The remainder of the transit from Vung Tau to the Naval Station Subic Bay was uneventful. We anchored in Subic Bay mid-morning. It was the only time i had been on a ship at anchor there, but it looked like the entire Seventh Fleet was in the bay. i was glad we would be there only for several hours.

But there was business to take address. The CO, Lou Aldana, directed Rob Martin, CHENG, and me to take the captain’s gig to the squadron flagship to communicate with Pacific Fleet about boat supplies we needed for engineering and the our ship boats. We were directed to the pilot house to wait for access to the top secret crypto circuit. There were only the two of us on the bridge where a speaker for the circuit allowed us to overhear the caller in front of us.

i don’t remember his name but he was the amphibious commander for the evacuation. He was talking, er, listening to the guy on the other end of the phone. That guy was the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. Apparently, the amphib admiral had held a press conference and said something of which his boss did not approve.

It was the most classic chewing out rages i ever heard on any Navy radio circuit ever. It lasted almost ten minutes.

When it was concluded, the amphib admiral stepped out on the bridge en route to his cabin. Rob and i acted as if we had not heard a thing. We communicated with the necessary folks, got our parts expedited, and headed back to the Anchorage.

After all of the marine equipment and vehicles were offloaded, along with the two South Vietnames LCM-8s, Anchorage weighed anchor and got underway in the afternoon and anchored in Manila Bay the next day.

In a conversation with Mike Dixon last week, I recalled my dinner in Manila in 1975. I was First Lieutenant on the USS Anchorage (LSD 36). We reached Manila after our Pacific transit; operations in Iwakuni, Numazu, and Okinawa, Japan; a typhoon avoiding South China Sea transit; the evacuation of South Vietnam dubbed Frequent Wind; a return transit to Subic Bay Philippines for another offload; and finally liberty after more than two months at sea.

Note: this section is taken from a Democrat column written in 2014. Mike Dixon, a close friend and basketball, baseball playing buddy, walked over that bridge in 2021.

I was Command Duty Officer the first day, the most difficult duty in any port visit. The duty engineer and I had no more than a couple of hours of sleep between us when our liberty launch took us to shore mid-way through the second day.

Although tired, we were determined to have fun. In the hot and humid late afternoon, we wandered through downtown Manila. We eventually entered a respectable looking cafe. Our exterior assessment did not match the interior. It was a local disco.

Too tired and hungry to leave, we were escorted to a red imitation leather booth accompanied by a blaring, live rendition of “Staying Alive.”

In broken English, our waiter recommended a local favorite entrée, a spicy goat stew over rice.

The stew was the spiciest food I have ever eaten. Vietnam peppers, Korean kimchi, and even a renegade jalapeno in a Southwest corner border restaurant could not compete with our Manila disco meal.

I’m sure it was not on Homer Hunter’s menu in his 1930s restaurant off the square.

As we concluded our meal, a manager sat down with us and offered to show us something. We walked back through a long hall in the back of the main room to a large window. It was a one-way pane, allowing us to see into the other room but appearing as a mirror on the other side. In the other room, many women, clad in flimsy négligées were milling around or just sitting on the wooden benches. Our guide informed us we pick out one of those women to have for the rest of the night for twenty dollars.

I was taken aback. It was about as emotional for me as watching all of those Vietnamese escaping their homeland with their families in unseaworthy craft. It looked like these women was even more abused than those refugees, slaves.

i was disgusted but remained silent. Declining the offer, we left and went back to the hotel, falling asleep. The next morning, we caught the first liberty boat back to our ship. Anchorage weighed anchor and got underway the following day.

After seven days, Anchorage and the host of other ships weighed anchor off of Vung Tau and got underway in early May 1975. Nearly all, if not all, headed toward Subic Bay and then on to other liberty ports.

i believe all except Anchorage had refugees on board. While off of Vietnam, we were ordered to pick up two additional LCM8’s that had been used by the South Vietnamese before the fall. Although we were already crammed, we somehow managed to add these two 73-feet long, 21-feet wide landing craft. i don’t know how but we did it. i can only remember we turned a lot of craft and other vehicles at angles in the well deck, fitting them like a jigsaw puzzle. i do remember the Mike 8 boats sitting cockeyed at the aft end of the well deck.

The requirement to offload these two craft in Subic is likely the only reason we went to Subic Bay. Perhaps for that reason, Anchorage was independently steaming, not accompanying other ships. i was OOD on the mid-watch (00-04) on the first night, roughly 150 nautical miles into the transit. There were no contacts and the seas were comfortable.

Around 0200, we began receiving strange radio messages from another ship: “This is Clara Maersk, radio check, radio check.” As the calls kept repeating and getting a bit stronger, i decided to respond.

“Clara Maersk, this is United States Navy ship, Anchorage, roger, over.

She responded. The master was trying to reach any US Navy ship. The Clara Maersk had come upon a ship sinking in the South China Sea en route to Hong Kong. She rescued 2000 refugees and was attempting to find a ship that could take them aboard.

The Clara Maersk was likely several hundred miles from Anchorage. i did not know and was attempting to maintain communication while determining what do do — including waking the captain — when our communications was lost..

Once again, i felt remorse at our country not being able to do more to allow this folks to remain in their homeland.

Anchorage continued on her way to Subic. i wrote a note to myself with the ship’s name and carried on. After all, i had a whole bunch of other things on my mind.

NOTE: GWLO, Old Hong Kong, https://gwulo.com/node/57141, contains an article about the Clara Maersk offloading 2000 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong shortly after my communications with the master of the cargo ship. i was checking my facts when i came across the article. i am glad i found out Clara Maersk and her refugees made it to Hong Kong.

This sea story was published as a column in The Lebanon (Tennessee) Democrat, one of those i wrote weekly for that newspaper under the heading “Notes from the Southwest Corner” for ten years. Published in 2008, i believe it best captures my feelings about the end of the Vietnamese “conflict.” i have only made small edits even though much of this is repeats from recent posts.

SAN DIEGO – In 1975, I witnessed international history.

Having been on destroyers since commissioning in 1968, I was transferred to the U.S.S. Anchorage (LSD-36) from the U.S.S. Hollister (DD 788). It was my first experience with the amphibious Navy. The First Lieutenant, my new position, was directly involved with every aspect of the ship’s primary mission, i.e. putting troops, vehicles, and cargo ashore.

I was a novice and one month away from a seven-month deployment to the Western Pacific. My delicate position was exacerbated by the cruel twist of the manning czars in Washington, D.C. I had one experienced junior officer; and one chief boatswains mate, who had been a boxer most of his Navy time. The ship’s complement called for two experienced junior officers, one boatswain warrant officer, three chief boatswain mates, and three first class boatswain mates.

To say the least, I was learning on the job with long days and midnight oil. This did not include moving my family to San Diego and subsequently preparing them to go to Texas while I was deployed.

During the move from San Pedro to San Diego, my parents called to tell me my beloved Uncle Snooks, Alvin Hall, had died suddenly from a heart attack. Uncle Snooks and my aunt, Bettye Kate Hall, had been more like second parents than aunt and uncle.

So I was dealing with a personal loss in the middle of the madcap preparations to deploy. As with all of my deployments, it became much easier once we “let go all lines” and steamed out of San Diego Bay, March 28, 1975.

This particular deployment has enough sea stories for a book. I will omit most for now. The Anchorage and the six other ships of the Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) proceeded to Pearl Harbor, departing after a flag briefing indicating the deployment should entail nothing unusual.

At sea five days later, the ARG received a radio message, which announced takeover of South Vietnam by the North was imminent. Six of the seven ships were directed to steam southwest and join the outgoing squadron off the coast of Vung Tau, Vietnam. The Anchorage was directed to steam to Japan, off load cargo and load the equipment of the Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU). Then, the ship was to join the task force.

There were many delays and adventures en route. Anchorage reached the rendezvous May 2. The evacuation of South Vietnam, dubbed “Frequent Wind,” essentially over but the rescue 35,000 refugees had just begun.

Because the ship was overloaded, we did not take on refugees. Our participation was limited to daily, all-day boat operations, and taking on two landing craft (LCM 8’s), which had previously been the U.S. Army’s boats.

So early each morning, I would go out on deck with my morning cup of coffee to start the day. After launching the Mike 8s, I spent most of the day at the handrails, watching the day pass in the calm seas.

I would watch Navy, Marine, and Air America helicopters make continuous landings on the four aircraft carriers, USS Okinawa (LPH-3), a helicopter carrier and our squadron flag ship, and USS Tripoli (LPH 10). An amazing number of Americans and Vietnamese escaped from Saigon via these helicopters.

Even more incredible, as first light crept into sunrise, the horizon would be filled with every type of craft, jammed with people. For three days, the deluge of humanity kept coming over that horizon until sunset faded into dusk. Before the task force weighed anchor and headed east, more than 35,000 people had been embarked.

Estimates of the total number of evacuees ranged between 70,000 and 100,000. I believe the number was higher. I cannot imagine how many didn’t make it. I don’t believe I have ever been so moved as I was standing on that deck, watching those South Vietnamese coming and coming and coming over the horizon. They were putting their families, old folks and babies, on craft I would not board on a pond, much less the South China Sea.

I don’t intend to discuss politics here. I certainly didn’t have a better answer then, and I would not have one now. Yet as I watched those people risking their lives and the lives of their families to run from their country, their home, I recall thinking, “There has to be a better way. There has to be something we could have done to let these people live in their home.”

As a shipmate eloquently recorded in the Anchorage cruise book, “It’s sad to see a country die.”