This is about my time in the Navy cruising the Atlantic on a destroyer. I loved it; adventure, the sea, a huge toy to play with, travel to Europe and the Caribean, no serious situations. Hope this catches the flavor.
The Nature of the Sea -
The door knob to my cabin turns, it is 3AM and it is my call to watch. I hold on to the guard rail of my bunk as the ship rolls 45 degrees and then snaps back. I dress, climb the four decks to the bridge, touching the cool, steel plate sides of the ship for balance, sensing the cold Atlantic beyond. It is fall and we are off Greenland, a person in that water will last but a few minutes.
On the bridge the helmsman stares at the red and green glowing compass wheel and grips the wheel firmly as the ship surges. In the blackness of the early dawn I can see the bow plunging down in to the valley of the wave. The wind blows off the top, spray pelting us. We are tipped forward to the trough, sliding down the face; the propellers momentarily flail in the air and then bite in the wave as it passes. The waves are facing us, black onyx faces with spider webs of spray, constantly changing, moving, with relentless power mindless of our presence. They have come driven by wind from hundreds of miles across the ocean gaining strength as it has been through the ages.
A few days back, we had left Norfolk, VA. harbor, headed for a twenty two day NATO operation combining British, French, Italian, Canadian ships in a simulated battle. We were on the USS Cony, DDE 508, which was 2200 tons of steel plate and armament, 375 feet long and with 200 crew aboard. Half the crew were seasoned sailors the other half were fresh out of high school drawn from states like Minnesota, Ohio and Virginia new to the Navy, ships, the sea, and responsibility. I had just graduated from college then Reserve Officers Candidate School and rushed to start my tour of duty. I was responsible for the Quartermasters who were helmsmen and signal men who worked to ship’s bridge. Chief Petty Officer Flat with 24 years toward retirement was to lead and guide me. He carried 230 pounds on his five foot five frame and was seldom without a cigar stuck in his mouth. Our office was a five foot by five foot chart room where we would work our calculations to plot the ship’s position. Chief Flat had served in World War II on both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, had been a tug boat captain and was ready to retire. His ultimate weapon to keep me in line was to close the chart room door as we worked on the heavy sea days and light the cigar. I learned the stars and crossed the Atlantic four times with skills he passed on.
The Cony upright, steady, grey steel against dark sapphire water, pushed the water aside, leaving a small V wake behind as we left the land behind to meet the ocean swells and to take our position with thirty other ships and in the flotilla.
The weather worsened as we moved northeast up the east coast. The balance of power shifted to the wind and the waves as the ship moved, rolled and surged to react. The radar antenna on the mast 80 feet above the water, rotated, scanned, probed the distance and began to swing synchronized to the sea. Walking on deck, legs, arms, hands, reacted, took on the motion. Senses dulled by solid land awoke, complained, and settled into new but remembered rhythms. The sea was speaking, disturbing, asserting, impersonally to us who were joining its presence.
Navigating was my job, a mixture of the new electronic world of radar, sonar, loran and radio reports with the classic tools of the sextant, clocks, the sun, the stars and books of mathematical tables. On good days, the still hours of sunrise and sunset were time for reading the longitude and latitude from the skies. Of setting the mirrors and filters of the sextant to draw pinpoint star and sun images in arcs tangential to the horizon as the sky shifted colors painting full murals for our view. On the bad days, the rotating scan of the radar and the measured green lines on the loran cathode ray tube located us.
One night we refueled from a larger aircraft carrier still massive enough to ride smoothly on the intensifying sea. We surged and bucked along side by side, waves breaking on our bows, water wildly turbulent in the 100 foot gap between the ships. Water and oil greased the decks as the crew passed lines and hoses across the gap and held on against the pull of the motion and sea.
At the helm was Cotter, Seaman First Class, a twelve year veteran, 6’2” of anger and strength. I had seen him promoted and demoted and the year before had been at a Norfolk bar for a celebration when he wed an ex-prostitute. Now he was fully focused on keeping the two ships on parallel courses, drawn by the responsibility and the danger. His eyes scanned the water ahead, he watched the compass quiver between each degree, felt the bow pushed by the wave, the stern slide drawn by the vacuum of the water passing through the narrow opening between the ships. His hands anticipated, moved surely, instinctively. Now the sea had us swaying so strongly the radar antenna at the end of its arc was dipping close to the carrier on each swing. By contrast, the solid carrier was pushing the waves aside and through the open hatch I could see, bathed in the red night light, the Marine band practicing their marches. We finished, dropped lines and moved off to a safer distance.
The power of the storm rose and in the dark grey of the afternoon the siren call came from the ship ahead. It signaled “Man overboard”. Looking down for a moment we saw head and shoulders silent on the surging sea and then gone aft out of sight. It takes hundreds of yards and many minutes to turn 2200 tons of ship. When we got to what we thought was the spot, search lights probed the dark, a hundred pairs of eyes hoped, but there was nothing but the broil of the dark sea reminding us of what we were challenging. Entries were made in the ship’s log and we returned to the formation.
At 3AM, the storm was at its worst. We had come between Greenland and Iceland to intercept a British Cruiser and an Italian frigate who were simulating and attack of the main fleet to the south. The seas had thrown them together with significant damage ending the game. We were told to rejoin at 18 knots, but the sea was pounding the ship to death. Rolling close to our limits from side to side, snapping back more slowly we were at a critical point. Four destroyers had been lost in a typhoon in the Pacific when a second wave had caught them heeled 47 degrees and pushed them over. In the wave trough now, as we were standing on the bridge, we were fifty feet above the water and looking thirty feet up to the top of the wave. We were in the grips of great power and tiptoeing on the edge of danger. We radioed for permission to slow and then cut our speed to match what the sea would allow us.
The next day again we came to the mat and wrestled with nature. The skies opened enough to let us put planes in the air for exercises then closed. They flew in clear air above the clouds, while we were surrounded by rain, wind, flying spray and skies that darkened steadily. When it was time to land the planes there was no way to get them down though the overcast. We traced the path of the planes with fluorescent crayons on the radar screens and they “square danced” waiting out with their remaining fuel for a pause in the storm. The orders came to line up a dozen ships, the planes would drop in the cold sea, pilots ejecting and parachuting to be picked out of the water. In the Caribbean months before, we had practiced this using an orange crate floating on calm water. When it was a hundred feet away it was hidden behind the waves, difficult to spot. In this weather it would be ten times as difficult. But this time we won the lottery with the elements as small hole opened in the clouds and the planes ducked back to safety on the carrier.
The seas quieted and there were days when we were free to do as we wished. The tests were now of our own making. Finally we steamed into Plymouth, England under clear blue skies. It was almost hard to remember when the sea had humbled us and brought us to our knees; reminding us of the limits of our independence in the natural world.
The Nature of the Sea -
The door knob to my cabin turns, it is 3AM and it is my call to watch. I hold on to the guard rail of my bunk as the ship rolls 45 degrees and then snaps back. I dress, climb the four decks to the bridge, touching the cool, steel plate sides of the ship for balance, sensing the cold Atlantic beyond. It is fall and we are off Greenland, a person in that water will last but a few minutes.
On the bridge the helmsman stares at the red and green glowing compass wheel and grips the wheel firmly as the ship surges. In the blackness of the early dawn I can see the bow plunging down in to the valley of the wave. The wind blows off the top, spray pelting us. We are tipped forward to the trough, sliding down the face; the propellers momentarily flail in the air and then bite in the wave as it passes. The waves are facing us, black onyx faces with spider webs of spray, constantly changing, moving, with relentless power mindless of our presence. They have come driven by wind from hundreds of miles across the ocean gaining strength as it has been through the ages.
A few days back, we had left Norfolk, VA. harbor, headed for a twenty two day NATO operation combining British, French, Italian, Canadian ships in a simulated battle. We were on the USS Cony, DDE 508, which was 2200 tons of steel plate and armament, 375 feet long and with 200 crew aboard. Half the crew were seasoned sailors the other half were fresh out of high school drawn from states like Minnesota, Ohio and Virginia new to the Navy, ships, the sea, and responsibility. I had just graduated from college then Reserve Officers Candidate School and rushed to start my tour of duty. I was responsible for the Quartermasters who were helmsmen and signal men who worked to ship’s bridge. Chief Petty Officer Flat with 24 years toward retirement was to lead and guide me. He carried 230 pounds on his five foot five frame and was seldom without a cigar stuck in his mouth. Our office was a five foot by five foot chart room where we would work our calculations to plot the ship’s position. Chief Flat had served in World War II on both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, had been a tug boat captain and was ready to retire. His ultimate weapon to keep me in line was to close the chart room door as we worked on the heavy sea days and light the cigar. I learned the stars and crossed the Atlantic four times with skills he passed on.
The Cony upright, steady, grey steel against dark sapphire water, pushed the water aside, leaving a small V wake behind as we left the land behind to meet the ocean swells and to take our position with thirty other ships and in the flotilla.
The weather worsened as we moved northeast up the east coast. The balance of power shifted to the wind and the waves as the ship moved, rolled and surged to react. The radar antenna on the mast 80 feet above the water, rotated, scanned, probed the distance and began to swing synchronized to the sea. Walking on deck, legs, arms, hands, reacted, took on the motion. Senses dulled by solid land awoke, complained, and settled into new but remembered rhythms. The sea was speaking, disturbing, asserting, impersonally to us who were joining its presence.
Navigating was my job, a mixture of the new electronic world of radar, sonar, loran and radio reports with the classic tools of the sextant, clocks, the sun, the stars and books of mathematical tables. On good days, the still hours of sunrise and sunset were time for reading the longitude and latitude from the skies. Of setting the mirrors and filters of the sextant to draw pinpoint star and sun images in arcs tangential to the horizon as the sky shifted colors painting full murals for our view. On the bad days, the rotating scan of the radar and the measured green lines on the loran cathode ray tube located us.
One night we refueled from a larger aircraft carrier still massive enough to ride smoothly on the intensifying sea. We surged and bucked along side by side, waves breaking on our bows, water wildly turbulent in the 100 foot gap between the ships. Water and oil greased the decks as the crew passed lines and hoses across the gap and held on against the pull of the motion and sea.
At the helm was Cotter, Seaman First Class, a twelve year veteran, 6’2” of anger and strength. I had seen him promoted and demoted and the year before had been at a Norfolk bar for a celebration when he wed an ex-prostitute. Now he was fully focused on keeping the two ships on parallel courses, drawn by the responsibility and the danger. His eyes scanned the water ahead, he watched the compass quiver between each degree, felt the bow pushed by the wave, the stern slide drawn by the vacuum of the water passing through the narrow opening between the ships. His hands anticipated, moved surely, instinctively. Now the sea had us swaying so strongly the radar antenna at the end of its arc was dipping close to the carrier on each swing. By contrast, the solid carrier was pushing the waves aside and through the open hatch I could see, bathed in the red night light, the Marine band practicing their marches. We finished, dropped lines and moved off to a safer distance.
The power of the storm rose and in the dark grey of the afternoon the siren call came from the ship ahead. It signaled “Man overboard”. Looking down for a moment we saw head and shoulders silent on the surging sea and then gone aft out of sight. It takes hundreds of yards and many minutes to turn 2200 tons of ship. When we got to what we thought was the spot, search lights probed the dark, a hundred pairs of eyes hoped, but there was nothing but the broil of the dark sea reminding us of what we were challenging. Entries were made in the ship’s log and we returned to the formation.
At 3AM, the storm was at its worst. We had come between Greenland and Iceland to intercept a British Cruiser and an Italian frigate who were simulating and attack of the main fleet to the south. The seas had thrown them together with significant damage ending the game. We were told to rejoin at 18 knots, but the sea was pounding the ship to death. Rolling close to our limits from side to side, snapping back more slowly we were at a critical point. Four destroyers had been lost in a typhoon in the Pacific when a second wave had caught them heeled 47 degrees and pushed them over. In the wave trough now, as we were standing on the bridge, we were fifty feet above the water and looking thirty feet up to the top of the wave. We were in the grips of great power and tiptoeing on the edge of danger. We radioed for permission to slow and then cut our speed to match what the sea would allow us.
The next day again we came to the mat and wrestled with nature. The skies opened enough to let us put planes in the air for exercises then closed. They flew in clear air above the clouds, while we were surrounded by rain, wind, flying spray and skies that darkened steadily. When it was time to land the planes there was no way to get them down though the overcast. We traced the path of the planes with fluorescent crayons on the radar screens and they “square danced” waiting out with their remaining fuel for a pause in the storm. The orders came to line up a dozen ships, the planes would drop in the cold sea, pilots ejecting and parachuting to be picked out of the water. In the Caribbean months before, we had practiced this using an orange crate floating on calm water. When it was a hundred feet away it was hidden behind the waves, difficult to spot. In this weather it would be ten times as difficult. But this time we won the lottery with the elements as small hole opened in the clouds and the planes ducked back to safety on the carrier.
The seas quieted and there were days when we were free to do as we wished. The tests were now of our own making. Finally we steamed into Plymouth, England under clear blue skies. It was almost hard to remember when the sea had humbled us and brought us to our knees; reminding us of the limits of our independence in the natural world.
A great experience on my first job.
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