"Navy Spy"

Maybe I'm just an ignorant hick, Guy, but I always thought "crossing the pond" is a pretty goofy expression. I don't know. Maybe it's big in Britain. Could you imagine me in England on official state business? And I don't as some drunk sailor on liberty. I mean, could you imagine me as a representative of my biological grandmother? The biological mother of my 100% disowned biological father.

Well, anyway. I was yesterday and today reading some postings of this fellow because he writes that he served on the USS Wainwright CG 28. Obviously after my time there. I was reading through this blog after I discovered a listing for the precise date that Chandler turned over command of the CG 28 to Newlon. Sometime later Newlon turned over to this bloggers commanding officer, the officer nicknamed Iron Mike. Newlon was still CO when I left the ship.

This blogger references that gun turret explosion and of how his CO on the Wainwright was the XO of that battleship the turret exploded on. I recall that incident because I had surgery right around that time and that is pivotal detail about the memories I suspected are locked in my mind by a security drug. The surgery was either on that same day or two days before. I cannot now recall the precise detail and that detail has been available to my mind all this time. I just don't recall now because that was over 24 years ago. I wrote about it several years ago but I don't recall if I wrote that I remember the precise date. Also, I wonder about it now because I feel as though all of my memory is fading, as though my entire mindset is just sort of drifting away from me.

I was thinking back to four years ago when I moved away from downtown Seattle to the suburbs. I was really out of it then. I was thinking of how I have progressed to the state of mind I am now. That was just four years ago. I wake up every day hoping today will be the day and then as always as it is just now there is nothing. Just a big fat nothing.

I am still going to be sitting at my desk four years from now doing this same damned thing. I have no doubt of that. I have so many topics archived, started and then stopped, that I wouldn't even have to look for new material. I could just go back through and finish the topics I once started on and then stopped because flooding this forum is counter-productive, and going back just through my archived topics I could probably post for another four years just from my archived material.

All I know is that I could drink about 400 gallons of beer right now.










http://thecrossedpond.com/2009/09/12/sea-stories-iron-mike/


Sea Stories: Iron Mike

Posted by Jack @ 4:50 pm on September 12th 2009


You may recall that in the navy, nicknames are bad. Hold that thought.

I took over as Fire Control Officer on the USS Wainwright in December 1991. This position, having nothing to do with controlling fires and everything to do with maintaining and operating the ship’s weapons related radars and weapons control systems, was a “Second Tour Division Officer” job. That meant that I had just enough experience to be considered worthy of a somewhat complicated position for a young officer, but not enough to be elevated to the next tier: an exalted Department Head in charge of all the combat systems. I had a couple of chiefs and 20 or so highly skilled electronics technicians working for me, or rather, tolerating my perception that I was in charge. It was a really cool job: we had missiles, man. And they could knock a plane out of the sky 115 miles away.

Remember, this was cold war stuff. Russians had planes that, in theory, you might want to turn into non-gliding debris at 115 miles; before they launched their ridiculously powerful, supersonic, nearly impossible to shoot down, ship killing, SS-N-22 Sunburn (air launched variant) missiles. Better to shoot the archer than the arrow. Today, employing an anti air missile at this range would be absurdly dangerous: like many cold war weapons, we didn’t worry so much about hitting a neutral target back then. We expected the Russians to send regimental sized raids of Backfire bombers towards the GI-UK gap and utterly swamp us with a thousand missiles fired at a few dozen ships. We had ideas like “Red and Free” which, confusingly, did not mean communist libertarian, but rather: This shit has hit the fan and you may shoot at ANYTHING not positively identified as friendly. We developed weapons systems that we could place in full automatic, and they would shoot down a hundred targets without human intervention. It was wild stuff, and I got to be in charge of some of it. Like I said: cool job.

What wasn’t cool: Apparently, you could be fired at any moment. I knew this, because several of the officers that had been fired mentioned it to me in my first week. The issue, you see, was that the Captain had a nickname: Iron Mike. He was a very large, physically intimidating, charismatic, temperamental leader highly prone to frequent and dramatic demonstrations of his irritation. The officers and crew were simultaneously terrified and in awe of him. Iron Mike knew how to get your attention. In retrospect, I am convinced that some of his colorful explosions were choreographed for dramatic effect. But at the time, he was a hair trigger, an un-diffused bomb, a live wire. Best not rile him.

We, all of us, had numerous opportunities to observe or be the target of his personal explosions over pretty much anything, such as banging his head on a ventilation diffuser, which resulted in him taking the entirely reasonable action of beating it with his bare hand until it broke free from the bracket and careened across the engineering room, freeing him to continue his material inspection while dripping a trail of blood from his hand. But Iron Mike did not limit himself to merely one-on-one or one-on-a-few demonstrations of his temper: he used the ship’s general announcing system to full effect. If something displeased him, he felt everyone should know. Thus we were frequently treated to a sharp “This is the Captain….” emanating from the loud speakers placed in every compartment on the ship. Now, let me pause. On normal ships, the general announcing system, or 1MC, was carefully controlled from the Bridge. Announcements were highly formatted, and almost always prefaced by a special whistle signal from the ship’s boatswain mate. Different signals preceding different types of verbal messages, especially for the Captain. He got a really good pre-message whistle. But when Iron Mike wanted to speak in anger on the 1MC, no fucking bos’n was gonna delay that event. He would storm onto the bridge, grab the mike, and start the humiliation. Some samples:

“This is the Captain: Ensign K, pack your fucking bags and get off my ship. You have one hour.”

“This is the Captain: If anyone is wondering why we are still dicking around out here, its because First Division can’t get their collective heads out of their asses long enough to get the ship’s boat back on board.”

“This is the Captain: ASW Officer, Bridge. Now. That’s not a fucking invitation.”

“This is the Captain: B Division just endangered all of you. We will remain at battle stations until they get it right. Be sure and thank them later.”

This would happen nearly every day. Someone was always on the shit list, and the shit list meant you were on the verge of getting fired.

So. I had been on board about two weeks. To that point I had remained under Iron Mike’s radar. More importantly, it appears he had made one of his frequent but easily changeable snap decisions that I was OK. Based on nothing, as far as I can figure. See, being in Iron Mike’s good graces required a couple of things. Competence, yes. But confidence and aggressive manliness were crucial as well. It was not enough to simply be good, you needed to be a bit arrogant or caustic about it as well. He loved that shit, the devil may care, fuck ‘em all, get out of my face so I can do my job, Competent Man image. Not sure how I pulled it off, but he gave me that credit. The Gunnery Officer? Not so much.

Like I said: two weeks on board, we are at sea with a critical ship qualification event bearing down on us: live fire gunnery exercises off the Vieques Island Weapons Range in Puerto Rico. You may recall Vieques from the news some years back, when it became the cause de jour for environmental and Puerto Rican activists demanding a cessation of all live gunnery, the closure of the range, and its return to “the people.” They pretty much won that battle. Anyhoo, I was only tangentially involved in this gunnery event: not on board long enough to have re-qualified in a key position, but still a relatively experienced weapons officer with ownership of a few pieces of equipment involved, so I stayed close to the action in the Combat Information Center, or CIC.

The equipment I was responsible for, by the way, did not include the 5 inch, 54 caliber, main battery gun. That belonged, as you might have ferreted out already, to the Gunnery Officer. This is a mostly automated shipboard 120mm artillery piece capable of accurate and rapid bombardment from nearly 10 miles away while maneuvering the ship at high speed. Impressive, no? But it had to go “boom” rather than “click” when you pulled the trigger. Like too many other recent times, on that day, it didn’t. Repeatedly, it didn’t. So the Captain called the administrative office and directed them to send him two performance evaluations immediately: one for the Gunnery Chief, and one for the Gunnery Officer, who happened to be a classmate and friend of mine from the Academy. And while the gun continued to not fire, he wrote a fitness report for both of them. You can imagine that it was not particularly positive. And after writing this report, he began a Terminator like scan of all souls within his visual range, seeking someone of minimum qualifications that had not radically pissed him off lately. One minute later, I was the Fire Control AND Gunnery Officer. What fun.

And that’s how life worked on Wainwright. We worked very hard, played harder, all while understanding that at any moment Iron Mike might explode for something you could not predict or do anything about, and you would be on the shit list. String a few of these events together, and firing was a distinct possibility. An example: All Captains have standing orders for their bridge crew, and they are pretty similar across the fleet. Among many other things, they address the specific situations in which you are required to notify the Captain of something, regardless of the hour. These situations are numerous. And though it was an absolute requirement, a legal order, written and signed by the Captain, Iron Mike would often become infuriated that you would call and wake him for this stuff. Many were the calls that he answered “What the fuck do you want now?” You could either worry yourself the entire watch and work carefully at pushing the situation and your compliance with the orders to the boundaries and beyond in an attempt to avoid repeatedly calling him, or you could man up and take the hit. Those that naturally gravitated towards the manning up took some good hits, but they were also the types of people most likely to have passed, or soon pass, Iron Mike’s man vs wuss assessment. Some of us took a bit longer, and some never figured it out.

Strangely, this bonded us together. The officer wardroom was one of the tightest I have known, bound as we were by a mutual threat. We came to take great amusement from the Captain’s latest 1MC explosion, and knew how to help the victim shake it off: good humored and incessant ribbing. And we remained in awe of Iron Mike. For whatever his faults, he absolutely knew how to build a good crew and a tight ship. He understood group dynamics and psychology, even if only intuitively. He knew how to make us feel like one of a kind, unbeatable, elite. And we did feel that way. We had power and confidence to the point of arrogance, but we backed it up with performance. Partly, he did this by not restricting his rage to us, but extending his particular fits of pique to other ships’ captains and staff officers. This was pretty striking behavior, and we loved watching it. His tirades directed towards the Command Duty Officer of another ship on the same pier, his public radio “discussions” with the base support personnel over their lack of base support. And, though it seems petty and may be difficult to understand why this is most striking; his aggressively worded missives and “Personnel For” official messages to other commands, which he would insure we knew about, or even allow us to write for him. One simply doesn’t sign an official Naval message to another ship captain “Cold Regards,” but Iron Mike did. We loved that stuff.

We also learned to imitate him, to a degree. All Captains have such an effect; it’s human nature. The most powerful and influential person in your life impacts the opinions you voice, they way you present them, the way you present yourself. With Iron Mike, we became, to varying degrees, cocky and aggressive, particularly in his presence. Not to him of course, just to others. It was not just subconscious behavior either, you did it on purpose. I recall heading for the Combat Information Center to take up the Watch Officer position as we prepared to get underway. We had just set the Special Sea and Anchor detail, and at this point in the time line, CIC should have been a beehive of activity, with the Operational Specialists deep into preparations, charts laid out, radars manned, and communications buzzing. As I stepped onto the ladder leading to CIC I caught Iron Mike in my peripheral vision headed the same way, 8 feet behind me. I entered the room, the depressingly quiet room, and my heart stopped. But a handful of OS’s, casually setting up for sea, WAY behind where we should be, with the Iron Mike one second from seeing this catastrophe sure to make us late for our underway time. So I made a choice, a very conscious choice: I exploded, spectacularly, with perfect timing. As Iron Mike stepped through the door, I begin a high volume and enraged rant starting with WHAT THE FUCK and continued in that vein, demanding an immediate accounting of the missing personnel and admittedly rhetorical queries as to why in fuck nothing was ready. Iron Mike paused, turned about and left without a word. The situation was obviously under control, for one of his disciples was on it.

That’s how I earned the largely tongue in cheek nickname Aluminum Jack for the rest of that tour.

Incidentally, there is a small chance some of you have run across the name Iron Mike Fahey before. He was Executive Officer on USS Iowa up until a few months before the fatal explosion in the Number 2 16” Gun Turret that killed 47 sailors on April 19th, 1989. Iron Mike had little to do with the events leading up to the explosion, and nothing whatsoever to do with the horrific coverup and scapegoating of Clay Hartwig that the Navy attempted (and to this day has not fully repudiated, much less apologized for). Nonetheless, Iron Mike comes in for some extremely negative commentary in A Glimpse of Hell, Charles Thompson’s definitive portrayal of the explosion and investigations.










http://thecrossedpond.com/2008/03/07/sea-stories-nicknames-are-bad/


The Crossed Pond


Sea Stories: Nicknames Are Bad

Posted by Jack @ 6:06 pm on March 7th 2008

After 24 years of naval service, I feel comfortable providing an addendum to the standard Laws of the Navy; Excepting aviators, it is nearly always a bad sign if your boss has a nickname. Smokin Joe. Iron Mike. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. If assigned to a ship with one of these bastards in charge, you are well and truly screwed. While our pilots get cute “call signs” e.g., Maverick or Walleye, assigned during their training process, black shoe officers will only receive a nickname in the course of a lengthy career of memorable behavior, such as certifiable insanity, slave-driving brutality, or spectacular hair-trigger temper.

Don’t get me wrong: These guys are almost always supremely competent and highly effective in the right circumstances. Frequently they are assigned to a specific unit because of their reputation, perhaps as a “fixer” for a ship or command experiencing a particularly troubling problem. I have worked for several nicknames. In the late 1990’s, I was in a squadron of destroyers and frigates lead by Commodore Smokin’ Joe.

Smokin Joe was a bit of an anomaly: unfailingly polite, relentlessly calm, unflappable. I can recall no instance in which he raised his voice or cursed any sailor. He was an intellectual, brilliant, highly educated, and in continual need of a haircut. He was possessed of a work ethic like I have never seen. He had the energy of three men, all of it directed exclusively into his job. And as a matter of deeply held faith, Smokin’ Joe believed that everyone else in his sphere of influence should as well. He worked constantly, and so did his staff. He had no known outside activities. Even while in port, a light week at the office included 80 hours with some of it on Sunday. Out of desperation, a group of junior officers seeking to distract him bought him a puppy. It ended up back at the pound within a week. When we heard he had married, we assumed it must have been an arranged marriage or perhaps a mail order; we could see no way in which he had time for courtship.

His direct staff, a dozen or so officers and chiefs, were continually at the edge of exhaustion. We lucky ones, merely stationed on one of his ships and thus protected by the sovereignty of our Captains and a couple of layers of command, both pitied and hated them. The Commodore’s remorseless pursuit of squadron perfection came at us via these staffers. Their interference with our daily routine was constant and aggressive. During the standard in port workday, we fielded a continual stream of queries, “requests” for information, direction on specific issues, interrogatives as to when they might expect the next update, and firm “recommendations” on appropriate courses for any and all planned activity. After standard working hours, this continued unabated into the night, forcing the 24-hour rotating duty section to respond as best they could or stiff-arm if possible. God, how we cursed them. The Commodore himself was so damn likeable; we directed much of our irritation towards his minions. They were not “The Staff,” or “the DesRon” (Destroyer Squadron), they were “The Fucking Staff.” And they were on the phone. Again. It became normal. And we were the best damn squadron in the Navy. We just didn’t realize it.

When he left, the officer wardrooms of four navy ships breathed a collective sigh of relief. Finally, we could operate like a normal squadron. We could run our ships and departments, rather than the Commodore trying to do it by proxy. We were happy as clams. At first.

It started with little things; queries to DesRon went unanswered. The Staff seemed unaware of significant events happening on our ships despite standard reporting. Long term multi-ship planning slacked off. And almost without even realizing it, certainly without recognizing the absurdity of it, we caught ourselves noting aloud that “This wouldn’t have happened under Smokin’ Joe.” Against all odds, we missed our old staff. We missed their near infallibility, their supreme competence, their constant push for better and more.

Things didn’t work out too well for Smokin’ Joe. He only made three stars, and now has to work with these blokes. But at least he got to command some ships for a while.










http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734592/quotes

IMDb


Twilight Zone (TV Series)

Mr. Denton on Doomsday (1959)


Narrator: [Closing Narration] Mr. Henry Fate, dealer in utensils and pots and pans, liniments and potions. A fanciful little man in a black, frock coat, who can help a man climbing out of a pit - or another man from falling into one. Because, you see, Fate can work that way - in The Twilight Zone.










http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/1128/040128.htm


NavSource Online: Cruiser Photo Archive

USS WAINWRIGHT (DLG/CG 28)


CLASS - BELKNAP

Displacement 5,340 Tons, Dimensions, 547' (oa) x 54' 10" x 29' (Max)

Armament 1 Terrier/ASROC (60 Missiles) 1 x 5"/54RF, 2 x 3"/50, 6 x12.75" TT.

Machinery, 85,000 SHP; Geared Turbines, 2 screws

Speed, 34 Knots, Crew 400.

Operational and Building Data

Keel laid on 02 JUL 62 at Bath Iron Works Corp., Bath, ME

Launched 25 APR 1965

Commissioned 08 JAN 1966

Redesignated CG 28 30 JUN 1975


Chandler, James F., CAPT 04/25/1987 - 04/08/1989
Newlon Jr., Arthur William, CAPT 04/08/1989





http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125432/releaseinfo

IMDb


Navy Spy (1937)


Release Dates

USA 13 March 1937





http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/releaseinfo

IMDb


The Time Machine (1960)


Release Dates

USA 17 August 1960



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/fullcredits

IMDb


Full cast and crew for

The Time Machine (1960)


Rod Taylor ... H. George Wells










http://navysite.de/cg/cg28.htm

www.navysite.de


USS Wainwright (CG 28)

- formerly DLG 28 -

- decommissioned -

- sunk as a target -


USS WAINWRIGHT was the third ship in the BELKNAP-class of guided missile cruisers and also the third ship in the Navy to bear the name. After decommissioning, WAINWRIGHT was berthed at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility (NISMF), Philadelphia, PA., until she was sunk as a target during a missile exercise in the Atlantic Ocean on June 12, 2002. US warships participating in the joint US and British exercise were USS SAN JACINTO (CG 56), USS MITSCHER (DDG 57), USS BRISCOE (DD 977) and USS HAWES (FFG 53).

WAINWRIGHT was last homeported in Charleston, SC.


USS WAINWRIGHT's Commanding Officers:

Period Name

January 8, 1966 - September 8, 1966 Captain R. P. Foreman, USN
September 8, 1966 - April 4, 1968 Captain G. E. Lockee, USN
April 4, 1968 - September 10, 1969 Captain I. A. Johnson, USN
September 10, 1969 - July 2, 1971 Captain P. H. Vining, USN
July 2, 1971 - November 30, 1972 Captain R. W. Watkins, USN
November 30, 1972 - July 1, 1974 Captain W. D. Robertson, USN
July 1, 1974 - July 13, 1976 Captain E. B. Ackerman, USN
July 13, 1976 - July 7, 1978 Captain R. C. Berry, USN
July 7, 1978 - June 20, 1980 Captain R. P. McVoy, USN
June 20, 1980 - May 21, 1982 Captain W. H. Peerenboom, USN
May 21, 1982 - August 20, 1983 Captain R. D. Milligan, USN
August 20, 1983 - April 18, 1985 Captain J. R. Dalrymple, USN
April 18, 1985 - April 25, 1987 Captain G. A. Huchting, USN
April 25, 1987 - April 8, 1989 Captain J. F. Chandler, USN
April 8, 1989 - April 26, 1991 Captain A. W. Newlon, Jr., USN
April 26, 1991 - February 9, 1993 Captain J. M. Fahey, USN










http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001654/bio

IMDb


Biography for

Ronald Reagan

Date of Birth

6 February 1911, Tampico, Illinois, USA

Date of Death

5 June 2004, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, USA (pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease)

Birth Name

Ronald Wilson Reagan










http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050818/plotsummary

IMDb


Plot Summary for

Panic in the Parlor (1956)

Sailor Beware (original title)


Battle-axe Emma Hornett dominates her hen-pecked husband Henry, his meek sister Edie and daughter Shirley. Shirley is to marry young sailor Albert,raised in an orphanage










http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/quotes

IMDb


The Time Machine (1960)

Quotes


Talking Rings: My name is of no consequence. The important thing you should know, is that I am the last who remembers how each of us, man and woman made his own decision.



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 10:04 PM Pacific Time near Seattle Washington State USA Friday 19 July 2013