HOOLIGAN DAYS
By Sam Smith
Reprinted by Permission of the Author
Copyright 1998 Sam Smith
Sam’s Odyssey takes us through Officer’s Candidate School, The Second Coast
Guard District Office, and the CGC SPAR as he tells of his Hooligan Days.
OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL (OCS)
The
Greyhound rolled the 180 miles towards Yorktown, passing weathered, weary
places in which nothing seemed new, nothing shone, nothing smiled. As I sat
alone in the dark of tidewater Virginia in the winter of 1961, my own past
seemed to fade as irretrievably as the deep, distant line of shadows where the
fields and the woods met. When I stepped off the bus, I would, for the first
time in my life, be without a story. The only thing that would matter would be
what I did next. For four hours I felt empty, stripped and scared.
Thus
I arrived at the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center completely unprepared
for its normalcy and even subdued hospitality. The classroom and dormitory
buildings were standard Coast Guard architecture—antiseptic white clapboards
topped by dull green or red shingles, a sight that has meant home, progress, or
security to generations of mariners. Our rooms were basic gray without
brutality: a couple of government-issue gray desks, a gray bunk bed and two gray
metal wardrobes. My one hundred classmates were either much like myself,
apprehensive young college graduates, or somewhat less apprehensive enlisted men
attempting to become officers. Unthreatened confidence was restricted to our
instructors and a small group of warrant officers attempting to leave the
purgatory of that specialized rank in which they were considered officers but
not quite gentlemen and in which they lacked the prospect of promotion. The
warrant officers would attend our classes but were not subjected to demerits,
marching in formation and other such annoyances. And if they failed, they were
still warrant officers, which in the Coast Guard isn’t bad.
My
roommate was a journalist mate first class, also surnamed Smith. I called him
Bill and he called me Smitty. Some years older than I, Bill was married, had
been in the Guard for some ten years and took a avuncular interest in his seaman
apprentice roomie. Bill, it turned out, was of what I would soon learn was a
familiar Coastie prototype, a competent, enjoyable and decent man without a
trace of guile. He showed me the proper mix of spit and polish to make the toes
of my black shoes glisten; he instructed me in how to make hospital corners on
my bunk and how to clean the white piping on my seaman’s uniform with a
toothbrush and then suck the dirt and water out with my lips and teeth. In
return I helped Bill with his math and together we quizzed each other for the
endless multiple choice exams that popped up almost daily.
Because
of the massive amount of information the Guard intended to pour into our
brains within fifteen weeks, there was little time for harassment or pointless
exercises. Between reveille at 6 am and the first class at eight, we did
calisthenics, ate breakfast, cleaned our rooms, and were inspected in our
fresh-never-sat-down-in whites. The rest of the day was mostly filled with
classes and studying, with a little pro forma drilling thrown in. Our training
vessel was a 125’ patrol vessel, the Cuyahoga, which had been built in 1927 to
catch rum runners. Not too many years later, she would sink following a
collision with a freighter in Chesapeake Bay. Like many of the Coast Guard
vessels of the era, the Cuyahoga would never have passed Coast Guard inspection.
Every major Coast Guard vessel of that time had seen service during World War
II. On a few vessels it was said that the crews wore lifejackets to bed and
wagered on whether the ship would make it back to port.
The
Coastguardsman’s Manual we were given included this description of the
125-footers:
These 125-footers were built between 1927 and 1929, primarily as anti-smuggling
vessels . . .By the end of [WW2] they were commencing to show their age. . . the
survivors are presently assigned to district patrol work where they are still
frequently in the news for small boat rescue work. But their slow speed is a
disadvantage, and they eventually will be replaced by larger faster craft.
At
the time we trained on the Cuyahoga the manual was fourteen years old.
Both
the discipline and the yelling to encourage it differed only in degree from
what I had experienced growing up. At the end of the third week I wrote home:
“When we’re not marching, in class, studying, or cleaning up, we’re dressing
and undressing. Nine changes was the score for one day. My present demerit
score is ten, one of the lowest in the class. I got through five days with
none which was a minor feat.”
I
had also learned at home that rules were made to be circumvented. Thus, I
quickly discovered that if one slept on top of one’s sheets, rather than under
them, they were easier to prepare for inspection. And I took illegal naps under
my minimal GI gray desk during lunch breaks, positioning the door of my wardrobe
so I would not be seen by a passing instructor.
Not
only did I survive the regimen, I seemed to thrive on it. I didn’t even mind
the two score hour exams we took to reinforce the instruction. I found myself
becoming a real Coast Guard officer. It was no longer something I was doing to
avoid the draft, but an effort of pride and satisfaction.
I
especially liked all the new things I was learning: the difference between
carvel and clinker hull; that you mark a lead line with a red rag at seven
fathoms; what the strongback (with puddings) is used for; that the safe working
load for manila line is the circumference squared times 150; why a two fold
purchase can lift more than a gun tackle purchase but is slower; why a single
screw walks the stern to starboard (or is it port?) when reversed; the proper
lights and signals to use in international and inland waters; international
regulations for preventing collisions at sea; that on the radio my name was
spelled Sierra Alpha Mike; that signal hoists are read top-down; outboard-in and
fore and aft; how to help a plane ditch in the ocean; techniques of
anti-submarine warfare; how to use an M1, .45, and a Springfield line throwing
rifle; the operation of a 3’/50 gun; how to plot a course using the sun; stars;
shore objects, radar; and loran; the history of the US Coast Guard; the duties
of the US Coast Guard including icebreaking; aids to navigation, enforcement of
the Sockeye Salmon Treaty, customs laws, the Refuse Act, the Loadline Acts,
immigration laws; laws against gambling devices at sea; how to arrest someone
and use search warrants; why killing a Coast Guard officer was a federal crime;
how to maintain watertight integrity on a ship; the use of a ship’s casualty
power system; “dewatering” a damaged ship; the difference between hogging and
sagging; how to keep a ship from capsizing; fire party organization and
operation; dealing with biological; chemical and atomic warfare; when to use a
parallel track; creeping line or expanding square search during rescue missions;
and 48 USC 248a providing for the protection of walruses.
The
service I had joined was formed in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton, secretary of
the treasury, to put teeth into his program of protective tariffs and to help
create financial stability in a shaky new nation burdened by some $70 million in
war debts. The Revenue Marine, as it was then called, was organized as a small
fleet of ten cutters and in the 1790s proved encouragingly capable of
accomplishing Hamilton’s goal of arresting smuggling along our coast. When I
joined it was still an agency of the Treasury and I swore to uphold not only the
Constitution but the US customs laws as well.
For
eight years the Revenue Marine was the only navy the country had. Once a
regular Navy was established, the Coast Guard would be seconded to it during
wartime while being under the Treasury in times of peace. In World War I it
suffered the highest percentage of casualties of the any of the services and in
World War II engaged in convoy and anti-submarine duty as well as manning
landing craft. Coast Guard vessels saved 1,500 lives on D-Day.
The
peacetime history of the Coast Guard is filled with stories like that of Ida
Lewis who, as her father before her, was keeper of the lighthouse on Lime rock
in Newport RI harbor. During her half-century career, she saved 23 persons from
drowning. Once she rescued three men whose boat had been swamped as they tried
to pull a sheep from the water; then she went and rescued the sheep. Her
activities brought President Grant to the rock in 1869. Upon landing Grant got
his feet wet. He remarked, “I have come to see Ida Lewis and to see her I’d get
wet up to my armpits if necessary.” When she died, every ship in Newport Harbor
tolled its bells in honor of the woman who had lived so long in the tradition of
the lifesaving service: “You have to go out; you don’t have to come back.”
Another
Coast Guard legend was the cutter Bear which, during a 41 year career in
Alaskan waters, served as a floating court, hospital, and rescue vessel. Her
most dramatic rescue occurred during the winter of 1897-98 when she went to the
aid of whaling ships frozen near Point Barrow. After sailing as far as possible,
a party from the ship mushed nearly 2,000 miles across the ice, driving a herd
of 400 reindeer ahead of it for food. Reaching the stranded whalers in late
March, the Bear’s crew maintained health and order until the cutter reached them
four moths later.
Such
was the tradition I was being trained to maintain.
In
the last weeks of OCS, our status dramatically changed. Up to then liberty
had consisted of going to Nicks seafood restaurant in Yorktown and drinking 3.2%
beer or driving to Williamsburg for a meal and champagne cocktails (the region
was on the conservative side of local option drinking laws). But now we were
nearing the time when we would be transformed from our instructors’ students to
their colleagues, a transition smoothed by inviting us to the Officer’s Club.
Also
in the last weeks we were asked to fill out a form requesting our first
assignments. I applied for three ocean-going tugs—two on the west coast and one
in North Carolina. I wrote: “Beyond the above I would prefer a small floating
unit near a city.” I had high hopes that my wishes would be fulfilled. After
all, among the reserve officer candidates, I ranked second in the class.
My
orders finally arrived: It seemed that Ida Lewis and the Coast Guard Cutter
Bear and all their heirs would have to wait. I was to report to Second District
Headquarters, St. Louis, Missouri, as public information officer and aide to the
district commander. Nothing like this had happened to Ensign Hornblower.
As
it turned out, the Coast Guard had selected me for OCS not because of my
knowledge of the sea but because it was looking to beef up its public relations.
I was one of several in our class sent to PIO billets in district officers. The
Guard had finally decided to forsake its informal motto, “In our obscurity lies
our security.”
Jack's Note: I (Jack) was in the same OCS class as Sam. He has made an excellent
presentation of his observations and experiences from the standpoint of a
college graduate going through the program. What Sam says is true. I also wrote
of my experiences from the standpoint of a regular Coast Guard enlisted man
going through the program. The article is entitled OCS and you can link to it
from here if you so desire.
SECOND COAST GUARD DISTRICT OFFICE – ST. LOUIS
Before
leaving on this odd and somewhat embarrassing assignment, I returned to
Washington for visit friends and to attend a party that promised to be somewhat
out of the ordinary. The party was to be given at a farm in Middleburg Virginia
for Liza Lloyd Mellon. Prior to the ball, I was invited to the farm of Phil and
Katherine Graham, whose daughter Lallie I knew. Also, Phil Graham, publisher of
the Washington Post, employed as managing editor (and lived around the corner
from) the father of my friend Alfred Friendly Jr. who had gone to elementary
school with me.
Arriving
at the Grahams about an hour before sunset, I found drinks being served
on a lawn overlooking dark green hills as three horses wandered as near the
guests as the bush border would permit, watched skeptically for a few moments,
and then moved on. There were only a few debutantes around but there were Mr.
And Mrs. John Kenneth Galbraith, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Bobby
Kennedy, the William Paleys and Joseph Alsop. In a letter later I noted that
“Mrs. Paley looked like the eleventh best dressed woman in the United States
trying to make the list of the ten best dressed women in the United States. This
was quite unnecessary since she is already on it.”
On
a hill near the Mellon’s home were brightly colored tents of medieval design,
sleeping quarters for the male guests. Each tent had a wooden raised floor, 15
cots, and an ashtray for every occupant. Several of the tents had been made into
heads with showers and electric outlets for shavers included. Another tent
housed two separate catering operations. There was room in this canvas city for
268 male souls. The local Episcopal rectory had been renovated for the women.
The
main house contained not only the Mellons but an art gallery whose
properties ranged from Rousseau to Pissarro to Picasso. A large society
orchestra alternated with Count Basie’s band until six a.m. The fastest omelet
maker in France, flown in for the evening, was equally indefatigable. A
half-hour of fireworks and a brief visit by Jacqueline Kennedy (who seemed more
interested in Rousseau, Pissarro and Picasso than in the other names present)
gave a redundant gloss to the evening.
Towards
six am we wandered towards a large yellow tent to rest. Al Friendly
crawled onto a cot still in his white dinner jacket, pulling the covers up as if
he bedded down in this fashion every night, and went to sleep.
By
eight I was up for breakfast: a bottle of beer and scrambled eggs. One of the
caterers told me he had never seen anything like this either. As our minute
Agincourt came to life and spirits returned, we took off again for the Grahams
and a swim in their pond. Upon arriving on the second floor to change into a
swimming suit, I found Joseph Alsop on his knees searching for something in the
hall. He got up, mumbled “I can’t seem to find his shoes” and returned to his
bedroom.
After
a morning in the sun, we returned to the Mellons for lunch. A hefty buffet
had been laid out and twin pianos played for the benefit of those still strong
enough to dance. As we left at three-thirty, the omelet maker was still hard at
work.
For
the next year or so, it would be my job to explain what the hell the Coast
Guard was doing in St. Louis. The official spiel I developed went like this:
The Second Coast Guard District covers all or part of 21 states from western
Pennsylvania to the Rockies, from the upper part of Alabama to the Canadian
border. Within its borders are more than 5,000 miles of navigable water, mainly
the Mississippi and its tributaries. There was are also 103 lakes of more than
ten miles in length that fall under USCG jurisdiction. There are more than a
quarter of all the aids to navigation in the country to be found in the 2nd
District. We board 25,000 small craft for safety inspections each year. . . .
My
unofficial spiel went like this: The Mississippi River is much harder to
guard than, say, Massachusetts, since it has two coasts. Well, how do you guard
the coast of the Mississippi, Ensign Smith? Listen, wise ass, you don’t see any
of it missing, do you?
If
you were to think of a city in terms of color, St. Louis would have been that
of dirty, smoke-smudged brick. Back in the 19th century a severe fire burned
down many dwellings, leading to a city ordnance against wood structures. The
rest of the city lacked brightness as well. I moved in with the son of a St.
Louis-Dispatch editor who worked for an advertising agency. He and his friends,
and the friends I would make, often spoke of St. Louis as a place to leave. It
was the early 1960s and while nobody knew it yet there was a restlessness among
the young, particularly in places where everything had been decided and judged,
where life consisted of fulfilling a role without surprise, risk, discovery or
mystery.
I
was not, for my part, taken by St. Louis society, describing its members as
buzzing “around frantically like flies trapped in a lampshade.” There seemed a
singular inability to enjoy status once it had been achieved. Life was taken in
dead earnestness and woe to those seen enjoying it. The spirit was reflected in
the society pages of the local papers where no one in the photographs appeared
to be having a very good time. Most serious of all events was the Veiled Prophet
Queen Ball. The Veiled Prophet was a carefully disguised prominent male social
leader charged with crowning the leading debutante of the year. This was done in
the largest gathering place in town to which 10,000 general admission seats were
sold. The papers treated the matter as it would a major league pennant
victory—complete with features such as the one about J. C. Jones who for
seventeen years had arrived around midnight in order to be the first in line
when the ticket window opened the next morning. The ball was even televised.
Nor
did more staid and less prominent St. Louis enthrall me. I wrote that “St
Louis is the center of a large German Catholic population that likes Prophet
Queens as much as they like Martin Luther. It is perhaps testimony to the
universality of Roman Catholic church that a Boston Irishman would feel
completely uncomfortable in such somber surroundings. One gets an almost
irrepressible desire to set off noisemakers or play bawdy songs from a
loudspeaker while driving through this part of town.”
On
the other hand, St. Louis did have Gaslight Square, a whole neighborhood
devoted to bars and entertainment including Irish bagpipes, operatic jam
sessions, Dixieland and modern jazz, quiet trios, comedians, stage shows, twist
clubs, and even silent movies shown on a parking lot wall. The common practice
was to have one drink at a club and then move on, a practice that not only kept
the bars busy but the streets as well.
There
was also the Fox Theater. This building on Grand Avenue was built during
the days when the screen was still small but the theatres were large. Walk
inside and you found yourself in a cathedral for pagans, where a benevolent
celluloid god was worshipped continuously from noon on. The climax came at
intermission between the double features. As the first film faded from the
screen a spotlight shone on the center of the orchestra pit and a $70,000 organ
slowly rose into view. Played by Stan Kahn (who collected vacuum cleaners as a
hobby) the organ was one of the most powerful in the world and, in fact, could
not be played at full intensity for fear of bringing the entire citadel down on
the audience.
But
that never happened nor did much else. I moved into an apartment on Lake
Avenue where the nearby movie theatre was playing “Never on Sunday.” It still
was when I left town.
Then
there was the river. It was dirty and smudged and mundane as well and most
of the time like everything else in town it just kept right on rolling along. I
felt upon seeing it that one more childhood myth, like Santa Claus and fairy
godmothers, had been destroyed. Yet I soon would learn that this modest, muddy
stream could rise thirty feet about her current height and carry anything with
her in a vengeful dash towards the sea; she could freeze, turning into a mass of
ice flows that jammed themselves against each other like ice-carved rugby
players, laying against the piers of bridges until the first thaw of spring
released their awesome energy.
In
quieter times, tows the size of several football fields, with each barge
carrying the equivalent of ten freight car loads, would plough quietly along,
some carrying more cargo than all the steamboats of Mark Twain’s day put
together.
I
threw myself into the job of information officer and aide with a gusto that
quickly distracted me from disappointment over the assignment. My desk was in
the reception room of the District Commander where I sat across from his
secretary and next to the office of the Chief of Staff. Both men were captains
with long sea experience, possessing competence that was as unselfconscious as
it was deep. The chief of staff, Captain Gene Coffin treated me with in the
manner of a fun-loving, knowledgeable and gentle uncle. The District Commander,
Oliver Peterson, while genial enough, didn’t seem quite certain of what a public
information officer was meant to do or why he had one. Captain Peterson was a
man of action not of words. He had once taken the Coast Guard cutter Eastwind to
within 442 nautical miles of the North Pole, a record for a surface ship at the
time.
Captain
Peterson had also in 1952 directed the rescue of 70 tanker crew members
by several Coast Guard ships during a violent winter storm. When the first call
came, a CG plane flew to the location to guide the rescue ships in. The
Eastwind, arriving on the scene, spotted part of a tanker and called the plane
on the radio. We see the ship, the radioman said, but we don’t see you. The
plane’s crew replied that they could see the tanker but not the Eastwind. It
took some time before ship and plane realized they were looking at two different
tankers—identical in class and identical in fate—both having broken in two in
the gale.
In
my office, liberated from the District headquarters photo lab, is a large
photo taken from the plane that shows the Eastwind bow towards half of a tanker
and if you look closely you can see a life raft on a line being pulled between
the two vessels. Sometime after this photo was taken, the waves increased and
the transfer of crew by life raft was no longer possible Captain Peterson
ordered his own crew to bring up their mattresses and stack them on the fantail
of the Eastwind. He then backed the vessel precariously near the stern of the
tanker and had the remaining crew leap to safety.
Captain
Peterson didn’t tell me this. In the Coast Guard you let other people
tell stories about you, so I learned the tale from my photographer’s mate first
class, my mentor and co-conspirator for the greater glory of the public
information office, Billy Keys. It was Keys who also told me about a journalist
mate had developed a small trade aboard one of the ocean station vessels that
stood search and rescue duty for 30 days at a time in midst of the North
Atlantic: he had composed love letters for less literate crew members. With this
talent, Alex Haley became a legend in the Guard years before his writing reached
a larger audience.
I
had one thin gold stripe that circumnavigated my sleeve; Billy had several
short white ones. Although Billy called me sir, he also knew that in most
matters of Guard practice and tradition and knowledge, he outranked me.
Together
we threw ourselves into creating the first real public information
office the district had. The first essential was to enlarge the staff. In no
time, a journalist’s mate appeared, a fine addition save his desire to save my
soul. Rollin Hill had been born again, a concept with which I had only the
vaguest acquaintance, but I quickly accept the notion that attempted conversion
was not a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and thus exposed
myself to endless discussions of the matter. By the time I left, the office
would have a staff of five—including the District Commander’s driver, carefully
selected for his typing rather than his driving skills. Not bad for my first
year and a half in a government bureaucracy.
Not
long after I got there, Captain Peterson was transferred and the district
got as its commander its first honest-to-god admiral. To be an Coast Guard
ensign in St. Louis was odd, to be an admiral there was truly exotic.
Admiral
O. C. Rohnke had commanded six vessels, and had helped to create the
Atlantic Merchant Vessel Report Program that used computers to keep track of
merchant ship positions. This not only made rescue of troubled merchant ships
far easier, it put the ships at the Coast Guard’s disposal to help whenever an
emergency arose near their position.
Admiral
Rohnke absolutely fit the role: tall, gray hair and erect—yet with a
mild manner that never once erupted into misplaced ego during our time together.
My job as aide was to do anything the admiral needed. People such as myself were
sometimes called dog robbers, dating back to the days when aides got the
leftovers from their boss’s dining table, thereby depriving the dogs of the
scraps. With my aiglette or gold loop, however, wherever I went in the 2nd
District the shadow of a flag officer followed. With Admiral Rohnke’s arrival I
had received a de facto promotion.
I
also knew that Admiral Rohnke and Billy Keys had much more in common than
either had with me. Yet in one way Rohnke and I were in the same situation: the
gold on our arms only told part of the story.
I
learned that in Peoria. Having an admiral in the office was a godsend for
public relations and I quickly started using Admiral Rohnke (although never
hinting at such crassness) as a sort of roving logo for the Second District. He
willingly submitted to whatever scheme I devised. Thus for an inspection trip to
the Coast Guard station in Peoria, I pulled out all the stops. Swede Johnson, a
huge red-haired warrant officer who commanded the Coast Guard buoy tender
Goldenrod, was delighted to cooperate, getting the local liquor wholesaler to
throw a big party for the visiting flag officer. Swede also wanted Rohnke piped
aboard his vessel.
The
Goldenrod, for good reasons, had never before piped anyone aboard. It was,
after all, only a tugboat that pushed—or “towed ahead” in the river parlance—a
barge with a crane for doing the buoy work. Nonetheless, with several reporters
and television cameras watching, a chief boatswain’s mate blew his pipe and his
crew saluted as the admiral stepped sharply aboard the barge. I stood looking
pleased with myself until I felt a tap on may shoulder. It was one of the
cameramen: “Was that it?” he asked.
Yep,”
I said. “Well I wasn’t ready, he has to do it again.”
I
approached my boss. “Er, Admiral, the TV guy says he didn’t get the shot.
Would you mind being piped aboard again.”
SSure,”
Rohnke replied and stepped gamely off the barge and back on the dock.
This time the camera was ready and the admiral marched smartly aboard. As I was
beginning to relax, the chief boatswain mate turned to me and said, “Mr. Smith,
they didn’t shoot that did they?” “Yeah, Chief, they did.”
WWell,
he’s got to go back and do it again. My men weren’t ready.”
If
you were to list three jobs whose practitioners are not generally known for
their tolerance, admirals, chief boatswain mates and TV cameramen would be near
the top. And near the top of their list of people not to be tolerant towards
would be freshly-minted ensigns.
There
was, however, nothing to do but to ask. With only a shrug, the admiral
stepped ashore once more. This time we got it right.
It
was only one of Admiral Rohnke’s remarkable performance that day. An hour or
so later we were underway on an inspection voyage down the Illinois River. The
Goldenrod had a tiny wardroom and around the table sat just the four of us: the
skipper, Swede Johnson, the chief, Admiral Rohnke and myself. A white linen
cloth and had been laid on and no sooner had lunch been served than an enlisted
man appeared with a bottle of wine.
If
we had been in the Italian or French navy no one would have blinked. But
drinking alcohol aboard and American naval vessel was verbotim. That’s one thing
I remembered from OCS. As I was trying to figure out how to handle the
situation, the admiral leaned over to me and said very softy, “I won’t say
anything, Sam, if you don’t” “Yes, sir” I replied immensely relieve as I
silently pledged my undying loyalty to the admiral.
For
an admiral, it must have been all a bit trying being there in the epicenter
of America trying to maintain the appearance of a man of the sea. The official
car didn’t help, either. The Coast Guard in those days was an orphan of the
Treasury Department. Thus it was not that surprising that the admiral’s car was
a Chrysler Imperial seized by Treasury’s alcohol and tax unit during a raid on
Chicago mob operations.
It
was an asset the mob must have been glad to forfeit. The car was regularly in
the shop. On one occasion, I was forced to commandeer my own 1941 Oldsmobile
Hydromatic to get the admiral to the airport. I was tempted to mount the
admiral’s flag on the front bumper but settled for having the driver, Gary
Smith, salute sharply and never crack a smile as Rohnke entered the back seat of
the ancient beast. On another occasion, I stood along a suburban highway in
dress uniform and aiglette hitching a ride back for the admiral and the driver,
the former being too distinguished to do the thumbing and the latter unlikely to
provoke response by a passing car.
Which
is not to say that Admiral Rohnke didn’t have his limits. On one occasion,
the 2nd District sent a boarding crew into Oklahoma to do safety inspections on
a lake that was considered a federal waterway. The crew returned to St. Louis
early, reporting that they had been stopped by the Oklahoma state police who
told them that the next time they came into the state they had better wear their
authority on their hip. Rohnke didn’t like that at all and immediately flew to
Oklahoma to straighten out the governor, leaving me to bring his Ford
Thunderbird to the state capital, a task I accomplished at speeds of up to 100
mph on the straightest, longest and most empty roads I had ever seen. (Senator
Robert Kerr once asked Eugene McCarthy to support an exemption for his state
from the anti-billboard provisions of the interstate highway legislation.
McCarthy not only agreed but offered to deliver a speech on the subject. To
Kerr’s dismay, the gist of McCarthy’s plea was that billboards would actually
improved the Oklahoman scenery ).
In
between planning and executing the various adventures of my boss, I churned
out news releases, set up displays at river-related conventions and gave talks
to high schools and civic groups. On one occasion, during a conference for the
warrant officers who commanded the various buoy tenders in the district, I
enlisted the tough and salty gentlemen to the greater cause of public relations.
My technique was simple. First, I had them all over to a party at my apartment
and got them good and drunk, which weakened their wariness of young ensigns or
at least the one who was proffering them liquor. The next morning, we met in a
conference room and I asked them only one favor: that they call up the local
daily paper and suggest that they send a reporter and a photographer on a day
long trip down the river to view the exciting business of tending buoys. Several
stories resulted, including a full two-page spread in the Des Moines Register. A
number of the COs became first-rate flacks for the Coast Guard.
Not
only did the Coast Guard tend to run low and poor on ships and cars, but it
didn’t have enough officers for all the things it was meant to do. One was
constantly shifting roles to fulfill the collateral duties thrust upon the
lesser ranked. Further, the new president, John F. Kennedy, added to the work
load. He had noted during his inauguration parade the lack of any blacks in the
Coast Guard Academy contingent and called the Treasury Department the next day
to seek a remedy. And so the word went forth, even to the federal building in
St. Louis, to do something about it and I found myself, although the name hadn’t
been invented in 1961, serving as the district affirmative action officer. I was
totally unsuccessful. St. Louisians of any ethnicity were disinclined to think
that going out on any of the major oceans was a good idea for either themselves
or their sons. The black businessmen and civic leaders I addressed agreed and
and seemed to regard me as an agent of the devil when I described what a Coast
Guard officer actually did and under what circumstances he often did it.
Kennedy
had also declare the nation unfit and wanted the military to set an
example for everyone else. And so I found myself assigned to run a physical
fitness program for the hundred officers and men of the district headquarters.
It all went somewhat better than the affirmative action effort, but in the end
those who started out fit tended to stay fit while similar trends prevailed
among the flabby. Being in charge of all this inertia did, however, inspire my
own efforts and I pumped iron regularly in the dingy YMCA gym with that
marvelous assortment (including in this case a professional wrestler) one found
in such places before fitness was defined by silly people in spandex jumping up
and down and yelling faux encouragement at their bedraggled wards to the sounds
of excessively loud rock.
But
though there was enough to do, I never doubted that I wanted to be part of
the real Guard. So when Admiral Rohnke was assigned to Washington and he asked
me, “Is there anything I can do for you while, I’m there, Sam?” I said, “Yes
sir, get me on a ship.”
Once
again he came through. On my next trip to DC, I stopped by the assignment
office at Coast Guard headquarters. “My name is Smith and I came by to see how
my transfer was coming.” The lieutenant commander looked at me, pondered a
moment, and without referring to any document, replied, “Smith, Smith, Sam
Smith, you want to go to sea, right?”
There
were only three thousand officers in the whole service and at that moment
I knew I had joined the right branch of the military in contrast with my friends
who wore the same bars in the Army or Navy but were still a number to be
shuffled about.
In
the Coast Guard if you didn’t know someone, you knew someone who did. This
after all, was the service in which just one family, the Midgetts of the Outer
Banks of North Carolina, provided over two centuries literally hundreds of its
members to the Coast Guard and its predecessors, the Revenue Cutter and the US
Lifesaving Service. Seven Midgetts earned the Gold Lifesaving Medal and three
the Silver for rescues. I never met a Midgett, but I met those who had served
with them, all of us members of an even larger family called the Coast Guard.
COAST GUARD CUTTER SPAR – BRISTOL, R.I.
My
assignment came through: Bristol Rhode Island, operations officer and
navigator aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Spar. Bristol sat in the upper reaches
of Narragansett Bay, whose huge bite out of the mainland gives Rhode Island its
jagged border. It has also provided cover for centuries of illegal activity from
slave running, to rum running to drug running to illegal quahogs.
Narrow
channels led tankers, freighters, and smaller craft to Providence and
Fall River. A large island divided the bay into an east and west passage. At the
entrance to the East Passage, with its ornate homes posing above the unimpressed
sea and sky, was Newport. A little further up the bay was the Navy base with its
herd of destroyers waiting impatiently to be released to the blue pasture beyond
Brenton Tower. Still further, coming to course 035 degrees true at Castle Island
Light, was Bristol.
When
I got there, the small town of Bristol—population 5,000 -- was giving the
world rubber soled shoes, golf balls and fiberglass sailboats. For many years
prior to that, though, its mark had been more impressive as the magnificent
craft of Hereshoff slid down the ways of his Bristol yard to sail to a hundred
different ports.
The
Spar, one of the newer ships in the Guard, had made Bristol its home for
most of its 19 years. The people of Bristol considered the ship their navy. When
it was learned that she was to be in the Coast Guard’s yard over the town’s
vaunted July 4th celebration, several Bristolites wrote their congressmen asking
that the yard work be rescheduled.
As
one of the five officers on the ship, I was invited to make myself at home at
the Elk’s Club, and otherwise quickly integrated into Bristol’s social life.
Further evidence of the Spar’s status came on a Memorial Day weekend. Two men
from the ship went on liberty at ten am. At eleven PM they were in the local
jail having been involved in a roaring fracas that included among its casualties
a policeman who had tried to stop the fight and was slugged for his efforts.
I
went to the court the next morning in full uniform to bring the pair back to
the ship. Before the judge passed his sentence, I promised the magistrate that
Bristol would not see much of the pair for the next few weeks. He gave them a
minimum fine and a minimum lecture and released them into my custody. Everything
went smoothly until the judge asked the sailors whether they wanted to say
anything. Gilbert, standing at attention in a bloodied tee-shirt and with a
black eye, replied, “Well sir, it was like I was telling Mr. Smith here, I was
just minding my own fucking business when this fucking guy come up starts giving
me shit and so. . . “ I gave Gilbert a sharp nudge, the judge smiled indulgently
and closed the court for the day.
I
was concerned that the town might think unkindly towards the ship as a result
of the incident. Far from it, as the tale was told to me several times later in
various places, Gilbert was right—our boys hadn’t thrown the first punch. That
they had been drinking steadily for twelve hours and had decked a cop didn’t
seem to matter—in fact the latter act seemed to inspire a certain amount of awe.
In
1957, the Spar circumnavigated the North American continent, making the first
deep draft voyage through the Northwest Passage in the company of two Canadian
Coast Guard cutters. Not since Raoul Amundssen crossed the top of Canada is Gjoa
had any vessel succeeded in this venture.
The
voyage had gone without mishap, but two years before I stepped aboard the
Spar experienced worst luck just a few miles from home. On the way back after
replacing ice-driven boys in the bay, she had struck a rock and might have been
a total loss had not the crew lowered away her two power boats and used them to
tow the stricken ship, in sub-freezing temperatures, to a sand bar, where she
settle to the level of the main deck.
One
of my men had just that day reported aboard out of boot camp. I asked him
what happened. “Well,” he said, “I was sitting on the mess deck and someone told
me the ship was sinking. I thought it was some sort of drill or something.”
The
Spar was 180 feet long. Unlike most Coast Guard cutters that were painted
barn siding white, the buoy tenders had black hulls and white superstructures.
We sometimes sardonically referred to them as The Great Black Fleet. The Spar
was equipped to break ice and her rugged construction and towing ability made
her an excellent heavy weather search and rescue craft. She was also used to
bring fuel, water and crews to the Nantucket Light Vessel and to the several of
the nearby lighthouses. But her main task was to maintain 170 buoys from Block
Island to Buzzard’s Bay. My main task, other than to make sure the ship got
where it was going, was to put the buoys where the charts said they were.
For
every buoy we knew the correct angles of three fixed shore objects such as a
tower or building. On each wing of the bridge a quartermaster would take hold a
sextant horizontally and read off the the bearings between two of the objects. A
single screw ship, the Spar was not easy to maneuver and we approached the buoy
location dead slow, the quartermasters calling out their angles: “76 degrees, 13
minutes on the left—correcting.” From the other wing: “82 degrees, 52 minutes on
the right—uncorrecting.” I would stand on a wing of the bridge with a chart and
three-arm protractor keeping up with the position of the ship. As the position
plotted over the right black dot on the chart I would tell the captain, “She’s
on.” He would cry to the chief on the buoy deck below, “Let her go.” A seaman
swung a mallet to the chain stopper. Fifteen tons of sinker and buoy are
released and as she settled into her position a final check on the angles are
made we back away.
Sometimes
the buoys would be replaced, sometimes they would be moved, sometimes
they would be repaired. There were lots of things that could go wrong. The wells
that held the light batteries could be leaking. The batteries might discharge
sooner than expected. All four bulbs in the automatic lamp charger might be
burned out. A clapper might be off a bell. A light might be burning steadily
instead of flashing its proper interval. Bird droppings might obscure a light.
Bringing
a fifteen ton buoy 38 feet tall aboard a pitching deck can be an act of
faith. You know it’s been done before, so you try it again But you also know
that the huge creature may break loose from its restraining lines and become a
monstrous pendulum. I only saw this happen once. The nylon cross-deck line
snapped with the crack of a rifle. The men tending lines were thrown to the
deck. Others ducked and headed for whatever protection they cold find. The
buoy—nearly four stories tall—began sweeping a path across the deck. “Drop it,”
the chief yelled and the boom operator let it fall with a crash. Fortunately it
had been a relatively calm day.
By
their nature, buoys are frequently near bad water. The Aids to Navigation
Manual blandly stated that a buoy tender skipper is often called to go “where no
ordinarily prudent navigator would take his ship.” A prudent navigator, for
example, doesn’t let his ship get within a hundred feet of a rock that could
slice his hull, but marking that rock for other mariners might require that one
do just that.
We
ran aground three times when I was aboard, a fact that amazed my Navy
buddies. In the Navy running aground tends to end one’s career. But the Navy
doesn’t set buoys in the Cape Canal entrance channel where the charts call for a
string of markers at the precise edge of a dredge path or right next to a
dangerous ledge off Block Island. Only one of the groundings was without excuse.
Leaving an unfamiliar Coast Guard station in Miami early one morning, the
captain insisted that he could back up despite the sand bar I had pointed out to
him. Within seconds we were aground but within another minute or two we had
lines back on the dock and had warped ourselves off. The only damage was to a
lamp post at the corner of the dock which had been bent ninety degrees. Like
miscreant adolescents, we pulled in our lines and took off with apology or
report, the only nautical hit-and-run in which I was ever involved.
The
reason we were in Miami was because we had carried two 40 foot patrol boats
there to be used to guard John F. Kennedy when he was vacationing near there. At
a flank speed of 15 knots it had taken us days to get down there and days to get
back. I had the conn as we finally pulled up to the dock at Bristol. We weren’t
more than a hundred feet off when a crew member came out on the buoy deck below
and called up to the bridge, “President Kennedy’s been shot.” I thought: what a
stupid thing to say. I edged the ship up gently to the pier, got the lines
properly secured and went below. Only then did I realize that it was true.
Despite days away from homeport, no one left the ship for three hours as we
huddled around the mess deck television.
As
in St. Louis, I had more than my share of collateral duties. My official
assignments included being operations division officer, navigator, CIC officer,
senior deck officer, morale and recreation officer, electronic material officer,
education officer, photography officer, public information officer, exchange
officer and drug control officer. These duties ranged from the titular to the
trying. For example, the ship’s PX was run out of a closet. One month’s
inventory included 437 cartons of cigarettes, 226 assorted chewing gums, 6 cans
of Dr. Lyons tooth powder, 31 normal tubes of toothpaste, four decks of regular
cards and eleven for pinochle as well as 48 X Cellos and 41 Sultans for a total
cost value of $766.04. To reconcile our massive inventory and sales would
sometimes take a couple of hours a month. Not even a penny could be unaccounted
for and some fiend at headquarters had designed the reports so that throwing one
of your own pennys into the pot wouldn’t help.
