Sea Stories -Page Six
The Technician and the Can of Paint
by Jerry Larsen 62-64
It
was 1963, and the BUCHANAN was still virtually a brand-new ship.
The DesRon Commander was being relieved, and he wanted to have the
ceremony on board one of his ships, so he chose the BUCHANAN to host the affair.
This of course led to a flurry of activity to ensure that every inch of
the ship was in perfect shape.
A disproportionate amount of this effort fell to the deck force, since
the ceremony would be held outdoors on the fantail under canvas.
We were underway on some sort of ops during the time we had available to
us to get ready, so the painting and polishing took place while steaming at 20
knots or better.
I
was the First Lieutenant; I think I was still an ensign, and was all of 23 years
old, fresh caught out of the Academy.
BMC Williams, who "worked" for me, had 26 years' service as I
recall, and was the epitome of saltiness.
BM1 McMoran, who was the next senior deck force petty officer was also
salty, but nothing like Chief Williams.
Our skipper, Dave Webster, relied strongly on Chief Williams - probably
more so than any other man, officer or enlisted, in the areas that involved pure
seamanship.
We
had completed all the work - a complete repainting of the deck and after
superstructure, all the lifelines were replete with fresh fancywork, and the
brass was polished.
It looked like a million bucks, and we were ready for the most intense
scrutiny.
Just about then, a second class FT had also finished up with his chores
in the FT shack, which was on the 01 level.
As we were told later, he had a small can of black striping paint, open
at the top, which was partially full.
He didn't know what he should do with it, since he didn't need the
remaining paint.
How to dispose of it?
Well,
you probably know what happened next.
There was a big wide ocean right outside of the porthole, and a dinky
little can of paint certainly wouldn't cause any pollution problem - so - out
the porthole it went, uncapped.
There were some laws of physics that then took hold.
The 20 knot wind across our bow came in contact with the droplets of
paint, and dispersed them evenly in a broad swath;
with gravity then acting on the droplets, they became fairly evenly
deposited across the entire fantail, right on top of the freshly painted and
shined surfaces.
We
didn't have much time between that disaster and the change of command ceremony.
I remember the vision of the entire FT gang, from senior petty officers
on down, on their hands and knees re-doing the entire area, as long as there was
daylight enough to turn to - and I think they may have worked under floodlights
also.
They were working in fear of their lives from Chief Williams, who went
ballistic and stayed that way until the job was re-done to his satisfaction.
When
the job was nearly done, and I was visiting with Chief Williams back where he
was supervising, he told me a couple of things that I'll never forget.
He first commented on "technicians with the GCT of a genius, and the
IQ of a Q-ball!"
Then he kind of looked up in the air, his gaze off in the distance, and
said, "you know, Mr. Larsen, the way they create a technician is to set a
bos'n's mate or gunners mate bare-ass naked on a piece of chicken wire, and cut
off whatever falls through!"
So
went the education of this brand-new ensign.
(with all due apologies to you techies and ex-techies out there, who of
course kept the incredibly complex systems working.
Just don't touch any cans of paint!)
BUCHANAN's Early Years
by Ed Bosley 61-64
TARTAR Missile Shot
by Larry Webster - son of Buchanan's first CO
I've walked the length of the ship...........from the bottom. She was up on supports in Bremerton before she got her first taste of salt water. It's interesting (and un-forgettable) to be under all of that steel!
I sailed on her out of San Diego for exercises around Baja. We "sunk" our opponent submarine at a range of what must have been 10 miles with her ASROC. Ever since I've said that any submariner who tries to take on a properly armed surface ship had to be crazy. We hit him over and over and he never got close enough to get off a shot.
On one cruise, I was served bun-less hotdogs in the Officer's Mess. The ship was rolling so hard that I couldn't catch the damn things with my fork!
I
don't remember the occasion, but Dad shot a TARTER missile nearly (as it
turns out, probably) vertically, He was up on the Bridge (outside) watching as
it burned out. By-and-bye, he yelled "Flank speed!" The spent rocket
fell about 100 yards off the stern.............Hum.???
The Bar Glasses
by
Dean Myers 71-75
Once
upon a time --- What am I doing? The statute of limitations has long expired, so
I can tell the truth.
It
was 1974 and we were just completing a WESTPAC cruise, stopping at
At
the first establishment we stopped in, we discovered that the cost of beer was
higher than we expected. So we drank one beer and tried another bar, only to
find that the price there was the same as at the first bar.
As the night progressed someone decided that as much as the beer was costing us, we must be paying for the glasses too. We started slipping the empty glasses up our jumper sleeves. When the bar ran out of glasses, we left.
As
the night went of course, we never got to the second “I”. Besides, we
probably couldn’t afford it anyway.
As
the three of us walked through the gate, we each had six glasses up each sleeve
of our jumpers. I believe it was Dave who, when he put his ID back into his
wallet, had an accident. All six glasses in one sleeve fell out and shattered
noisily on ground, making the Marine at the gate wonder what had just happened.
All of us walked a little faster to clear the area before he figured things out.
When
we reached BUCHANAN, the ladder in the forward ship’s passageway down to
Forward Crew's Berthing had been removed - they were painting behind it. No, we
did not fall down the hole, thinking the ladder was there - we were drunk but
not stupid.
So
we had to go into the passageway towards the Wardroom, and down the ladder to
Forward Officers' Country, and come out at the Forward Head over the sonar. When
Rick stepped onto the top rung of the ladder and reached for the handrails, he
let go of his sleeves and the glasses from both arms came out. The peaceful
midmorning silence of the ship was suddenly broken as 12 glasses bounced and
smashed on each of the metal ladder steps as they made their way to the deck
below.
This
created a noise that to us drunks sounded like the earth was exploding. As the
metal rungs of the ladder vibrated like tuning forks, we realized we had
probably just woken up half the officers aboard, with the assumption that those
in After Officers' Berthing may not have been affected too much.
So
we did what came natural - we ran. We were down the ladder and out of
officer’s country in seconds. None of the officers had looked out in time to
see who we were, so we went straight to our berthing areas, kicked off our
shoes, crawled into our racks, hid under our blankets, and pretended to be
asleep in the event we had been followed.
Nothing
ever happened - we figured the next morning there would be an investigation into
who had made the noise and mess, or at least someone bitching about being woken
up - but not a word was said about it.
I
have to assume that either we were the first ones to return from liberty, which
I find hard to believe, or everyone else had just as much to drink as we did,
and was able to sleep through it.