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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: USS DRUM (SS-228)
Late in her useful life career the DRUM became a reserve boat...A boat moored at the Washington Navy Yard used to train the weekend warriors of Naval Reserve Submarine Division 5-8. She was tied up forward of a diver training barge, named THE TOM O'MALLY.....Later I think she was towed to Batlimore to replace the USS GUAVINA...not sure about that. I enlisted in the Naval Reserve in high school and was placed in USNR SUBDIV 5-8 and spent my first submarine training time tracing out systems on DRUM....I was young...hot to get qualified....an eager beaver....dumber than wallpaper paste...and thought that crawling around in tight dirty places sketching out lines and trim and drain system valves was interestinhg and fun....Back then the Navy put old moss covered senior PO's on reserve boats called Ship Keepers....What they were, were overweight lazy bastards who drank 3.5 gallons of cfoffee a day...sat around in the messdeck telling lies to each other and playing acey-doucey.....They also spent very enjoyable time looking up the skirts of any gal who came down the After Battery hatch ladder. The seat on the AB bulkhead divider on the passageway messtable bench was known as the Panty Check Petty-Officers duty station. Those old coots brewed coffee that you could transfuse an iguana with...that stuff was stronger than a bull alligator. The boat was adjacent to the Navy's Diving School and Experimental Diving Facility.....to train divers, they put them over the side in the Anacostia River. The Anacostia has a lot in common with a third world sewer....on a warm day it smells like a busted septic tank. They put these guys in deep sea diver gear, over the side of the TOM O'MALLY to do some kind of diver training stuff or just to wander around amid the wonder of Washington ghetto sewage...Everything went hunky-dory until the "bubbleheads" started walking down the side of DRUM banging wrenches on the empty tanks. That created a sound identical to living in an oil drum with folks dropping bowling balls on it. A CPO named Mallek brought six PDC's back from Norfolk....The first night the little sonuvabitches came down the outboard tanks banging on them with their wrenches, the Chief and some First Class TM, went topside...pulled the pins on two PDC's and rolled them off the inboard tanktops and let them go off next to the seawall. Some Diving School JG comes popping out of the TOM O'MALLY flying down the pier and racing across the brow...Before he could open his mouth Mallek popped to attention...salutede and said, "Pardon me Sir...You hear a loud noise??" "I sure did...you guys responsible for it?" "Are you kidding? We were trying to sleep and your divers were using their tools to bang on our tanks....and I think they musta set something off." The banging stopped. I've often wondered what happened to the leftover PDC's. Those old ancient mariners would help you out, explaining systems. operating physics, terminology and mastering the art of telling sea stories and juggling massive loads of concocted cow pies....that you sold for truth. Be good to the old DRUM she's an old salt water whore that'll steal your heart. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: USS DRUM (SS-228)
It has been years since I habve seen DRUM...about 50 years. She had her insignia, an octopus wearing a white hat pounding hell out of a drum, surrounded by Japanese flags denoting the ships she dispatched to the floor of the Pacific during WWII. The Navy had jerked her batteries out and turned the after well into a sort of wood panelled clubhouse. One nice thing about being a reservist in SubDiv 5-8 was that it gave you a really nice and interesting place to take a date to make out...(The duty ship keeper was usually parked in the wardroom watching TV or reading literature not found in the Chistian Science reading room.) Ray Stone also began his illustrious undersea career in 5-8...years after I escaped into the fleet and got suckered into the regular Navy. DRUM still was in her WWII configuration and was frequently visited by guys who had been wartime submariners who, not unlike subsequent boatsailorsw...had a million great stories that a walk through the boat brought out. The DRUM provided the stage for these true heroes to tell their tales that brought belly laughs and tears. "Ahhh you should have known Bill Davis...machinist mate...tall sonuvabitch from some hayseed town in south Alabama. I rode the ROOSTERFISH with him before the war broke out...After his second patrol on ROOSTERFISH he got orders to the TUNAFISH and got sunk somewhere off Tangora Island...I think....The bastard had an A Model and had a guy over at the air base that would sneak him motorpool gas. Me, Bill and Rocky Cunningham used pick up nurses at the Army Dispensery at Candora and grab beer from a guy who worked at the Army Air Corps officers club and spend wonderful evenings getting loaded and swimming naked as a jaybird at the beach. Rocky Cunningham never made it to VJ Day...can't exactly remember what exactly happened to him." The DRUM has a million stories in her. Seriously take good care of her...she truly deserves that. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: USS DRUM (SS-228)
Firefly says they weren't PDC's they were "sonar markers" whatever inh the hell they are...and Mallek didn't go to Norfolk to get them, he got em from some fellow over at the Naval Research Lab....Tell me, "What damn difference does it make?" Firefly can louse up a story fraster than any bastard on planet earth. DEX |
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USS DRUM (SS-228)
