While in precom for a new Spru can in San Diego, all of the wardroom’s officers were required by the PCO to attend an OOD refresher course. One of our lectures was by an OSCS who had been in the Belknap CIC at the time of the collision. Though delivered in a calm, quiet fashion, that narration left the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up. A year later I came to need that lecture as I maneuvered in the close vicinity of a CV.
First deployment (1967) as an RDSN/RD3 was to the North Atlantic as part of HUK group aboard DE-1027. That was combined with a Med cruise. I was a low level CIC minion but noticed how tense folks were when in station "2SNX". In November 1967, a newly minted RD2 I transferred to DDG-5 in January 1968 and deployed to the Med twice during my tour. First time we had no RDC or RD1 so the senior RD2 made me the LPO and he sat back and bowed out as the "Chief". I was 19. Learned pretty quick why the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when doing plane guard for a Carrier. The CIC watch officer and CIC watch supervisor had to read the Captain's night orders when coming on a night watch and our CO always drew attention to the blurb "Eternal vigilance is the price of victory", a variation on an old theme. As if anyone needed more motivation to be vigilant when operating with a Carrier, HMAS Melbourne's collision with USS Frank Evans in June 1969 sure brought that lesson home on my second deployment on DDG-5. There was not another ship I ever served on where the Captain's standing orders didn't include that he be immediately notified when and Aircraft Carrier was detected operating within 20 miles.
Hah! I remember back in 1975 we were deployed on FF-1071 to WestPac and operating with a CVA. We were out ahead of the Carrier in a screening station. I was off watch in a dead sleep at about 0200. All of a sudden several of us woke up and instinctively yelled "Wake up!!!" and then in our skivvies ran from the Chief's mess topside to the main deck. The ship was dead quiet, no lights, we were dead in the water. We had lost the load. About half the crew was topside by this time. We wondered and talked among ourselves about how anybody could sleep though that silence with a Carrier out there not much more than 5 minutes away. I'll admit I was terrified at the time.
While in precom for a new Spru can in San Diego, all of the wardroom’s officers were required by the PCO to attend an OOD refresher course. One of our lectures was by an OSCS who had been in the Belknap CIC at the time of the collision. Though delivered in a calm, quiet fashion, that narration left the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up. A year later I came to need that lecture as I maneuvered in the close vicinity of a CV.
First deployment (1967) as an RDSN/RD3 was to the North Atlantic as part of HUK group aboard DE-1027. That was combined with a Med cruise. I was a low level CIC minion but noticed how tense folks were when in station "2SNX". In November 1967, a newly minted RD2 I transferred to DDG-5 in January 1968 and deployed to the Med twice during my tour. First time we had no RDC or RD1 so the senior RD2 made me the LPO and he sat back and bowed out as the "Chief". I was 19. Learned pretty quick why the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when doing plane guard for a Carrier. The CIC watch officer and CIC watch supervisor had to read the Captain's night orders when coming on a night watch and our CO always drew attention to the blurb "Eternal vigilance is the price of victory", a variation on an old theme. As if anyone needed more motivation to be vigilant when operating with a Carrier, HMAS Melbourne's collision with USS Frank Evans in June 1969 sure brought that lesson home on my second deployment on DDG-5. There was not another ship I ever served on where the Captain's standing orders didn't include that he be immediately notified when and Aircraft Carrier was detected operating within 20 miles.
Hah! I remember back in 1975 we were deployed on FF-1071 to WestPac and operating with a CVA. We were out ahead of the Carrier in a screening station. I was off watch in a dead sleep at about 0200. All of a sudden several of us woke up and instinctively yelled "Wake up!!!" and then in our skivvies ran from the Chief's mess topside to the main deck. The ship was dead quiet, no lights, we were dead in the water. We had lost the load. About half the crew was topside by this time. We wondered and talked among ourselves about how anybody could sleep though that silence with a Carrier out there not much more than 5 minutes away. I'll admit I was terrified at the time.
As an ENTERPRISE Nuke, there was rarely a watch where something didn't require attention.
BT1 was on the ball, paying attention. Might very we have saved lives.
The OOD that watch had been my DivO on Courtney.