Blewtooth

REVISITING MY FIRST SHIP: USS Barry DD933 (Destroyer)




My girlfriend and I took a trip to Washington DC and one of the most surprising sites was my old destroyer. I couldn’t have been prouder and happier to see her.
She brought back so many memories to me, some of them bitter sweet and caused me to reflect on many things. Also the many books I have read since of the interaction between ships and their crews. The difference between a pleasure yacht and a ship is big. It includes not only the size of the vessels but what is needed crew wise, to run a monster like this. A war ship is not just a ship but a military machine no different than a tank in many ways. Yet she was still a ship to me, also a cacophony of memories and voices in my head. I learned how to get along with others on it. I learned how to shut up if I didn’t want to get into big trouble. I went to Captain’s Mast (non judicial punishment) on it. I made great friends and got into fights. I also had so much fun that it was probably the greatest experience of my life. We never went to combat but we did suffer casualties by accident. We spent days and weeks on patrol. Somehow, through it all I was able to keep from being court marshaled and went on to other ships for another two years but the times I spent on the Barry were my most memorable.

I couldn’t believe she had not been turned into razor blades but there she was; preserved as a display in the Washington Navy Yard. I had first stepped aboard her as an eighteen year old boot camp fireman; fresh out of Machinist Mate “A” school in 1972. Now I was stepping aboard again in 2005. She had been my college, my baby sitter, school of hard knocks, prison and ship of dreams all rolled into one. I was a crewmember for a year and a half and she took me across the Atlantic and into the Med where we cruised amongst the Greek Islands and made many port calls. She is a gorgeous ship with a rakish hurricane bow that most destroyers of the day didn’t have. She was already getting up in years in 71. She had a very unique “1200 Pound” steam plant, sporting two 35K horsepower Westinghouse turbines. She was a sub hunter and was fitted with VDS and ASROC as well as two sets of torpedo tubes. She also carried a pair of 5” 54 guns, one forward and one aft.
I loved the way she charged through the waves with a rooster tale flying behind her. She was very long and lean. She could do thirty knots. Not so fast by today’s standards but she could do thirty knots through some pretty rough seas. Like all destroyers she rocked constantly from side to side and I got sea sick the first day out and stayed sick for days as we wandered into the Atlantic from Newport, Rhode Island. Finally getting my sea legs I began to explore every part of her. I was first assigned to the forward engine room but then was able to get transferred to Auxiliary division (better known as A-gang) where I was much happier. I then had the entire ship as my workstation because A-gang was responsible for things like steering, fire pumps and the fire main, the air conditioning and electrical system, the galley equipment, the compressors that charged the torpedo tubes and the anchor windlass among many other pieces of equipment and interior communications. Every morning after quarters, the rest of engineering was sent below decks to the engine and fire rooms but we were given free reign to work by ourselves in every part of the ship. I enjoyed this immensely and was able to make friends with many different crew members from the corpsmen to the boatswain mates to the guys in EW.

One of the things I loved to do most was be part of the boat crew. The Barry had two small boats, one a motor whale boat that did most of the utilitarian things like retrieve practice torpedoes, ferry the crew ashore, and just about anything else. It was slow but very seaworthy. Then there was the captain’s gig, a much faster launch with a cabin in the center and a cockpit forward with steering wheel. Every Navy boat crew has to have someone from engineering on board in case of motor trouble but most of my mates didn’t care to do it so I always volunteered to go in their stead. This meant that on duty days, when we were in port, I would still be going ashore to ferry the liberty crew there and back again. I was not able to knock off until past two A.M.the next day but it was worth it to me to be able to ride the boats. I loved it in any weather.

After I got out of the Navy I saw and then read the Sand Pebbles and was surprised at how close I felt, as most “snipes” as members of engineering were called, to the principle character of Holdman. I later read Conrad, Melville and Dana. The stress on a crew to get along with each other is truly material for novels.

We crossed the Atlantic with a supply ship full of dependants and several other destroyers in our squadron, and entered the Mediterranean, passing through the Staights of Gibralter and then on to Phaleron Bay in the port of Athens. Our dependents off-loaded there and started setting up house- keeping for the career men aboard while the Barry and her sister destroyers set about cruising up and down the Med, Aegean and Adriatic seas. We called on so many ports I can’t remember them. For at the time, I was not so much interested in geography as I was in learning about bar girls (which we called “B” girls) among other women. I lost almost my entire paycheck the first night we were in Athens to one. Later I learned about having the paymaster withhold some of my money so that would not happen again. B Girls were interesting and endearing creatures to me even though they did consider me as prey. They weren’t accustomed to taking off their clothes or compromising themselves in any way other than telling incredible lies to gullible swabs who hadn’t seen a woman for weeks. Sailors would buy them extremely expensive drinks for the mere light kiss or touch of their hands on a thigh. A whiff of perfume, a breathy whisper of how she was falling in love in his ear would mesmerize and hold him senseless and painless until the next morning when he discovered how much money he had spent on “Champagne”.

Our crew suffered much strife in those days just after desegregation. We had to come to terms with race then much like prisoners had to in the jails because there was simply no place to go. A war ship is in many ways like a prison. Especially in the days before women were allowed to be crew. However our stress was of course, relieved periodically when we made ports of call (and there were many on the Barry) I also should add here (since I mentioned the word “prison”) to stop anyone from even thinking about it, that I never observed any “gay” incidents aboard that ship the entire time I served on her. Of course now, we are all more liberally minded but back then it simply wasn’t tolerated.
But race problems almost spelled disaster for the Navy on several occasions in the early seventies. Vietnam, though winding down, was still going on. Nixon was having to face down the Russians in the Med during the Yom Kipper War. The Barry at that time, spent a lot of her days on patrol off the coast of Libya. Navy morale was at it’s lowest when a race riot broke out on one of the carriers in the fleet.

There were several bitter fights between black and white sailors and other incidents aboard the Barry then. But somehow we managed to maintain the ship and do our duty through it all. It should stand as a testament to Navy discipline and the officers and crew.

Now, the compartment where I once slept, jammed in amongst thirty other sailors, is still being used to quarter Boy Scout Troops who I was told, visit frequently to spend the night on board. My girlfriend and I went down the ladder and I showed her where my old rack (bunk) was. She laughed and slid in it and I snapped her picture. I never would have thought that I would have had a girl in my rack ( all visiting women were forbidden below decks in those days) It was a true sailor’s dream even after all of these years!
In the present Navy I guess this would be just another ho hum thing. I am sure they are having to deal with on board romances constantly. How could they not with women going up and down those ladders.
I must say that I don’t envy today’s destroyer men if they have women crew on board. Not because it is bad luck or that women wouldn’t make good sailors or any such thing but something must have been lost in the romance of it all. I can remember vividly how I longed to see a woman’s face and hear a female voice after spending weeks on end out of site of them. Many are convinced that this is how mermaids came into existence. Lonely sailors, desperately anthropomorphizing things like seals and dolphins into women. Are all the mermaids gone now? And what about the B girls? What are they going to do? Have they all disappeared too? How will they be able to stay in business without men who haven’t seen a woman for thirty days? What would “Homang” (Holdman) or Billy Budd have to say about it all?

Anyway, I was very glad to have seen the USS Barry DD933 again. I have a niece who has joined the Navy now and taken my old peacoat. I call her Sailor when I see her.
I guess the new Navy will have new romances, something like Lieutenant Ohura or Captain Janeway romances of Star Trek fame. Maybe the new romantic tales of the sea will be written by women and at this moment the next Mellville is putting on her make up and getting ready for liberty call.