| In
January 1971, the Denebola was on her way to the Med filled with
replenishment supplies for the ships already there. On the day
before
we were supposed to enter the Med, I received a message via the Red Cross
that my wife had been admitted to the hospital. She was in her
seventh month of a pregnancy and went into labor. Things did not go
well and the pregnancy ended with a stillborn child. The XO (I don't
remember his name) told me that they would send me home when the ship
reached Naples, in four or five days. This was not great news but
there wasn't much that I could do about it. The next morning, the
Commanding Officer, Carl Herrick (I remember his name) called me up to the
bridge and told me to get my things together because he had arranged for
me to leave the ship at Rota, Spain. We could not enter the port
there - but he had a buddy who was the Chief on a Naval Tugboat who had
agreed to come out and get me. I climbed over the side of the ship
onto the tug and they took me to the Naval Base. The Captain sent
ice cream and coffee for the tugboat's crew along with me as
"payment" for my transfer. The Chief drove me to the Air Station
and I was on a plane back to the states within hours. I was home
with my wife and two year old son the next morning, all because of the
concern of the officers and men on board that ship.
One of the other things
that sticks in my mind was "retro-grade cargo."
We always stopped at Rota
before returning to the states and they filled our ship with household
effects for servicemen returning to the states. They filled every
inch of space above and below decks. This
made moving around difficult, but it also made GQ drills impossible. The
crew used to really enjoy the trip back to the states uninterrupted by the
blaring horn sounding General Quarters. |
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