Many moons ago, like 1956, I sailed across the Pacific as part of the crew of a naval minesweeper, whose motto is iron men sailing wooden ships. This was choice duty for me, a young 25-year old sailor. It was the duty I wanted, as the "doc" on the ship. I had just completed Advanced Hospital Corps School, aka as Independent Duty School, a six month course that qualified hospital corpsmen to go to sea on ships where they would have total responsibility for the crew's health, often without any recourse to a medical officer, or doctor. This trip consisted of thirty days, at seven knots, with stops in Hawaii and Midway Island. This was a small ship, 144 feet long and 28 feet abeam, with three officers and 27 men (that was before women went to sea as part of a ship's crew). The ship was the USS Cormorant, as this category of minesweepers were named after birds. My captain, also 25-years-of-age, had just been promoted to full lieutenant before we set sail. The ship was changing homeports from Long Beach to Sasebo, Japan, a place we could take our families. As it turned out, shortly after arriving at Sasebo, I swapped duty with a hospital corpsman on a larger minesweeper that was returning to Long Beach.
I've often thought about the Cormorant and our journey. One particular event stands out in my mind. Everyone, including the captain, got seasick except me and one other sailor. And there was ten gallons of peppermint ice cream, not something a seasick sailor wants. The two of us ate it all. At times the sea was so rough it seemed it was as easy to walk on the bulkheads as the decks. Between Midway and Sasebo, we noticed water seeping into the berthing compartment from a storage compartment below. Investigation showed the sonar dome had cracked and we were taking on water. We literally bailed out the space by a bucket brigade, passing bucket after bucket from the berthing compartment up the ladder to dump over the side.
Recently I googled the USS Cormorant and came across a narrative that was so descriptive of the trip it was like I was back at sea again. I read this narrative with interest, getting to the end and seeing it was written by a retired Vice Admiral, my commanding officer, a newly minted lieutenant when we set sail. It was written in the vein as though one would write about a love affair. And I suppose it was for him, as he ended the narrative saying how meaningful this trip was to him as it was his first command.
What the Captain didn't say, though he talked about fuel management, running with one generator, evaporation of water, and getting to the destination without refueling at sea, was that one "dumb" sailor, the "doc", me, put clothes in the washer to wash and went to sleep, resulting in draining a good amount of the fresh water supply before the engineers discovered my misdeed. The Captain never mentioned that event to me.
I was not surprised to see him a retired VADM. He was an inspiration to me. Considering he launched his naval career from the naval academy, and I launched mine as a Watsonville high school drop-out, we were far apart. The navy did well for both of us, as I retired after twenty-five years as a Lieutenant Commander, Medical Service Corps, working on a graduate degree.
Parking within feet of cache location.