My Memoirs

(A Work in Progress)

Early April 1973

I begin my story here at a crossroads in time when I went from being a country bumpkin from Arkansas drifting through my obligatory military service to becoming a career sailor. Perhaps not so coincidentally I was living in an apartment behind the bar district know as “The Crossroads”. In April 1973, after “peace with honor” had been declared and I had served off North Vietnam for 18 straight months with very few breaks, I was back at Naval Communication Station, Philippines (NCSP), San Miguel, Philippines on a long break from the back-to-back deployments. NCSP served as the parent command from which Communications Technicians (CT’s) were sent to augment ships heading to the coast of Vietnam in what was called “Direct Support” operations. These CT’s were area “experts” in providing signals intelligence to the Navy task groups operating in NCSP San Miguel’s Area of Responsibility (AOR). San Miguel’s AOR covered the South China Sea, Malacca Straits and the Indian Ocean. Vietnam had been it’s main focus since the early 1960’s.

At first this down time was a welcomed respite. From October 1971 until April 1973 I had server aboard US Aircraft Carriers as part of the “Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club” on Yankee Station providing cryptologic support to air operations off the coast of North Vietnam that included countering the North Vietnamese “Easter Offensive” that began in March 1972. During that time I had spent only about 14 days back at San Miguel, the rest of the time was spent working 12 hour watches, 7 days a week with the exception of an occasional 4 day liberty call (one day for each watch section on the ship) at one of the nearest WestPac liberty ports* which followed 60 days or so of operations.

This was the first time I had come back “home” without another set of TAD** orders already typed up and waiting. By April 1973 US combat troops were out of Vietnam; the last American POW was home and the Vietnam war was over for America¹. It didn’t end and it wouldn’t end for another two years but this was a turning point, a true crossroads for America and for me.

You would think I would have enjoyed the break after such a grueling schedule but before long I was missing the action that combat operations provided. I requested flight duty; the guys in flight billets flew out of Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Philippines and were back home every night for beer and parties. I was told I would have to wait until a billet opened up. Now with little mission left for us at San Miguel, I and many of my shipmates found ourselves spending a lot of time running the bars in The Crossroads just outside NCSP with plenty of free time on our hands. During this period I had the good fortune to meet Teresa Macale Daganta and we almost immediately setup housekeeping. Tess had an ID card that said she was 23 years old (fake documents in the Philippines were easy to get), I figured she was probably around 18 or 19. She turned out to have just turned 16. She was beautiful, intelligent and and had the sweetest accent unlike any other Filipino I had ever heard. She became the center of my universe and was central to my decisions on about nearly everything I did from then on.

* Usually Subic Bay, Philippines or Singapore but I did have one liberty in Hong Kong and one in Yokusuka, Japan.
** Navy for “Temporary Additional Duty” known as TDY (Temporary Duty) in the other services. The Navy’s distinction meant you weren’t exempt from any of your normal duties while away. Yeah, that is pretty much impossible but it was the Navy way.

June 1973

As I said, the war in Vietnam wasn’t really over until the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. The US Navy decided it needed to keep up almost continuous operations in the South China Sea off Vietnam just to let them know we were still around. The Cryptologic Department at NCSP decided since combat operations were not likely only the Commander Carrier Group (COMCARGRU) staff, who was always embarked on an Aircraft carrier, would be augmented with cryptologic personnel. The Charger Horse Coordinator, a cryptologic offer also TAD from San Miguel to the COMCARGRU would dispatch the CT’s from the COMCARGRU flag to the Cryptologic Division officer, permanently assigned to the ship. He owned all our cryptologic resources so there was no change in the environment for me. This would reduce the number of people required to support the operations as our numbers were rapidly declining through attrition with transfers to other duty stations or folks leaving the Navy altogether. We, the CT’s assigned to augment the staffs, were supposed to deploy one month out on the ships and one month back at NCSP. My turn came up on 7 June 1973. I augmented the COMCARGRU Five staff on the USS Constellation (CVA-64) until 17 June; cross decked (flew by helicopter) to the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43); cross decked again on 24 Jun to COMCARGRU Three on the USS Hancock (CVA-19) and then on 5 July back to COMCARGRU Five on the Constellation. I was back at NCSP on 17 July; a total of 40 days deployed. Not bad, pretty close to the 30 I was told and far better than the 60+ days we had been doing.

My next deployment began 27 days later on 13 August, not bad, just a little less than the 30 we were supposed to get. Time at home, that is San Miguel, had suddenly become more important to me given the relationship I had developed with Tess. I was back out with the COMCARGRU Five staff on the USS Constellation for 14 days beginning 27 August and then back at NCSP until 6 October 1973 spending 40 days ashore; great, we’re making up for lost days. I should have gotten even more days ashore as we had a new guy check in, I think his name was Jack Flint, and he was next in line to be deployed. They asked me to go out in his place so he could get his new wife over to the Philippines but would relieve me once that was accomplished. So on 6 October I headed back to COMCARGRU Three on the Coral Sea; cross decked to COMCARGRU Seven on the Hancock and got news that I wouldn’t be relieved on time because Jack had to move his wife from off base housing to on base housing. I finally got back to San Miguel on 17 December 1973 after a 70 day deployment. To make up for it, the command told me Jack had taken the open flight billet while I was deployed. I never got to meet Jack’s wife. She decided in the meantime that she didn’t like the Philippines or Jack and returned to the States.

Early Years

Lets move back in time a little bit. I was born in Rogers Memorial Hospital on 13th street in Rogers Arkansas on 13 December 1951. I was third from the last of seven kids, five boys and two girls. I attend Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic school from grades one though eight. Since my birthday was fell too late in the year to register for first grade when I was 6, I had to wait an entire year before I could start first grade; a whole year older than the other kids, how embarrassing. Anyway, on the day of enrollment mom loaded up the car with us kids that were going to St. Vincent. While mom was inside, I was out in the school yard where I met Mark Turner. He was held back having to repeat first grade and was also seven years old; great, now everybody is going think I flunked first grade! Mark and I were off playing behind the school when mom finished her work and left without me. It seemed like an eternity sitting in the hot son in front of the school until mom discovered me missing and returned to get me. I’m sure that the tutoring, care and discipline the Benedictine Sisters so generously bestowed upon me serves to influence my lack of self confidence to this very day.

I started my freshman year of high school at Rogers Junior High School on poplar street. It was the old Central Ward Elementary school and now where the Frank Tillery Elementary School stands. I played on the Ridge Runner’s football team that year but didn’t go back the next year because my wrists were too week to handle the crab crawls required during practice drills. I faced a lot of bullying throughout my high school years. Most of the boys thought I was “queer” because I was timid, shy and very quiet spoken. Along with finding a core group of friends that were much nicer, I finally got a “steady girl” my senior year which put a stop to some of the harassment.

By my senior year, the war in Vietnam had become very unpopular and most young men were finding ways to avoid the draft. With my poor school performance and even poorer economic condition, there was no way I could get into college. After graduating I worked for my dad on construction projects but by August, facing a sure draft call and knowing dad expected me to have acquired skills through genetics and not his coaching, I joined the Navy.

In the Navy

I entered the Navy on the “Delayed Entry Program” so I didn’t actually head to boot camp until November 1970. When I took my induction physical and assessment tests in Little Rock, I was pulled aside into a room for an interview with a petty officer. He tried to talk me into extending my enlistment in the Navy to six years for a billet in the nuclear program and an instant advancement to petty officer 3rd class after completing “A” school. I told him there was no way I wanted to spend 2 extra years in the Navy. While awaiting my flight from Little Rock, Arkansas to Orlando, Florida I picked up a newspaper that was lying on a seat. There I saw an article about Admiral Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations, who said he was going to allow long hair on sailors and beer machines in the barracks. No crew cut in boot camp? The Navy was looking better all the time.

This would be the first airplane flight in my life. It was a puddle jumper. The first stop would be Shreveport, Louisiana. The weather was very stormy and the plane was bounced around pretty violently. Through the window I could see the wings bending and flapping like a bird taking flight. Our approach to Shreveport was delayed due to a tornado in the area. When we did land, there were leaves and limbs littering the field around the runway. We headed on to Pensacola, Florida without indecent. Orlando, Florida would be the next stop but we were told we couldn’t land there due to a dense ground fog. We went on to the the last stop for the flight at Miami, Florida. We got in around midnight. Me and another young man from Arkansas were told we would have to wait in the terminal for a flight back to Orlando. The airport was almost completely closed and it was an uncomfortable, cold and a miserably long wait until dawn when crew members started showing up and man the plane at the gate. Before long we were on our way to boot camp.

I started boot camp at the Naval Training Center (NTC), Orlando, Florida on 12 November 1970 just after company 198 had formed up and began their training. I had to wait two weeks for company 199 to form up. I celebrated Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas and New Years Day in boot camp, away from home for the first time. I was definitely home sick. The companies that had formed up before ours had earned enough time to rate Christmas leave, but we were stuck in limbo for two additional weeks while everybody else was gone. That’s four weeks of dead time in boot camp; it seemed a lifetime. My choices for a rating classification after boot camp were (1) Navy Construction Battalion, builder, (2) Commissaryman (cook) and (3) Communications Technician Radio. Fortunately I was granted my last choice. I graduated on 5 February 1971, just over 12 weeks in an 8 week course, and headed home for a couple weeks leave.

I arrive at the Naval Communications Training Center (NCTC), Pensacola, Florida on 22 February 1971 and chipped paint on lawn mowers for the First Lieutenant’s office for a couple of weeks while waiting for my “A” school class to form up. We were the first class to be taught on a new computer system nicknamed “Ralph”. Everyone was surprised to see some of us closing out basic speeds in two or three weeks so they put us on tapes of actual over-the-air manual Morse transmissions. The sound and cadence of it was nothing like the computer generated code so it turns out we had learned very little. I spent many evenings in remedial code class trying to catch up. My good friend, Carol Astbury, closed out of basic and was sent to gate guard duty waiting for his interim security clearance to start the advance portion of our training. I decided I’d stall in basic and not join him in such crummy duty. The instructor came to me a couple weeks later and said: “Martfeld, your clearance is in. If you close out today you can start advanced next Monday”. I closed out and was fortunate that Carol’s clearance came through as well so we were in the same advanced class.

We graduated “A” school in July 1971 where I finished in the middle of my class. Carol finished in first place and got his choice of duty. He picked Bremerhaven, Germany. I had requested duty stations in Scotland, Germany and another site in Europe but was ordered to the Philippines. I thought I was being sent to hell. The only image I had of the Philippines was an ox drawn cart on my travel motif lunch pail from the 5th grade. After a couple of weeks leave at home in Arkansas I traveled to San Francisco and caught a Grey Hound bus up to my sister’s place in Petaluma, CA. and spent a day or two with her. She dropped me off at Travis AFB where I would catch my TWA charter flight to the Philippines.

Heading Overseas

I arrived at Travis in the early afternoon on 25 July but the flight wouldn’t leave until about 11:30 pm. It was a long and boring wait. The war in Vietnam was raging hot and heavy and the terminal was packed with young soldiers in full combat gear. There was little room to sit and the floor was covered with duffel bags and weapons. Eventually a few other CT’s I knew from “A” school showed up so I didn’t feel totally isolated anymore.

The flight was a World Airways military charter aboard a “stretch” 707 which was a Boeing 707 with an extra eight feet of length for more seats in the cabin. The Seats were close together and every one was filled. It took forever to load. Lots of soldiers were carrying on gear that they couldn’t stow and trying to get into seats that were too small. About half the flight was filled with dependents, wives and children and the kid right behind me, in a middle seat, was a brat that kept kicking the back of my chair the entire flight. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we taxied to the end of the runway and started our takeoff. The plane was overloaded; the engines were wound up about as tight as the pilot could get them. He released the brakes and we began to lumber down the runway; clump-clump… clump-clump… clump-clump a litter faster and closer together with each second that ticked by. Eventually we were rattling and shacking down the runway at a high rate of speed. An Air Force pilot had the window seat next to me. I peaked out as best I could and saw the blue runway lights flying past us in a dark, drizzly night. “There goes the first abort marker” he announced. The airplane was beginning to bounce over the runway. “There goes the second abort marker”. By now I was sure the aircraft was going to shake to pieces. “There goes the third abort marker” and then the plane lifted off the runway with a huge BOOM as the wheel struts fell to the bottom of their sockets. Needless to say, it scared the living hell out of me but we were finally on our way and I naively was looking forward to getting to the Philippines. Naive because I had no idea how grueling the hours on this airplane would be. We were supposed to stop in Anchorage, Alaska but since we had the “good fortune” of a tail wind we went strait to Yokota AFB, Japan. It took about 14 straight hours of flying time in that tiny, cramped seat with kids kicking a screaming the entire way.

We got to Yokota at about 4 am. The parents were out of diapers, the kids were tired and hungry and not a single convenience facility except for the public bathrooms were open. No snack bar or restaurant, no shop for diapers or something to read; just hard, plastic terminal seats where we waited for the plane to be refueled and a new crew to take over. After about 2 hours we boarded again, but this time the cabin was only about half full as some of the passengers were headed to duty stations in Japan.

It was another 5 hour flight to Clark AFB, Philippines. We got in at about 9 am and those of us who would be catching ground transportation to other duty stations were out of luck. There was a labor strike at Clark and all the gates were closed. Nobody came in or went out. We were told to stay in the terminal where we disembarked because a flight was coming from Cube Point Naval Air Station to take us out. It was the middle of the rainy season in the Philippines and we sat tired, dirty and hungry in those hard terminal seats watching and old C-47 (DC 3) out on the apron in the rain with a guy in a green flight suit pounding on a cowling or something on the right side engine which was facing the terminal. I felt sorry for him even in my state of fatigue and hunger. We complained to anybody that looked like they were associated with the terminal that we needed to get something to eat. Finally at about 11:30 or 12 they told us we could go to the cafeteria. A greasy hamburger and burnt french fries never tasted so good! We didn’t venture far from our terminal area as we were told we would board just as soon as our flight arrived.

Back in the terminal to await our aircraft from Cubi, the rain was still coming down in buckets and that poor guy was still beating on the C-47 engine. Finally at about 3 pm an airman showed up at the podium and told us our flight to Cube was ready. About 25 or 30 of us were marched over the tarmac to the airplane the guy had been beating on and we boarded. Women and children got the regular airplane seats that faced the rear of the plane and the sailors got the sling seats along the sides. With everyone aboard we heading toward the end of the runway for takeoff. The “load master”, the guy that had been beating on the engine had the door open and was keeping his eye on that right engine. We started our takeoff and he still hung to the open door until just after we lifted off. He finally latched the door and we began spiraling up through the heavy clouds and rain to gain enough altitude to clear the mountain range between Clark and Subic. From our sling seats we could easily see out the windows. Every now and then there would be a break in the clouds and we could see the mountains which seemed very close. It only took about 20 minutes to get up and over the mountains and land at Cubi Point.

I don’t remember how we got from the Cubi terminal down to the main gate area on Subic Naval Base, but we were in the provost Marshall’s office asking how to get to San Miguel. The sailor behind the counter told us we’d need to check into the transit barracks and they would take care of onward transportation. Fortunately there was a sailor in civilian cloths in the office who was stationed at San Miguel. He told us not to go to the transit barracks, that the bus to San Miguel was due to leave shortly. Turns out the transit barracks were some old floating barracks on a barge tied up across the street with terrible living conditions. We would probably have been put on working parties until they sorted out our orders.

The San Miguel sailor showed us to an old navy gray school bus and we got aboard. It wasn’t crowded but it had no air conditioner and the windows were all down even in the rainy, muggy tropical climate. We had been in our dress whites with no change of clothes since before we left Travis. This bus just made us much dirtier and more wrinkled than we had already become. I worried about the impression my slovenly appearance would have when I checked in at the quarterdeck . We went out the back gate of Subic and started through the mountains around Subic Bay in the still pouring rain. We went past the bars at Subic City where some girls were out under the eves of the tin roofs showering in the rain, naked and unconcerned about the passer-byes. The road was rough, very narrow with lots of potholes full of water. I was looking at the road ahead watching the slow moving motored tricycles coming up quickly on the bus. When we passed, they were so close I couldn’t see them out the window and I was sure they must be getting run over but every time they would reappear right behind us unharmed. I couldn’t believe it. I would later learn these roads were pretty tame compared to the streets in cities like Manila.

We finally arrived at NCSP late afternoon on 26 July and checked in at the quarter deck, then got our barracks assignments. I was assigned a bunk on the third deck of “Charlie” barracks, an older open bay barracks where the occupants carved out little cubicles of about 8 men each using the bunk beds and lockers as dividers. There were some window type air conditioners in the barracks but the air was still damp and moldy. I don’t remember much of what happened after I found my bunk but I must have showered and hit the rack. I woke up the next morning, had breakfast at the chow hall and began my in-processing.

San Miguel

The heavy monsoon rains finally broke for a while and revealed the little base at San Miguel for what it was, a comfortable, fun and beautiful place for duty. For such a small base, San Miguel had a lot of amenities: A nine hole golf course, a beautiful and modern community center called the Blain Community Center which housed the library, hobby rooms, classrooms and other facilities. The base Olympic sized swimming pool was just outside the Blain Center. The new enlisted club opened not long after I arrived and there was a small but adequate Navy Exchange, a geedunk (small cafeteria), Post Office, Barber Shop, ball fields, gymnasium, etc. San Miguel also had an award winning chow hall that served excellent food. Unlike most military chow halls of the day, San Miguel had nicely set tables and plenty of hired help so there was no busing your own dishes to the scullery. It was almost like eating in a restaurant.

My favorite amenity at San Miguel was the “Nipa Hut”, a bar built like a traditional Philippine house that stood on stilts at the back gate leading out to the beach on the South China Sea. This area also housed the base picnic grounds and pavilion; another place of some delightful memories. Me and a group of friends headed down there for the sunset every chance we got. John Hibbs, a close friend and barracks mate of mine, told us about the fabled “blue flash”: just as the sun would set below the sea it would spark a quick blue flash of light as the sunlight pierced the water. We never saw a blue flash while I was there, but we always got our daily dose of vitamin “C” as we consumed our share of Harvey Wallibangers from the bar and enjoyed the fresh sea breeze and beautiful sunsets.

Off base there were the Crossroads, a bar district just a short tricycle ride down the road from the main gate and the city of San Antonio, Zambales, Philippines just another mile or two down the road from the Crossroads. San Antonio was a small town that was clean (by Philippine standards) and friendly. The base softball team would play the San Antonio team about once a year in the town square. If San Antonio and the Crossroad weren’t enough to keep you occupied you could take the shuttle bus, yes that same grey monster that initially brought me to San Miguel, which made daily runs to Subic Bay Naval Base and Cubi Point Naval air station. The bars in Olongapo City just outside the gate at Subic were large, air conditioned and had excellent live bands and very cold San Miguel beer for the fleet sailor’s shore leave enjoyment. All the facilities on the Subic/Cubi complex were much larger and better equipped than at San Miguel. I never liked visiting the Subic Bay area when the aircraft carriers were in port because every facility would be full of fleet sailors, many of whom were drunk and obnoxious.

My barracks mate, I think his last name was Collins (pictured above under the dental clinic sign), was into photography and it also interested me. We went to the base exchange and he helped me pick out my first camera. It was an Asahi Pentax 35mm with interchangeable lenses and known for the quality of lenses they made. Our first photography outing was to the beach out the back gate of San Miguel. We walked down the beach to barrio San Miguel for which the base is named and I got a pretty good lesson on using my new camera. I still have many of the pictures we took. I’ll be forever grateful for my shipmate’s help, I’ve never lost interest in photography even though I have never developed the patience to be any good at it.

A group of us sailors from San Miguel decided we would climb up to the water fall on the mountain we saw everyday on the base. You could usually see waterfall, during the rainy season at least, and it’s beauty lured us into the expedition. To go there you had to inform the command and inform the mayor’s office in San Antonio to make sure there was no unfriendly activity going on in the area. There were about five of us but I can only remember John Hibbs, a good friend. It was quite a trek; we took a jeepney as far as the Pamatawan river and began our hike. It was much farther than it looked from the base but we worked our way up the mountain and through the jungle to reach the falls. It was absolutely beautiful but I don’t think even one of us brought a camera. We knew it would be a rough trip and we weren’t sure how secure it would be so I intentionally left my Pentax in the barracks. At the base of the falls there was a beautiful and refreshing pool to cool off in which everybody but me did. I headed on up the steep cliff to reach the top of the first fall about 30 feet above the pool, fighting my way through the thick bamboo and worrying about the green bamboo vipers we had been warned about. The going only got tougher from there so I abandoned my expedition and decided to shimmy down the sheer cliff of the falls. It was very slippery and after only short distance I slipped down the rest of the way and splashed ass first into the pool right next to John. I just missed a rock spire inches below the waterline. I banged my wrist up pretty good on the it but fortunately I wasn’t impaled. We got back to base too late for the chow hall so we cleaned up and had a celebration with steak dinner in the newly build Wayne D. May enlisted men’s club.

The barracks were not very comfortable. I was moved from Charlie barracks to Foxtrot which had no air conditioners at all. The front and back walls were louvered aluminum windows which let in a lot of breeze when there was one but was stifling when they had to be closed during the nearly constant downpours that occurred during rainy season. Despite the numerous floor fans that were always humming and pushing air, the dampness of the tropical climate could not be abated. The beds felt damp and musty and we had to put electric heating rods in our lockers to prevent mildew. We were also required to use mosquito nets over our bunks but I would still get bitten when my arm or hand would touch the netting after I fell asleep. I pictured a mosquito I called Marcos perched on the edge of the mosquito net just waiting for an opportunity for a his dinner. Fortunately I was not in the barracks during the hot, dry season. I’m sure it was unbearable to try to sleep in there during that season. The breezes at that time of year were hot and dry like the Arizona desert. There were some perks to barracks life in the Philippines. We hired “house boys”, yes we called fully grown men twice our age boys, who did our laundry, shined our shoes and kept the barracks immaculately clean. The cost was shared among several sailors so it was only a few dollars a month for this service. My “house boy” was June with whom I had developed a great relationship with and much enjoyed our conversations. He was very wise and funny and explained a lot about the Philippines to me. Even after he was no longer my personal assistant, I would have conversations with him on returning from a deployments.

I was in a duty section (Charlie section I think) assigned to sit a Morse collection position. We ran a 2-2-2 and 80 schedule: Two eve watches, two day watches, two mid watches and an 80 hour break. This meant we came off our last mid watch dead tired so we wasted almost a full day of our break sleeping. Somebody, long before I came along, dreamt up the “off-the-midder-shitter” where at 8:00 or 9:00 am we headed out to the Crossroads for a “sked”*, an early morning bar hopping drinking party. Those who didn’t attend were labeled “non-hackers”. After too many San Miguel beers I was out of it for the rest of the break.

When I first got to San Miguel, I was in a four section watch for duty at the “Receivers” building which was about 2 miles north of the main base among the antenna fields. On my very first, or perhaps my second mid watch, before I was familiar with any of the Standard Operating Procedures, a very loud and ominous bell rang out an alarm. Everybody jumped up from their positions and began placing all their classified documents into a red bag that was on a shelf on each position. Not yet qualified on the position, I sat “side saddle” with an experienced operator so I got up with him and asked him what was happening. He told me it was the intrusion alarm. Before we had a chance to finish bagging the documents, the watch Chief came by and without slowing down said “follow me!” He lead me and about 4 or 5 other sailors to the armory, a big steel safe in the next room and handed us all an M-4 rifle and a duty belt of ammunition clips. Since I attended boot camp in Orlando, Florida before they built a firing range I had never fired a military weapon. We marched with disabled pre-WWI Springfield rifles and field stripped the M-1 but with no firing range on NTC Orlando that was the end of my small arms training. The chief dropped us all of at different access points to the building and told us to guard them. I was left in a dimly lit passageway that ended with double steel doors which led out to the burn machine. There was not another person in sight in that long, dark passageway. He posted me right next to the double doors and I figured if anybody was getting in that way, they would have to blow it in, and me with it. When the Chief came back around to check on me, I asked if I could move back a few feet and stand in a door jam for some protection. He agreed and left again.

I decided to check my ammo clips and found the snaps on the duty belt had rusted shut. I could only open two clips of 4 rounds each. I sure hoped nobody came through those doors. Turns out a gang had tried to break into the bank on the main base. When the young (though probably a little older than I was at the time) marine guard just outside the front door in a guard shack heard the chatter on his radio, he pulled the intrusion alarm. Like me, he must have been worried about the ammunition for his 45 caliber pistol because he shot a hole in the roof of the guard shack while checking his weapon. For the next couple of months things went pretty smoothly.

I didn’t venture off base until about my ninth day after arriving. Some of the guys at the enlisted men’s club decided to head out to the Crossroad and I decided to join them. This was my first exposure to Philippine culture. The girls in the bars were tiny, dark skinned with beautiful, long, jet black hair and beautiful black or dark brown eyes. I could hardly understand them with their thick accents and limited command of the English (U.S.) language. One girl asked me: “Are you a city?” I thought she was asking if I came from a large city so I tried to explain that I came from a country environment. She persisted: “No! are you a C-T?” referring to my Communications Technician rating. It was important for them to know what our rating was. CT’s were the predominant rating that patronized the Crossroads. Radiomen were second and a smattering of other rating were also represented along with the San Miguel guard marines. There was always an intraservice rivalry on which was the best rating. I assume it was important for the girls to know our ratings so as not to offend any of us with a slip of the tongue that might slight us or one of the ratings within earshot. We made our way through the bars down the right side of road until I got to Mama’s Place, the ninth bar of the evening. I had gotten a “four liner” beer, that was flat and foul tasting. “Four liner” referred to the number of lines of text on the back of the bottle. Three liners were thought to be an export quality beer while four liners were for domestic consumption. I found out years later while touring the San Miguel Brewing Company in Manila that the company had changed beer bottles and the new three liner bottles had a slightly larger rim. They still used the four liner bottles until they were exhausted but the smaller rim meant they didn’t seal as well and could become flat. At any rate, it made me sick and after throwing up in the Mama’s Place urinal trough, I headed back to base. Not long after my first sked in the Crossroads, our section Chief call for an off-the-midder-shitter. I was not going to be the “non-hacker” so I of course went on that sked. It was my first and last.

In September, the Chief came up and asked me if I wanted to join the DIRSUP** team. This meant I would be deployed on ships off the coast of Vietnam and I had joined the Navy to avoid duty in Vietnam but I was also engaged to a girl back home and had put all my pay into a high interest savings account so I was pretty broke. The tax free and hostile fire pay in the war zone would supplement my income. The Vietnamese hadn’t been shooting up any U.S. Navy warships lately so I figured it would be safe enough. After a couple weeks of training I was ordered to the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) on 6 October 1971 for the duration of their South China Sea deployment and ended my comfortable life at NCSP San Miguel.

* Sked: Short for schedule, a communications term for a scheduled contact time on a communications network.
** Navy for “Temporary Additional Duty” known as TDY (Temporary Duty) in the other services. The Navy’s distinction meant you were responsible for all your normal duties while TAD.

1971 Vietnam As Seen From Yankee Station

USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) 6 Oct 1971 – 26 Jan 72

I attended a command generated Direct Support (DIRSUP) orientation course given in the Receivers building that also housed the collection operations where I was previously assigned . The course was target orientation, mainly Morse code practice and lectures, long, droning and boring. The DIRSUP spaces were also used to create the technical support kits that deployed to every ship we manned. The tech support crew published a bunch of documents on water soluble paper so they could be easily destroyed by simply throwing them overboard in the case of an emergency destruction. They left these water soluble documents in stacks on the table for binding the next day. Geckos, small lizards which were in every building in the Philippines, security clearance or not, would crap from the ceilings they crawled over. Like bird crap but even more liquid, occasionally fell on you or stuff you were using. Well, gecko poop fell on the water soluble documents and little holes dissolved by the poop formed wherever it landed. The documents were rendered useless; so much for that innovation.

The USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) came into Subic Bay Naval Base for a liberty call and whatever upkeep was needed. I was ordered to replace a DIRSUP crew member who was transferring. Me and Bill Meahl , better known as “Far Out” whom I knew from ‘A’ school checked aboard the ship on 6 October. All but one or two people were out on the beach for liberty so there was nobody to put us to work. The Admin person had duty and showed us to our rack assignments and told us to be in the working spaces called Supplementary Radio (SUPRAD) the next morning. We stowed our sea bags and immediately left the ship to catch a bus back up to San Miguel. There was a typhoon in the area and it rained in buckets clear into the next morning. When we caught a local Victory Liner bus back to Subic Bay the roads were washed out and the mountain just outside the back gate of Subic Naval Base had washed across the road. The steep mountain side was used as a grave yard and our bus was sloshing through a foot or more of mud and rocks and coffins that had washed across the road. We were running very late for our morning check-in. When we rounded a corner I could see the Enterprise had already departed. I figured we’d be court martialed for missing ship’s movement but it turned out the ship had pulled out of port on short notice for typhoon evacuation. There must have been a thousand people on the pier waiting for the “Big E” to return. What great luck!

Within a day or two, we set sail for operations in the Gulf of Tonkin. The ship pulled out of port early in the morning while I was in still my rack recovering from the last night of liberty when we began to recover and launch aircraft in the South China Sea just offshore Subic Bay. Being my first ship I had no idea what to expect. Before launching aircraft they always fire the catapults (cats) with what is called “no loads”, no aircraft or other weights attached. My rack was right under the port cat and when they fired that first no load I was rudely awakened with a loud shoooowsh BANG and a big jolt that shook the ship as the cat hit the end of the track. I thought there must have been an explosion so I look around our berthing spaces and nobody seemed concerned. Some sailors were playing cards at a table and some were watching the closed circuit TV. I figured I must have been dreaming and turned over for a few more minutes of rest. Shoooosh BANG went the second no load. This was no dream. I jumped out of my rack, dressed and headed into SUPRAD where I began my education on carrier operations.

At this point I had been in the Navy just 10 Months and 24 days and was still a seaman apprentice (E2) and only 19 years old, but there would be no side saddle in Direct Support operations. Only the minimum number of crew were sent to perform these operations and you were expected to perform on day one. The mission was such that you could be, granted only on rare occasions, the determining factor of the mission’s success or the life and death of a pilot or other personnel. In other words, everyone took this responsibility very seriously and you had better be up to the task. No pressure; what 19 year old ever thought he wasn’t up to the task. I was thoroughly impressed with the mission and after my 3 months and 20 day in the Enterprise, I felt extreme job satisfaction and a newfound confidence.

About 10 December the Enterprise was called from her Vietnam duty on Yankee Station to go to the Indian Ocean. The Indian Pakistani war had heated up with India aiding West Pakistan in her bid for independence. The Enterprise was sent to the area in case there was a need to evacuate American Citizens or at least that was the officially stated purpose provided to the crew. We headed toward the Straits of Malacca at high speed but had to hold up off of Singapore for a COD (Carrier Onboard Deliver) aircraft that was overdue. This C2 aircraft had 6 CT’s onboard to augment our Indian Ocean mission and bring the technical support kit for that area of operations. Everyone onboard the C2 died when it crashed about 250 NM out of Cubi Point. We loitered until it was clear the aircraft was not going to make it and then headed through the Straits at 35 knots. It is quite a site to see a ship the size of the Enterprise traveling at 35 knots. The waters in the straits were as calm as a lake and the ship threw a rooster tail up behind her that was probably 30 feet tall and create a wake that “Far Out” said he would have loved to surf. We entered the India Ocean on the 15th of December, but our mission was nearly nonexistent without the technical materials we needed. The ship was never required to become involved in the war and we returned to Subic Bay on 12 January after spending 58 continuous days at sea⁷.

USS Hancock (CVA-19) 4 Feb 1972 – 21 May 72

In the nine days between the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), the newest attack carrier in the Navy at the time and boarding the USS Hancock (CVA-19), the oldest attack carrier in the Navy at the time, we were given a 96 hour liberty. Gene Polley, a country boy like me from Missouri, and I went to Manila, stayed in a nice air conditioned hotel, ate at some really good restaurants, saw the sights of a big, crowded bustling city and probably hit a night club or two. We boarded the Hancock on the 4^th of February with a team that was mostly made up of personnel from the Enterprise deployment. Our supervisor was CTR1 Keith (Skip) Sprague and some of the others in the group were Gene Polley, Jake Banta and myself. The Vietnamese linguist from Enterprise was swapped out for a much more likable and capable guy. I remember his face well, but unfortunately I’ve forgotten his name. I think his last name was Spencer. He was a great guy and a good skedder. With one exception, this group of sailors stayed together up to America’s end to the Vietnam conflict in April 1973.

We arrived on Yankee Station on about 6 February and performed normal operations until 13 March when we headed for a port call in Yokosuka, Japan. When we reached the Philippine Sea Hancock decided to have a live fire exercise and took the salt crusted covers off the 5 inch guns that were mounted forward in the port and starboard catwalks just below the flight deck. Our spaces were amidships just below the island and we had quick access to the port catwalk. Since we were in transit there wasn’t a lot to do so we were able to catch the exercise from the catwalk. When the port side 5 inch gun fired it’s first round it made a loud bang and shook the ship pretty good. We were expecting to see the shell splash down a few miles out but only a few thousand yards out we could see it skipping across the surface like somebody skipping rocks on a pond. They fired two or three more rounds with the same result before they called off the exercise. The next day we were in the mid western Pacific about another day out of Yokuska, Japan when the Soviets overflew us with two TU-95 Bear bomber aircraft. Normally we were required to have fighters in the air to escort the soviet aircraft but the weather was really rough with some green water crashing over the flight deck so we couldn’t launch. We informed the Combat Information Center of the approaching Soviet aircraft and the Ops Boss came back over the intercom with “MAN THE 5 INCH GUNS!” and we all had a good laugh. The cloud cover was so low I doubt the Bears ever got much of a look at us anyway.

We augmenters from San Miguel weren’t expecting such a northerly trip in early March and the weather in Japan felt very cold. In fact there had been a resent snow and some was still on the ground when we arrived. The first thing I did was head to the Navy Exchange to buy a warmer jacket. Skip, Gene and I took the commuter train to Tokyo and stayed a couple of nights at the New Otani hotel. We also caught the bullet train to Kobe, Japan some 500 KM west of Tokyo and had a Kobe beef dinner in one of the restaurants before heading back to the hotel. An easy day trip on the bullet train. On 22 March we headed back to Yankee Station, but it wouldn’t be normal operations anymore.

On 30 March 1972 North Vietnam started the Spring/Summer offensive better know know as the Easter Offensive¹⁰. The U.S. Navy was caught off guard and the USS Hancock was the only aircraft carrier on the line in the Gulf of Tonkin when the offensive started. The ship immediately began around the clock flight operations flying sorties some 20 hours a day. The poor Airedales, the navy aviation ratings, were catching naps on the steel decks of passage ways, on the wings of aircraft and anywhere else they could get some sleep between launch and recovery cycles. The CT’s had no ability to surge. We continued our normal 12 hour watches 24 hours a day every day. While we didn’t have it nearly as rough as the flight deck crews we never had a stand down day where air crew and ships company would take an occasional day off and book it to safety training. However, with flight operations going around the clock there was no time for complacency. We stepped up our game along with everyone else.

On the night of 17 April the USS Higbee (DD-806) was reported to have been bombed by a couple of MiG 17’s¹². We had no indication that the MiG’s were over water and I used to the accuracy of the account. However, the source sited here has a pretty detailed description of events including one of the MiG pilots name, so it is possible they got past our surveillance.

One day I was fortunate enough to come across some intelligence that indicated the North Vietnamese were trying to fly a MiG 21 down to Vinh airfield. This was their southern most airfield and having a modern fighter aircraft there would have jeopardized operations south of the DMZ and given them much closer access to our carrier operations on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. We were in the process of launching an Alpha strike of about 30 aircraft into North Vietnam so the air warfare coordinator changed their target to Vinh in mid-launch. They blew the runway out from under the MiG which was on it’s way down when the strike hit. That made this insignificant Seaman (or Seaman Apprentice) at that time feel pretty significant. It played a role in my decision a couple of years later to stay in the Navy. Operations continued at a high pace until it was time for the Hancock to rotate back to her home port in the states. On 21 May the augmenters from San Miguel cross-decked from the Hancock to the USS Midway (CVA-41)

USS Midway (CVA-41) 21 May 1972 — 8 February 1973

As our helicopter circled around waiting for the Midway’s launch cycle to complete so we could land I noticed the pilot and copilot pointing out the cockpit to something. The load master jumped up and was looking at what they were pointing at so I stood up to see what was going on. At that moment an F-4 Phantom that had just launched from Midway splashed down into the ocean a few thousand yards ahead of the ship and the F-4 pilot was swinging down on his parachute landing very near the wreckage. We found out when we got aboard that the hydraulic system had locked up and the aircraft could no longer be controlled.

I was expecting a short hop over to a ship only a couple of miles away. Instead the the ship was hundreds of miles south of us off Saigon so our helicopter ascended to 12,000 ft and, only in shirt sleeves, the extremely cold and noisy trip took an uncomfortable 2 hours.

That evening on the way to chow I passed through the area where weapons are armed and sent up to the flight deck on an elevator. Always in a rush to get the aircraft loaded and ready for the next launch, a crewman pushed the a load of 500 lb bombs on to the elevator and sent them up to the flight deck but he had not pushed the cart all the way into the elevator and the handle caught in the door tipping the cart sideways. Another crewman was holding the load of bombs from dropping down the elevator shaft using a screw driver as a wedge. At this point I was really worried about what I had gotten myself into; Midway seemed jinxed.

Air operations of Vietnam were still in full swing but there were several aircraft carriers on the line so tempo was high but not stretched as it had been when the Easter Offensive started.

Cross deck to USS Enterprise 8 Feb 73 – 13 Apr 73

Sources:

1. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html, The Vietnam War, The Bitter End 1969 – 1975, accessed: 27 January, 2017
2. https://www.airliners.net/photo/World-Airways/Boeing-707-373C/1143301, Boeing 707-373C – World Airways, accessed 19 May 2024.
3. https://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/c-47/pages/aero_c-47_182.shtml
4. https://stationhypo.com/2020/12/19/ncs-san-miguel-philippines-moved-to-clark-airbase-december-1975/, Naval Station San Miguel Moved to Clark Air Base, December 1975, accessed 19 May 2024.
5. https://www.navycthistory.com/pispofford01.html, NCS San Miguel, Philippines (circa 1967), accessed 19 May 2024.
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65), USS Enterprise (CVN-65), accessed 19 May 2024.
7. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/e/enterprise-cvan-65-viii-1971-1975.html, Enterprise VIII (CVAN-65), accessed 24 May 2024.
8. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-76000/NH-76187-KN.html, NH 76187-KN Insignia of USS Hancock (CVA-19), accessed 19 May 2024.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hancock_(CV-19)#/media/File:USS_Hancock_(CVA-19)_returning_from_Frequent_Wind_1975.jpg, Hancock returning from Frequent Wind, 1975, accessed 19 May 2024.
10. https://www.usshancockassociation.org/vietnam-war,  Vietnam War, accessed 19 May 2024.
11. https://www.facebook.com/USSMidwayVeteransAssociation/, accessed 29 Jun 2024.
12. http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/806.htm, accessed 22 July 2024.