LARRY'S RAMBLE: 1964

Saturday, June 4, 2011

1964

The Gulf of Tonkin "incident". - click

I most remember 1964 for the incident involving the USS Maddox (Gulf of Tonkin) even though it happened pretty late in the year. The First Marine Aircraft Wing was based in Japan and Hawaii, they were "called up" immediately after that incident. The supply depot where I worked had pre-stocked items they would need, plus one of the units (squadrons) found out the oxygen systems in some of their planes were contaminated, the needed Nitrogen to purge those systems. We had some nitrogen but still needed more, after calling ships in port we found enough in stock on board the USS Piedmont, a Destroyer Tender repair ship. I checked out a five-ton flatbed truck, an International with only 400 miles on the odometer, nice. I was parked on the pier and the storekeepers on the Piedmont were lowering a pallet loaded with 12 bottles of nitrogen to my truck using the ships crane. Either the cable snapped, or the wood gave way under the weight of the load, anyway as a result the whole pallet dropped the remaining fifty feet right on top of the cab of that new truck! Squashed would be an appropriate term! I was not in the truck, it's not allowed because something like this could "possibly" happen. I called for another truck, the Military Police, and went back to my command. It was an accident and no action was taken for or against anyone. During the time we were deploying that air wing we had worked 96 hours straight, we were treated to a good meal, a good sleep and a day off, the exercise had involved all military personnel, there were a lot of us. We had not only storekeepers but hospital corpsmen (2), yeoman (1), journalist (1), seabee equipment operators and steel workers (for heavy lifting or moving), we all worked together and got the job done.
Other than that it was a pretty routine, for me, year; not a lot of trouble, just worked and played. There were no arrests! I had a few months left in Japan at the end of the year.
One more thing I remember is that a good friend, now aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, a carrier, had arrived in port he said "those Beatles sure are hot right now", I didn't know who the Beatles were, I did soon after.
Early in the year there was a British carrier in port, HMS Victory and two of us were assigned to help them "overhaul supply" to comply with NATO instructions, which had adopted the US system of part and stock numbers, it's not complicated. They were quite a crew, very entertaining and they had rum in the afternoon! We were done in 10 days and they got underway for Southeast Asia. Another experience that not many people have had; chalk one up for the geezer!