U.S.S. Walton (DE-361)

Time to Fess Up… by Jim Smith (RD3)

OK, time to fess up.  I don’t recall what port we were in, but it was when the after head was having a new deck put down and we were all using the forward head.  Anyway, I was pretty well oiled but I made it back to the ship and made it to the forward head and puked.  That’s all I remember until Reveille.  The story goes that Glenzer RD2 was P.O. of the watch on the quarterdeck and he went up to the forward head to take a leak.  After he finished, he looked up the engineering PO and told him one of his snipes was passed out in the forward head.  the guy went up to the head and came right back to Glenzer and said, “One of my snipes my ass, that’s one of your scopedopes.”  Glenzer got a couple of guys to haul my drunk carcass back to our berthing area and they dumped me on top of the foot lockers where I stayed till reveille………..

Gin and Tonics in Saigon by Herb Mesler

In my younger days, just about all I drank was beer.  Over the years I have grown to really like Rum and Coke’s and as far as mixed drinks go, it is either that or Gin and Tonic.

Whenever I have a Gin and Tonic, it really brings back some memories… The Walton pulled into Saigon, Vietnam for a couple of day and Chief Radioman Tracy, invited me to join him when he went ashore.  He took me to the Majestic Hotel in downtown Saigon and on the top floor was an EM Club.  He drank Gin and Tonics and talked me into one.

We took our drinks and walked out on a balcony and sat down.  I no longer remember how many stories high the Majestic Hotel was but it was a fair number, which gave us a great view of Saigon and the surrounding area.

As we sat there with our drinks we could hear the war going on outside of Saigon.  Talk about sureal!!!  Darn near like something out of the movie “APOCALYPSE NOW.”

Attached are a couple of photos from the top of the Majestic Hotel.  That is RMC Tracy in the first photo.  He is one guy I seriously would love to find. 

 RMC Tracy.. our leading Radioman on the Walton

 Saigon River with a USA small carrier, which the Walton had followed up the river, tied up to the pier.  The palace which was nearby had been bombed from the air a couple days before our arrival in Saigon!!!!  I walked over and took a look at it the next day.

Downtown Saigon from the top of the Majestic Hotel

Navy Posters from WWII – page 1

This was a time when nobody knew who was going to win the greatest war in history.  It was a total national effort.  It’s worth remembering.  Thanks to Jim Smith (RD3) for passing these on.

Let’s hope our children and grandchildren never forget the sacrifice that these folks made for our freedom.  As the man says, “Freedom isn’t free!”

Almost a Warrior by Ed Whitehead- Introduction

 The “peace time” Navy from 1961 to 1963 was not all that peaceful.  We were still in the middle of a “cold war” in those days, and that shaped all of the foreign policy decisions of the United States, and by extension, the actions of the U. S. Navy.  John F. Kennedy had been elected President in what was, up until that time, one of the closest elections in American History.   He was, as was most of America, conservative in his foreign policy. What that meant in 1961 was that we focused most of our attention on our then perceived enemy; the Russians.  Actually, we called them Russians, they called themselves the U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic).  America and the Russians did not play well together.

After WWII the victors diviided Germany into two countries, East and West Germany.  West Germany was controlled by the United States, Great Briton, and France, but had long ago become an independent democracy.  East Germany had become a communist country that was, for all practical purposes, still controlled by the Soviet Union.  The “fly in the ointment” was the former capital of Germany, Berlin, which had also been divided in half.  The Eastern half, you guessed it, was controlled by the Russians, while the Western half was still controlled by the Allies.  The fact that Berlin was well within the borders of East Germany created, as you might expect, difficulties.

In the early months of 1961 the Russians were giving the Americans aggravation about the divided city of Berlin.  This was not the first time this issue had come up.  In 1948, three years after the end of hostilities in Europe, Russia tried to close off West Berlin to the Allies by not allowing vehicle traffic through East Germany.  Harry Truman, the American President at the time, started supplying West Berlin by “Operation Airlift” until the Russians threw in the towel and lifted the blockade. 

If one were objective about it, you might think, well Berlin is in the middle of East Germany, why not just turn our section over to them?  Not so fast Waldo, West Berlin, like West Germany was a prosperous democracy.  It served as a constant reminder to the rest of the world, and more importantly East Germany, that a capitalistic democracy obviously worked better than a socialist communistic state.  Add to that, the fact, that people kept finding very novel ways of “escaping” to West Berlin from East Berlin.  Major embarrassment to the Russians.  Hell, the Russians even built a very large cement wall to keep their citizens from escaping into West Berlin.  If their system was so great, we kept asking, why did their citizens risk their lives and families just to get out?  Tensions were high.

President Kennedy, to show the Russians and the world, that the United States was ready with a military response to provocations in Berlin, if need be, decided to activate several thousands of the America’s Army and Navy reserve units.  I just happened to be in one of those selective reserve units assigned to the U.S.S. Walton (DE 361.)  Here I come Mr. President!

As a smart ass 18 year old, I did note that since the Walton was located on the west coast, we never got anywhere near Europe and certainly not Berlin.  Obviously there was a bigger picture here that I was missing at the time.  Instead, we got to make our presence known to the communist in North Vietnam.   I think we scared hell out of them but then again, maybe not so much, since they attacked the Turner Joy, an American destroyer, a year after we left and all hell broke loose.  I guess it all made sense, if you think the war in Vietnam made sense.  At the time, it sure seemed like the right thing to do.

I have tried to relive my experiences aboard the USS Walton for my own selfish purposes.  I want to leave a record for my children, but now that I’ve started this website, I hope to trigger some memories for my fellow crew members, or other tin can sailors.  If you’ve never been to sea, maybe you will get some feeling for what it was like to be trapped on a piece of steel 306′ long by 36′ wide, for two years, in the middle of organized chaos.   Where somehow the absurd made sense. 

Most of my memories are good ones, but psychologist tell us we have a tendency to forget the bad ones anyway.  My opinions are mine, I don’t expect you to agree with them.  My memories are mine also, and you may remember events a little differently.  That’s alright, I’m not writing a history book here. What follows then,  is the story of one sailor in America’s “peacetime” Navy.  I’m glad I was there.

A Sailor and His Cannon

It has been said that sailors are a bit strange because they spend so much time at sea.  for one thing, they seem to take great pride in  the size of the cannon they carry on their ships.  A sailor from, say a minesweeper, which has only a 40 mm Ack Ack cannon, is usually embarrassed to talk about his cannon because he knows that any number of sailors in the taskforce probably have a bigger cannon than he does.  On the other hand, a sailor from a battleship can be insufferable.  A battleship sailor knows full well that his cannons are some of the biggest in the fleet.

Not this can get complicated.  for example, a “Ship Serviceman” who works all day in the laundry hardly has an opportunity to even see the cannon on his ship, while a “Bos’on’s Mate” who works on deck all day and who will usually be assigned as part of a gun grew, may get to handle his cannon for hours at a time.  Since this is such an obvious fact of naval life, I think it can be safely be said that some sailors actually suffer from “Cannon Envy” and that’s a shame.

Ed Whitehead & Lou Bodiford, in front of the 5″x38″ cannon of our sister ship, USS Edmonds (DE 406).  Whitehead looks annoyed because Bodiford has just accused him of “cannon envy.”

As any target knows, who has been on the receiving end of cannon fire, it’s not the size of a sailor’s cannon that counts but how accurate and skilled they are at hitting what they are aiming at.  Also, some of those who have been around cannon fire for any length of time actually prefer a sailor who can fire their cannon slowly and for long periods of time until the target comes close to being obliterated.  Of course if the cannon misfires, that can be disappointing, not only to the sailor, but say his wife our girlfriend as well.

In any case, the two sailors above are fine examples of the best the Navy has to offer since their cannon fire seems to have destroyed much of Sasebo, Japan, where this picture was taken in 1962.  If only our present sailors were half as good as these two.  

Want To See An Ensign Get Wet?

I have a “sea story” about Ensign Shiplee.  He was the Damage Control officer for the Walton in the 60’s.  I was on watch one day in the pilot house when the Sound and Security watch reported to the OOD on the bridge.  The captain happened to be there also.  S & S reported that there was a leaking fire main on the starboard side.  So, the OOD, and the Captain, went to the starboard side, looked over, and sure enough there was a red fire main just spewing water all over the main deck. 

Shortly thereafter, the captain came into the pilot house and said to us, “Anyone want to see an Ensign get wet?”   Well, we didn’t really know what he was talking about, and he was the captain, so most of us just kind of smiled or giggled, and didn’t say anything….except for O’Conner (BM3).  O’Conner, with a shit-eating grin on his chubby little face says, ”Yeah Captain, I’d like to see an ensign get wet!”   The captain then says, “Pass the word for Mr. Shiplee to report to the bridge, on the double.”   O’Conner did just that and a few minutes later, here comes Mr. Shiplee running up the ladder to the pilot house.  We point to the bridge and say, “The captain wants you.”   Mr. Shiplee reports to the captain and the captain walks him over to the starboard side and says to him, “Mr. Shiplee, I want you to, personally, take a spanner wrench and secure that fire main. When you finish, report back to me.?  Of course Mr. Shiplee says, ‘Yes sir, or Aye, Aye sir, or something like that and off he goes.  The next thing we know, Mr. Shiplee is down on the main deck and is doing whatever had to be done to stop that spewing fire main.  A few minutes later, here he comes back up to the bridge and tells the captain that the fire main has been secured.  Of course his uniform is all wet.  I mean, really wet.  The captain says, “Thank you Mr. Shiplee, that will be all”  and Mr. Shiplee goes below.  A few minutes later in comes the captain, with a slight grin, and says to all of us in the pilot house, “That’s how you get an Ensign wet!”  Of course, we all laughed and the captain return to his chair on the bridge, obviously amused.  Of course, we couldn’t wait to tell the story to our fellow deckapes.

 Later, I got to thinking, and we talked about it, that the captain had diminished Mr. Shiplee’s authority and standing among the enlisted men by treating him like a peon.  Even at 19 I knew that wasn’t right.  Later, as a manager, I would never reprimand an employee in front of another employee.  It’s just not done, at least not by me.

The officer’s name has been changed to protect the abused.