SHIP AHOY
The Mosbay was a T2 Tanker, under the Norwegian
flag. Our Skipper was Captain Salverson and he was Norwegian and the
Mates were Norwegian. And they did their business in Norwegian and we
didn't speak Norwegian. The crew was an interesting mix. Besides Dave and
me there were two other Americans and an Australian. One of the Americans
was Ted McBratney and he was working his way over to Australia to get
married and the other one was a young lad running away from home. I don't
remember what Les Jabara; our Australian friend did or was up to. Most
of the rest of the crew were Finns, Swedes, and Norskes so the talk was
mainly in Scandinavian.
We didn't even know any food names and we were
starved for a meal that was cooked other than a few hamburgers we bought
on our trip. We had routines to learn and jobs to become acquainted with
and key phrases to be able to use. Fortunately, we were assigned to share
a cabin. It was on the port side and right by the ladder that went down
to the Boiler room. The cabins were rather small, and we could see out the
porthole, but we didn't have much to put in them. No Lazy boy recliners.
We each had a duffel bag and the few clothes that we could put someplace
in the cabin.
We were the equivalent of Ordinary Seamen and
believe me WE were ordinary. We had so much to learn and so little time
to learn it. There is an old adage. No Place to run and No place to hide.
Well we couldn't run on the Mosbay nor could we hide.
A LITTLE COMPARISON
I had the privilege of sailing on the USN Siboney
a CVE112 during the end of the WWII. This was sometimes referred to as
a baby flat top aircraft carrier. During the war a number of T2 Tankers
were converted to aircraft carriers
This is the Siboney and it was about 553 feet
long overall, and 75
Feet wide. It could make about 18 knots, which
is not very fast but fast enough to catapult planes off the flight deck.
It seemed pretty big to me but when I saw the FDR, it looked like a postage
stamp. I was a Weatherman or Aerographers Mate 3rd Class. Of
course I never steered or chipped paint which were major jobs that Dave
and I had on the Mosbay.
By contrast the Mosbay was shorter, around 512
feet and slower since it had only one propeller.
This isn't a very good picture of the Mosbay but
if one looks closely you can see that it is not huge. If you click on it
you can make it bigger. But you can see that there is not much of a place
to run on either ship. It could run at about 12-14 knots an hour at top
speed. A knot is a little over a mile, so can you imagine running around
the world over 25000 miles with numerous stops at that speed.
In retrospect I can't, but we did it.
You couldn't actually say we skimmed over the
sea, but more like we plowed through it. The advantage of the size of the
Mosbay was that it was easier to navigate in and out of the islands with
a cargo of oil.
I almost hesitate to report this because it makes
me shake even today. It has been documented that some of the T2 Tankers
were built in 33 days during the fury of the war in the 1940's It is a
wonder to me that some of the rivets didn't pop when we were in some of
those storms of typhoon intensity.
Oceans and Oceans
I suppose that if you asked 20 different people
to tell you about the Ocean you would get 20 different descriptions.
The magnitude of what we were about to do struck us from time to time.
Taking off from San Pedro and traveling up to an oil port around Oakland
was a piece of cake but when we began to Move out into the real OCEAN that
was another story.
We were pretty well accepted by our fellow sailors.
They had their fun with us like trying to teach us Norwegian which were
often swear words.
I can remember when we were back years later
and I was teaching a world history course in Wheaton High School. I had
an exchange student in my class from Sweden. She was a beautiful girl
with blond hair. One day in class I was carrying a load of books and they
slipped out of my arms and spilled all over the floor. I let out a few
choice Norwegian swear words and I saw her face brighten up to a fiery
red. The rest of the class kind of snickered. As soon as I could grab
the books and my composure I walked over to her desk and apologized.
"You speak Norwegian pretty well." she said
and grinned.
To this day fifty years later I can still sing
and recognize the Norwegian National Anthem. Of course when I was first
taught it, they told me it was a dirty song.
I have noticed that when you are accepted into
a new culture they have their little games to play. Often the games were
in the use of language. I never was fluent in Norwegian but I did know
the Sailors' language pretty well before we signed off. Years later when
I was working in Central America I found myself trying to use a Norwegian
word if I couldn't think of a correct Spanish word, which left every body
completely confused.
THE CHAIN LOCKER ROOM
The Bosun was a little man. He almost always
had a pipe in his mouth, unlit of course. He would walk or pace the decks.
I'm sure to this day that he was looking for places to chip paint. I don't
know whom he ran around with because I never saw him go ashore with someone
particular. I also didn't see him as a jokester. But as we shoved out to
sea, he caught up with Dave and me and suggested that we go down into the
chain locker and stay out of the way. It sounded like a winner to us so we
went down. Where the chains were stored also served as the paint locker.
Since we weren't at anchor but tied to the wharf
by lines, the chains seemed to be a good resting-place. They swung back
and forth in a mesmerizing way. Then the paint fumes added to the environment.
We could tell when we were leaving the dock and I was glad to move out
to the sea. We went under the San Francisco Bay Bridge and a realization
set in---we were leaving the only land we had ever known. And we were
in an ocean that was deep and the swells were letting us know who was in
control. It was not long before I was heaving as well. I had spent 2 months
at sea on the Siboney and figured I would have no trouble with this. Dave
hadn't sailed before and didn't know how he would fare. I didn't take
in to account that Aircraft carriers were built to be stable so those
planes could land on them. Nothing could land on a tanker at sea except
a darned tern.
By now we were out on deck, cursing the bos'n.
"Hey Yank. Ask Cook for some lard to put on a
piece of bread"
And I heaved another bit. I had pretty much served
up my best bits by now. I had never been so sick in my life and I can
still remember the feeling. It was like being on the worse rides in an
amusement park and not being able to get off. I hate to admit it but I
considered suicide. It would be so easy to slip over the side.
I never knew how Dave was feeling and I have
never asked him to this day fifty years later. Somehow I had to work when
it was my shift or at least try to. Our crew was such that if one man was
down someone had to take double duty. I can remember being on the fly deck
and laying down instead of "looking out". Crew members tried to make me get
up to do my duty and not get into trouble. Our voyage was a good one for
our first time at sea. The light at the end of the tunnel was Manila.
On the right side of the map you can see
our departure point from California and with no stretch of the imagination
you can see how we had to avoid the little bits of land as we wended
our way to Manila in the Philippines.
One of our jobs at sea was to steer that big
old tanker. We had never done it before but I guess the Skipper figured it
would be easy for a couple of guys who had started college. If the Mates
could teach some of the guys we had as deckhands, then why not us. Of course
we didn't speak the language and being off course for a couple of hours could
put us in an entirely different place than where we were supposed to
be.
Today, fifty years later, I marvel at the
way the United States was able to put a man on the moon. Those ships
go a great deal faster than our pokey Tanker and being off a degree of
the designated course could throw them off for a couple of planets worth.
If we were off a few degrees we might only
land in the Midway Islands or Wake Islands instead of Manila.
I've always been curious of the connectiveness
of people and places and times. I'm sure it is from something I've read
before but as an example. When I was a boy in Michigan I used to play with
another boy named Carl Kincheloe. His real name was Iven C. Kincheloe Jr.
but I always admired him because he could fly his own plane about the time
the rest of us got our car driver's licenses. He lived on a farm and I used
to go out there and stay over night.
When Dave Burns and I were sloughing our
way through the Pacific Ocean at 13-14 knots he had become the nations
No.1 space pilot by piloting the Bell X-2 rocket- powered research airplane
more than 2,000 mph and to 126,200-ft. altitude. A few years earlier he
had become an Ace in Korea by shooting down 5 Migs. Unfortunately he was
killed before I ever had a chance to talk to him about it.
Another person who comes to mind is Col.
Susan Helms, who is a member of the St. John's Methodist Church here
in Albuquerque, where I am a member. Unfortunately, I have never met her.
She was not even born when Dave and I were
going around the world but she is an Astronaut. She also is a person
who has been around the world many times faster than Dave and I had been
and if she piloted her space ship and was off a degree she would have been
on another planet.
Some people seem to be risk-takers, although
I'm not sure they would consider themselves risk-takers. And I don't
think that Dave and I considered ourselves risk-takers either. There
is something about riding around in a steel boat, which could sink many
fathoms deep fairly easily.
Steel floating on water doesn't make much
sense, just as metal airplanes flying don't make much sense but I don't
think we considered that by this time in our lives.
After about ten days at sea, we began to understand
why the Pacific got that name. Nights on the pacific under the stars
can be very tranquil and can lead to introspection. One does not go straight
from Oakland to Manila but there is an arc that is faster. I really didn't
know that until it was explained to me later on. But we really weren't
in any hurry.
When we were on watch we were on lookout
for an hour and then we would steer for an hour. A repeat of the process would complete a watch and then we would be relieved. During the day, when we weren't steering we would chip paint and put on the red lead. The thing about a ship the size of the Mosbay is that chipping and painting was never done. By the time you worked your way forward to the bow it was time to start all over again and the same was true of the outside of the ship. Salt water would rust the metal ship and so there was always work to do. But working on board a Norwegian Tanker was fun. I'd like to say that there was never a dull moment but that is not true, but dull moments were productive too. At one time we decided to learn to send Morse code. At sea, Morse code is sent in the English Language. This made it a little easier for us. With typical Yankee ingenuity, we made little code senders with a light bulb, a battery and some parts from a small piece of wood and a piece of saw blade. We could then send messages to each other and at night when a ship came by we could practice receiving. This came in handy later on when we were going up toward Abadan and Iraq.
By the time we had passed Alcatraz and under
the Golden Gate Bridge and were a few days out to sea we had learned to check
the direction of the wind when we vomited or peed over the side.
Most of us who have driven around the United
States are used to the vast number of road signs. They tell us what to smoke,
although the Navy taught Dave and I how to do that while we were enlisted
men in the Navy.
There are signs to tell us how far it is to Portales
or New York. If you are old enough you may remember the Burma Shave signs
with their pithy philosophy. There are signs to tell us about a rest
stop ahead or that we should not park on the shoulder of the road.
The sea is a different matter all together.
Of course your eyes can play tricks on you, particularly
at night.
I can still "see" a sign that says Manila, Philippines
400 miles ahead. Five Great Restaurants, 40 average brothels, and a shooting
range.
The Burma shave signs would appear like this
These signs
Dedicate
To men who've had
No date of late
Burma-Shave
Bracing as
An ocean breeze
For after shaving
It's sure
To please
Burma-Shave Lotion
These would be posted about 10 knots apart. And
would make us rub our eyes.
Holidays
It never occurred to us that we would or wouldn't
have American holidays on a Norwegian Tanker. Halloween came and went
and we didn't go trick or treating. I don't know what the Captain would
have thought if had heard some knocks on his cabin door and a couple of
voices shouting "Trick or Treat". I think they were already a little skeptical
of our yankee customs.
I also didn't recall anyone carrying a couple
of turkeys on board when we got ready to sail. I guess they didn't celebrate
our holiday for the pilgrims landing. They probably thought that they
had landed so many years earlier on the north continent that our landing
was anti-climatic. No Thanksgiving Holiday!
We had already taught the steward how to make
hamburgers. This came after days of ludefisk. Hamburgers are is not really
a hard dish to make and certainly is tastier than dried codfish soaked
in lye.
And so November went by.
Spotting the land ahead was exciting. Of course,
there was so much WWII history about the Philippines and we were looking
forward to our first time on a foreign soil.