We were a little of over two weeks before we were to get underway for a long time.

That’s when the Amphibious Squadron Staff decided an LST needed a first class boatswain mate more than me (i still scratch my head about that reasoning. So they transferred my most experienced first class boatswain mate to that LST. i was left with no ship’s bosun, one first class boatswain mate, and one boatswain mate chief with 15 years in, but who had been a Navy boxer with no significant experience as a boatswain mate other than passing promotion exams. He was a smart guy, a nice guy, BMC Justiani, but he was not in my department. He was the 3M supervisor (the Navy’s preventive maintenance program) for the ship.

A week before the departure date, the Beach Master’s Unit came aboard with its rather amazing amount of equipment, including LARCs, a truly amphibious vehicle that could be driven on land or water. Big honkers, too. They were 35 feet long with a ten-foot beam, weighing just shy of ten tons. The Cummins V8 engine provided 300 horse-power.

We ballasted down and the two LARCs with 19 men came aboard as soon as the well deck was dry. Their leader was CWO4 Boatswain Messenger. That was a blessed thing for me. Bosun Messenger became my advisor in nearly all things for this novice First Lieutenant. His first class boatswain mate, BM1 Stubbe, almost immediately began to help BM1 Hansborough in the deck department.

i breathed a bit easier.

On March 10, 1975, the USS Anchorage (LSD 36) got underway with the other ships of Amphibious Squadron Five, standing out of the San Diego channel headed for Pearl Harbor.

The transit was routine. We kept preparing for the normal ten-month deployment. After five days, we entered Pearl Harbor. i had been designated as the Sea Detail Officer of the Deck (OOD) and had the “deck” and the “conn” for my first entry into Hawaii. The duties, the maneuvering into the Naval Station with Ford Island on my left where the Arizona Memorial stood, remains one of the most awestruck emotions in my life.

i found Honolulu enchanting. It had yet to become the corporate tourist stop of the Islands. My focus was on my job. i did find my favorite spot for many years to come. i wandered off the primary streets and found a Chuck’s Steakhouse. It had a motif of a fishermen’s pub. i ordered a mai tai and then had the mahi mahi dinner with a chardonnay. It was like the perfect escape.

During the last few days, we loaded our Opportunity Lift (OPLIFT) cargo (when a ship deployed and had extra cargo space, various military commands and personnel could load gear and vehicles to go to various Western Pacific bases. Some of the cargo, like a few cars, were private. Most of the load was medical supplies. The penultimate day before we were to get underway, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT) held a briefing for the Amphibious Staff and COs, XOs, and department heads of the squadron ships. We were told of possible exercises with allies, and some information on the status of the US/China/North Korea status. Nothing was mentioned of Vietnam.

And off we went. The seven ships of Amphibious Squadron Five were headed for the Naval base in Subic Bay, Luzon, Phillipines, the sailor’s closest thing to Fiddler’s Green. We would be relieving our sister ships of COMPHIBRON ONE. They would head back to their home port of San Diego. The seas of the Pacific were relatively calm, the steaming easy. Then, five days underway, the message came. OP Immediate (That meant do what the message said to do and do it in a hurry). Vietnam was about to fall to the Vietcong and North Korea. The two squadrons were to rendezvous off of Vung Tau, normally a resort city that was on the southern most tip of the Vietnam. Our mission was to participate in the evacuation of U.S. personnel and any dependents that were in country, as well as Vietnamese who had worked with the US during the conflict.

Except one ship was to steam independently elsewhere, the USS Anchorage. We were to head to Fukuoka, Japan and offload the large amount of OPLIFT we were carrying. From there, the Anchorage was to proceed to Numazu Bay and load the equipment for the Marine Amphibious Unit, which were onboard the other ships, and make haste to Vung Tau, offload the Marine equipment and supplies, and carry out orders for the evacuation.

This adventure was about to teach a brand new amphibious first lieutenant a thing or two.

i had mixed feelings about the next phase of my career.

i was a destroyer man. The Lloyd Thomas, the Hawkins, the Waldron, the Luce, and the Hollister were tin cans, greyhounds of the sea roaring into the white caps at 35 knots, shooting incredible five-inch shells out of those gun mounts, training in any multiple threat environment: visaged gray ladies that ruled the oceans.

Now, i was going to a completely different world. The only appealing aspect to me was boatswain mates, the backbone of the Navy from day one. i really had no idea of what my new job as the First Lieutenant on the USS Anchorage (LSD 36) would entail. i was glad to move my wife and daughter into Pacific Beach Navy housing in San Diego, but i was pretty much clueless about what would follow. i did know Anchorage would deploy with Amphibious Squadron Five in mid-March just after i reported aboard. i also knew the LSDs had a bosun, Chief Warrant Officer Boatswain. Knowing that i would have someone guide me through the learning process as STC Rogers had on the Hawkins, STC Jenkins had on the Luce, BTCM Miller had on the Hollister.

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We moved into Pacific Beach Navy housing in late January. Moving has always been a major pain. This move was no less painful even though it was just over 100 miles. But we made it. We settled in and i reported for duty. After destroyers, the Anchorage seemed enormous. After i saluted the ensign and requested to come aboard, i was walked to the executive officer’s cabin. From there, we walked next door to the captain’s cabin. Charlie introduced me to CDR Lou Aldana. He was a tall, angular man with a dour countenance. During our talk, i found that he cared about his ship and his men. That made it just fine with me.

The captain also gave me his instructions on how the first lieutenant on an LSD should perform:

“You are like a farmer,” he began, “When it is not raining, your guys have to prep and paint the weather decks…all of the time. That is one of your most important responsibilities.”

It sounded mundane, but it true. The deck force and the deep hole snipes were the hardest working guys in Navy show business. i was about to discover that the deck force were not only “farmers” on weather spaces, they were always working on every aspect of amphibious shipboard life.

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i then found out the one person i was relying upon to help me through the learning process was no longer there. Bosun Holtzclaw, whom i never met, had been transferred about a month before i reported aboard. There would not be a replacement. i had no chief boatswain mate in the department and only one LTJG who had deployed before. Shortly after i arrived, my most experienced first class boatswain mate was transferred to a LST in our squadron as events had left the ship without one. i was down to one first class, BM1 Hansborough, who was in charge of first division, and a BMC, who had spent his 15 years as a boxer and currently was the “3M” coordinator in charge of the Navy’s preventive maintenance program, not even assigned to the Deck department. Challenges lay ahead.

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My wife Kathie and i were excited about being in San Diego. Our new neighbors had a daughter Blythe’s age of three, and they were nice folks. And we were in San Diego, a place i had found intriguing since i read about it back in the early 60s.

When we realized, we were less than two miles from the beach, we resolved to get there as soon as possible. After we had unpacked all of the boxes and had our home in Navy housing in satisfactory shape, we drove down to the beach and parked. We walked to the beach. i was excited. i had never been to a Southern California beach. Kathie held Blythe as i shed my top shirt and shoes and ran to the water. i ran into the surf and dove into the first waves.

It was then i discovered the Japanese current brings cold water down from the Arctic Circle. As Bill Cosby noted in one of his skits (before he was convicted of his crimes) that when he hit the water, his body became “one giant goose bump.” The Pacific Ocean off the Southwestern corner coast is not warm until about two weeks in August.

i quickly emerged, grabbed the towel and wrapped it around me. Thus began my next adventure. In a month, i would be on the USS Anchorage as her first lieutenant, deployed to the western Pacific for ten months. i had no idea of the challenges ahead.

I think my class at destroyer school was the first to have “split tours,” certainly it was one of the very first. Destroyer school had been created for surface officers (long before they created the “Surface Warfare” designation. Afer successful tours on a destroyer, officers, usually lieutenants, were selected to go through Destroyer School in Newport, Rhode Island, to be one of the three operational department heads (weapons, engineering, or operations) on a destroyer.

When my class reported in May 1974, the move had been made to include other types of ships, amphibious and service force ships, in training their department heads. Rather than my class serving three years in a destroyer department head billet, we would spend roughly 18 months on a destroyer followed by another 18 months on either and amphib or service force ships.

— For those unfamiliar with the organization, these ships had 3-4 division officers in each department. Superior to the department heads was the executive officer and the commanding officer —

When i learned i would be transferred to the USS Anchorage (LSD 36) home ported in San Diego, i was not exactly jubilant. Also, i knew nothing about amphibious ships except from what i saw in WWII movies. i was glad i was assigned to an amphib rather than a service force ship. Oilers and ammunition ships had little time in port. They were too busy fueling and replenishing the combatants. Being a first lieutenant department head excited me even though i wasn’t sure what my duties would be, but i had enjoyed my brief time as first lieutenant, a division officer billet on the USS Hawkins (DD 873).

Before Hollister entered the yards for overhaul, we went to San Diego to attend equality training for the crew and wardroom. While moored at the Naval Station, San Diego (better know as 32nd Street), i was standing on the bridge starboard wing with a second class quartermaster. A large amphibious ship passed by us on her way to a pier berth. i wondered to the quartermaster if she might be the class i would be going to. i was that dumb about amphibs. The ship was the USS Mobile (LKA 115), an amphibious cargo ship, nothing like my future ship, the Anchorage, a landing ship dock.

Even though i did not know squat about amphibs, one of the best, if not the best tour of my career was about to begin.

As the USS Hollister (DD 788) began her preparations for the six-month (supposedly) overhaul to begin in September 1974, which was eventually awarded to Todd Shipyards in Long Beach, my Master Chief Boiler Tender and i went down to the firerooms (Man, i can’t believe i cannot remember his name: we spent many hours together, and he saved my bacon more than once. He was also the only chief in the deep holes, firerooms and engine rooms after the ship went to the reserves. i’ll finally either remember or find his name and add it here. He was a great chief.

The Pre-Overhaul Test and Inspection (POT&I) team from the Surface Forces, Pacific would be coming on board soon to test critical equipment in the engineering plant and throughout the ship.

The master chief and i went down into the forward fireroom to the forced draft blowers, huge blowers that sent a lot of air into the boilers. There were two blowers for each boiler, four in the forward fireroom and four in the after fireroom. The master chief went to the first one, pulled a nickel out of his pocket and placed it, standing on end, on the top of the blower. He yelled for the duty BT to turn on the blower. It revved up and ran for a couple of minutes. The BTCM proceeded to the rest of the blowers in the forward fireroom, and i accompanied him as we repeated the process in the after fireroom. If the nickel fell down, the master chief proclaimed that the blower would need an overhaul. When we completed the master chief’s tests. He announced that three of the eight blowers needed an overhaul and the other five were fine with regular maintenance.

About a month later, the POT&I team came aboard. They went to the firerooms and hooked up a whole bunch of expensive and sophisticated electronic equipment with wires and meters and lord knows what else to the blowers. They ran their tests and about a month later, they sent us the results. Their tests, Lord knows how much they cost, revealed three of the forced draft blowers needed an overhaul but the other five did not. They were exactly what the master chief had determined with his nickel.