cked the rendezvous locationThe US Navy used to have a stadard career pattern plan for officers. Aviation officers needed a shipboard tour of duty between flight squadron assignments in order to understand how the surface navy worked and qualify as a ship driver. When they reached higher rank and were considered still available for advancement the senior aviators, usually Captains, needed a tour as commanding officer of a large ship. Those that were successful in that tour could be in the running for becoming commanding officer of an aircraft carrier. That job usually le to promotion to admiral.
The oiler to which i was assigned as operations officer was considered a deep draft qualifying command. Our captain was an aviator. He had no pretensions about his capabilities. He just wanted to get through the assignment and continue on to a shore duty assignment in Washington before retiring.
The ship was visiting in Crete. Most of the crew were ashore, and due back on board st midnight. I was the senior duty officer that night. We received a radio message from Sixth Fleet headquarters assigning the ship to rendezvous with a couple of destroyers off the Northwest end of the island in order to refuel them. I checked the charts and found we could make the scheduled rendezvous if we left around midnight. I ordered tugs to help us depart and a local pilot to guide us. I alerted the crew and had the Officer of the Deck inform everyone that we were sailing that night as soon as they came aboard.
Shore leave expired at midnight and nearly everyone was on board. We were missing just two officers, The Captain and the executive officer, our two most senior people. The crew went to their stations for getting under way. The tugs arrived and I had them take lines to help us out. The pilot came aboard and i joined him on the bridge. Then we all waited. At about twenty minutes after midnight a jeep came to the pier and brought our two missing officers back from the Officers Club at the nearby NATO base. They were both seriously drunk. I met them and briefed them on what was happening. The XO realized he was in no condition to do anything and went to bed to sleep off the drinking binge of the night before. The captain joined me on the bridge.
The rest of the operation was mostly routine. I drove the ship out of the bay and the regular watch took over to continue our voyage to the rendezvous via the course i had already plotted earlier. But the Captain was a happy drunk. He wandered about the bridge slapping crew members on the back and asking them how they were doing. He finally retired to his cabin about the time I ordered the regular watch to take over. I never mentioned the incident again, but I always remembered how the two of them almost missed our sailing, and that neither of them was in any condition to perform their regular duties until late the next day.
Wetherhorn 