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As I've already said, it seemed like everyone wanted us for escort duties. The whole crew got tired as hell of hearing how we had just performed another "Preble first." With no other Farragut class ship in the Pacific Fleet, we seemed to become an experimental vessel as well as a warship. I could just hear some clown in his warm, dry, stable office saying, "Oh, you mean there's never been a midnight replenishing from portside of a carrier to a Farragut class can during flight ops? Well, set it up for tonight and call me in the morning with your report. I'm going home to dinner and get some rack time." I've lost track of all our "Preble firsts" and don't think many could come up with a good list.
Then there was the incident of the bad water we got from the shipyard at Long Beach. It gave virtually the entire crew an extreme case of gastroenteritis. At first I was scornful of all the people getting sick until it hit me too. We had turkey ala king for the evening meal and I still can't stand that dish. The Navy had to send medical people aboard to take care of us. High fever, diarrhea, and dehydration put practically the whole crew in their bunks. No saboteur's bomb could have done a better job of incapacitating the ship. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw a nurse in my berthing area. they had to completely flush and re-sterilize the fresh water system so we got an unexpected extended liberty. The only catch was we had to swallow several large "horse" pills without water before we were allowed ashore.
After several operations periods between San Diego and Long Beach we were finally considered ready for overseas deployment. I don't know how others felt but I was definitely eager to go. The lure of the "Mysterious Orient" was, after all, one of my reasons for joining the Navy. On the day we were to put to sea for WESTPAC and were singled-up, ready to go, I was jumping up and down on the lines hollering for us to get underway. I don't suppose I was looked on very favorably by the families saying good-bye on the pier.
Our cruise to Hawaii was through fairly rough water. FOXDIV shared berthing spaces with FIRSTDIV with a fair representation of new crew. They spent most of their free time laying or sitting in their bunks trying to keep their stomachs under control. An FT2 with a sadistic sense of humor1 walked up to my bunk and, in a purposely loud voice, asked me if we weren't supposed to be going to Asia. When I answered that was my impression, he said, "Well, we're headed for YOURUP!" Pretty well cleared FIRSTDIV's compartment.
There were two incidents that occurred on the way over to Hawaii that stick in my mind. The first happened three or four days out of Pearl on a mid-watch. The whole bridge watch saw a strange light in the sky southwest of the bearing for the islands. I don't remember our radar picking up anything but I got sent up to the fire control director to use the scope to look at it. I hesitate to call it a UFO but I don't know what it was. We reported the sighting but heard nothing more of it. The night before we arrived at Oahu radar reported a contact north of the ship doing 12 knots on a course due south. As that would put us on an eventual collision course we kept a close eye on that contact. After about an hour we realized the radar was reporting one of the Hawaiian Islands! How it got up to 12 knots I'll never know.
We tied up in Pearl Harbor just across from the USS Arizona. The current memorial was not yet in place but the flag flying above the hulk was more than a mere tourist attraction to some of us. The fact that we had a couple of the older crew who had actually been there on December 7, 1941 and others of us who were old enough to remember WW2 made the site of that tragedy have memories all too personal.
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This page was last updated on 01/03/05.