Excerpt from Memoirs
Again Keelung, Formosa, was our home port while we were in WestPac, so we spent a lot of time there. The city hadn’t improved any since the previous year. There were still no decent bars or restaurants in the city, and the kids at the boat landing were still passing out free peanuts, bananas, and porn photos.
I forget how many times were visited Keelung, but I only remember one incident that is worth talking about. One day I was in a bar with Eaves. He was a First Class Gunner’s Mate. As we sat at the bar drinking the lousy tasting beer, three Chinese sailors came in and sat at the bar and ordered beers also.
As they were drinking their beers one of them noticed the crossed cannons on Eaves’ rating badge and got very excited. The three of them started talking excitedly among themselves, and finally came over to us. Although their English was almost non-existent, one of them knew the word “come,” which he repeated over and over, pointing to Eaves’ rating badge, and motioning for us to leave the bar with them.
I wanted to ignore them, but Eaves said it seemed like they wanted something important, so we followed the three of them out of the bar. They led us down to the waterfront to where an old pre-WWII Chinese Nationalist Navy destroyer was tied up. We followed them aboard and they led us forward to the bow, where there was an old 5” deck gun that was missing its breech block. However, the breech block was lying on the deck near the gun.
By hand gestures they made us understand that they wanted Eaves to reassemble the gun for them. They had taken it apart to clean it, and didn’t know how to get the breech block attached back to the gun. That is why they got so excited when they saw the crossed cannons on Eaves’ rating badge back in the bar.
It took Eaves about five minutes to get the breech block reattached to the gun, and as he did it he showed them how it was done so they could do it the next time they took it off. The Chinese sailors were so grateful that they took us back to the bar and bought us a bunch of beers.
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Many times I had almost as much fun at sea as I did in port. One day a group of porpoises were following along near the port side aft of the ship. I and a friend got a 5” fire hose and began spraying the porpoises. They seemed to enjoy it and it looked like they were actually trying to swim up the heavy stream of water from the hose. We played with those porpoises for over an hour.
Another time we had one of the missiles topside on the launcher and were testing the engine. The rear end of the missile was hanging over the side of the ship, and the jet engine was roaring away when a lone seagull flying down the starboard side of the ship flew into the blast from the jet engine.
The strong jet blast blew that poor seagull ass over tea kettle for about thirty feet. After recovering from his violent tumbling he turned his head and looked at the missile. Then he flew around in a large circle and again flew into the jet blast. Again he was sent flying and tumbling through the air. I have no idea what goes through a seagull’s mind, but that seagull did that over and over again about six or seven times. I think he thought it was some sort of carnival ride!
Another time as we were all gathered on the fantail one evening waiting for the movie to start, we were fortunate enough to see one of the true spectacles of the sea, St. Elmo’s Fire. It is a type of ball lightning caused by the build up of static electricity as the ship passes through the water. Anyway, we were all treated to the sight of this big ball of luminescent blue fire dancing around on the ship’s mast for several minutes before suddenly disappearing. That was the only time in twenty five years in the Navy that I saw St. Elmo’s Fire, and I will never forget it.
Of course, not everything at sea was good. Several times the guys running the evaporator that provided the ship with fresh water turned the wrong valve and we wound up with diesel oil in the fresh water tanks. Nothing tastes worse than coffee with diesel oil in it! When taking a shower in that water we used to joke about not smoking in the shower because you might set yourself on fire.
