15 June 2009
Dinosaur
Blades Trilogy Three
(Naval Cutlass)
Gentle readers, I am traveling today, and will leave the story of the lovely handmaiden of Rowan for tomorrow.
Today’s saga will come to you in an authentic voice of my Cajun associate, Boats, who has a little more time on his hands these days, due to his status as a Dinosaur, a man who actually knows what he is doing on the high and low seas.
He wrote me about his story with working steel in the company of modern pirates, and his voice it too authentic to alter much. The sword- or at least the naval (small “n”) Cutlass is still much with us. This is in the spirit of a tribute to the Working Coast Guard, a special breed of the sea services.
“Man, I'm really a dinosaur. Its news to me that swords are only a "symbolic weapon" since a cutlass was the first naval weapon I ever used in earnest and I keep advocating the use today.
In 1966 on Campache patrols (counter piracy patrols off of Yucatan where Mexican Pirates sometime took Texas shrimp boats, killed the crews, sold the electronics and burned the hulls), we used the cutlass in the boarding teams.
Each boarding team had a "boarding officer" (often a senior petty officer), armed with a 45 cal. pistol, rarely more than two riflemen armed with the old M-1, and at least two non-rates with cutlass for each rifleman.
Firing off a warning shot on small boat was never a very good idea and I can't think of a time when it was in the USCG Commandant's use of force policy. We non rated "swordsmen" guarded the rifleman against being rushed by the crews we gathered on the fantail.
Unsheathing the cutlass (definitely not a ceremonial piece of cold steel) was the equivalent of a warning shot. It was notice that deadly force could be used. However the great advantage of the sword in maritime boardings is that while deadly force is threatened by unsheathing, there remain options; the blade slap, and pummel punch can deliver knock down or knock out blows.
The shallow slash, or shallow jab to the non vitals provide stopping power on an immediate assailant and provide a graphic deterrent to those inclined to join in a rush. We were trained to use the things as a real weapon. I think they are superior to the gas canisters Coasties carry with their pistol today.
I can't see a can of MACE being used on an open deck in high wind, you might just MACE yourself or the other members of the boarding team. I've urged the USCG to bring the cutlass back to boarding team usage for decades now and they keep going for the MACE, TAZER type solutions.
The other wonderful thing about the cutlass is that it never runs out of ammo, mace and Tazers are one-trick ponies. If a rush on the boarding team ever turns into a pitched battle for control the guys with the biggest knives will probably win.
I've never seen a crew member conceal a blade as large as a cutlass.BM1 Wilke Nunn was probably the most accomplished swordsman in the 20th century Coast Guard placing well in formal fencing competitions in foil, epee, and saber in and around New Orleans in the 1960s.
He is alive and well in his 60s now and is a pastor of an Evangelical congregation in Fredrick, Md not all that far from here. Wilke "the Moth" Nunn, the last swordsman of instructor level competence in the 20th century Coast Guard will probably never be the subject of one of those oral histories, unless one day soon some one in authority takes a second look at our mastery of the compendium of force from non deadly to deadly in the real conditions on deck.
Then the sword might be rediscovered. Let us hope it is not rediscovered over the dead body of some teenaged Coastie holding a can of Mace that dissipated in the wind. For the niche activity of boarding parties on suspect commercial craft it never should have gone out of use.
You'd like Moth. He has a master's degree in communications and hails from Mule Shoe , Texas by way of Lafayette , Louisiana. He didn't get religion until he was well past 40 and then in proper boatswain's mate fashion he took charge of every Christian in sight not actually nailed down and became a pastor of a small congregation, a sort of chapel operation.
When I last saw him in the fall he was getting close to his license within the Evangelical Church as a full blown clergyman. Apparently it is a bit like modern Catholicism where nuns or deacons often serve as "pastoral assistants" to small congregations and full blown priests drop in as often as possible, except Moth doesn't seem to have as much supervision.
You'd find his "conversion argument" uplifting. "What the *&^%$#! ? You think you can't be saved? Sin, you got sin, you aint seen squat for sin *&!4# breath, I was a SINNER! I was for 40 years a genuine wheel turning , whistle tooting, beer swilling, skirt chasing puddle pirate boatswain's mate of the first order doing school marms on the hood of the mayor's car on a Saturday night and I got saved! Jesus is bigger than your puny assed sins now quite whinnying and get your fat ass in this baptismal tank before I have to come over there and rip you lips off.
As a devout Catholic, I appreciate the Moth's explanation of how an all loving father figure of a God could institute hell. "God loves all the mean piss ant small minded selfish bastards just as much as any of the goody two shoes. But he knows they would screw up heaven so he doesn't let them in to ruin it for everybody else, any more than you'd let you kid into the formal dining room when he is covered with pig shit .
God didn't make Hell, he just kept all the grade A bastards out of heaven and they all wind up together where they make anyplace hell. He actually loves the sons a bitches but hey don't love anything or anybody so they make hell of anywhere they gather in groups of two or more." Moth ", one of the many characters from my "misspent youth" that I wouldn't trade for a Harvard doctorate.”
I completely agree with Boats, and would like to meet The Moth. He practiced a muscular Christianity not seen that much in these parts any more, but with a rich tradition.
In the meantime, I have a plane to catch. More on the blades, and the people who use them, tomorrow.
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com