“Oh GOd, yOur sea is sO larGe and my ship is sO small”

You just had to love the guy. Our young cook, David Johnson,was way over his head trying to cook for the ship’s crew. So, thecaptain made Zak our head cook, and Johnson his assistant.That made Dave happy. It made a good arrangement. He couldlearn from Zak, and better chow was making the crew happy.About 1400 I could hear the engines start. The crew was movingup to top side. The LCIs started to sail out of Port Norfolk.Outside the harbor the flotilla formed into a convoy of six shipsin four lines. I could feel that we had about four-foot seasrunning. It was sloppy going into the night off Cape Hatteras,the winds picked up and the seas got up to six- and eight-footwaves. I could feel the 89 rolling, tossing, banging down. Whenshe would bang down the ship just shuddered. I had a veryuncomfortable night.After the evening chow, Doc put some hot packs on my ankle. Iconfessed to him that the doctor was making arrangements toput me in a hospital room.“That explains why you were in such a hurry to get away fromthe hospital. You had it made! Just think you could have gottenout of this deal.”“I know. But I wanted to stay with the ship and get into theaction.”The crew started to get “salty,” an expression for a seasonedsailor. Everybody was getting to know each other. We werebonding. On the third day I was starting to feel better. Sun wasout. That afternoon we sailed into Port St. George, Bermuda. Itwas warm and a great site for us, with deep blue water andwhite sand beaches. It was exciting. The guys were alreadytalking about getting liberty. The port and the buildings andeverything looked so clean -- a great sight. The water was soclear you could see 30 to 40 feet down to the bottom.Here is where we got our training on the 20 MM guns. Theshooting range was on the other side of the island up on a highbluff. Our targets were pulled by airplanes. I was able to getaround for this training. I did very well with the 20 MM gun. Ipicked up on this type of shooting. The targets were pulledbehind the airplane at about 90 to 100 miles per hour. It waslike shotgun shooting at flying targets. I was brought up ongame bird shooting, hunting grouse, woodcock, ring-neckpheasant, and quail with a shotgun. You had to lead these fastflying birds at different angles. This came to me naturally withthe 20 MM gun shooting at these moving targets. The web sightring mounted on the gun helped you for your distance andleading the target. Also, the tracer bullet indicated your lead onthe target. Every fourth round in the magazine was a tracer.This helped me get my timing to get on the target quickly. Ienjoyed this training. It was very challenging. I was cited for my20 MM gun shooting. They assigned me the gunner on theship’s bow gun. This became my battle station during GeneralQuarters during enemy alerts.The crew got liberty here at St. George. They toured the island bybicycle, had a few beer beach parties. It didn’t take long for thisto get old. This is about all a sailor could do here. My tour of theisland was to and from the shooting range due to my bumankle. I caught the navy bus up to the shooting range. Iwatched the shooting and visited with the marine gunnersdoing the 20 MM gun training.On the 10th of April, we departed Port St. George. Here werendezvoused with a very large convoy sailing east. It was agreat site to see all these ships. There were over a 100 ships,troop transports, freighters, and oil tanker ships. Eightdestroyers and twelve destroyer escorts flanked the convoy. Attimes they would sail up through the convoy.Our first few days into our voyage were smooth sailing withwarm sunshine. We all were nicely getting settled in with ourroutine, with a four hour watch every twelve hours. Zak wasserving us very good chow. He did wonders with his menuscooked on oil stoves. At times there was no great hot chow, forthe LCI would pitch and roll so severely that even a genius couldnot cook a meal. We would resort to K-rations and cold spam.Sometimes the weather got sloppy with strong winds and heavyseas. Standing watch with these heavy seas on the bridge andfly bridge became an unforgettable workout. It was likeclimbing up a snowy mountain-side and then sliding, losingyour balance, and falling down, then climbing up again andfalling down again. I’d go below from watch on the bridgefeeling like a tennis ball bruised from the bounces. The windwould whistle throwing the spoon drift up from the wavesagainst the LCI’s bridge port lights it would feel like beingsprayed with a water hose.She’d ride up a mountainous sea, all 160 feet of her; then slapdown hard into the trough shuddering all along her hull. Thewave would crunch against the deck tower. The water rolled offher decks. You couldn’t imagine what it was like in an Atlanticstorm on the LCI. Roll! Pitch! Listen to the water as she wouldshudder and creek. The guys would chant, “Roll and Pitch youS-O-B! Old washboard’s starting up again.” That’s exactly whatit was like, a washboard. Our LCIs didn’t have the rolling motionof a destroyer. The flat bottoms were not a displacement hulllike a normal ship. We rode on top of the water like a wood chip.8 | ELSIE ITEM | October 2011