"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!!"