Saluteing my ship on veterans day

[sn-e3]

The U. S. S. BlackD D - 6 6 6

A "Bubble Head" in sixty-three, aboard Roncador, a man of war, in a made-up war.

Trouble ahead for thee, Roncador SS Three Oh One, 'tis about to score.

Mysteries of the ocean deep, I think the reserves have me to keep.

My stories start on Roncador, to which I leap.

The Black horse lopes within my scope, for Black, there's no hope.

The Black's turned to toast and we boast, if real, you could not cope.

No flak from the Black, 'till we attack, my shot is right on track.

No slack for the Black, 'tis my first "kill", I'm attacked with slaps on the Back.

No "Sea Story", I'm assigned my first ship; that's right, I'm slapped on the Black!

There's but one sub, that can boast, trip six has been deep sixed.

There's but one thing broke on the Black, their pride, that can be fixed.

Week-end drills sharpen my TN skills, between high school thrills.

To seek an end to drills, I switch to surface service, cool no frills.

On the last day of boot, orders are read, as we stood at our rack.

Once aboard Black, the "Ole' Salts" could be heard, giving advice, never a lack.

Now at last, a member of our crew, knowing soon there'll be no slack.

Sailor boy graduates boot, proud of his apprentice stripes, with a belly full of "Salt Peter".

Sailor boy hesitates, a snappy salute, now aboard he'll learn of "Willie Peter."

The skinny, "Sad Sack" of a sailor, that trips aboard Black was me, at seventeen.

The sleek mean look of the Black, 'Tis the best ship I'd ever seen.

Raring to rid himself of his "Boot Condition", a search for "Relative Bearing Grease" by the tin, can delight the crew stem to stern.

Really heaped in root of tradition, a learning of our "Tin Can", a lesson he did learn.

A ship lacks life without a crew, only rivets and plates of steel.

The Black has life with her crew, though none has laid the keel.

Longing for sleep, we grab our socks, at the sounding of the G.Q. gonging.

Wronging sleep, G.Q. drills, I.Q.'s drop and sleep keeps longing.

The typhoon's volcanic voice resounds throughout the Black, she slices into troughs, to view "Neptune's Throne."

Sick are the volatile vomit sounds, most are on their back, only a few not thrown.

The shrill sound of the boatswain pipe calls for chow, only thirty-six show up.

The ill bound not, now so worn out, from dirty sick throw up.

Shot line across, we heave around and listen to the boss.

High line across, we cleave to receive rounds without a loss.

The silvery silhouette of the ammo ship, skips upon the swells, serving up a showery spray.

Slipping alongside, spanking swells soak sailors, spirited to stow shells away.

We cruise the coast, covering grunts on the hunt and give V.C. a thump.

Black clad V.C. go runnin', as Black comes a gunnin', kicking V.C. Rump!

Detrimental to their health, Skunks sneak junks along the coast, our enemy at sea.

Dental deficient "Beetle Nut" faces, lurk during search and seizures, for elusive V.C..

The delta's chocolate waters sadly swirl around stir sticks of merchant masts and stacks.

The devil's travesty, 'tis our anchor, ghosts stir and chant, we do not last in our racks.

We know the Cong stream along the Mekong, their eyes upon us from a blind.

Mekong Delta banks abeam, Dinks that would smack a mine, have a change of mind.

Gunner's grenades geyser plumes of moisture and rotting vapor, keeping V.C. at bay.

The concussion is worth discussin', I'm here to say.

Anchored for days in the Mekong, Percussion grenades keep booming.

No aid to our quest for rest, the booming keeps the black clad yellow man from looming.

Black yearned for a break and permission to leave our mission.

Our "turning and burning" reaps R & R, for what we'd been wishin'.

R & R won't be long, but away from "Yankee Station".

No smells of cordite, alright,now for rest and relaxation.

So long Vietcong, we're goin' to Hong Kong.

Our crew will get a brew, away from "Ho" and his Cong.

"Fung Fat Water Taxi alongside", is announced.

Sailors bounding over the side is pronounced.

Mary Sue and her girls surround Black, smiles abound.

Sue's junks in a clump, begin painting Black, all around.

The deck is not stacked, the Black has to go back.

We sail back to the frey, for another whack.

"Chicken Plate" in place, the pilot's low and slow pace, he relays info. to pelt our prey.

Tree tops whippin', propeller's clickin' and we keep kickin' N.V.A. all day.

That low to the jungle, the piper pilot's nerves jingle.

A center-piece on a table of sky, he does tingle. (and maybe tinkle too!)

N.V.A. despise our eyes in the sky and wish for this pilot, off their back and in a raft.

Treacherous tracers stitch the spacious sky, seeking the sputtering spotter craft.

The pilot swirls, plunges and prays, while screaming to radio of his plight.

The Black's mount fifty-one, whirls around, ready for this fight.

Tracers all around, the rays of hope, do not abound.

Mount fifty-one hasswung around and fires only one round.

This one round, meant for effect, did astound all who were around.

Our mount, gave grief to the V.C. and relief to our spotter pilot,IN ONE ROUND!

Heralded we are not, nor is it asked by us.

Honored we are not, for us, we ask no Bias.

The bungle was not in the jungle, with the V.C..

The bungle , in hindsight we see, was with D.C..

Politics awry we behoove you, be not against us upon our return.

We're kicked aside, to be in view ofyou and colors you burn.

Young ones flee to the north, free of their plight.

Young once, we go to the north, Tonkin, to fight.

The carrier gets a fervent "Welcome Home", the lack of which, is all the Black has ever known.

The carrier has a band on the pier, which we can hear, we lear like a gnome. ('cause patience is blown!)

"Winning hearts and minds", in this far away land, we've won no fans in our own land.

Hurting our hearts in kind, on a par we're like sand, no Welcoming Band.

Deployed into war, we're a target moving fast.

Colors shifted from the mast, we're home at last.

Home now, trip six is still a target, of our own nation's scorn.

Moored on the "Mole", once more, we're forlorn.

I heard what you said of those back then, who slandered servicemen.

They had not been, where we had been, nor slain any Vietmen.

Disenter's voices became inflamed with distain, borne by vets, with such pain.

Dissenter's voices came, a truce within our own brain or insane with pain, is plain.

In this passed world, with it's sights and sounds, has blinded my spirits powers.

In decades since an ole' man sits, in soured silence, scowling at the loss of his youthful hours.

The Black's had many a crew, now none.

The Black's had many a cruise, now none.

The Black's woven us, as one.

My Brethren Of The Black, We've Won.

Dedicated To: JOHN BROCK and

ALL WHO SERVED

Poem by: Martin A. Hruz (CS3)

Aboard USS BLACK DD-666

20 DEC. 1963 -to- 23 JAN. 1967

Definitions for some words in the Poem

A "Bubble Head"= Submariner

"No Slack"- No Leeway, no give.

"Deep Sixed"- Sunk, Sinking of a ship.

A "TN"= The abbreviation of a Torpedo Man in the Navy (Actually loads and pushes the button to launch a torpedo out the tube. Knowledgeable of the types of war heads in them.)

"Boot"- Boot Camp, training for the service.

A "Rack"- the bed where you sleep.

"Old Salt"=One that's been in the Navy soo long, he's coated with dried sea water, leaving a coat of salt (instead of skin!).

"Apprentice Stripes"= Once graduated from "boot camp" one goes from one stripe (a recruit), to having a stripe added, making him a two striped,Seaman Apprentice, an actual rank that allows him to enter the fleet for service. (Having only one stripe he would still be the "rank of Recruit", and not allowed in the fleet.)

"Sad Sack"= upon about my 2nd or3rd day aboard my first ship, the Black, a cook came into the mess hall ("Crews Mess"). He saw me sitting there, yelled out, "Hey everybody, look at this guy, doesn't he look like.....a Sad Sack!" Yep, my nickname for the next 3 yrs. and 9 months that I was aboard!

"Relative Bearing Grease"= No such thing. At sea, on the compass, you have an actual heading, "like 10 degrees north". Then in relation to the ship, you have what's called "relative bearing", i.e. the bearing in which the ship is traveling in accordance, not to the compass, but relative only to the ship. Therefore, when one"thinks of a bearing" you automatically think, a little steel ball, right? When a F.N.G. arrives on board, we allknow he doesn't know the ship (How to get around and find the different spaces, i.e. engine room, radio room, etc.)

When the"New Guy" comes to you and asks, "Hey, the guys in the engine room are out of 'Relative Bearing Grease', they sent me here to the galley, do you have any?" You know that you need to send him to another space as far from the galley as possible, why? So, he can learn his way around the ship. Not a bad thing, even the officers of the ship take part in this. When the new guy finds out about there is no such thing, if he gets angry, we let him know in no uncertain terms, it wasn't a waste of his time! He now knows the ship, stem to stern!

"G.Q."= Everyone?s heard of Quarters, well "General Quarters" is a call to Battle Stations. Usually a loud gonging dull bell sounds, the a voice follows it with, " General Quarters, General Quarters, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, General Quarters, then the gonging again. During peace time, the "not a drill" part is replaced with, THIS IS A DRILL.

Believe it or not, a surface ship is made to bend. These joints are called "Expansion Joints". When in rough seas, one can hear the groaning and buckling of these joints, when they "clap" back together, the sound is scary for a sailor, sounds as though your ship is breaking up under you! That's why "The Typhoon's Volcanic Voice" is mentioned!

"Boatswain's Pipe"= Through tradition of wooden ships until today, the most senior rate in the Navy, is the Boatswain?s Mate. Watch an old sailingship type movie, when the Captain orders 15 lashes with the cat of "9 tails", the Boatswain?s Mate is the one swinging it! Therefore, any announcement made at sea, are prefaced with a small metal pipe, called the "Boatswain Pipe". Now, some sailors, like me Loved the sound, but for most, it was ear splitting annoyance! The longest call on this pipe, was for chow, about three minutes total. But, in the tradition of old, the Boatswain?s Mate's would all compete to see who could make it last the longest. (No "cat of 9 Tails" in the steel hull Navy-but they still Loved the torture!).

Note of interest: I was the only cook on theBlack, to ever sound chow call on the "Boatswain'sPipe" over the ship's intercom, then lay below to serve it!

"Grunts"= Marines ashore plowing through the jungle. At times finding themselves pinned down by enemy fire.

V.C.= Viet Cong, or N.V.A., Viet Cong where in what to us wore "Black Pajamas" and the North Vietnamese Army, wore uniforms. Seeing at times through my gun sight, so many black"PJ's" running, I would think of when I was a kid, "killing" black ants, I still was.

"Beatle Nut"= This was a nut that the Vietnamese used to chew. It blackened their teeth, at least the ones that were left. It had a tendency to rot out their teeth very fast. So whenever we would stop a junk and search it, they would look up and smile, their little "pumpkin-like smiles". Trying to convince us they were not V.C., "Amaraka Numba Won"! This had to be mentioned, due to our amazment at the first few we stopped.

"Abeam"= to any side of a ship, left or right. i.e. "Just abeam of the port side."

The Black anchored up the Saigon River, known as the "Mekong River Delta". This river makes our Mississippi look like a stream. Small boats, like WWII P.T. Boats, known as "Swift Boats" used us as "Home Base". We were anchored off to one side, so as to allow merchant ships passage up the middle. On our way up river to our anchorage, we passed sunken merchant ships, only stacks and booms or mast stuck up from these muddy waters. While up river, at anchor, grenades were thrown over the side at various times, to keep the enemy from attaching a mine to us. This they didn't like, so they would machine-gun our decks, with hopes of "knocking out a few sailors" on deck. Sleep was non-existent. Below decks it was like trying to sleep in a base drum!

"Turning & Burning"= The Navy term for going to work is, "Turn To", so in a salty sailors vernacular this becomes, "Turning and burning", 'cause you get burned out from all the "Turning To"!

R&R= Rest and Relaxation, in anybody's lingo.

"Yankee Station"= This is where Vietnam became famous, from Pres. Johnson's "Tonkin Gulf Resolution". Yankee Station was where the "Turner Joy" and the "Maddox", two destroyers that were or weren't jumped by P.T. Type gun boats off the Vietnam coast. I stood on the deck of the Black and saw machine gun holes in the Maddox's smoke stack, and chips in her paint. Then a sailor stationed on her from the Black, I met in Hong Kong. He told me of the attack and how F-4 Phantoms ran out of bullets, then dropped their extra fuel tank on the last of two boats, that attacked them! History will tell you it was a mirage on a radar scope! A mirage doesn't shoot holes in a ship's stack!

"Ho"= Ho Chi Mien. Also known, as a "Ho Chi Mien Trail." Where Viet Cong brought ammo and supplies from the North, to South Vietnam to engage our troops in battle throughout the south.

"Cordite"= Big guns on board a ship fire shells and in doing so, the mixture of the powder contains cordite. The smell is distinct and it does stink. In long term engagements the cordite burns your eyes to tears, and your nostrils burn severely. So that even the next day, when if you did sleep, you wake up but can't open your eyes, they're glued shut! One needs three or four days to rid the effects of it, so to be away from that, can be a relief that you can only imagine.

"Fung Fat Water Taxi"= the name of the small canvas topped boats that would come to our Naval Ships and bring you ashore, in Hong Kong.

Only British ships were ever allowed to "tie up to a pier" there, after all pier space was limited and they owned it at the time! A lease to the British for Hong Kong, was made after the "Boxer Rebellion". The lease was for 99 years; the lease ran out in, I believe in 1999, it was then relinquished back to the Chinese (Now Red Communist Chinese).

"Mary Sue"= A woman that, by herself, post WWII took all the orphaned girls she could find under her roof! She didn't want them to fall into prostitution to survive!To feed and house them became difficult in this period of dissemination. As U.S. Ships (Men of War) came to Hong Kong, for guess what, R&R: She approached the powers that be, and suggested that her girls would paint the ship's sides, the only payment would be the food the sailors (Cooks-Me) would throw away anyway! The idea was inconceivable that for the length of time a ship would be there, it could be completely painted, but Mary Sue promised. There were so many little junks around the massive ship; each one only had about five feet to paint! Once this feat was accomplished, every U. S. Ship that wanted to, would get painted there. The paint and supplies were furnished by each ship. The only restriction, the girls couldn't board the ships, that was fine with the girls, they didn't want to, after all our sailors had a reputation! As the years went by Mary Sue was granted permission to even paint areas onboard the ships. Just a year or so before I arrived on the Black, one of Mary Sues girls married a Boatswain?s Mate from the Black. When I went to Hong Kong my first time, we arrived behind another ship, a cruiser. As we approached the harbor, all these little junks came and formed a line behind us, throwing fire-crackers in the air! After where we had been, half the crew hit the deck. The Black, it was explained to me, was the only ship to get the "Royal" treatment. Mary Sue's girls Love the Black, 'cause one of our sailors took a girl to the States!

So, there we were, like a duck and all the little babies following behind. As we tied up to the buoy, they circled us, still throwing those awful fire works, that still made me jump, even though I now knew what they were. I fed them honorably.

"Chicken Plate"= A piper cub airplane (one engine) travels over the jungle of Vietnam, this plane has no guns, no armament, no shielding from enemy fire. The pilot is given a "Bullet Proof Vest", like the cops wear. Now, if you?re the pilot, and the ground is under you and the bad guy is shooting up at you......where would you want that vest? That's right the piper pilots would sit on that issued vest, to protect their butts! Literally!

After a while, a few ingenious guys got steel plates and sat on them, this was known as a "Chicken Plate". (SEE) So, what was he doing up there? He would spot a enemy troops and call the coordinates to the Black,we would shot one round, the if we were on target he would let us know. Then we would "open up on them, with all we had".

"Tracers"= not all bullets shot from a machine gun are "Bullets". It varies, but say about every fifth bullet isn't a bullet, it's a tracer that's bright and glowing, even in day-time. That way the shooter can see where the bullets are going and he can adjust to hit his target.

"Mount Fifty One"= Every ship has what's called a main battery, this is what is the biggest gun on the ship. On the Black our main battery was a five-inch gun (the diameter of the shell/bullet). Therefore, starting at the front we have our first main battery, it's a five inch, so 5. Then since it is the first one from the front, it's #1, together, 51 or mount fifty one. The second would be Mount 52, the third Mount 53, and so on.

"For Effect"= We would fire as I've said, one round/bullet, and see where it went. If to high, or low we would adjust accordingly. Well, it's like saying O.K. here's just one, if that's O.K., we'll give the rest to you. My Mount, 51, was used most of the time to "see" where it would go, when we shot. Well, this particular time, one round took out an enemy machinegun nest that was firing at our spotter aircraft!

"Flee to The North"= The draftees that ran to Canada. As we went North, North Vietnam, to fight.

"Colors Shifted From The Mast"= Due to the era of electronics and radar, this is mostly ceremony anymore. When at sea a ship will fly its "Colors" from the highest point on the ship, the mast head. When arriving into port, the colors (Flag) is taken down from the mast, as another is raised from the back end of the ship, on the stern. More easily seen from a ground point of view.

"Moored on the Mole"= In Long Beach, California was where the USS Black was home ported, later San Diego. Whenever the Black was in home port it was tied up on a curved piece of land, man made, that curved out into the harbor. An Admiral that was in an airplane, mentioned that it looked like a "Mole", from the air. Therefore, because he was an Admiral and others thought this to be so funny, the nickname stuck. It was so long, a bus ran out to it, to transport sailors to their ships! So, going to the "MOLE" meant we were home1

At times en-route to the states, after a long nine month tour, we would sit around and talk. I'm not going to tell you that I remember exact conversations, but one thing does stick with me.

We all agreed, for us young enough, that instead of going to the prom, we were killing Cong. A guy not fixing up his '55 Chevy, he's replacing a gun barrel. Things like that got to us. Then when we'd get back off of leave from home, "man, guys, they act as if nothings going on, there's guys dying out here and no one seems to care." Guys would come back off leave early, their girls and others didn't want them around anymore. Too much of a reminder they were, of an "unpopular war". We asked ourselves, what war is popular?

Term Definition/Feelings Felt

U.S.S. Black (DD-666)

Squadron 13 (Dec. 1963 - Jan. 1967)

Marty

[MARINEVET]

Intriguing especially to those of us in the Sea Services who know of both the USS Roncador (SS-301/AGSS-301/IXSS-301...how portions of her fairwater/conning tower still live on as display items) and the USS BLACK DD-666.

As a kid, growing up in Ohio, had a neighbor who served aboard the USS BLACK off Tarawa...stories he told...etc. Just had to go on the Net to pull up a flick...like this one...HAZE GRAY AND UNDERWAY...a very storied and smart ship!

Thanx for sharing.

Semper Fi From The Sands of Kandahar,

[MARINEVET]

OK...OHHHHKAAAAY....so the I-Net is really screwed up over here tonite...first posting attempt (seemingly) didn't take...nor did the second...or heck...even the third...and then...looks like they ALL TOOK...dang...!!!!

[Robert Ryan]

Saluting my old ships, The USS KITTY HAWK CV-63, USS CAYUGA LST 1186, USS JARRET FFG-33, USS WHIPPLE, FF 1062. Sea Duty command Helicopter Anti-Submarnine Squadron EIGHT, NAVAL BASE PEARL HARBOR, NAVAL STATION LONG BEACH, AND AGAIN NAVAL BASE PEARL HARBOR.

[39mto39g]

I road on one Navy boat and one Marine boat.
The Navy boat was USS Hermitage, LSD from Dominican Republic to Georgia.
I would have to be on a Carrier if I was in the NAVY. That ocean is just to big. And when they shoot the vehicle out from under you there is NO help. First time I seen 147 coats of paint on anything.

Ron

[sn-e3]

Yup Ron and I think I must have painted half those coats of paint daly duty was chip paint apply redlead then paint haze gray we kind of looked forward to GQ so we could get out of painting