Thought I would try to jog a few memories out there. I was a part of the 74 and 76 Westpacs. I think in the first one we kept running into storms, particularly in the S.China Sea. The most remarkable one I remember was on a trip we took from Subic to have our li'l holiday rootie in Hong Kong. Basically a 300 degree course, and that put us at a perfect 90 to the huge seas. Another Adams class (the Stoddart?) was along side on the trip. This afforded us a chance to see what our bottom side must look like. Quite often, you could look over and see the entire fron half of the ship sticking out of the water just before it nosed straight into a huge wave. We spent a great deal of time up on the signal bridge enjoying the storm like reckless fools. About 4 of us were holding onto a rail and popping up and down as the waves broke completely over our head and splashed over the signal shack. I swear a few coated the second level of the mast. We could look up through a wall of water (like the other side of the falls) that could have easily swept us into oblivion if we didn't have a death-grip on that rail.
Good ol' Smokey Joe (and his counterpart) would pilot more parallel at various times so we could eat, etc. and then the ship would take rolls typically 40-45 degrees. I remember Doug Hill told me the biggest ones were 47. A gunner's mate once told me the 5 inchers will come off at 50 degrees. Can anybody verify that? It sounds true, I mean after 45 deg aren't you on the wrong side of capsizing?
Speaking of food, they never lit the burners in the mess, just served horsecock sandwiches, coffee and bug juice.
My watch was in the back of CIC. We had a tool box tucked away there. It never got lashed down because it was too heavy - took 2 of us to move it. Well, on one of the more dramatic rolls, the tool box decided to head across the room - it made it from starboard to port in about 2 secs. Luckily, no one was in the way!
As I recall, we made this trip with about one third of the crew operating outside of their racks. It was the closest I ever came to an involuntary discharge, myself. I was on watch, staring at the stupid green screen, felt something lurching, looked around for a trash can, paper bag, anything. Ended up with the butt-kit. I took the top off, moved in and bam! I got a whiff of that and shot right up like I had been given smelling salts. Luckily, that was the end of that.
My mind doesn't do well with dates, maybe someone else can remember about when this took place. Also, does anyone recall following a typhoon across the Pacific from Pearl, through Midway and Guam to the PI? Guam had been torn a new one and they wouldn't let us off the ship. Just gas and go! Large fishing boats were a mile up on land, most of the locals had there homes taken apart. Sad scene.
How about the typhoon that hit Subic? I remember the Coral Sea scrubbed off about eight feet of concrete on the pier because they couldn't get underway. The Fox(?) was stuck also and parted 33 ribs. They were stuck in Subic so long, half the crew was married before they left!
Help me fill in the details. Got any other great storm stories?
Brad Zlomke, EW1 circa 74-77
