I got one in the inbound this morning that caused me to sit up straight and sputter in my coffee. I was hung over- I don’t know what happened with the Happy Hour White on Tuesday, but I got a vague case of dyspepsia, and came home early. It was the Lovely Jamie’s last trip to Willow, since she is departing for some burg in the vicinity of Richmond until her employment ship comes in, and when Jon-without called the next day to see if I was going to be there, I said yes and wound up drinking bourbon, which I normally do not do and that accounts for an even more dyspeptic Thursday.

So, when I finally got up this morning, I was surpassed to see a long line of messages critiquing ship’s or war as fine hotels. The note from my pal Denny was far above average, and it turns out he reviewed the sister ships to two that I steamed in, Coral Sea (Midway) and Saratoga (Forrestal). What is more, he was in the same (though earlier version) of the squadron I was- the Bland and Mellow Vigilantes of Medium Pursuit Squadron VF-151, the best darn Phantom squadron in WESTPAC.

Denny replied like this:

“In your field guide to Birdfarms, you rated the Coral Sea pretty low, but she was a good ship and a far cry better than the Sorry Sarah (Uss Saratoga, CV-60). I provide the following so that no one accepts orders to her, since she was an engineering nightmare. When we were to deploy from Mayport, FL in 1966, we were delayed for an additional 2 weeks so they could round up as many of the AWOL enlisted crew as possible. The Plan of the Day (POD) had a 4 page addendum with Captain’s Masts and Courts Martials listed thereon.

Two days out of port and we were on water hours; wet down, soap down, rinse down and hope that the water did not turn to super-heated steam before you could bail out of the shower stall. Sometimes you even got JP-4 out of the scuttlebutts. To her credit, though, we spent 6 months in the Med and only lost one Whale (EA-3B Skywarrior), and only one crew member from it.

The cruise on Coral Maru turned out to be 13 months instead of the planned 8 months, as two of the CVs scheduled to replace us on Yankee station could not get out of overhaul or fix serious maintenance problems on time. We also had problems deploying to WESTPAC, and had to spend two months in Hawaii while they replaced two of the boilers. At he time, the locals had it in for us Haoles (Mainlanders), and gangs of Kanakas prowled the streets of Honolulu looking to kick ass.

Only a fool went on liberty without a crowd.

The Kanakas tossed one of our enlisted men off the roof of a building in the Hotel Street red light district, killing him. And one of the pilots in an A-4 squadron was beaten so badly in a bar on the strip itself that he had to sent stateside for brain surgery. The military commanders on the Island got together and solved the problem. They gave the Mayor two weeks to clean up the mess with the Kanaka gangs or they would call Dungaree liberty and let the troops have at them. From then on, the local police seemed to have the situation better in hand.

We flew out of Barber’s Point while there, a pleasant experience, save for our first night there. They opened up some Quonset hut BOQ’s that had been vacant since WW II: no A/C of course, and with little breeze it was too hot and muggy to get much sleep. I got in the tin shower stall hoping to cool off. With the first spurt of water came this huge black spider which I assume was a tarantula. After a mad scramble to kill it with my shower clog, I finished my shower and tried to get to sleep.

I was awakened by something tickling my nose. It turned out to be one of those giant cockroaches they have over there and another mad scramble ensued.

That was enough! I spent the rest of the night in the common lounge, dropping quarters into the beer machine for cold cans of Coors and reading a book. That time in Hawaii was particularly important (maybe sadly so) to LCDR Alverez, the Ops officer of one of our two A-4 squadrons (VA-153, I think).

(LCDR Everett Alvarez, first US POW shot down and longest resident of the Hanoi Hilton. Photo USN).

When we left the states, he was still in a hip to ankle cast as a result of an unusual experience he had over the Rockies. His engine crapped out and he had to punch out, but he must have forgotten how high those peaks are. He failed to manually deploy the chute for his ejection seat, which had a barostatic release set for 10,000 feet. As a result, he landed on the side of a mountain with the seat acting like a toboggan for a hairy ride down. The chute deployed once he passed below 10K and it slowed him up enough so that his collision with a tree just shattered his right leg instead of killing him.

By the time we left Hawaii, he was out of the cast and had been rehabbing the leg to the point where he was able to requalify for carrier ops. As you know, he was the first pilot shot down and captured over in North Vietnam and spent more time in the Hanoi Hilton than any other. I thought I would lose it when I watched him on TV getting off that plane after repatriation of our prisoners.

Food and beverage Service: We had some great parties aboard the Coral Maru, when they would stand us down for a few days of relief from the 24/7 flight ops; 1/2 hour prebrief, 2 hour hop, 1/2 hour debrief, some chow, then a couple hour nap and start over for 3 or 4 hops a day. Almost everyone got their Coral Sea Centurion patch for 100 carrier landings before that cruise ended.

As you probably know, when someone reached that milestone they made an announcement over the 1MC to that effect. The door to the appropriate ready room would then open and they would wheel in a huge sheet cake with a tailhook centerpiece and the guy’s name on it. We had a super flight surgeon in our squadron (VF-151), named Hank. His wife said she could not seem to look at him without getting pregnant.

They already had 11 kids, and when she came for a visit to Hawaii, she got pregnant again. After one recovery, the 1MC announced that LT Hank, USN, MC had just attained unique status as the one and only Coral Sea Circumturion, having that day completed his 100th circumcision aboard this ship. Where upon the ready room door banged open and they wheeled in a sheet cake with you know what as the centerpiece.

One more quick story about CV-43 and I will quit. During the middle of one particularly long ops cycle on Yankee Station (50+ days), I was grabbing something to eat in the dirty shirt mess (where I tried to take all of my meals) and I was sitting with Hank among others.

The tall Supply Corps LT in charge of the mess suddenly staggered through the door from the kitchen with the haft of a huge butcher knife sticking out of his shirt front. He had, we learned, tried to get the attention of one of his Philippine stewards who was engaged in violently chopping up vegetable with that knife. The steward was having severe marital problems and was lost in thought about same. When the Mess Treasurer tapped him on the shoulder, he wheeled around and ran him through with that knife.

Hank rushed him to the surgery, and, surprisingly, was back within a half an hour. He advised that, unbelievable as it must sound, that knife had passed completely through the Mess Treasurer in the only conceivable place possible without hitting any vital organ or artery. All he had to do was sew up the cuts on either side.

So, I have to give Coral Sea at least one Michelin star, just for food and beverage, and the medical staff, just for the records.

Copyright Vic and Denny 2014
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303