Sea Stories -Page two

Fog Watch

by Eric Sample 67-68

    Late in 1968 the USS Buchanan DDG14 was working on a special assignment to test out a new advanced missile tracking system for our on board missile threat tracking system. Every Monday morning we would put out to sea to spend most of the week testing this new advanced system. The crew quickly settled into a work routine not that much different than what we had on WestPac 68, with the exception that we didn't have all of the Sea Dragon operations. Where we kept having to go to battle stations every time the 1MC crackled the call, "Battle Stations, Battle Stations, all hands man your Battle Stations." All the while the General Quarters Bells were ringing. Thinking of the sound of those bells will still raise the hair on the back of my neck and makes the adrenaline flow. See the movie "In Harms Way" with John Wayne to see what I mean. However, on this day in late November, 1968, the USS Buchanan's 1MC and General Quarters bells were quiet. Instead we patrolled the waters off of San Diego and ran mock attack drills to see how our new missile tracking system was working.

    As many of you may remember, this time of the year off the coast of San Diego. The fog builds quickly, usually after sunset, and lingers till after sunrise. On the night in question, it had been decided by Ensign Allen that the ET's could share the fog watch with Boatswain Mates while the Buchanan prowled through the night, lurking and waiting for the dawn.

    Just before settling in for the night, the 1MC had crackled out its message, "Now set the fog watch." On this night I knew that I had the mid-watch and so I quickly settled into my bunk to try and grab a few winks before going on watch. The next thing I remember was the Boatswain Mate messenger coming around, trying to find the mid-watch relief for the next watch. He first tried ETRSN Dan Stoysich, next he went to ETR3 Champion only to find out these were the wrong guys. He misunderstood when Champion pointed to my bunk and so he dropped down and tried to wake up Wopie. His real name escapes me, but you couldn't wake Wopie up in the middle of a hurricane! Just then, I reached out and touched the messenger's shoulder causing him to jump with a startle. By this time he had figured out it was my turn to stand fog watch.

    Never having stood this watch before, I was not sure what to expect, but I got dressed quickly in my undress blues and grabbed my peacoat from its locker. We wore our undress blues because within minutes of taking your post the fog would have you soaking wet. At least the wool of the uniform held in some of your body heat. Someone, months before, had left his peacoat on board as they left the crew. The ET's had taken this coat to be the fog watch coat.

    I slowly made my way up the two ladders to the main deck and then exited through the starboard hatch onto the weather deck. Everything that I had been told about the fog watch was correct. It was like pea soup out there. You just about had to feel your way forward to the hatch in the weather break, and then onto the main deck next to the number one gun mount. I found the side railing and worked my way forward to my fog watch station.

    Just then the signal horn on the Buchanan started to blow with a defining roar. I was to find out that any ship underway in a fog had to sound a prolonged seven second blast at least once, every two minutes while underway. This first blast, however, just about caused me to jump overboard! My fog watch station was as far forward on the bow as a sailor could get, right up where they flew the Union Jack from a mast while we were at anchor. I met the ET that I was suppose to relieve and we quickly swapped peacoats. I remember that there were two men on this watch and the other guy's relief had not yet showed up. He handed me the sound powered headset that allowed us to talk to the Boatswain Mate of the watch on the Buchanan's bridge. As we plowed along at about five knots, you could hear the bow wave below us as the knife edge of the bow split through the water. Gradually my senses started to adjust to where I was. A voice crackled over the headset asking if the watch had been changed, and instructing us to listen for other fog horns, whistles or bells and report their relative positions. I quickly figured out that you wanted to turn down your white sailors cap so it covered your head the best it could. They were right, the fog was thick and very wet. As I sit here writing this story, I remember what it was like for Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet to have stood on the bow of the Titanic with reduced visibility on the darkened waters of the North Atlantic.

    As you may realize, this got to be a very trying job, with the horn blowing every two minutes and then listening for other fog horns. About a half hour into the watch we started to hear another fog horn and reported the sound's relative bearing to the bridge. It seemed that they were more interested in finding out if we were standing up at our post and not sitting on one of the capstans. The fog was so thick that the bridge watch couldn't see us or our position on the bow. It amused me that they kept calling on the sound powered phones to make sure that we were still with them. Where did they think we were going? We reported again the fog horn that we heard and with each report the watch communicator grew more agitated with us.

    Just then I heard the strangest sound. The sound seemed like someone blowing air off from an air compressor. I ask the other guy if he heard that noise. I started to report what we heard, which by then was much louder and seemed to be coming from more than one source. I felt the ship shutter and heard a terrible commotion below us. An urgent voice crackled on the headset, with all the excitement of James Cagney from the movie Mister Roberts, "What the hell was that?" Although I was barely able to see the surface of the water, I could see the white trashing of the water below. I heard the other man on watch say, "Oh, NO!", and then I realized that we had run into a whale. The poor creature must have been having a time of it, because the commotion in the water was horrendous. Just then, the ship's whistle blew. The collision must have really caused a commotion on the bridge. I reported that we had run into a whale and it was blocking our path. In fact, we had sailed into a pod of whales and they were all around us. In my mind, I could hear the sound of the engine telegraph ringing out "All Stop" and expected to hear the collision alarm any second. However the alarm never came and one of the bridge Quartermasters joined us quickly on the bow. We just sat there for several minutes while the whales swam on, waiting for our path to be cleared. To this day I can still remember the shuttering feeling of the bow as we plowed into that whale and all of the excitement that went along with it.

by Dave Malone 77-80

    I'm pretty sure this happened on WestPac 79. I was an OS, standing my watches in CIC on a port and starboard watch schedule. Six hours on and six hours off. These were long watches and it seemed like time dragged on forever. I swear to God that as the watch dragged on, the hands on the clock would start to move backwards.

    This particular watch was a pretty routine mid watch, and I was on the surface stat board. The surface stat board was used for keeping track of all the gathered data on surface contacts. The guy manning this board was on an SP circuit with the surface radar repeater and the DRT in CIC, a bridge talker, the port, starboard and after lookouts, and sonar. The surface stat board was kind of looked upon as a place where a guy to take it easy for an hour or so during the hourly rotations through the various stations in CIC.

    I was kicked back trying to ease my eyes from all that cigarette smoke. Cigarettes were not yet banned on navy ships. The place looked like a bar room, with a cloud of cigarette smoke hanging just below the red lights. If I peered long enough, I could catch a glimpse of the guy on the surface repeater every once in a while. My head was back against the stat board when I heard the very quiet, but pleasant sound of music coming through my phones. It was Pink Flloyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". I couldn't believe it...music coming through the SP phones! I leaned back again and enjoyed the music, and was pleasantly surprised when another song followed it. Where ever the music was coming from, they were obviously playing the whole album. It was great! It really passed the time too! Those hands on the clock started to move in the other direction again. After two or three cuts on the album a voice broke in..."You're listening to the cool, soothing sounds of radio free sonar".

    It was coming from sonar! As soon as I got off watch, I found out from A/S division what was going on. They had a stereo in sonar, and decided to share it with some other guys on watch. What an incredible idea! As long as the brass doesn't find out about it, that is. Keep this quiet and this could go on forever.

    Yeah, right! Keep this quiet. Dream on! Radio Free Sonar aired night after night. They even started taking requests. Eventually, the sonar guys who were acting as DJ's began to gain celebrity status throughout the ship. Word had gotten around to a lot of the crew about what was going on. The sonar DJ's got to cut ahead in the chow line, got the best seating on the mess deck and got extra portions of what they wanted. They got head of the line privileges at the ships store too. I swear, one night I even heard an advertisement on radio free sonar for candy bars from the ship's store. Must have been taking payola.

    This went on for maybe two weeks. Radio free sonar aired only at night, generally during the mid watch. Everyone thought it was great, and now the most coveted positions in CIC were the repeater, DRT, and stat board where you got to wear SP phones. No one wanted to work the radio nets anymore, which was traditionally the goof off area.

    Then one night it all ended. I was listening to my favorite SP phone station play Styx's "Grand Illusion", when all of a sudden the music ended abruptly. The next thing I heard was a very rushed voice quietly saying "radio free sonar is going off the air". I then heard a click and some commotion, and then complete silence. Some later investigation turned up what had knocked radio free sonar off the air. The A/S division officer (whose stateroom was pretty close to sonar) had gotten up and visited the sonar room in the middle of the night. What he discovered was one guy fiddling with the stereo, one guy in the corner working out with a piece of exercise equipment, and there was no one on the sonar stack. And man did that officer blow his stack! That was the end of radio free sonar. I'll bet those guys are still restricted to the ship.

by Al Ursich 1987-Decom

    Less than 2 hours before the very last Live Missile Firing Exercises that USS Buchanan participated in, the Launcher blew a Hydraulic line. The Tartar Launcher Hydraulic Rain Forrest was a little more active that day.

    The Buchanan was heading south in single file line with some Heavy Hitters in the Missile World, all five ships running at 5 knots. Second from the end, we were keeping our station in the rising morning sun of the So Cal Missile Range.

    Moments earlier we were in the process of bringing up the T SAM Blue Birds to do pre fire checks when a hydraulic line blew deep in the rain forest. The replacement part was obtained from the Duty SK in Supply and installed in record time. Next thing, refill the hydraulic tanks... The 55 Gal drum was moved in position... A few strokes on the pump, and the vital fluid was flowing... then without warning..... a sound so horrible, heard by all...... and felt all the way down in the pit of the stomach... The "sucking sound", reverberating, of a empty 55 Gal drum of MIL-F-17111, hydraulic fluid... the life blood of the launcher.

    You could see the horror in everyone's eyes... So close... yet so far.... what could we do... that was the last drum. Then from deep in the rain forest I hear... "Hey Chief.... I got an idea....". Now, I can't remember who it was, but some day I will, and I won't take any credit for this as I was only a spectator that day. Again we hear...... "Hey Chief.... can we "STEAL" some hydraulic fluid from the ASROC launcher?"

    What a novel idea! The permission was obtained in record time from the CO.... we were just starting our pre fire aircraft tracking runs at the time. The CO had not informed Beaver or the lead ship, Alpha Whisky, of our equipment problem. Hoping the guys could pull through the minor setback and do like all sailors do in a crunch.... pull it off.

    Three plastic buckets were obtained, plastic bag liners, a hex wrench of appropriate size and, off we went..... It was interesting that he knew the correct....size of the hex wrench to take....

    The Electrical Tag Out of the ASROC Launcher was run and tags applied. The Gunners mate slid on the amidships deck right under the launcher. The hex key removed the plug, bucket in hand, "like a thief in the night" I watched as the ASROC Launcher tank was drained of the life giving fluid. The half full buckets were quickly carried to the Tartar launcher where a funnel and filter were ready and waiting. In a matter of 15 minutes the launcher was ready. Up came the T Sam Blue Birds, the required electrical checks supervised by Senior Chief Torres, a real gunner. Checks Completed, the word was passed, "Clear the weather decks for Live Missile Firing".

    We got the shot off and recorded a skin to skin hit. What a way to end a proud ship's career.... The Gunners, Fire Control team, and CIC tracking party all pulled together to pull it off. In retrospect, there was not a man aboard the Buchanan that did not have a hand in making the Missile Shot possible. From the firemen watching the boiler, the MM's keeping the required 5 knots of ship's forward motion, The IC and EM's keeping the 400 cycle power and gyros running. The A Gang keeping the Chill Water running and cooling the Klystron CWI Radar Transmitter that the missile used for a rear reference to guide the missile to that skin to skin hit. Not wanting to forget all the support from the PN's, DK's, SH's and the SK's.... That repair part was found in record time... a detail tracking system that when called upon to perform... DID.

    Then there is the leadership from the top on down. This was "ONE TIME" when it all worked... Just imagine in your mind for one minute if ANY one link that I mentioned, and MANY more that I DID NOT mention, had failed that day... A Gyro Repeater... a misplaced Hydraulic spare part, and the outcome would have been different.

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