Let Me Take You On A Sea Cruise
By
Fred Siedentopf
During my career in the Marine Corps, I experienced some good times and some bad times, as IÕm sure everyone has. How my ÒtimesÓ may compare to those experienced by other folks I have no idea, but I do know some of those good times may have been too good, legally and morally speaking. Whether itÕs due to the patina of time or the onset of old age clouding my memory, as I reflect back on some of my less than enjoyable experiences they now seem to be filled with tiny bright spots. If that sounds like foolÕs gold instead of the real thing to you, youÕre probably not too far off the mark. Some of those bad times have thankfully been lost from memory without some sort of recall trigger while others have softened to the point they can be used as amusing anecdotes. One of those nuggets of foolÕs gold is the tale of my first trip to the Far East, aboard one of the last operational troop transports. That story begins at the end of my sixth year of service in the Marine Corps. Up to that point, I was like a puppy dog eagerly experiencing everything that came along, even the occasional swat on the behind, or the military equivalent, a stern lecture from a disgruntled officer or senior enlisted man.
To get to that story and so you can
understand that story better; I have to begin much, much earlier than my sixth
year of service. I wonÕt start
with the swat on my behind by the doctor as I came squalling into this world,
but I will begin with some of my adventures after I officially became a MARINE!
After boot training I was sent for
aviation electronics training at NAS Memphis, TN. I became a member of the
Marine Corps Detachment band which was one of the best times of my life and all
it cost was time. We had to practice
after school for two hours a day and four hours on Saturdays. Thankfully I played the tenor drum and
never had to worry about chapped or split lips like those French Horn guys,
although I will admit to a bit of jealousy. They attracted a lot more ladies by spitting into a maze of
brass piping then I did by pounding on a drum head. Practice time and traveling to events left us with a limited
amount of personal time, but we were glad to give of our time and talent, such
as it was. Sounds altruistic I admit,
but thereÕs more to the story.
We were authorized to wear white duty
belts which indicated we had head of the line privileges at the Mess Hall,
which is the only true and fitting name for the now politically correct ÒDining
Facility.Ó Those duty belts were
also our permission to straggle to and from classes rather than marching in
formation. In the dictionary, Òto
straggleÓ means to move singly or in a small group separate from those who went
earlier. To us it meant, sleep
late and run like hell to make it to class on time. Because of band practice, we were also excused from the
onerous chore of Thursday night Field Day. To the uninitiate that phrase means time set aside for an
athletic event, but to Marines it means sweep, swab, and scrub the toilets.
Then it was on to Sea Duty when school was
over. Although I had loved the Victory at Sea documentaries and had been
enthralled at the scenes of destroyers plowing through mountainous seas, the
mere thought of being aboard a ship scared the hell out of me. I couldnÕt swim! Part of our Sea School curriculum was
Òdrown-proofing,Ó making sure we all knew how to remain afloat even when
exhausted. I interpreted that as
ÒdrowningÓ in my case and just knew IÕd be washed out (bad pun) when they found
out I couldnÕt swim. To my
chagrin, I was granted a waiver, graduated Sea School and was immediately given
orders to the USS Boxer (LPH-4).
The work involved aboard ship I really
didnÕt care for. I maintained the
Aviation Electronics Shop that was utilized by embarked helicopter crews. I spent three years aboard the Boxer
and had only one occasion to work on the shipÕs assigned aircraft. The primary radio failed during a
flight to pickup mail, and it took me longer to climb to the flight deck than
to trouble shoot and replace a blown fuse. The best part of that shop was that it was one of the few
areas of the ship with air conditioning.
I also had a coffee pot and a small refrigerator, which was for battery
storage, but would also hold soda and the occasional beer smuggled aboard.
Since the shop was lockable, I was able to
engage in a game of chance now and then, secure in the knowledge that the
Masters-at-Arms couldnÕt break up the game and put the participants on report. A Master-at-Arms is sort of a Navy
deputy sheriff that performs police duties at sea, not unlike the Shore Patrol,
or Military Police ashore. In
truth, they were a cross between the Keystone Kops and the Gestapo, depending
who was on duty. This is where I
first learned that sailors liked to bluff with a four-card flush, raise with a
low pair to try and buy a pot, and sometimes giggle when they had a sure-fire
winning hand.
Although the tour of duty was two years, I
stayed aboard the Boxer for three. I actually reenlisted for a one-year
retention on station. If that
doesnÕt make much sense considering I didnÕt like the work, I must have
forgotten to mention the great liberty!
WeÕd normally spend about two months in
our home port of Norfolk, VA, preparing for a deployment. WeÕd load up a battalion landing team
(BLT) of Marines and helicopter squadron personnel in Norfolk then set sail for
North Carolina. The ship would circle off Onslow Beach while the helicopters
flew aboard, and weÕd then steam south to the Caribbean Sea. This was the start of a normal three
month cruise. The BLT would make a
vertical assault on the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques, the squadrons would go
ashore to the provisional airfield, and the Boxer would steam to St. Thomas to
anchor off the port of Charlotte Amalie for two weeks or so. WeÕd then go back and pick up the BLT
and squadrons before steaming around the Caribbean showing off ÒThe Flag.Ó WeÕd go back for another exercise off
Vieques and spend two more weeks in St. Thomas before picking up those
bedraggled marines and worn out helicopters. Then weÕd steam around showing ÒThe FlagÓ some more.
In three years, we visited every major
Caribbean Island Nation at least three times, and also made stops in Venezuela
and Mexico. In a way, it was like
being on a three year Love Boat cruise, without fancy staterooms and without
ladies to engage in a game of shuffleboard. We also managed to have a little excitement during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, and shipÕs company Marines formed up shore parties when we had
to evacuate or protect the evacuation of American personnel from an occasional
hot spot. I was finally
transferred to MCAS Cherry Point, NC, at the end of my third year of sea duty
in 1964, both happy and sad to go.
I was going to miss the great liberty.
It now was the summer of 1965 and I was
bored with my tour of duty at Cherry Point. I had been stationed aboard the Boxer and with the Cuban
Missile Crisis, unrest in Haiti, and evacuating Americans from the Dominican Republic,
I was accustomed to a little more action than a seven to four-thirty stint in a
support squadron. The off base
recreation also left a bit to be desired compared to more exotic ports of call
like Barbados or Martinique.
I knew that helicopter squadron personnel
were routinely rotating in and out of Viet Nam, so I volunteered for a transfer
to a helicopter squadron. Instead
of getting orders to a unit at MCAS New River, NC, I received orders overseas
as part of a rotational draft, destination Viet Nam. I was finally headed for Viet Nam, but my most miserable
adventure so far in life was about to begin, a month long trip overseas on a
troop carrier. Rather than going
to Viet Nam as a designated replacement to an advisory group, I was going as
another body in a rotational draft.
In those days there were no unit
deployments and rotations. Units
were permanently based overseas and personnel were transferred to a major command
and dealt out to subordinate units like playing cards in a game of Gin
Rummy. This was also before we
needed to save time by flying replacements overseas and we went en masse on a
ship, not a few hundred at a time but a few thousand. All service personnel, with the exception of a few Air Force
personnel, went to the western Pacific in the same way, as a mob. Some sailors were lucky to go over on
their assigned ship and come back on the same ship if it was relieved on
station. When the War in Viet Nam
heated up in 1966, the military needed to get the most time on the ground for
each man going over for a thirteen-month tour, so the idea of wasting a month
of travel over and a month of travel back by ship was scrapped in favor of
sending troops on leased commercial airliners. I personally think that someone in the Pentagon had a large
block of Continental Airlines stock.
We were embarked aboard a troop ship that
was used in WW2 and the Korean Conflict to move troops, and had been in service
taking troops over and back to the Far East continuously since 1951. It probably had survived the
intervening fourteen years without a major interior cleaning, just an
occasional slap-dash coat of paint.
Tied up to the pier she was an imposing sight, glistening Navy gray,
bright white lettering on the hull, and bright white railings. There were no tell-tale signs to warn
us of the less than pristine conditions of the troops compartments below
decks. Had we known we might all
still be in exile in Canada.
The ship was the USS General William
Mitchell (AP-114), which, in addition to the mob of troops, carried married
personnel with families and officers who were part of the draft in staterooms. They
had both a promenade deck to relax on and a dining area just like a cruise
ship. Senior enlisted personnel
were berthed in fairly spacious troop compartments but shared the mess deck
with the troops though they had a separate seating area. The sergeants and below were jammed
into compartments like sardines, although I think the sardines might have been
better off, at least packed in oil they could move more easily than we
could. For the first time in six
years, each time I entered my assigned troop space, I questioned my sanity for
ever enlisting.
Our bunks had very thin mattresses and
were twelve inches apart vertically in tiers of 5 to 6. Tiers not attached to a bulkhead were
attached to poles so that bunks were three inches apart horizontally. The room between tiers was barely more than
shoulder wide, requiring us to shuffle sideways to move about.
There was no air conditioning. There was fresh air piped in, but it
was warm, outside air and the circulation within the compartments was very
poor. The temperature was always
in the mid to high 80Õs (F), and the compartments were stifling both day and
night. The compartments also
smelled like gym lockers filled with a years worth of unwashed sweat gear and
socks.
Since we were passengers and had no
assigned duties except to clean up our living quarters, we had a major problem
with boredom. Most of us spent as little
time as possible in our compartments, opting to go above decks and stake out a
spot under a life boat or along side a crane or davit. There was very little space above decks
and we always seemed to be in the way of some working party. To this day, I think those sailors
invented reasons to get us to move.
Above decks it was too windy to play cards
and too cramped to exercise, so our major amusements were singing with an
acoustic guitar, telling sea stories (lies and bigger lies), and reading if you
could find a book. We loved
paperback books because they could be read simultaneously by three or four
people. Simply tear the book down
itÕs spine at a break between chapters and you ended up with three or four
sections. To start, the original owner
would read the first section and pass it on. While heÕs reading the second section someone else is
reading the first. Finish those
and pass them on and now you have three people reading the same book. We were always very critical of someone
who lost a section of the book, although the loss of a page or two was both
inevitable and accepted.
Fresh water was at a premium, so showers
for the troops were allowed only every other day for two hours the Navy
way: Water on - get wet - water off;
Soap down (or up) - water on - rinse - water off; your basic five minute Navy
shower. At the start of the two
hours the water was cold and got progressively hotter until most of it was
gone. At the end of the two hours
the water was tepid at best, the shower space was as steamed up as a sauna, and
drying off was impossible since you were sweating so much. Some of the more pungent troops often
relinquished their shower time and water allocations, which didnÕt help the
aroma of the compartment. They
were usually dealt with more critically than someone who lost a section of a
book.
There was always a long line for meals.
Many of the troops would simply finish eating, go back on deck, and get in line
for the next meal. In most cases
the wait was not worth it, so I would eat breakfast, skip lunch and sometimes
supper. I often went down to the
mess deck after supper to beg for a sandwich and was always sure of at least a
bowl of soup. The biggest hardship
was no coffee during the day, no soda machines, and the Kool Aid dispenser on
the mess deck always seemed to be empty or they were out of paper cups. The water from the scuttlebutts was
barely palatable and as warm as the water during the last few minutes of our
shower time. It made us wonder
where the water for the Kool Aid came from.
I do have some fond memories of that trip,
the sparkles in that lump of foolÕs gold.
Our ships destination was Danang, Viet Nam, but we were able to stop in
Honolulu for a day and a half of really fun liberty while dropping off a few
replacement personnel. I can
attest to the fact that all the major stateside breweries have products that
travel well. We also stopped in
Yokahama for two and a half days, and I teamed up with a friend who had been
there before. We grabbed a cab and
headed for the SeamanÕs Club, a full service stop for merchant marine
crews. The Old Hands always
carried a ´1000 note for that cab ride to a SeamanÕs Club.
The SeamanÕs Clubs offer showers, a gym, a
barber shop, a restaurant, a bar, a reading room, a game room, and
telephones. They also have a money
exchange that offers bank rates to keep you from being Òripped offÓ by taxi
drivers and bartenders. After a
shower, a meal, and a money exchange we embarked on a tour of the cultural highlights
of this major port city.
When we left
Yokahama, I realized that though I was halfway around the world and had just
spent two and a half days immersed in the Japanese culture, there were many
things similar to the culture of the United States. Beer is beer; a jukebox is a jukebox; strippers strip; bar
snacks are expensive; and hangovers hurt just as bad. I also realized that I was just as incapable of finding
museums and art galleries overseas as I was at home.
We headed for Okinawa
which would be the shipÕs last stop before Viet Nam, but we were delayed a bit
due to a typhoon. We had to change course to skirt the northern edge of the
storm and then swing around behind it and ride the rough trailing seas into
Naha. For two days the seas kept
building until it seemed the ship would capsize any moment. It stayed that rough for nearly a day
until the typhoon moved on and calmer waters returned. Having become inured to rough seas
while on sea duty, I was able to enjoy meal times. With all the rail hangers and commode huggers, chow lines
were very short.
Perhaps the brightest and most treasured
memory of that trip was my interaction with the shipÕs crew. Having spent three years on sea duty, I
learned one thing about sailors at sea, they love to gamble. I also learned that most of them were
very poor poker players, and I was a little better than average. IÕll never be able to play Texas Hold
ÔEm in a World Series of Poker event, but I was good enough to put more than a
few dollars in my pocket. The
shipÕs crew on that troop transport ran true to form, and I found a game or two
to sit in on the second night out from the States.
The poker games I sat in on served several
purposes for me: they were a distraction from the miserable living conditions,
places to relax in comfort since the games were held in office spaces at night,
and provided access to a coffee pot.
Playing cards all night also allowed me to get to the head of the line for
breakfast, plus I was able to accumulate a lot of lovely green backs.
Accumulating that cash was most
fortuitous, since my trip to Viet Nam ended in Okinawa. I was pulled from the ship to fill a
billet at MCAF, Futenma when someone with my occupation specialty (MOS) was
medically evacuated for a broken back.
My sea bag and I went to Futenma and my service and pay records went to
Viet Nam. I lived for five months
on $15.00 ÒHealth and ComfortÓ pay twice a month, my poker Òsavings,Ó and
gauging when the slot machines at the Enlisted Club were due to pay off. It helped to be dating the slot room
cashier who kept track of payoffs for me.
Luckily I was reunited with my service and pay records in Viet Nam later
on.
I was the Aviation Electronics Technician
on board the Futenma station. My job was to maintain the stations assigned
aircraft. My place of
duty was an alcove in the station tower next to the ground communications
maintenance office. I was there
with my folding field desk, a small tool box, a three and a half legged chair (actually
there were four but I could never get the short one equalized), and a
phone. I waited for ÒtheÓ call to
work on the aircraft radios. It
was insane.
The aircraft was a WW2 Navy/Marine Corps
SNB (some called it a secret navy bomber) that had been used as a short haul,
personnel and cargo mover throughout the Pacific Theater. I knew I would never get a call to work
on this two engine aircraft. It
only had one engine. The other had
been sent out for repairs in 1963 (two years before), and the Naval Aviation
Rework Facility in the Philippines estimated that repairs would take two or
three months, if they could find the parts. The electrical system had been cannibalized for parts to
support an aircraft in Hawaii some Admiral used for weekend golf
excursions. It was all
legal; his aide was a pilot and needed to log flight time anyway.
To fill my days I worked on ancient
facsimile machines the tower used to get weather maps, and I serviced the
emergency tower generator and performed Preventative Maintenance checks on the
tower radios. The two Okinawan
technicians that were hired to do those jobs plus all the repairs paid me off
in Fried Rice and Yaka Soba for lunch.
To get to Viet Nam, I kept bringing up the
inanity of having a technician on hand to work on an empty aluminum box that
resembled an aircraft. I suppose
my logic or my persistence paid off, or possibly the commands embarrassment
over their aircraft made them send me to Viet Nam before the Stars and
Stripes
newspaper wrote an article about it.
If there had been speed dial in those days, I would have had the Stars
and Stripes
editorÕs number in my phone as a last resort, if complaining hadnÕt worked out.
For the next few years I
considered that trip to be the worst experience of my life. But after a few years of relating the
story it sort of evolved into a collection of amusing and absurd anecdotes
which then transformed into fond memories. I suppose time does heal all woundsÉor at least mellows
memories.