1955 - 1958
YEARS

When I first went aboard 696, Don Magill IC! (52-55) told me that this ship never goes anywhere.  Next thing I knew we were on our way to pearl harbor.  Here I was, a kid from Michigan, that never got further from home than Toledo Ohio.

Do you recall Bloc Arena?  I was 18, drinking beer like an old salt.  I found out that there was a guy with an ice cream truck, way in hell down at the other end of the base, that closed 15 min. after the bloc.  I figured out that when they closed the bloc, if I ran real hard, I could get to this guys truck just as he was ready to close.  I'd get a hot fudge sundae, and eat it while walking back to our barracks....I NEVER had a hangover the next morning when I did that.

One day Mac came down to the I.C. room and told me that he and I were going to paint the room.  He said that the sprayers would be there after they painted the mess deck, and we could just bring the guns down and do the job very well and quickly.  BUT.. there is always a BUTT. My Butt that is---He said that it was my job to mask off every phone, electrical, switch box. All the switch boards. Motor gen. sets. Every single thing in that compartment that should NOT be painted.  Every single day for about two or three weeks, that's what I did.Masking tape, roll after roll. Now! where do you get news paper aboard a ship.  I don't recall how I did that.. Then one day. thinking that I had don a very very good job, Mac announced that we were going to have a drill. But Mac, we're in dry dock !  "Capt. wants a drill--we'll have a drill.!"

G Q/G Q,  Man you're battle stations.  Oh NO!   Mac started tearing my masking tape off all the box's he needed to to put us in General quarters mode.  After the drill he said just do it again, that's what you are here for. At last, the big day came.  I had never seen a paint spray gun in my short life.  He told me to button up, Like at G.Q. and pull a white hat down, and we greased our faces and hands with Vaseline.

First the overhead was to be white.  They gave us permission to do the bulkhead in ward room green, because they had a lot left over in the 10 gal. paint pots. Mac started at one end, and I started at the other, facing away from each other.  This was so cool, up in the cable ways, behind equipment, what a blast(no pun intended).

When our backs hit each other--we turned and all we could see of each other was EYE BALLS.  Another quickie-- when we went to chow one day, around that same time, two men who were told to paint those food lockers deep down in the bow section, were missing.  When they found them, they were drunk as skunks, slapping each other with paint brushes.  Non of us wore and protective breathing gear when we did this stuff... AND WE LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT.

Those of us that worked below decks, but often went up on deck, had to be carefull to grab our COVER ( hat ) before we went topside.  Any way, while on liberty one day I bought a yachtmans hat. When I got back to the ship, I took a gold stencil pencil and put scrambled eggs on the bill, to mock the story about Capt. ? having his commanders hat ready for his next promotion.  One of the sonar guys saw me with it, while he was running the sonar consol, and said " that's cool, let me try that."  Now don't get ahead of me here.  A while later he had to go up to the sonar attack plotter room, that was located in front of the bridge. Yup, He forgot what was on his head.  I heard that when the Cap't saw that hat, he turned every color in the rainbow.Some how, nobody got gigged for that.  I'll bet the X.O. is still telling that story today, because he probably felt the same way we all did about that skipper.

One of the first thing that Mac (McGill) had me do, when I first went aboard, was that he said that the bridge said that the bull horn, that was up on the mast (do you recall that?) was not working.  He told me to go up there and have a look at the mic. Yes, it was just a lose wire or dirty contacts.  Simple!  They were supposed to remove that thing at Pearl, but he (the Captain) would not let them.  So now we are at sea, running along side another D.E.--- and he wants to jive the other skipper by yelling to him "Where is you're bull horn?"   Now I'm not sure that this happened at that time, but the first time he used that mic, after I FIXED it, I guess a very tiny little wire strand go in contact with the brass retaining ring on the mic.  He pressed the press to talk switch.  You guessed it.  He got a shock.  I thought I was going to get killed for that, but I re-fixed it and nothing more was said.  Mac knew that my guilt was punishment enough.

I was standing by the rail, looking at Mt. Fugi as we were heading into Tokyo bay.  Next to me was Doc.  You recall our corpsman chief in '56.  He said that he could "Never" step foot on Japanese soil.  He said he was below, when the Pearl bombing started (on one of the battle ships).  A bomb penetrated through the decks and exploded in the Capt's cabin.  He said it blew his shower shore off.  He was a few compartments away.

We had a senior officer when I first went aboard, that we all thought was not wired in the strictest accordance with the schematic of MAN.  As I recall, he was a mustang. Gunners mate.  I was in the pilot house one day, looking to see how my gear was being used, when he came through, on his way to the bridge.  He heard me complaining about how strong the coffee was.  He had to stop to tell me that when HE was a gunner, they would not let them take their coffee in to the mounts because if they spilled any, it would take the paint off the decks.  So, now I was wondering if he had a problem with me being in the pilot house, or was he trying to lighten up the conversation.  Was that a joke or what.  I just didn't know.

           Sadly, I suppose every navy ship encounters a death at some time or another.  In May '57 we were working out of Bangkok (participating in operations with British, Australian, French, and other SEATO forces).  We did not get to go ashore because the Aussies wanted to get started working with us the next morning.  Kind of pissed me off, because from the bridge, through ship's telescope, I thought I could see that big gold Buda in town.  I wanted to take some pictures, you know!   The story I got was that the aussies had fired a star shell, and it fell short on to the fantail of one of their ships, killing one of their own.   We observed the burial at sea.

            Do you not recall, that there was a big push to get more of us to ship over. The deal was that if you shipped for 6 years, they gave you $2,000.00 and an extra 30 day leave.  One guy did it.  He and an ensign, that was also headed east on leave, went together, driving a car.  At some point they wrecked the car and it killed that enlisted man.  The officer came back aboard after a few weeks with his arm in a cast. I don't know their names or the date.

           Working on the bridge, you must remember this if you were aboard then..We were to work all night with a bunch of other D.E.s and A.P.D.s, or what the hell they were called. I think the idea was that a sub was supposed to penetrate our group, . 3 or 4am in the morning, and on one of the other ships, some young officer had the con.  He thought he saw the sub's running lights under him, and wanted to give chase.  Well that's the story I got.  Any way, He "T' boned the A.P.D. next to him, because he ordered a full left rudder...Hit that sucker right in the center, and punched a big hole in the boiler room bulkhead. They did a muster, and found one man missing.  We spent many hours sailing a grid, looking for that missing sailor.  When the bow of the offending ship knifed into the other one, the ships skin pealed inward like the top of a sardine can. They found that guys body encased in that pealed back steel.

(The following is from an email Phil and I shared when I was day dreaming about that good old days in Yokosuka -- Dorough)...You can look back all you want, but you can't go there again.  But what if you could?  You just might last a week before you crashed.  You know that none of those places are like we remember them any more.  When I see a place where I've been in a movie or some thing, I always say to my wife "hey, I was there, oh my God, its not at all like I remember it."  My wife says " Its been 50 years ya know, look how 50 years has changed you,"   I keep telling everyone that someone has put a picture of my grandfather on my bathroom mirror.  Every time I shave, I see that picture of Gramps there.  It takes them a moment or so to understand what I'm saying.  Another thought...What do you suppose those gals look like today?   Grim thoughts...

Do you recall the "Damond Horse Shoe in Hong Kong? We all (the ship's crew) went there for Steak dinners.  Well, they told us that it was steak.   We all bought "real no-squeak boots" custom ordered, real sheep lining.  Then there were those cashmere suits: Jim Chappalear, MM3m bought one, and saved it to wear at his wedding to Sharon, from Riverside Calif.  I went to the wedding.  His brother was supposed to be best man, but got so drunk the night before that he was too sick to do any thing.  SO! I was elected to help him get ready. Fifteen minutes before the bride walked down the isle, Jim donned his brand new outfit, with great care.  Oh, I want to tell you that suit fit to a tee   But guess what? no, you have to guess---I'm waiting------

The damn zipper would NOT work.  It felt real funny, me trying to help another man pull his zipper up 5 min. to go.  The church organ is playing, then all of a sudden,,, zip!!! up it went.  The night before, Jims Mom, Dad, an aunt as I recall, me and a few others had a party at their motel.  Plenty to drink, ya know, and the high point of the evening was when Jim dropped his drawers to show EVERY ONE in the room, The LIPS he had tattooed on his rear.

When I was doing the photos for the cruise, GM 1st class Morris asked me to go with him to an orphanage in Yakoska. You see he was a real died in the wool Catholic man.  As I recall, he had five kids at that time of his own.  He played and played with these kids all day.  There is a pic or two of him running around a table with them.  I was seeing kids of all colors in the rainbow.  You know where these kids were from.  Also you should know that these mixed kids would not be accepted into Japanese society (at that time).  I decided to leave after two hours.  Morris got so pissed at me, and started yelling at me, saying,"Eng, all you want to do is go with you're whores" and stuff like that.  I had liked Morris a lot, but this sort of turned me off.  Like I said, he was the most religious person I've ever met... I started being a little more cautious from then on about what I said when I talked to him. I respected him always, but we just didn't see every thing the same way.

I just learned recently from Don McGill that Morris had been on the Missouri, in a 16 inch mount, that was hit by a kamikaze, which split the turret open like an egg.  Morris lost a lot of his hair and some of his hearing from that.  I never knew that about him.

We were in Subic Bay (1956), as I recall, and some one announced that we had a no work day, and liberty would be granted.  Do you (Wayne) recall, as you stood in the chow line, there was a menu posted.  Wow!, look at tonights chow!  Whats going on, what is today?  In the voice of Andy Griffen again, " What it was...it was CHRISTMAS."  None of us knew that. I'm sure that you knew it, because you were one of the keepers of the log, But none of us kept track of even what the month was.   At subic Bay, it was something like 98 degrees that Christmas day.  A lot of us wound up doing some heavy drinking.  If you recall, booze in the tropics can hurt you real bad.  When I got back to the ship, they, crew members, had one guy tied down in a litter.  He was out of his mind from drinking.  No laughing matter.  He thought he had heard that his mother had died.  A radioman said he was on duty all day, and that just was not the case.  Doc and most of the officers and chiefs were on the beach, and the crew was just doing the best they could with that situation.   An important lesson was learned by many from that day.

Oh my God, you still remember Mary Soo.  I overheard the X.O. telling someone how Mary Soo (and her girls) would get that wooden grid platform that they stood on the flying bridge, and re-finish it for just a few bucks.  Guess what I did.  I pulled all the phone outlet cover plates, all electrical plates,the brass door handle to the I.C. room, and some other stuff, and had her chrome plate it all. Cost me six bucks..  Next inspection the skipper went ape.  Who paid for this, he asked?  I did I said!  He loved it.  I mean he really loved that I would do this out of my own pocket.  What no one knew was that I didn't know that Mary Soo was going to charge me.  On the last day before we sailed I asked her where all my stuff was.  She said you owe me six dollar U.S.  If you recall we were paid in script there.  Man, I had to do a mad scramble to get six bucks together fast, or I would have been in Deep Shit.

If you recall we all had fire fighting school in boot camp, but when I first went aboard Spangler, Magill sent me to a little more advanced fire fighting school (*Don, if you ever get to read this---THANKS!)  Some years ago, I got into making muzzle loader pistols out of kits.  Had to see if they worked, and that was O.K. but it got the gun all dirty.  About 7 years later, a friend of mine that was a Detroit cop invited me out to the range to do some shooting.  Afterwards, when I was cleaning my guns, I noticed that I still had about a half can of black powder in my gun case.  I should get rid of that old stuff, and so I took it out on the gravel driveway, ran a line, and tried to light it. It didn't catch right away, so I got a little closer and tried again. Instead of burning like a fuse, as it always did in the old cowboy movies, it all blew up in my face. I have the skin grafts on my left fore arm to prove it.  I spent 6 weeks in the hospital, and an additional 12 weeks out of work.  I remember like it was yesterday, my saying---breath out, breath out, don't breath in no matter what,all the time backing away from that burning powder.  I couldn't see anything because I had just started wearing glass's a few months before, and they were caked with burning powder at that moment.  Where that training came in was about saving my lungs, at ALL cost.  Breath out--Breath out.   What the Navy didn't teach me was not to screw around with gun powder.   I damn near became a doopelganger.

Do you recall that guy on our ship, whose p--ker used to turn all kinds of colors every time we would get west of the 180th, but it always cleared up on the return trip--- true story, Wayne, I knew him well, but can't recall his name.  I do remember that he was one of us engineers.  Doc did smears on him, and said he could never see any V.D.  Any way, after that first trip, he was never able to get laid, not that he didn't try.  The first cat house he went into, with this problem, he said the girls all took off running out of the room.  Thing is...he just never went to any of those places again.  I guess we'll never know.  This IS a true story!

...do you recall a comic strip in the 50s that was all about critters in the Okefenokee swamp, in Georgia?  Every week the critters would live through some situation, using their SOUTHERN LOGIC...One day, Mcgill rolled over in his rack, where he spent a lot of time, since he had me to do all his work, and said to me, "what the hell do you and all you Yankees think is soo damn funny about that comic strip?"  Ya know that he was raised in Louisville.  That's a long way from the deep south. But still, he just didn't get what was so funny.  He said that all us f---in yankees read that strip and almost rolled on the deck, laughing our ass's off. I told him that it was the lingo and that southern logic.  Man he just could not see it. I told him that he didn't get it because to a southern boy, it was just every day conversation. Just normal day to day stuff. To us though, It was so stereotypical of what we all thought about southerners.---Truth be told, we all had buddies from other parts of the country and we all had stereotypical prceptions of what "those" folks were like. The kidding back and forth between pals was an every day event and always in good fun! - Dorough

- It was 1954 (I think), I was 19.  I always heard about great New Years eve goings on, but I was under age for the U.S. bars.   I made plans with a sonarman to meet him at the greyhound station at 6 P.M. to go down to "T" town, to do a little party on our own.

It seems funny that I would have drawn a 72 (hour leave) just on that weekend. "When I went to the station, I could not find him, so I got on the bus to San Yesedro, and went looking for him in the bars, thinking maybe he misunderstood me.   Nope--not any where to be found.   I toured the bars in "t" town, No-where was he.  So back to the U.S.

Waiting for the bus, three guys pulled up and said they were getting low on cash.   For the price of my ticket, they would drive me back to S.D. and I could run with them the rest of the evening.   These guys were off of a L.S.T. One of the guys was, or passed for 21, got a pint of gin.   We walked through a few bars around midnight, yelling Happy New Year.   How stupid -- there conversation went some thing like "where to now man? hey man, you got the conn?"  Turns out that one of the guys had rented the car for the evening."   Have a swig of this shit man!"   Well, O.K. I swear I just had a 1/2 shot.   We were driving down a residential side street, nice lawns.   All of a sudden BAM!!! every thing looked like a Picasso painting, and I threw up all over the back seat of this guys rented car.

He stopped, I got out, sorry man, I've never tasted gin before.   Then a saw a fist, getting bigger and bigger headed right for my face. I felt nothing. Some one said,"aw man, ya shouldn't have done that"   Well, at least not on that mans nice lawn.

When my eyes opened, I was spread eagle against the wall at the police station. ..   Vomit all over the front of me, ( I had on civvies) big fat bloody lip, then into a cell.   The mattress was so dirty that when you pinched it, the crust of dirt flaked off in chunks.   Later a navy chief came by, and said its a holiday week end, and the judge won't be in for a few days. If you don't want to miss quarters, and be A.W.O.L, you had better get bail.   That would be another 100 bucks. When I got back to the SPANGLER, McGill saw me. I was so ashamed for him to see me that way. I always tried to impress him.   I made it to trial, drunk miner, no ifs, ands or buts. Another 100 bucks!.  I had to borrow all this cash from our "on-board" money lender at a 100% interest rate.   I was not the only person who got caught in his web.

Boot Camp Book...Now here was a clever deal!  I think they MADE us buy one.  Who's brother in law ran that operation?  It was almost all boiler plate, stock pictures.  Very few were actual pictures of US.  When I went in, in November (53), a lot of us had been given a pe-Christmas at home.  So (on returning) they bring up a brand new, clean trash can, and tell us to discard every thing from home.  We filled that can with aqua Velva, and a lot of other brand new products for MEN.  That's where I suppose I learned words like --- "Com-shaw"---"poogy bait."  What were some of those other words that we had never heard before?  I think a lot of them were from the south, so maybe you already knew some of them.  Words like "Stump broke, " "you're turn in the barrel"---I had to have some one from south of Ohio explain them to me.  Oh my God, I couldn't believe some of that stuff actually went on! -- Note:  This seatale (so to speak) was Phil's response to me asking him if he still had his Boot Camp book.  In addition to being funny as all heck, I thought I would add it here because his thoughts about the subject likely echo that of a lot of us that went through bootcamp.  And he's absolutely right, only the back third of a 3/8-inch book had anything to do with out company.   Everything else was boiler plate, probably focusing on some other lucky company in the same year, who will say, "Oh No!  The books was all about our company!"  Well, I can certainly testify that it wasn't "all about" Company 303 -- Wayne Dorough

I have no idea why we spent about a week in New Zealand, but I found that the people there were more English, than the English.   Half way around the world and in the southern hemisphere, I was confused about what time of year it was, being at sea so long, and the weather being reversed from ours.   On one liberty, a few of us were walking near a boat club, and a group of people were pushing a sail boat off the beach.   One yelled, would you like to take a boat ride lads.   So friendly and curious they are.   So we did.   Pulled our jumpers off and stowed them.   I was standing on the prow, holding on to the for-stay.   I asked them to go by Spangler.   I heard some one on 696 saying, "Oh! look at that sail boat heading right for us.   Hey, that's Eng on the fore-deck.  " Another time we boarded a steam powered ferry boat to get to town.   All of us snipes wound up in the engine room.   There engineer was so proud to show us----"the last triple piston engine" He was wrong, that's right, I'm from Detroit, and the Bob-lo excursion boats on the Detroit river were the SAME engine. I didn't tell this happy old sailor that.   Why burst his bubble.

There came one time when I was about to stand a shore patrol watch with another snipe that I knew quite well, but didn't hang with much.   I so wish I could remember his name.   I thought it was BOB something.   BOB, if you're out there, please identify your self.   There were two gals, about our age standing, watching as liberty began.   They stopped "Bob" and I and offered to show us around.   We didn't have a clue what we were supposed to do, or where to go.   The chief just said, get out there.   In a " hands across the sea" maneuver, Bob and I talked to the gals a while.   We explained to them that we had the duty, and had to go on patrol.   Perhaps another time.   Why sure, they said, how about tomorrow? Oh man, this was way to easy!

Next day, there she was, waiting at the gangway.   I don't recall what Bob's deal was, but he was not there.   I asked her what we were going to do.   She said that there was a party going on, and she thought I'd like that.   I asked if I could buy her dinner.   She said that she had already eaten.   I said that I had not eaten since noon, and I thought that I should.   No problem! She took me to a restrurant, there was not another soul there except the waitress.   At this point I have to tell you another funny thing about this country.   The bars CLOSE at 6 PM!   They're throwing the drunks out on the street, and it isn't even dark out yet.   My gal sat with me through the meal.   She would not even take a tea or coffee.   Near the end of the meal, I had some crumbs on my hands and face, and SO-- I asked the waitress "have you got a NAPKIN please.   She looked me straight in the eye, no expression, and said. "No sir, I'm not wearing one!" What have I done!   OH No!   My gal,u n-moved said, I think he is asking for a serviette.   I wanted to dig a hole in the floor, the girls seemed un-moved by this.

We arrived at the party.   There is a picture of her and I in the cruise book, sitting on the couch.   There were about 4 ore 5 others there from Spangler.   Later she walked me back to the ship, and I gave her a great big kiss.

NEXT DAY-- there they both were.   One of them had a car.   Little English thing, right hand drive.   So girls, whats it going to be this evening? We paired up, Bob up front, with the driver.   They drove out of town, up some lonely road and parked up on a hill.   We just started talking, they wanted to know all kinds of things about us and the states.   Bob was showing them a picture of his 51 Ford, and they said that we must be rich.   American cars, there, at that time were very rare.   It was getting dark out, and BOB and I ( both ), as they say these day, made our moves.

So there we were, smooching with these gals, getting in to it pretty well.   So what now? We had heard stories, by then, that the men in N.  Z.   were kind of lousy lovers.   One story was that one of our ship mates had departed his girls house via the bed room window, with his pants under his arm, when they heard her husbands key in the front door.   Not having a clue where these gals wanted to go with all this, I decided to play National Geographic.   You know, explore the local terrain.   Just as my hands started to creep on to her right boob, she sat bolt upright and said ( need a British accent here ) " EAR NOW YANK, THAT'S NOT FOR YOU YA KNOW.   ITS FOR A BABY.   YOU'RE NOT A BABY NOW, ARE YOU?" Strike two, I thought.   I looked at the front seat, and here was "BOB" laughing his ass off.   He almost fell out the door, he was laughing so hard.   Well, now that we had set the boundaries, we went back to necking like nothing had happened, just like "back home," don't cha know.

The girls drove us back to Spangler, when they had enough " YANK " and we sailed the next day.   Hey BOB, are you out there? Flip Eng pdeng@frontiernet.net

One day I was in the pilot house, checking things, but mostly I just thought it was a cool place to be underway.  Did I have balls????  I actually asked the bridge for permission to man the wheel.  I almost fell over when they said YES!!!  So I did.  One time the O.D. called down on the voice tube, " Mind you're helm, helmsman, you're three degrees west of you're course. I said, " Aye, Aye Sir!  This is not as easy as I thought it would be!"  He just said, "mind you're helm."  I seem to remember that he was one of the Jr. Officers.  I peeked up there to see who was on the bridge before I asked.  I'm betting that he was getting a big chuckle out of it because I did tell him who I was before asking to take the wheel.  Whoops, I mean HELM.  You know (Wayne) that you have to anticipate, and allow the ship to respond, and all that crap, when you steer.  Did you ever do that???   (Yep, I took the helm on numerous occasions, typically when the helmsman need to visit the head or stop for chow break.  That was one of our QM duties, serving as an alternate helmsman as the occasion demanded.   And I think I became a pretty good one by the time I got our of that man's navy. - Wayne)

One of the sonar guys was sooo hung over, he asked me to unlock the gate to the rear of my IC switchboard, so he could take a nap there.  That's dangerous as hell, because there are a bunch of HOT bus-bars back there, but I did it any way.  There was a little deck covering the cables that made a nice place to sleep.  A short time later the X.O. came down with another officer, much to my surprise, and asked me to explain the gyro panel to them, then he left.  When the sonar guy woke up, I tried to tell him, and he said that he had woke up and his arm was stretched out beneath the board, and there was a pair of brown pant legs on ether side of his hand.  He said he just slowly pulled it (his hands) back, and waited for all hell to break lose. nuttin honey!  The X.O. was a mustang, and our navigator. I suspect that he knew very well what was going on, and just trusted our judgment.

A sonarman and I built that "PITTS" (model airplane) on our way over seas.  We wanted to "break in the engine," so we clamped it in a vice near the spud locker, on the port main deck. We got it started, and a bunch of heads appeared over the edge of the open bridge.  "Shut that damn thing down!" is all we heard. If you recall, where we tied up at Guam, there was miles and miles of pavement, where they used to have, during the war, stuff to be transferred to ships going further West into the war zone.  Fletcher, the chief sonar man, kept telling us that the plane would not fly, because he thought the aeralons had to be tilted up, in order for the plane to stay aloft. Dumb #@&^%^ knew NOTHING about how a wing works.

Any way, it was a U- control set up.  A big crowd gathered on deck! A pretty good breeze going on, and "Snatch" (as the Sonarman was called) said it was too windy.  "Come on man, every body is waiting!nbsp;Lets just do it!" I yelled.  Not only did I talk him into doing it, but I also talked him into starting it "UP-WIND."  He explained later, the we should have started it down wind, so that when it got up to speed, it would BE going up wind.  So he got on the U-control and I started the engine.  Got it revved up and "LET HER GO!  One quarter way around, it caught the cross wind.  Causing the control line to go slack, straight up, over Snatch's head, and straight nose down into the pavement.  Broke in to a million pieces.  We went over and looked at the wreck, looked at the 40 or 50 ship mates on board , that were watching, and snuck back down to the I.C./sonar rooms.

I ran across a shipmate not long ago and he said, "Don't cha know me you ole son of a bitch, we used to be good buddies."  When I realized who it was, I blurted out what I remembered about him.  Unfortunately, one story about him I didn't recall at the time, as we were talking, and I wish I had -- was about the time he went to "T" town, got drunk, got laid, and got into an argument with a girl, I guess about the price.  In trying to get his jumper on, some how, he knocked over the oil lamp that was on the table.  He ran out of there and said as he was going over that bridge back to San Diego, he heard the fire engine trucks heading for that end of T-town.  Remember those shacks were all wood, and just waiting for a spark.

I was trying to take a crap, when we were some where in the south seas.  The ship was pitching and rolling pretty good as it often did, and if you recall we had those black "Oakum" seats. I was sweating so hard, that the ship pitched to stearboard and I started to slide off the seat in mid-shit condition.  Caught myseld, some how, just in the nick of nock, and avoided having to clean up a three foot skid mark...I was, at that time, looking for some thing to hang on to:  "NOTHING!"  I think I was trying to prop my feet on the bulkhead across from the shitters, but my legs were too short.  I needed a strap like in the old street cars, to hang on to.

Stearboard IS the correct English spelling.  Ya see, in them olden days, they stear the ship with a sweep that was shipped to the right hand side since most normal people were right handed.  So that made the other side the one you would want to press in to the dock, making it the PORT SIDE.

In the enginer control area, to operate the motors, foreward, rev, and speed, there was a bench for the "on watch" people to sit, accress from them was a set od "D" handle levers.  I don't recall how many. "The were operated by electrician mates, because we had turbo/electric drive.  One of the EM's decided to color code the levers. he thought that would make it easier to remember which one to operate to get "what" results.  Well, would you no know that soon afterward, we had a Captains inspection.  He had a shit hemmorage.  He yelled, what do you peopll think this is, A SHOW BOAT?  The levers became "grey" again by evening chow time.

In October '56 the Spangler was participating in submarine exercises off Catalina Island a little ways from San Diego.  This was one of those early foggy mornings where you could only see ahead about a quarter mile and the ocean was calm as glass.  A lookout yelled: "Whale off Starboard bow!"  It was about a 100-yards ahead and crossing our path.   So Captain O'Connel, who happened to be on the upper bridge at the time, grabbed the intercom yelled and yelled, "Right full rudder! Full speed ahead!"  The whale evidently had other thoughts I guess and in almost perfect concert, changed it's direction and cut back across the bow.   That was the biggest looking critter you could possibly imagine!  At this point it was obvious we couldn't avoid hitting it!  The Captain grabbed the intercom again and said "All engines stop!  All hands prepare for impact!" or something to that effect. Hitting it was akin to running aground!  We had no choice but to slice right through it cutting it in half!  I was standing a few feet behind the Captain and did all I could to hold onto a stanchion and not be knocked down.  You wouldn't believe the huge bubble of blood that rose to the surface!

Surpisingly the ship suffered no damage other than to the sonar dome on the hull, but it was enough to force us into dry dock back in San Diego for several few weeks.

Captain O'Connel called one of the signalmen over and said, "send this message to the other ships in the squadron, 'One Run! One Hit! No Misses!"

After coming aboard the Spangler from bootcamp in December 1954, my first time at sea was a trip to Hawaii where we spent January to April 1955 in dry dock at Pearl Harbor.  This was the first overhaul the ship had undergone in years.  How do I know that? Well, in the process of chipping paint on the ship's hull from the inside, I put a power chisel through the hull.  Ron Knight said he did the same.   It was that thin!  The metal wasn't more than a quarter inch when new, so obviously extensive erosion had occurred over the years.  Locating weak spots was one of our objectives.

I chipped paint all over that ship until my brains eventually came up with a good idea for getting off the workforce.  They say lazy people find unique ways of getting out of work, so my mind must have been working overtime.  I kept noticing that this group of quys on the bridge (pilot house) had it a whole lot easier than us folks in the boatswain mates and gunnery gangs.  James Sims was one of them and I think he enjoyed looking down on us deck hands and smiling at out plight!  I yelled up "How can I get up there with you guys?"  James hollered back, talk to that Chief over there" pointing to the dock.

Chief William Dubois, QMC, was sitting on the dock whittling away on a piece of wood.  So I walked over to him and asked, "Say, Chief, how can I get into the Quartermaster's Group?"  He smiled and said, "Why do you want to be a quartermaster?"  He knew darn well what I wanted: I wanted to get the heck out of the Boatswan Mates group!   I stuttered around a moment trying to come up with a good reason and said "I've seen what those folks do up there and think I would really enjoy that, I think sending messages and knowing what messages are being sent would be fascinating.   I already know how to send morris code, I learned that in the Boy Scouts."

He said "Well I'll tell you what, it's Friday afternoon, you take this deck of cards and prove to me that you can learn all these flags by Monday morning, I'll see what I can do to get you on the bridge."  Each card in the deck displayed a different signal flag, one for alpha, one for beta, one for charlie and etc.

I grinned from ear to ear and said "Don't worry, I'll know everyone of them by Monday morning.   And that's just what I did all weekend, study those cards.  I memorized three or four at a time until all 52 cards were stored in my memory.  Nothing got in my way that weekend.   I didn't go on liberty or to the movies or anything but study those darn cards.  I was bound and determined to get off that deck force.

Come Monday morning I was waiting on the old chief when he came walking up.  He said, "Well, you got those cards memorized, Dorough? And gave me this doubtful look.  You should have seen his face when I went through that deck and never missed a card.  I think incredulous would be a better description!  He said, "A promise is a promise, I'll see what I can do!"

A short time later, Robert Phillippe, the 1st Class in the Quartermaster Group, hollered down from the bridge at me and said "Hey, Dorough, come up here a minute!"  I laid my paint chipper down and was up there in a blink.  He said, "I hear you want to be a Quartermaster? Well, come on up and go to work, you're in the Quartermaster's now!"

Getting on the bridge didn't get me out of chipping paint, not by a long shot, we still had the pilot house to chip and paint on the outside, but it got me into a whole different work environment, where the work wasn't so regimented and someone looking down your neck every minute.. We were free to take a break whenever we wanted to and some days hardly chipped at all, selecting to work on navigation charts instead.

I remember so vividly walking to the back of the pilot house and looking at my buddies chipping away on the deck below, with me grinning like a canary who ate the cat.   One of them looked up and said "Dorough, what are you doing up there, you better get your ass down here and get to work!"  I just yelled back "Sorry, guys! I'm in the quartermaster's gang now!"  I think for a while they thought I was lying!

Just think, only a few days earlier I had been busy chipping paint in the anchor storage locker.  This is a three-foot by three-foot wide chamber near the ship's bow and extending several decks below, about 15-feet or so.  It was the hottest, airless hellhole on earth.   I sweat profusely and all these paint chips stuck to my naked skin making life miserable. It was way to hot to wear anything other than a pair of trousers.  And the noise, there was nothing like it.   That power chipper vibrating against the metal walls was akin to being inside a snare drum.  It's a wonder I'm not deaf!

By comparision, moving up to the Quartermaster Gang was like moving into paradice!

I think the senior officer Flip mentioned in his narrative was probably LTt. Markel.  He was a mustang GM and the Executive Officer early on during my tour in Spangler.  He was a bit of a smart ass but he was a pretty good guy.  To illustrate : You'll recall, I'm sure, if you were going to be more than 50 miles from the ship on liberty it was required that you turn in a chit requesting an " out-of-bounds pass.

The hardest part of that was dreaming up a reason for the pass.  It didn't really seem to matter what it was, but you damn well better have one.  When I wanted to go to Phoenix for a weekend I always used the same reason : " My sister is getting married ". I always got the pass.

But one morning I had just gotten back from a quick trip to Phoenix and we got underway for somewhere.  After sea detail was secured I was told that Mr. Markel wanted to see me on the bridge. I dutifully reported.  He was leaning on the bulkhead and returned my salute without bothering to straighten up and said,  "Uh, how many sisters you got, Beach?"

"Two, Sir".

" What's the matter, " was his reply, "marriages not working out? "  And he dismissed me.

It seems that one day a detail led by a very young Ensign was ordered to lower the motor whale boat while the ship was underway ( probably five knots or less).   I suppose it was just some sort of training exercise.  Mr. Markel, the Exec. was observing from the flying bridge.  I am not enough of a seaman now, nor was I then to tell you exactly what went wrong or why, but suddenly the bow of the whale boat was much lower than it's stern and it hit the water.  One of the lines was broken, one davit was damaged and the boat was hanging vertically by the stern line.  While those BMs and the Ensign were running around like bbs in a pinball machine came Lt. Markels voice yelling at the Ensign:

"Mr. _____ , how many mistakes is it possible to make in this man's Navy?"

When the probably scared-to-death Ensign managed to stammer, " I don't know, sir." , Mr. Markel roared "WHY THE HELL NOT? HAVN"T YOU BEEN KEEPING TRACK?"