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 Questions for the Old GuysModerators: Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | |
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dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Questions for the Old Guys Back in the days of the old fleet snorkels...the Tench Boat conversions. The old modified through sometimes several conversions....smokeboats. Back in those days boats bought Dolphind out of discretionary funds (or slush fund known as The Saltwater Savings and Loan)...sort of a pool of "non allocated funds". As I recall, most boats bought rhodium plated Gemsco Dolphins (What in the hell is rhodium anyway? I may have butchered the spelling). The yeoman kept ten or fifteen boxes of those Dolphins in the ship's safe and had to sign them out in one of those cloth covered green logs and put the qual dates and names of the lads who qualified and the date the Old Man pinned them on the fellow. Pinned them on after he had been traditionally baptised by getting tossed over the side and hauled back aboard, and had the Skipper pin them over the left pocket of a sopping wet dungaree shirt. Here are my questions...(1) Where could you go to dredge up one of those logs? I would love to get that date...I have the page from my service jacket that tells when SecNav authorized my qualification and assigned me my (SS) designation...which from my long ago recollection was damn near a month before I got my Dolphins pinned on. In my day paperwork preceeding the actual, wet shirt pin on, handshakes from Ship's Company and having your "qual fish" tossed into a cleaned out Engine Room butt kit, that you had to drink the contents of at Bell's Bar in front of all the animals of your crew, before being declared officially qualified. Where could you find out when that day officially arrived...until that took place you were still considered as a non-qual. Did they keep those logs or did they simply vanish as times changed...technology began to erase the evidence of who we were and that we were once a part of the United States Submarine Force. Everytime I ask about something in the history of the post WWII diesel boat service, I hear this repetitive diatribe about some fire in St. Louis at some records center...Stories about the commissioning of naval panels that screened the records and decided what to keep and what to feed to the Great Shredder Monster. Mechanical contraptions ate most of our histoy. It really doesn't matter, but I would like to get with Olgoat and toss off a few, the night I qualify for induction in the Holland Club...maybe drink a feminine urinal load of Heinekins to get one of Harry Lieberman's Holland Club pins (a brand new, never used ladies urinal). That just seems to be so smokeboat...reminiscent of the old max depth 412ft days...the old, " two thirds speed, answeing bells on two main engines"days and the "Take er down to six five feet, answering bells on the battery" days...the flat hats and fart sacks uniform of the day, days....the green mold baloney and tire patch cheese mid-rats days....I want to repeat some of the old SubRon Six traditions the night, I requalify and get to shake my fellow old coots hands. I want to generate the wherewithal to hoot, holler and bark at the moon on that night. I want to open my computer and find e-mails from Ator, Clear, Krup, Roche, Gardner the bagpiping USMC corpsman, Pig Henry, John Wynn, The Duchess of Lumpy, Corabelle, Luther, Harry Lieberman...maybe Blue and POD...and if Gentry hasn't cut my throat before then maybe Don could s how up long enough to toss a brick or set us all on fire...Maybe, me'n Goat, Bruce, Arthur Gaines Smith and Chief Joe could toss one of Cora's or Patti's garter snaps in a bucket of suds and drink for that. That would be special. What in the hell happened to Carlings BLACK LABLE BEER?...Man, that stuff could eat the lining of your kidneys. I would love to go to that sterile asphalt parking lot the unimaginative idiots built after they bulldozed Bells...and do some imaginative triangulation and figure out the location of the mens room floor drain and pee down it like all the SubRon Six animals did on pay day night...sing Tommy Cox songs...with old retired barmaids and grown old pier dollies and good time girls. Eat BEER NUTS, Slim Jims and pickled hard boiled eggs (Bell's gourmet Breakfast of Champions), play "DON'T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN" BY JOHNNY CASH...LA BAMBA...and (Thelma exact quote) "Those gahdam Singing Nuns", and rent a barmaid so we could all pat her fanny all night. Well it's racktime...gotta jump in the rainlocker, drown my fleas...scrub my teeth...Check in with my little Norwegian God recalled...and fall asleep dreaming of that garter snap the Duchess and Cora are going to mail me. Folks they were magical days when submariners didn't believe in any air they couldn't see...When second hand smoke made up 80% of the breathable atmosphere when you passed 300ft....When you couldn't pass for a cook unless you were unshaven, wearing an apron that looked like a slaughter house wipe-down rag...chewing and eating an unlit seegar...and had at least one tattoo of a nekkit huls girl and pre Eisenhower era Kentucky Derby winner...and could say, when you were six hundred miles at sea..."You sonuvabitches don't like it...Eat down the street." As the date rolls around and the memories return kalidiscope fashion...Girls, start an archiological dig for one of your old 1940's or 50's girdles and find that garter snap to toss in the Miller Lite bucket. Pat Householder will probably mail me a rabid iguana or shoot me for this post. DEX | ||
| Pig |
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| Plankowner Posts: 5024 Location: Gulfport, MS | Subject: RE: Questions for the Old Guys All of the "fun to read" records were tossed out. The most useful, and also most important, was the Quartermaster's rough log. He would write down everything that happened during the watch... maybe three or four pages during the mid watch ...lots more during the day watches. Then, at the end of the watch, the OOD would take that log to the Wardroom and copy all of the stuff he thought was important into the Official Deck Log and sign for his watch. That usually took three or four lines and was mostly times and course changes. All the good stuff was left out. That said, the Deck Logs are available at the National Archives in College Park, MD. They will include entries for " Mustered the crew at quarters for Captain's personnal inspection" and other official notations. If you read the deck logs forward from the date you were authorized as "qualified in submarines" you will come to the entry for the day they held the next inspection... that shold be the date you are looking for. If you want to drive over there and look through the logs, give me a call and I'll tell how to do it. | ||
| TSpoon |
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| Great Sage of the Sea Posts: 561 | Subject: RE: Questions for the Old Guys You mean that day aboard the Tirante when they woke me after hitting the rack from putting in an Equalizer charge and said the CO wants everyone but the below decks watch top side for quarters will be in there. The point was I had hit my rack in the FTR with my battery well dungarees still on sans shoes and was told to be topside in 10 seconds or less. I had to go up the the engine room hatch so I could sneak into the back of the line up. Yes, the CO was on a witch hunt becaue he said we had been looking slovenly at quarters lately. The crew was lined up in two lines both facing inboard. The CO, XO, COB, and Yeoman to take notes were going down the port side as I slid into the Starboard line about half way forward. As I realized they were doing a surprise inspection I sort of dozed off until I felt the hot breath of the CO in my face. His face was blood red from the shock of seeing me looking sharp in my best and holiest dungarees. He tried to talk but could only say "What in the hell is this Spoon?". The COB and Engineer tried to calm him by saying I had been up all night putting in the charge and had been asleep as per the custom for charging EN's and EM's. He kept glaring at me until he muttered something uninteligible and stormed off without checking the rest of the crew. The XO dismissed the crew as my Chief, the Engineer, the XO, the Yeoman and other assorted friends crowded around and gave me that you are screwed look. Some of my friendlier shipmates were laughing at me for they thought I would surely be keel hauled. Nothing was ever said again and we never had another surprise personnel inspection the rest of my time aboard. I would love to read that report.lol T.Spoon, DBF | ||
| dex armstrong |
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COMSUBBBS Posts: 3202 Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Questions for the Old Guys I now have the info thanks to a fellow who kept a diary during his naval service and found a reference to my qualification. Thanks Pig...but I'm out of the woods. DEX | ||
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