An ABE's Logbook

By Stephen Phillips

The book An ABE’s Logbook by author Stephen D. Phillips is a true story of accounts taken from his childhood and the written entries from his personal journals he kept while he served in the United States Navy from 1985 to 2005. The story begins in his childhood as he attended junior high school at Rosemont Middle School in Fort Worth, Texas, attending there from the sixth to eighth grades. These years and their events shaped and molded his life. The encouragement of family, with their love and support, guided him to follow in the footsteps of one of his older brothers and become a sailor. An ABE’s Logbook tells some of those stories, filling the reader with all the raw emotions of a young man leaving home and becoming a man, a sailor, and experiencing that part of his life. An ABE’s Logbook reveals to the reader the story of a sailor and his life aboard ship and all he faces, fears, and accomplishes, both dangers and beauty of the Naval ship and of the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662419966

Book preview

Chapter 1

In the late evening on the twenty-fourth day of August 1985, I arrived at the airport in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville, the home of the Florida Gators, was a growing city that was still trying to make its mark on the map for the tourist trade. In 1985, Fort Lauderdale was the hot spot for all the spring breakers and the summer fun.

I found the nearest cab I could find closest to the continental baggage claim. I raised my seabag over my right shoulder, being careful not to wrinkle or tangle my neckerchief in the straps of my seabag. I adjusted my white hat with my left hand, ensuring that it was squarely on my head, two fingers above my eyebrows—a young sailor standing proudly in his dress uniform, the Navy dress blues. It was called a Cracker Jack uniform, a fitting name given for its sharp and well-fitting appearance. From a sailor’s first day of training, the first day he or she earns the right to wear and have the privilege of putting it on, a sailor is taught that there is a great level of responsibility held in its upkeep and the method of its wear. This uniform is a symbol of a great nation and the sacrifice that many have made making it great. It is worn with pride and honor, representing the wearer’s personal achievements and dedication that he or she feels for everything for which it stands. Standing there in my dress blues with no stripes on my sleeve, I could imagine the thoughts of the cabbie as he came to a stop—another new boot on his way to the ship, like the thousands before, all the same. The cabbie thought of me as a boot, not knowing that the seasoned sailors would have an even lower name than the boot. To them, I was a shower shoe. In the Airedale community, I had to earn the title of boot. I was an E-2, an airman apprentice entering the ranks of aviation boatswains mate world. The life of an AB is one of great pride. It is a life where young boys become men physically and mentally. The safe launch and recovery of aircraft aboard an aircraft carrier at sea is an extraordinary feat which requires not only the highest skilled crews but hundreds of men and women working on and below the decks ensuring the safe operation and the maintenance of all associated equipment with the highest level of expertise available.

That was where I was heading for in the back seat of that yellow cab. I asked the driver, an older man whose name I remembered only for a moment after introducing myself, How far is it to the base?

He replied, Going to a ship?

Yes, sir, I said. "The Forrestal."

Oh, the Forest Fire, he said. I kind of laughed and said, Yes, sir, that one. He told me only about thirty to forty minutes since it was so late with not much traffic on the highways or Mayport Road. Then he quickly told me it would cost me one of the fifty-dollar bills I had in my wallet. He knew the one thing a new boot still had on his way to the ship was folding money in his pocket. After that, it got kind of quiet. All I could think about was the last few moments at home a few hours ago while I was still on leave with the family. Mom and Dad. Now, in a few minutes I was going to request permission to board a ship I still could not, at that moment, even imagine other than remembering the plastic model of the very same ship I had sitting on the headboard of my bed at home that I had built several years before. Who would have imagined then that the toy ship I built as a kid would become such a large stepping-stone in my future, that I would join the Navy and soon find myself a crew member, starting a new life on board her, the USS Forrestal, CV-59?

The base at Mayport in the late evening was always quiet. The amber and white streetlights that lined the streets were on. The traffic lights at the intersections were blinking amber with an occasional car passing by as my yellow cab made it to the ship piers. We passed the minesweepers, the fast frigates, and the destroyers, all moored two and four deep against the pier. We made that final turn to Bravo and Charlie piers, and there they were! The two largest ships I had ever seen. First, on my right, was the USS Saratoga, CV-60, against Bravo pier. Then there she was, the moment that had consumed my every thought for the past few weeks after receiving my orders. There, moored on Charlie pier, was the USS Forrestal, CV-59. She was sitting tall against the pier with large strings of white lights running from bow to main mast and down to the fantail. Her hull number was brightly lit with white lights on the port side of the island structure, her amber and red running lights shown on the catwalks and light lockers. Looking up at her mast in the dark night’s sky, I found it was difficult for me to clearly see just how high she sat out of the water.

Then the cabdriver stopped at the foot of the stairs and calmly said, Okay, we’re here. I said thank you, not knowing what else to say, still lost for words at my arrival. I gathered myself from the back seat of the cab, retrieved my seabag from the trunk, and then he was gone. I was left for a moment standing beside this massive ship. The long climb up the ladder to the enlisted brow seemed to take forever. It’s a balancing act to a not-so-sure-footed new sailor carrying his seabag up for the first time. The crisp salute at attention, the request to board, went off perfectly, just as I had rehearsed in my head for all those hours prior to my arrival. I was on board. I had made it past. I had finally crossed the line. I was a sailor! Standing there looking back across the elevators, down the ramp to the stairs, I started to realize just how large the ship was I had just boarded. The petty officer of the watch had turned immediately away after returning my salute to answer the phone. The phone rang constantly from the moment I walked aboard. It was a few minutes prior to taps and lights out. I expect he was receiving his last-minute instructions from someone unknown to me at the time, the department chief, because his every other word was Yes, Chief, right away, Chief. About that moment I turned to hear a lower, more unsure voice to my left say, Shipmate, you to air department? I said, Hey, shipmate, how are you doing? Yes, V-2 division. The young airman, who could not have been on board much longer than I, said, No one in the division office right now till morning. Section leader told me just to take you over to waist cat berthing for tonight. You will probably go over to bow berthing tomorrow. I said, Lead on.

TATOO, TATOO—lights out in five minutes. I remembered that from boot camp. Sounds so different on board a ship, I thought to myself. As we walked the passageway, ladders up and aft toward the waist catapults, sailors along the way were switching off white lights, and the red lights came on in their place. Looking down the passageway aft, half the length of ship, the red glow of lights seemed to come together as one in the distance. Then I heard it—TAPS, TAPS. Now TAPS over the ship’s IMC. You could hear it in the sailor’s voice; his watch was about over. His relief must be on his way. In port, as the ship was now at 10:00 p.m. for the most part, the ship was quiet. There is always work of some kind going on, repairs, overhauls, remodeling of berthings, service changes on equipment, all in preparation of the ship’s getting underway again. TATOO is set at 9:55 p.m., and TAPS is at 10:00 p.m. There was the old naval tradition that all hands turn to their bunks. And that’s where I was heading, to my rack for the night.

We continued our walk through the dimly lit passageways up another ladder (steps) to third level, then, as we used to say, down and back around and up again to the waist cat spaces. Passing the waist cat office to my right then down two more knee knockers to a gray-painted berthing door. In the center of the door a face of a cat was painted in black, white, and green, proudly symbolizing the sign of the waist. Through that door was pitch darkness with a few dim lights showing around the edges of each drawn curtain around racks that were occupied. The sound of the compartment ventilation blowing air through the overhead vents was the only sound heard in the dark quiet berthing. The young airman who led me to the berthing showed me to rack number fifteen, which was to be mine for the night. The curtains were pulled back, and a neatly folded blanket and two sheets lay at its foot. I then reached up above, which I believed to be the head of the rack to find the rack light, found the switch, and switched it on only to discover it had no light bulb in the fixture, which I could only feel with my fingers. At that moment, I decided that a flashlight in my seabag was going to be of utmost importance living on a ship.

My eyes became adjusted to the darkness of the berthing. I asked the young airman what time chow was in the morning, and he said 0530 to 0730 in port. Then he gave me directions on how to get down to the second deck where the mess decks were. I knew in the morning it was just going to come down to asking again or just following someone down there to chow. Then, of course, having the great task of finding the V-2 division office, way up on the third level again to let the division office know I’m here on board. But for now, it is time to sleep. He told me, See ya, not goodbye, knowing we would soon cross paths again even on this huge ship, but within the same division and department of several hundred, we would be shipmates.

Quickly undressing and neatly folding my uniform, placing my boots on the floor, with my white hat on my folded uniform, I put on my Navy gym shorts and a T-shirt. I quickly spread the sheet and blanket out in haste because it suddenly felt cold from the blowing vent above my head. It was a short climb to the rack as it was a middle one. The racks were stacked three high. It did not take me long to learn that the middle rack was the most desirable and wanted in any berthing. But now I was lying with my head on a pillow, my mind racing, not wanting to sleep. Here in this unfamiliar place, the sounds now were magnified threefold. Here in the dark, thoughts of the day’s travel and my arrival were doing their best to keep me awake. The thought of awaking here for the first time was a little frightening. Ever had that feeling when you woke up in the morning and for just a brief moment, you have that insecure feeling of forgetting where you are? Then, you remember. After saying a short prayer and giving thanks for my safe arrival and for the blessing of tomorrow, I started to relax. And with those now so familiar sounds of the ship, I drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 2

The morning came with the loud sounding of 0600 reveille. Lying in my rack behind the privacy of my curtains, I could hear the sounds of racks closing, boots on the floor, and the voices of my future shipmates talking of the day’s events and who wanted to go to chow before they had to muster on the flight deck—all in a hurry to be where they needed to be. Me, I wondered how my day was going to be filled. After the noise and voices had faded away, I pushed open my rack curtains, climbed out, and began to get dressed. Once dressed, my first task was to find the head I had passed in the passageway when I came to the berthing. Twenty minutes later, I was dressed, brushed, and wide awake.

I knew that breakfast was very important for me today because I had not eaten since before my flight into Jacksonville, and I didn’t want to have hunger pains while meeting and talking to all those during my check in this morning. A stomach growl would have made me very uncomfortable. Fortunately, a shipmate was in the berthing and realized I was new on board and asked me if I had eaten or was going to. Quickly, I said no, I haven’t eaten, and yes, I was going to, he showed me the way. Moments later, we came to a stop on the 02 level; two levels and one deck above the mess decks, the line ended. I must have had that I can’t believe how long the line is look because he said, This is short, but you ought to see how long it is at sea. It moved rather quickly. Making it to the serving line and smelling all the breakfast food to choose from made it all worthwhile. Never did understand over the years why anyone complained about shipboard food. Never was a problem to me. Never left the mess hungry, that’s for sure. Breakfast that morning was a banquet, like every meal in the Navy.

The tables are metal picnic-like tables with seats permanently attached. All are covered with dark-blue plastic tablecloths. All the condiments that you need for a hearty meal were in the center of the table, including my favorite of all, Texas Pete Hot Sauce. Guess you could say I put it on everything.

The mess decks during any meal were the gathering places for social life on board the ship. It was not only for eating a meal with friends and coworkers but a game room, study hall, and even a place of worship, when extra space was needed, any special event. It provided a central location for all things. One of my favorite uses was when we pulled into ports overseas. All the local vendors would bring their goods on board, and the mess decks were converted into an open shopping market. Things for sale would be anything from carpets, jewelry, figurines, clothing, and any kind of items that represented the particular country where we were that you could imagine. It was a fun and exciting place in port overseas. Even though all the items displayed would be pricey, the vendors expected a good bargaining period prior to the sale. If you just paid their asking price, they would think you a fool. Guess you can say you always ended up paying a price that made you feel they gave you a discount on whatever it was you were buying. The vendors enjoyed the bartering as much as the buyers. Over the years of my naval career, I spent a few American dollars on the mess decks in many foreign ports.

The most important and respected use of the mess decks on any ship other than the feeding of the crew is it is a place to treat the wounded and dying in the event of a mass casualty. Or if the ship experiences any catastrophic damage, where great numbers are killed, the cold large rooms are easily accessible for the proper storage of fallen sailors.

For me, that first morning, it was just a place to get my first meal aboard that ship. With my full serving tray in one hand and my tiny clear restaurant-sized water glass in the other, I made my way through the crowd to find an empty seat. There are certainly no RSVP or reserved tables for chow on the enlisted mess decks. It is every man or woman for themselves. All the three-minute eating and sitting by company or class was all left at boot camp or A School. This was the real Navy. When it’s time for chow, a sailor is always ready to eat. There is one good reason for that—yes, he is hungry, but also he might not know when he will have another good chance to be down there to eat. That’s another story we will talk about later as we continue our journey through these pages.

Finishing my breakfast, I then had the task of finding the V-2 division office again. Passing it in haste the night before in a darkened passageway on my way to the waist berthing was going to make it difficult to find.

After a short period of trial and error, the painted door appeared in front of me, plainly stenciled V-2 division Office in the center of the upper door panel. It was an office with a counter directly in front of the door. Stepping up to counter, I quickly introduced myself and began the process of checking into the division. After a brief stay filling out 3×5 cards and various forms, I was finding my way to the bow catapults to be introduced to my work center. The bow catapults were located on the 03 level at the most forward end of the ship. Cats work center one and two. Two steam-driven piston catapults which could launch aircraft into the air while others landed aft in the gear targeting four arresting wires. The ability to launch and recover aircraft at the same time was essential for the ship to be able to complete its mission. Without that ability, a carrier and its battle group are highly vulnerable to attack and defeat. Being a member of the bow cats was like being star running back on a football team. You were gonna be in the game to make the big plays, keeping those birds in the air. In those early years of my career, there were some thirty-five to forty men assigned to those cats, responsible for their maintenance, and all the associated equipment and spaces. The heart of the catapult is the launch valves, which are opened and closed and allow preheated steam to enter the cylinders, which are eighteen inches in diameter. Inside these cylinders, which are parallel to each other, are piston and spear assemblies, which house a shuttle assembly, the connecting point to the aircraft. While the aircraft is at military power or full power, the steam pushes these pistons, catapulting the aircraft. The power stroke in feet for the launch and the track length depends upon the type of steam catapult which the ship has installed.

For now, I was on the team responsible for keeping that equipment up and running. Needless to say, my first week on board the Forrestal was spent learning my spaces. And I mean spaces! Finding my way back and forth from the bow cats to the berthing and to and from the mess decks. Being the new boot, I never went anywhere alone. There was always a shirttail for me to hang on to.

That first week went by in port, and I was not only getting acquainted with the layout of the ship but also finding my way around town on my off time, the big city of Mayport, Florida, and Jacksonville. In the early and mideighties, it had not grown to the major tourist town that it is now, so the taxi and bus lines were my friends. I also learned where I could make a quiet phone call while I was off the ship during the day or evening. Phone booths with payphones were still the order of business. I learned where they all were, on corners or in the hotels out at Jax or Neptune Beach.

Chapter 3

I started what was called I Division my second week on board. It’s where we learned the makeup of the ship with all its departments. We are given a long drawn-out check-in sheet which required about a thousand signatures, I think, and we were tasked to locate all the important areas of the ship, to include the personnel office, medical, dental, and yes, even the barber shop, just to name a few, after a week of sitting in this classroom listening to individuals that had no business speaking publicly. Yes, most lectures were on the dry side—informative, but dry.

With a few directions, we all set out to locate our people for signatures. Guess the logic to this madness other than letting the ship’s departments know you exist is that by the time you walk in circles finding the places, getting repeatedly lost, you will learn your way around. This ship has what you call bull’s-eyes painted on the bulkheads (walls) which identify each compartment and its location. To the new young sailor, these can just make matters worse until you are more familiar with the new environment of the ship.

That was what I did that week of I Division—learned the ship. I did my best to meet my shipmates I would be working with in the bow cats as well. Time spent in the berthings in the evenings or in the heads (bathrooms) getting ready for liberty gave me that opportunity. I really hadn’t spent much time in the actual work center yet. I heard all the scuttlebutt (gossip) about our ship’s schedule. It was always ever changing. I was very excited about getting my sea legs going to sea for the first time. Sea life in the bow cats was a total 360 than it was in port, mainly the hours of operation.

I couldn’t wait, though the transition was not an easy one. Even living on the ship for the first time, even in port, is a test for any individual, a culture shock. You have received orders to serve on a ship that is equivalent to a small city or town with a population between four to five thousand when all are living on board. There is that transition time you go through when you just say, What am I doing here? or you just want to go home. It’s a growing time, where young boys and now young girls become young men and women. I was no different; calling home those first few weeks was difficult. So, you’re calling home, Mom’s voice was what you wanted to hear on the other end. My mother knew I wanted to be there though. I sounded discouraged and scared. Fear of the unknown was all it was—an adjustment.

My mother always gave me words of encouragement, and on the phone, that one particular day, while I was standing on the pier in that phone booth, she said, Just take it one day at a time. And she always told me, You can do anything you put your mind into. She said, You can do this too. Do your time on the ship, and if you don’t like it, come home. I knew in my heart I wanted to be here, and so did she.

Those were not fancy words she said to me that day. But they were words I had heard her say all my life, but that day they took on a new meaning. They lifted my spirits as always, but they found a new place inside me, and I did carry those words with me throughout my Naval career. Both my mother and my father always supported me in my career, but that conversation that day, when it was all new, touched me.

The days and weeks seemed to go by faster and faster. I soon adjusted to the new life I had found aboard this ship.

The crew was talking more and more about getting underway again soon. Our maintenance period in port was just about completed, and we would be at sea again soon doing what this ship was meant to be doing, air operations.

I had not found my permanent spot to work and train in the bow yet. Finishing up the indoctrination class had not allowed me to be in my work center. I would be in the classroom most of the day, a small space on the 02 level down by the ship’s barber shop, I believe it was. Not much ventilation of cool air so that added to its being difficult. I was ever so glad to be finished. That first afternoon by lunch time, 1300 hours or so, I reported as being completed with I Division.

The bow was very busy that day with maintenance. Not much time was spent with me other than the words Okay, you’re done. You in the bow berthing yet? The main V-2 berthing was aft midships about frame 210 just forward of the arresting gear. Standing in the LPO’s (leading petty officer) office, I said, Yes, sir, got a bottom rack. LPO said, Good for you. I’ll get one of these third classes to show you your cleaning space. Make sure you’re in it. I responded, Yes, Petty Officer. I was soon assigned to clean a head (bathroom) and two passageways on the portside just forward of the cat two console room. The first passageway was just outside the door of the head, and the other was just the next one aft.

Those three spaces were my first given responsibility of my time aboard that ship. The appearance of these spaces would be a direct reflection of me. Unless told otherwise when I came to work, this was where I would be found after morning muster. If I wasn’t used for a maintenance action or some other assignment, I was expected to be in my spaces. For the next several days, I spent countless hours washing, scrubbing, wiping, swabbing, doing everything I could to clean and maintain their appearance, like putting wax on the tile deck in the passageways about every two days. Up on the 03 level this far forward, my head was very busy. It was a full-time job just keeping the deck dry and the trash cleaned out. But I stayed on top of it the very best I could.

Chapter 4

The days went by, and my routine got settled. Twelve to fourteen hours a day, I worked in those three spaces. Guess it’s hard for a civilian to imagine, but the life of a new young sailor isn’t very glamourous at all. But it was always stressed to me by my superiors to strive to have the cleanest spaces, outshine everyone, and take pride in cleaning that head and passageways, and I did. I worked hard to make someone notice the difference I could make when given a job to do. Those three spaces were just the beginning of what was in store for me, knowing I would be assigned a more important role in the bow cats. Though everyone enjoys a clean head to use and is impressed with a squared-away passageway, this sailor wanted just a little more. Not knowing at that moment, but I would always have spaces to clean. We called it field day, and that had nothing to do with running a track or kicking a ball. It meant turn to and hit those spaces. In port, at sea, we cleaned the ship. A clean ship was an operational-ready ship. We were given rags by the fifty-pound bale, soap, stripper, and wax by the five-gallon can. Along with our maintenance and operations, it was a never-ending job.

As the weeks and months went by, I began to adjust well to my new life on board. Staying busy with work was a great help, and they always made sure of that, that’s for sure.

I placed a request to go home on leave over the Christmas leave period, which was about fourteen days all together. It was either that or the second leave period over the New Year. In six-section duty, the ship was split in half to allow only approximately half the crew to go on leave at a time over the holidays while the ship was in port.

Being one of the newest on board, I didn’t exactly get first choice. Turned out, I didn’t make it home that year, but Mom sent Christmas to me in a box, which I actually got to open on Christmas Day. Any time I made it home, no matter what time of year it turned out to be, it was Christmas. Mom always made sure of that.

The holidays came and went; work got busy for us and for the whole ship. The whole time a ship is in port, it has one goal, to get everyone and everything prepared to go to sea again. Maintenance and preservation, bringing on stores (food), life’s necessities—all a ship needs to provide for the crew.

My life on board was occupied by just that maintenance on our equipment and preservation, cleanliness.

For me, not having the experience I needed yet operating equipment on the catapult or operating a man-up station, another young sailor and I were chosen to work in the bow cat tool room. At first, I felt disappointed because I was so eager to get up on that flight deck and man a station—just grab the bull by the horns and run—but that was just my age and inexperience talking. Lots of long, hard, intense training enable you to work up there, plus you had to master several man-up stations below decks first. After all, I wasn’t even flight deck safety-qualified yet. That was first, before anything.

The ship’s schedule had us going to sea on the ninth of January for five days, my first at-sea period, first time underway. My new workspace was a small closed caged area on the port side of cat two retraction engine room—the bow tool room. My shipmate and friend Airman Roy R. and I were given the task of creating a functioning tool room. Now my time was split working there and in those spaces cleaning, keeping that neat appearance I worked so hard to keep.

The toolroom was a space enclosed by a false bulkhead made of steel mesh resembling a cyclone fence. It was an eight-by-twenty-five-foot space. All the portable tool cabinets were in there, with a large workbench area on the forward end and a peg board hanging with wrenches and hand tools of every kind imaginable. Each drawer and cabinet was filled with the clutter of tools, electric pneumatic, right down to the simplest flat-head screwdriver. Every color, make, new, and old were there. There were also special tools designed for only a single purpose for the catapult and precision-measuring tools, micrometers of every kind. The tools were stored in no particular order and had no identifying mark on them as to whom they belonged. I quickly realized the importance of our new assignments. The chain of command needed us to develop a tool program which would develop and promote positive tool control and accountability for the tools that were given to the maintenance personnel to perform their maintenance. Years later, the Navy developed a quality assurance program for tool control, which outlined specific requirements on the subject of tool control.

I suppose you could say we were the early explorers, or perhaps we were the guinea pigs that started and set the ground rules for it. We mastered the phrase trial and error.

Tool control on the ship, on or around aircraft, during launch and recovery evolutions is vital to safe operations and the prevention of damaging equipment. Foreign object damage (FOD) is an ongoing battle, and hand tools are one of the greatest culprits. Initiating a good tool program would enhance the safety of personnel and lower the amount spent on repairs of aircraft and associated equipment.

FOD is everyone’s business. Ship-wide FOD walk-downs are held twice a day aboard the ship with the major emphasis toward the flight deck. Sailors come out of their holes, as the air boss would say, to participate. Starting at the bow on the flight deck, sailors form a line port to starboard and walk the length of the ship to fantail picking up the smallest pieces of foreign materials they can find—pieces of wire, paint chips, and broken nonskid surface that is gradually worn and chipped away by the landing aircraft of the everyday moving and dropping of heavy equipment on the flight deck.

Chapter 5

Roy R. and I worked tirelessly for hours just going through all the drawers and cabinets arranging all the tools in an organized manner so when asked for a tool, we could readily find it.

I woke up early on the morning of the ninth of January, put my-at-sea uniform on, and headed to the mess decks. The at-sea uniform consisted of my black steel-toed work boots, green turtleneck shirt, and green work pants. The rule on the ship is that you really don’t change from the in-port uniform to at-sea uniform until you pass that last buoy in the channel. But I figured I was the new guy. I would hurry up and eat my breakfast and head for the toolroom quickly afterward. Maybe I could get there without anyone saying anything, then I wouldn’t have to go and change later. I didn’t want to miss one moment of shifting ship’s colors and watching this ship pull away from the pier and head down the channel.

On the mornings that you get underway, those last few hours against the pier, it’s an organized chaos. Every crew member is running around doing those last-minute tasks. So busy with their own responsibilities, they just pay no mind to something as small as what uniform I was wearing. Finishing my breakfast, I grabbed my food tray and water glass. I stopped by the drink dispensers to fill my glass with orange juice one more time before I headed up. I drank it down in two large gulps and walked over to the scullery to drop my tray. I had to go from the second deck back up to 03 level bow to the toolroom. There were shipmates running up and down the ladders, waiting for their turn. If there ever was a place for a stop sign or traffic light on a ship, it would be at the base of a ladder.

Making it up to the flight deck to the starboard catwalk, I looked down on the pier. The elevators were loaded with pallets being craned from the pier. Everything imaginable was being brought on for the ship for the next five days. I looked at my watch, being about the time I mustered in the work center.

I thought to myself, how in the world was this ship going to pull away in just a few short hours with all this going on? How is it all to be ready in time?

I straightened my cap and adjusted my gig line and headed to the bow number two retraction engine room, which was really convenient for me because the toolroom where I worked was in the same space.

The chief and first classes were all there with muster boards in hand marking us off as we walked in, ensuring we were all there. It was normal routine, not known by me at the time, but the ship always conducted a man overboard drill not long after we exit the channel. So, a good muster prior was very important to getting underway. During man overboard, you didn’t want to be the work center or department that couldn’t expedite an accurate muster to the executive officer. Also, leaving someone on the pier (missing ship’s movement) was a mast offense, or worse.

Man overboard, drill or not a drill, was taken very seriously. An accurate count of all personnel, sailors or civilians, was paramount.

After a completed and accurate muster was taken and all personnel were present and/or accounted for, we as a work center discussed the day’s events and what was to be expected this at-sea period. As short as it was, being just five days, it was going to be busy and fast-paced. I soon learned this was an accurate description of every period at sea. Long days and nights lay ahead.

Looking around the engine room at the faces of all my shipmates, trying to memorize their faces and their names, I realized I had only become acquainted with a small number of them the few weeks I had been aboard. I’m sure they were all getting their first impression of me as I stood there quietly soaking in every word that was said by my leading petty officer and work center chief.

My newly found friend, shipmate Roy R., had been on board a short while longer than I. Since we had been assigned as bow toolroom operators, I guess you could say we became friends quickly. We talked not just of about the Navy but also of home and the things we missed the most.

Chapter 6

One long blow of the ship’s whistle signifies the shifting of colors from the fantail to the main mast and are followed by the words of the petty officer of the watch Underway, Ships Colors. Hearing that for the first time gave me an indescribable excitement. I was unable to leave the toolroom right at that moment because there were several shipmates standing at the half door in front of me needing tools for their assigned jobs. I felt at that moment that I was the only one who was excited about going to sea. For them, the novelty had long since worn off. I know they all saw the excitement in me but all kept it quietly to themselves, knowing for them it was not that long ago. Giving the last man in line all that he needed, I made my way to the starboard catwalk to look down on the pier below as the mighty ship moved to port creeping ever so slowly away from the pier. All the lines had been removed. Sailors in blue hardhats stood on the pier watching yet another ship they had released to sea. I leaned against the rail, looking down, feeling no motion, just the sight of the massive concrete pier moving farther away. I watched as the ship centered itself in the basin and begin to turn slightly to the port side, pointing her bow to the channel. For a few moments, we were still in the water. Then, a volley of tugboat whistles signaled, and the tug over on the starboard side released and the ship began to move ahead, all slow passing the rock jetty where I had just the evening before stood and watched boats pass and several fishermen cast reels and nets. I had stood at this rail the evening before, imagining this very moment.

For a few moments, I was lost in my thoughts, soaking in the view and the excitement of getting underway. I wanted so badly to go up on the flight deck and stand on the bow between the horns. But several other shipmates and I, being the new boots, had strict orders not to go up on deck alone until we were flight deck observer qualified. That means that we had completed the personal qualification standard for basic knowledge of the flight deck—the dos and don’ts, the markings, and the hand signals, the firefighting equipment, and most of all, having had observed several evolutions of flight operations during the day and night with a qualified person.

The ship was now making its way past the first buoy. You could feel the vibration of the screws and the water against the ship. Once we passed that second and third buoy, it was open sea ahead. Feeling the wind now on my face and the ship below me, it was only minutes, I knew, until we would be out of sight of land. I would be at sea.

Time passed quickly standing in the catwalk. I headed back down to the toolroom to find my shipmates all busy with their day’s work. I spent the day sorting and cleaning and putting everything in its place. We started a handwritten inventory of all the regular hand tools, page after page, with a brief description of each. We also listed all the tools that were broken which we needed to replace, at the same time issuing and checking in tools, trying to stay organized. As the days went by, it would get better.

Around 1830 hours, we went to chow then came back up and cleaned spaces. Our standing orders as the new toolroom operators were that we would never secure or go to our racks until all tools had been turned back in unless authorized to be signed out overnight by the chief. That night there was no night maintenance scheduled, so tools were in, all accounted for. At 2300 or 2345 hours, the day was done. Soon I could hit my rack; that meant from then until our reveille at 0530 hours was my time.

The ship’s passageways were dark with only the red lights to show the way. I had learned to count knee knockers to find my way back aft to our berthing. All the passageways look the same day or night, so you count and remember frame numbers, certain landmark differences you see and remember. Before you know it, you don’t even need them anymore.

I wondered how fast we were moving now as I made my way to my rack. The berthing was dark, but you could hear the rattle of pipes in the overhead. The cool air in the ship’s vents after being in the hot cat spaces, which were always eighty to ninety degrees or more, was like stepping into a refrigerator for a good night’s sleep. All the years I was in the Navy at sea, I could count on one hand the times it wasn’t cold in our berthing. We worked hot, but when it came time to go to the rack, it was a shower and cool