Wayne G Dorough, QM3
1954-1958
Wayne G Dorough, QM3
1954-1958
I was only the ship a few months out of bootcamp and we were on a shakedown cruise following three months of overhaul in Pearl Harbor. It was night time, stormy, raining like heck and miserably cold. I had the fantail watch, bundled up in a poncho, shivering, and sitting on the deck behind the gun turret in the only protective area from the blowing wind and rain. I was trying to stay warm holding a cup of coffee and sipping on it while protecting it from the rain and sea water.
Every so often I had to set the cup down so that I could trigger my mike and tell the bridge that all was well on the fantail.
The ship was rolling and tossing and on this one instance the cup slid out a few feet across the deck. I reached out for it and when I did the ship took a roll, I lost my balance and the cup and I both went sliding across the deck. The only thing keeping me from going overboard was the safety stanchion and cabling along the edge and my phone wire connecting my headset to the gun turret. I still ended up with part of one leg dangling over the side.
My heart didn't quit thumping for an hour! No! I didn't say anything to the bridge, I was too damn embarrassed! And, no, I didn't lose my cup either! But the memory of seeing all that water down below me stuck with me a long time. I kept wondering how long it would be before anyone realized I wasn't on the fantail any longer had I tumbled into the sea.
In October '56 the Spangler was participating in submarine exercises off Catalina Island a little ways from San Diego. This was one of those early foggy mornings where you could only see ahead about a quarter mile and the ocean was calm as glass. A lookout yelled: "Whale off Starboard bow!" It was about a 100-yards ahead and crossing our path. So Captain O'Connel, who happened to be on the upper bridge at the time, grabbed the intercom yelled and yelled, "Right full rudder! Full speed ahead!" The whale evidently had other thoughts I guess and in almost perfect concert, changed it's direction and cut back across the bow. That was the biggest looking critter you could possibly imagine! At this point it was obvious we couldn't avoid hitting it! The Captain grabbed the intercom again and said "All engines stop! All hands prepare for impact!" or something to that effect. Hitting it was akin to running aground! We had no choice but to slice right through it cutting it in half! I was standing a few feet behind the Captain and did all I could to hold onto a stanchion and not be knocked down. You wouldn't believe the huge bubble of blood that rose to the surface!
Surpisingly the ship suffered no damage other than to the sonar dome on the hull, but it was enough to force us into dry dock back in San Diego for several few weeks.
Captain O'Connel called one of the signalmen over and said, "send this message to the other ships in the squadron, 'One Run! One Hit! No Misses!"
After coming aboard the Spangler from bootcamp in December 1954, my first time at sea was a trip to Hawaii where we spent January to April 1955 in dry dock at Pearl Harbor. This was the first overhaul the ship had undergone in years. How do I know that? Well, in the process of chipping paint on the ship's hull from the inside, I put a power chisel through the hull. Ron Knight said he did the same. It was that thin! The metal wasn't more than a quarter inch when new, so obviously extensive erosion had occurred over the years. Locating weak spots was one of our objectives.
I chipped paint all over that ship until my brains eventually came up with a good idea for getting off the workforce. They say lazy people find unique ways of getting out of work, so my mind must have been working overtime. I kept noticing that this group of quys on the bridge (pilot house) had it a whole lot easier than us folks in the boatswain mates and gunnery gangs. James Sims was one of them and I think he enjoyed looking down on us deck hands and smiling at out plight! I yelled up "How can I get up there with you guys?" James hollered back, talk to that Chief over there" pointing to the dock.
Chief William Dubois, QMC, was sitting on the dock whittling away on a piece of wood. So I walked over to him and asked, "Say, Chief, how can I get into the Quartermaster's Group?" He smiled and said, "Why do you want to be a quartermaster?" He knew darn well what I wanted: I wanted to get the heck out of the Boatswan Mates group! I stuttered around a moment trying to come up with a good reason and said "I've seen what those folks do up there and think I would really enjoy that, I think sending messages and knowing what messages are being sent would be fascinating. I already know how to send morris code, I learned that in the Boy Scouts."
He said "Well I'll tell you what, it's Friday afternoon, you take this deck of cards and prove to me that you can learn all these flags by Monday morning, I'll see what I can do to get you on the bridge." Each card in the deck displayed a different signal flag, one for alpha, one for beta, one for charlie and etc.
I grinned from ear to ear and said "Don't worry, I'll know everyone of them by Monday morning. And that's just what I did all weekend, study those cards. I memorized three or four at a time until all 52 cards were stored in my memory. Nothing got in my way that weekend. I didn't go on liberty or to the movies or anything but study those darn cards. I was bound and determined to get off that deck force.
Come Monday morning I was waiting on the old chief when he came walking up. He said, "Well, you got those cards memorized, Dorough? And gave me this doubtful look. You should have seen his face when I went through that deck and never missed a card. I think incredulous would be a better description! He said, "A promise is a promise, I'll see what I can do!"
A short time later, Robert Phillippe, the 1st Class in the Quartermaster Group, hollered down from the bridge at me and said "Hey, Dorough, come up here a minute!" I laid my paint chipper down and was up there in a blink. He said, "I hear you want to be a Quartermaster? Well, come on up and go to work, you're in the Quartermaster's now!"
Getting on the bridge didn't get me out of chipping paint, not by a long shot, we still had the pilot house to chip and paint on the outside, but it got me into a whole different work environment, where the work wasn't so regimented and someone looking down your neck every minute.. We were free to take a break whenever we wanted to and some days hardly chipped at all, selecting to work on navigation charts instead.
I remember so vividly walking to the back of the pilot house and looking at my buddies chipping away on the deck below, with me grinning like a canary who ate the cat. One of them looked up and said "Dorough, what are you doing up there, you better get your ass down here and get to work!" I just yelled back "Sorry, guys! I'm in the quartermaster's gang now!" I think for a while they thought I was lying!
Just think, only a few days earlier I had been busy chipping paint in the anchor storage locker. This is a three-foot by three-foot wide chamber near the ship's bow and extending several decks below, about 15-feet or so. It was the hottest, airless hellhole on earth. I sweat profusely and all these paint chips stuck to my naked skin making life miserable. It was way to hot to wear anything other than a pair of trousers. And the noise, there was nothing like it. That power chipper vibrating against the metal walls was akin to being inside a snare drum. It's a wonder I'm not deaf!
By comparision, moving up to the Quartermaster Gang was like moving into paradice!