I’ve mentioned before that my first sea duty was a great learning experience. It was also a time when I had a few accomplishments that I am still proud of. Details about those will come later, The CIC team was full, and I was a fifth wheel CIC school trained officer. That was the reason I was given the electronics repair division, There really wasn’t a place for me in CIC when the ship went to general quarters and manned all battle stations. I had done well at OCS in operations courses. One of the areas I had learned well was the signal book. There was a job on the bridge as tactical communicator that was open. I got it. It involved coding and decoding orders and information sent to and from the ship. Most of those items involved using the signal book.
international code flags and pennants
The signal book has a longer name. It is also known as the Allied Maritime Tactical Signal and Maneuvering Book, volume II. And it has a shorter name, ATP-1. Signals from ATP-1 can be transmitted to other ships using flag-hoists, flashing light, or voice radio, I learned the international phonetic alphabet that was then current and the associated flags. I also eventually learned to read Morse code via flashing light and was proficient enough to send and receive light signals at almost 5 words per minute. Those capabilities just made my job as tactical communicator a little easier.
Navy ships compete with each other for being the most efficient vessel of that type within the fleet. The competition is based on the results of graded exercises in various fields. The most prestigious is the white overall Battle Efficiency E. But there are other awards for other departments and they are usually associated with other colors; red for engineering, green for operations, blue for aviation, and a green “C” for excellence in communications. When I was on active duty a green “C” was one of the rarest to see. The most important part of the award of a green “C” was tactical communications. My personal speed in coding and decoding signals from ATP-1 was instrumental in winning that green “C” twice.
Before any ship sailed for a several month long deployment to either the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean or the Seventh Fleet in the Far East she went through a series of training exercises to ensure she was at her best. Valley Forge went through 2 of these. One was general overall readiness. and another was specifically for amphibious ships.
We reported for Amphibious refresher training in San Diego anticipating a stay of up to 2 weeks. We were sent back to Long Beach after the first round of graded drills. We were already so good at that part of our mission that there was nothing else they could teach us.
When we sailed for the Far East I was slotted into rotation as a CIC watch Officer. Our captain wanted only school trained CIC officers in charge of the radar room while deployed. It did not take long before we learned what that meant. This was the period after the assassination of the South Vietnamese President, and tensions were high while the US looked around for someone, preferably a general. to replace him. High ranking American officers needed to flown from one meeting to another, and our helicopters were used for that. We detached from the main amphibious ready group to provide shuttle service several times. This duty played havoc with our normal schedule of friendly port visits. We were scheduled to visit Australia and Singapore (twice) and never got to either one. Instead, we remained at sea for almost two months before being allowed a little R and R. Naturally, during that time there were some things that were hard to provide. Fresh produce and milk products were among them, Near the end of our 50 plus straight days at sea the cooks in the officers galley came up with a special treat, We were served ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce for dessert. Our stewards had played around with several recipes using powdered milk to make the ice cream. We were excited. But that excitement quickly disappeared when we tasted the sundaes. The ice cream tasted like cheddar cheese! The chocolate sauce wasn’t strong enough to mask that flavor, either. Despite the disappointment, we had to give the cooks credit for making a valiant try.
Another incident that occurred during one of these taxi service missions cam when we were alone, and heading north to rejoin our task group, I had just taken over the CIC watch at 08:00. We were tracking a single ship heading South. Electronic Warfare was still very hush-hush. We had a separate curtained off section where one of our better petty officers listened for enemy radars. The man on duty in the electronic warfare module came out and tapped me on the shoulder.
“I’ve got something on a threat band”, he told me, “you’d better see it yourself”.
I was not really prepared for what came next. The receiver was tuned to set of characteristics that matched a fire control radar. I put on the head phones and heard a couple of passes of “zzzt”, “zzzt” as the radar swept past us. The next pass it did not go past. Instead, I heard the very characteristic sound of a circular scan radar that was locked on us. “RRRrrrrRRRrrrRRRrrr” It was one of the scariest sounds I ever heard.
I flicked the switch on our countermeasures jamming equipment to standby and dialed in the frequency and pulse rates of the radar that was illuminating us. It was coming from the direction of that contact to the north we had been tracking.
I pressed the talk button on my loudspeaker connection to the bridge.
“A fire control radar from the bearing of contact X has locked on us. I’ve put countermeasures on standby. Request permission to radiate”.
“Relax”, the bridge responded, “It’s a friendly destroyer and we have positive visual identification”.
I was very upset because that information had not reached me sooner. Part of that upset was probably due to the scare. I suspect it took some time for my blood pressure to get back to normal. And No, this is not an April Fools joke.
Wetherhorn 