanian naval chief of staff, Admiral Luhixu, called it an emergency. The country went on round-the-clock alert, or as much of an alert as Albanians could summon. The air force flew himself into exhaustion on patrol. And the unique destroyer Abnax Nerpi was christened—four times, once for each of her quartet of prows. What a master stroke for a nation whose pinched purse allowed only one man-o'-war yet who had to defend herself in several directions at once! Here was a ship to blast the Yugoslavs closing in from the north while broadsiding the Romanians and Bulgarians on the east and spitting fire at the Greeks attacking from the south and still dealing salvos to the Italians in the west. The Abnax Nerpi was indomitable, impregnable—and, alas, un- navigable. In fact, berserk. The over-bowed destroyer took a shakedown cruise and shook herself to smithereens, going down with Admiral Luhixu standing—fittingly, somehow— at what he deemed to be the helm. Fair Albania, bereft of what seemed a brilliant means of defense, was left waiting for the imminent invasions to begin; at last report she still was.

“Holy Imhotep it’s Moving”

The desert heat plays strange tricks on a man’s eyes, but this was ridiculous—a distant pyramid off on the Suez skyline, not just floating in the fierce noonday sun but seeming to move steadily south at a good four knots! Surely, 1t was a mirage brought on by the heat, the lack of water or an extra helping of couscous. But no, it was a pyramid moving steadily south at a good four knots. And not just any old pyramid but the most lethal pyramid ever conceived, something to boggle the wiliest mind of the highest high priest in Imhotep’s temple. It was Imhotep, Jr., the desperate last-ditch gambit of Cairo’s clandestine-warfare plotters. This sly masterpiece of Arab subterfuge may have looked to casual eyes like just another harmless old stone pile—but underneath that au- authentic facade bristled a gunboat load of shot and shell. Come darkness and the Imhotep, lurking in some unexpected spot, would open up on nearby Israeli positions, raining down a hail of Arab ammo. Come dawn and a bruised and baffled enemy would find no gun emplacements to snuff out. Only an empty desert with its ever-constant pyramids. The brilliant ruse worked. Deadly Imhotep's guns flashed nightly and Cairo rejoiced. Alas, the eager Arabs could not leave well enough alone; a fleet of 22 more death-dealing decoys soon studded the Suez. One pyramid, yes; two, maybe—but a traffic jam of pyramids? Something was definitely not kosher. Israeli guns boomed, Cairo’s crafty pyramid club came tumbling down and another Arab jig was up.

“The Day the Banzai Died”

Japanese spies fanned out across the Pacific as the 1930s dawned and the Rising Sun rose. Their orders were clear; Bring home plans of the latest foreign warships; lie, steal, kill even buy anything to help build a modern fighting fleet. The battleship Goto Jairu was one triumph of this sinister espionage assault but a coup that all too quickly curdled into tragedy.

Launched in November of 1936 after a crash construction program and a blaze of publicity, the 1,500,000-ton silver monster puzzled naval savants. She looked to the expert eyeless like an up-to-date battlewagon than some mighty, hellish toy. Was that giant hull really cast in lead, as it seemed? Why no guns? What to make of a battleship with a superstructure of two huge funnels, period? And could a flat-bottomed battleship even float? The Goto Jairu drew awed gasps as she slowly, majestically backed down the slips; but the roar of a million banzais faded and died when she slithered in one long breath-taking slide straight to the bottom of Tokyo Bay. What had gone wrong? Nippon’s lips were sealed, but captured Jap documents squealed; postwar sleuths pieced together a bizarre tale of espionage run amuck. Present in an honored place at the ill-fated launching had been the junior Japanese spy known to Westerners only by his code name, Mr. Nice Boy, a rather dim lad who took up espionage only after failing in an earlier career as an abalone slicer. Mr. Nice Boy had sailed to America in 1932 but misread instructions. Instead of working in a ship in Washington, as ordered, the hapless Jap ended up toiling as an obscure shipping clerk in a Waltham, Massachusetts, novelty-and-game factory. After two years, he suddenly returned to Japan, where his suicide by hara-kiri scant hours after the Goto Jairu fiasco, though little noted at the time, proved the key to everything. Sending a clue in the movements of the shadowy Mr. Nice Boy, investigators retraced his steps in America. And there it was, in a yellowed clipping from the back pages of the Waltham Daily Hue & Cry; the answer to both the riddle of the Goto Jairu and Mr. Nice Boy’s messy end. “Strange Incident at Local Factory,” ran the minor squib. “Officials Baffled by Theft of Mold for Toy Battleship used as Marker in Popular Monopoly Game.” The eager Mr. Nice Boy had done his job not wisely but too well – and Japan’s plan for naval supremacy and world conquest never passed Go! 

( Fin )

"The Chief is Screwed"

 

After a hard day at work on the ship, the Chief heads out to the bar for a couple of drinks!  As he leaves, late once again for the Misses, he stumbles upon a beggar in the streets!  The beggar asks him…

 

“Mister, can you spare a dollar?”

Chief thinks it over for a second and asks the beggar…

“Are you gonna use it to buy alcohol?”

“No!”

… Says the beggar! So the Chief asks another question…

“If I give you a dollar, are you gonna use it to gamble?”

“Why of course not!”

… Says the beggar. So Chief asks…

“Do you mind coming home with me so I can show my wife what happens to someone who doesn’t drink or gamble?”

 

"Navy's Punishably Perfect Puns"

 

Sailors serving aboard aircraft carriers have to be top-flight in their chosen areas of expertise.

The overweight Navy Admiral was the butt of all jokes because those who served under him all said he was in “Ship Shape!”

The carrier pilot was hotheaded and one time when his mouth got away from him, a fellow pilot decked him!

When the call went out during WWII for women to join the Navy, there was a huge wave of response!

In the Navy, all recruits have to “Shape Up” and “Ship Out!”

The boson’s mate swallowed his whistle, which was initially a cause for concern, but everything came out all right in the end!

The Navy mechanic slipped on the icy deck and wrenched his shoulder. The surgeon used a socket wrench to ease the pain.

When Naval Ships leave their anchorage they first have to put their anchors aweigh!

On occasion, Navy chow can be exceptional in a good way… but let’s not go overboard here!!!

Sailors swab the decks of ships as a sort of mopping-up action.

The training of sailors is a highly complex process, but in the end, it’s all awash!

The initial step in the fire suppression sequence aboard naval vessels is blanket coverage of all fires…

The highest award for a fire suppression squad on naval ships is the “Extinguished Service Medal” for courage under fire!

When the Navy recruit was interviewed for the sub service, he got that sinking feeling he wasn’t going to get in…

At the Naval Academy, those selecting the submarine service strive to rise to the top of their class…

Our submariners are the hippest of our military service personnel because they get down with the Navy!

Sailors who volunteer for the sub-service tend to be introverts who choose it because it’s considered the “silent service.”

All submariners love the underwater service because the tradition, for them, runs deep.

 

( Fin )

"A Tot Tinge of Rum"

Back in the day, before distilleries and reverse osmosis, we had to rely on other means of hydration in the era of Iron men and Wooden ships. The British Navy started serving seamen a daily ration of rum once referred to as “Nelson's Blood.” The custom of dolling out liquor started in 1630, when brandy was rationed out to sailors, presumably to curb thoughts of mutiny. 

By 1731, the Royal Navy had switched to rum. The half-pint ration was later ordered diluted with water by Admiral Edward Vernon, nicknamed “Old Grog” after his cloak of grogram.  Admiral Vernon was also responsible for serving a mixture of rum and lime juice which is a forerunner of the modern Daiquiri to prevent scurvy. 

Since there were no embalming services onboard ships, Admiral Nelson unknowingly added a macabre note when his body was shipped home from Trafalgar in a Cask of rum, Thirsty sailors tapped the cask for a tot tinged with Nelson's blood, which quickly became a popular name for rum itself. The rum ration is now optional in the British Navy.

And that's the rest of the story ... 

Story originated in Playboy Magazine 1969 ...

 

( Fin )

 

"Recruiting for the Navy"

 From the ancient Phoenicians to the civilized world of today, the Navy has had the need for recruiting to keep our ships full of useful bodies. Here is a whimsical look at recruiting that I hope you all enjoy…

("Sorry, the Navy's full!")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR7hPXzjmA4

(Click on Video)

( Fin )

" A New and Improved Navy"

 

In keeping with the current military push towards efficiency, the Pentagon announced that the greatest naval fleet in the world will not only be fitted with new hypersonic missiles and stealthy jets but moreover with a new, more effective humor. Rear Admiral Perry explained that the bygone era of Navy limericks and shanties were too lengthy and hard to memorize. Limericks such as…

"The cabin boy, The cabin boy,

the dirty little nipper.

Put broken glass, within his ass,

and circumcised the skipper…"

... were to be cannon fodder and left in the rubble of the past. According to Admiral Perry, Navy humor will from this time forth consist of sharp quips that don't require memorization and hence take far less effort to deliver than the antiquated parlance of old. Some new and updated references such as…

"Getting Boned in the Radar Room" 

by I.M. Horny, 

and 

"Exocet on the Screen," 

by R.U. Ducking and Y. Bother…”

These are just two of the snappy new cracks that will soon be standard for our "salty dogs." Classified and standard Top-Secret jokes will be reserved in the event of war.

Furthermore, it will no longer be sexual harassment to utilize anecdotes such as…

“She’s causing my periscope to go up!”

… or …

 “Man, I’d love to swab her poopdeck!”

… or …

“I hear she’s bucking for Rear Admiral!”

… or …

I’d love to drop anchor in her port!”

 I hope this clears matters for the future. Have a good day…

( Fin )

"February Pin-ups '23"

 There’s been many a case where a young sailor has had a forbidden lust for one of his female officers. Here are a few pin-up pics for the boys who just couldn’t get enough. I hope you all enjoy…

( Fin )