Excuse the interruption. This sea story is not in chronological sequence. Last night, these thoughts about one particular sailor came into my head. i wanted to capture those thoughts now.

The Navy has grown with the times. Many of the sailors in my time on board ships (from 1963 until 1985, on and off, of course) would not be accepted into today’s Navy. The world has gone technical and the Navy with it. Consequentially, higher scores on aptitude tests and other hurdles to demonstrate smartness is required.

Many sailors, especially in my early days with the Navy, were not mental giants. Oh, we had plenty of intelligent enlisted as the draft was still rolling and many smart young men chose to ride a ship rather than pound the ground or watch aircraft head for the wild blue yonder. But there was a place for folks who did not have an excellent academic record. In fact, many sailors had not graduated from high school. i knew of a number of sailors from those years who were there because a judge gave them a choice of joining the Navy or going to jail.

In numerous cases i witnessed, the Navy was this kind of sailor’s life. They lived on the ship, a place to sleep with food to eat. The civilian clothes they had were in a locker storage place outside the base gate. When they went out, it was most frequently to a bar. There were only a very few who were incorrigible. Many went up and down the ranks like a yo-yo. i knew several that had made it to second or first class petty officers but kept getting busted and spent their twenty years as a seaman or fireman most of the time. Nearly all of them contributed in some way to an effectively run a ship.

The sailor in this tale was one of those. He was a fireman in the after engine room of the USS Hollister (DD 788). i was his Chief Engineer (1973-75). This particular sailor didn’t do much more than stand his watches back aft. He stayed pretty much to himself and was quiet. He had gotten into trouble occasionally, several times getting caught smoking marijuana, but that was about it.

There were two distilling plants on the Hollister, the large one in main control, the forward engine room, the smaller one in the after engine room. These two plants made feed water for the boilers and potable water for the crew. They were vital for operations and feed water, the latter used to power the ship through the four boilers always took precedence of the 300 or so souls in the crew and the wardroom. The forward evap (our term for evaporators or the distilling plants) could produce about 700 gallons an hour. The after evap could make about 250 gallons of water each hour.

i often wondered what evil genius designed these evaps. They made any Rube Goldberg invention look simple. It took genius to maximize their output along with stroking and petting them, believe it or not, TLC. During my engineering tour, i determined that along with everything else, the evaps was possessed by and ran at the whim of gremlins. Today, as i write, i know those gremlins jumped on my shoulders as i rotated to my next ship and now occupy any mobile phone or computer of mine.

The ship had transited to Pearl Harbor from Long Beach with her destroyer squadron. After a week of liberty, we were getting underway to return to home port when the forward evaps went down. Even my master chief machinist mate, an incredible engineer, could not coax the plant into making water. He kept trying, along with his first class and several others. i personally took soundings on the water tanks and kibitzed almost round the clock with the master chief on the next tactic.

The after evap was huffing and puffing and actually was making more water than it was rated to produce. The reason was the fireman i mentioned earlier. It was almost like he had a love affair with that contraption. He would twist the controls, of which there were many, tenderly, moving them just slightly — think of the Wizard of Oz twisting all those controls when Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow discovered him behind the curtain.

We would have been in big trouble without that overproducing little evap and its master who tended to its needs.

As it was, we were on water hours for almost four complete days before the master chief and his boys got the big evap running again. Our captain sent a flashing light message to the commodore on the destroyer flag ship reporting we were going off water hours. The commodore responded, “Congratulations to CHENG. Please remain downwind for the next couple of days.”

The fireman got out after a month or so after we moored in Long Beach.

i miss those kinds of sailors. They aren’t around any more.

We were changing home ports in July 1969, and as i have noted, none of the wardroom or crew were too happy about that change. but first the Hawkins had a rendezvous with a couple of submarines.

In July, she once again traveled south, this time to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Her assignment was to serve as a location platform for two submarines going through Polaris missile firing tests off the coast. i was glad to visit with a very close cousin, Nancy Orr Winkler and her husband who lived there, and went to a disco, only to leave quickly after discovering a Naval officer, even in civilian clothes still had a haircut that did not attract Florida disco women.

Our first sub to undergo a three-week workup was the HMS Renown, a British submarine. It was difficult maneuvering to remain exactly on a point in the ocean, especially when the wind picked up, but we did incredibly and to watch that Polaris missile emerge from the sea and rocket (pun intended) into the sky was impressive. We were looking forward to repeating the process with the USS Thomas Jefferson, a US submarine.

There were a few problems in setting up the location in the first drills, but they were resolved before i caught a flight to Tennessee.

i was disappointed i wouldn’t be around for the actual launch of the Jefferson’s polaris missile. Taking a week’s leave, i went to Lebanon, Tennessee to attend my sister Martha’s wedding. The wedding and the week home was a wonderful respite. When i got back to Cape Canaveral and reported aboard, i found out i had missed some craziness.

You see, the British missile shot was relatively unnoticed. i don’t think we had any extra folks on board with the possible exception of a sub-expert to act as a go-between. With the Thomas Jefferson, the Hawk, sans me, had a flock of looky-loos, including VIPS. i’m pretty sure there was a least one US senator and one US representative aboard with their families. That meant their staffs, PR folks, media reps, and Lord knows who else accompanied them — actually, i don’t have a clue because i wasn’t there. i know there was a least one office holder and a lot of civilians on board.

There was a problem. The gimbals in the guidance system that directed the rocket motors locked. The fire control technicians could not turn the missile. Instead of soaring up and out into the wild blue yonder, the missile went straight above the Hawkins with its cast of onlookers including the ship’s officers and crew watching intently. That’s when the missile was destructed, as in boom. Fragments, even large pieces of the missile began downward, raining on the ship. The boatswain mate of the watch, was on the 1MC speakers urging everyone to go inside the skin of the ship and take shelter, explaining the dangers.

Apparently, there were a number of folks who wanted to see the spectacle and stayed on the weather decks with debris falling around them.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, i wasn’t there to see it.