by Jeff Noonan
It seemed like just a few minutes before we were landing at Cubi Point. As soon as we were down, we were escorted to the chief petty officer’s working lounge beside the airstrip, where we were separated into groups. The sailors stationed locally were released to go back to their duty stations, but there were ten of us who were going to ships that were underway. The ten ship-sailors that were left in the lounge were going to be flown to the aircraft carrier, USS Hancock, from which we would be transferred to our ships. We were told to just stay in the lounge and wait for a couple of hours until the Hancock’s mail plane came in. The mail plane was going to fly us to the ship.
I found a comfortable chair and was about to doze off when someone opened the refrigerator in the lounge and shouted, “We got beer!” There were two cases of Budweiser in the refrigerator. We didn’t want to steal it, but it was too tempting to pass up in our present condition, so we took up a collection, left payment and a note in the refrigerator, and proceeded to get drunker.
By the time we had done away with the beer, the mail plane arrived, and an ensign came to get us. We were all merrily blitzed by that time. We loaded onto the little plane and strapped ourselves in. We were soon aloft, without the drama of the Baguio takeoff. Again, I had a window seat.
When we got close, the pilot told us where to look, and we could see the Hancock on the horizon. It was so tiny that it just looked like a speck on the water. I knew that other ships were with her, but they were too small to see until we got very close. I remember thinking that it must be really hard to land an airplane on that tiny target, but I had seen it happen many times from the Cogswell when we were escorting Hancock, so I wasn’t particularly worried. Hell, we were all too drunk to worry.
Then we made our approach. At the last minute, we were waved off for some reason, and I saw the Hancock’s superstructure flash by my window as the pilot gunned the plane’s engines and we headed almost straight up. That scared the hell out of me! I had no comprehension of what the pilot meant by, “We’ve been waved off.”
I remembered pulling a pilot out of the water after a botched carrier landing during our last WestPac cruise, and I was certain that we would be in the water soon ourselves. But then we leveled off and circled the carrier as we waited for permission to come in again. The pilot came on the speakers and explained what was happening, and I calmed down again. But that had been a terrifying few minutes.
We were again far up and aft of the carrier. It was tiny again, and then we made another approach and watched the carrier get larger and larger. I have to admit that I was a bit tensed up this time, but we landed uneventfully, with all of us flying forward violently into our seat belts as the plane caught the hook on the carrier’s deck, and we came to an abrupt stop. We were a bunch of very happy campers when we got off that plane.
The carrier had a contingent of Marines aboard and they were placed in charge of us as soon as we deplaned. By now it was evening and none of us had eaten all day, so they took us straight to the mess decks, where we had supper. That was probably a smart move, since it also sobered us a bit. Then they escorted us to the Marine Quarters, where there were enough empty bunks for us. I had a few words with a Marine corporal who insisted on treating us like prisoners. He backed off, but he certainly didn’t like us. He let us know that he considered us to be some kind of scum, if not prisoners, and we had better not leave the immediate area or he would have us thrown in the brig. We were too tired to care and we soon settled in for the night.
The plan was for us to be transferred to our ships first thing in the morning by highline. This would be another adventure, I was sure. The highline process is a method by which people or materials are transferred between two ships steaming alongside each other. The transfer is accomplished by stringing ropes between the ships, with crews on both ends keeping the ropes taut. People ride across in a cage with a seat in it as the crews pull the lines to drag the cage between ships. If the lines get slack, for any reason, the rider gets dunked at a speed of around twenty knots! It’s a much more exiting ride than any theme park could possibly imagine!
Since there were six of us from the Cogswell, we were scheduled to be the first group transferred in the morning. So as soon as we had eaten, we showered and went to bed, knowing that we would be up very early to be highlined between the ships. Since we were only aboard for the night, we didn’t have lockers. We just piled our belongings on the floor beside our bunks.
At 5:00 a.m., we were awakened by the same Marine that had been such a hard-ass the night before. Apparently he had been on some type of night watch, because as soon as we were all up, he went to bed and was soon asleep in a bunk in our area. We were quiet and went about getting cleaned up and dressed. Suddenly, I realized that my beloved Hong Kong No-Squeak Boots were missing! Someone had stolen them from the stack of clothes beside my bed! I told my friends, and we searched the entire compartment looking for them. We made a bit of noise doing this, and the corporal woke long enough to yell at us, “Will you good-for-nothing asshole Swabbies shut the fuck up?” Then he made a big mistake. He turned his back on us and went back to sleep.
I turned to my friends and told them, “Don’t worry about the boots. I found something to wear.” Then I bent over and took the corporal’s shiny cordovan dress shoes out from under his bunk. They were a bit big, but they would do the job. We quietly gathered our gear, muffling our laughter, and headed for the mess decks for breakfast.
We had just eaten when the ship’s speaker system came on and told us to go to the highline station. We did that and got there just in time to see the cage coming over to us from the Cogswell. We had agreed that I would go first, since I had a good reason to get off the Hancock as soon as possible. So I got into a lifejacket and stood by, waiting for the cage to be readied.
It dawned on me about that time that the lifejacket was a lot cleaner than the clothes I was wearing. They showed the wear of days of partying and the trip from Baguio to the Hancock, not to mention a sizeable group of stains left by pigpen mud. I was almost expecting to be put on report as soon as I came aboard the Cogswell. I was certainly not looking like a third class petty officer in my grubby civvies. Plus we didn’t know for sure that our escape from Olongapo had not been reported by someone. We were worried, but we had decided to put on our best faces and try to bluff it through.
I got in the cage and sat down. The bos’n in charge of the highline station checked to make sure that the cage was secure and my safety belt was tight. Then he gave the signal and I was on my way! It was quite a ride, with the chair bouncing about thirty feet above the water as the crews heaved around on the lines. The salt spray whipped at my face, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as the sight of the white water churning below me as the two ships sped, side-by-side, across the ocean.
My back was to the Cogswell, and I was watching the Hancock’s crew working the line that was feeding me across this canyon of raging waters when suddenly I saw the corporal! He was in his skivvy shorts and uniform shirt, with his corporal stripes showing, standing on the highline station waving his fist at me. He was obviously shouting something, but I couldn’t hear anything. I gave him a cheerful wave and a big grin. He was so pissed that he was literally jumping up and down. It was truly a sight to behold.
I finally got to the Cogswell and climbed out of the cage. The ship’s highline station was on the Foc’sle, and it was rocking pretty badly from the waves buffeting the ship. I have to admit that my legs were a bit shaky after that trip over the open water, so it was a bit hard to stand at first—but I was in one piece, and that was a very good thing.
Bos’n Cowell was in charge of the station, and he was preparing to send the cage back when I stopped him.
I said, “Just a second, Boats’. I have to make the Marines happy.” I took off the now-salty cordovans and tied them to the inside of the cage. Then I gave Cowell a thumbs-up, and he sent the cage on its way back to Hancock.
I started to leave to go
change clothes when the station phone-talker stopped me, saying “The Captain wants to see you on the bridge.”
That was not good news. I looked up at the bridge above me and saw Captain Moore looking down from the bridge wing. He motioned at me to come up to where he was and I nodded. It took a few minutes to get there. I was a bit slow because I was in my stocking feet, and the ship’s ladders were made of corrugated steel that dug into them, but I made it, and came to attention beside the Captain’s chair.
He slowly looked me over, from head to toe. I must have been quite a sight, standing there shoeless in my bedraggled and semi-sodden civvies.
He said, “Where’s your uniform, Noonan?”
“We lost them in the hassle of getting out of Baguio, Captain.”
A long pause and then, “Okay. Now what’s the story with the Marine’s shoes?” The Captain had a set of binoculars around his neck, and he had obviously seen the half-dressed corporal jumping up and down at the Hancock’s transfer station.
I said “Captain, they kept us in Marine quarters, under guard, last night. There was one Marine Corporal that was an absolute butthead to us. Then this morning, when I got up, my Hong Kong No-Squeaks were missing. One of the Marines had to have stolen them.” I went on, “The butthead corporal was asleep when we left there this morning, so I borrowed his shoes in a kind of a trade.”
The Captain’s normally ruddy face took on a redder hue suddenly, and his lips compressed into a thin, bloodless, line across his face. To me, he looked mad as hell. He asked, “Why didn’t you keep the shoes, if you were trading with the Marine?”
I replied, “Captain, the darned things didn’t fit.”
That did it. He exploded with such laughter as I had never before seen from an officer. He was doubled over in his chair when he gasped out, “You’re dismissed, Noonan. Go below and get a uniform on.”
Thus ended my great Baguio adventure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bar Battles, Russian Ladies, & Binjo Ditches
It turned out that the Navy had sent far too many ships to the Laos area this time. There were ships everywhere. Within a day of my return from Baguio, the Cogswell and several other ships were detached and sent back to port. But this time, instead of going to Subic Bay, the ship pulled into Manila.
While I had been in Baguio, the Navy had approved the reenlistment applications for Fred and me. Our reenlistment was scheduled for the later that week, the day before we were getting underway from Manila.
Entering Manila Harbor was like a tour back in time. Historical artifacts, primarily from World War II, were everywhere. Ships from all over the world were in the port and it seemed like most of them were underway in a chaotic bustle that, more than once, threatened to run over us. Only a very alert Captain Moore on the bridge saved us as he carefully threaded our destroyer through the melee.
A group of us went ashore the first day in Manila, but we didn’t particularly care for the town. It was a huge, bustling city, much as Hong Kong had been, but there was very little shopping and the few bars that we did find seemed somehow unfriendly after our experiences in Olongapo and Baguio. So we came back to the ship very early that evening.
The next day, some of us we signed up for a historical tour of Manila, which turned out to be a lot more interesting than I had anticipated. We saw everything from old Spanish churches to the POW camps where the Japanese had held our soldiers during the last big war. We learned a lot about World War II from our Filipino guide during that tour. In 1960, the Filipino population still had not forgiven the Japanese for some of the things that happened during that war. Our guide, who was an older lady, was not shy about her opinions. I had read books about the Bataan Death March and the return of MacArthur to the Philippines, so I enjoyed the tour very much.
A few days later, we reenlisted. Fred and I stood on the ship’s quarterdeck in our dress white uniforms, with our right hands held high, as Captain Moore swore us in for another six years’ service. I had only been in the Navy for twenty-seven months, but I knew that this was my future. This was just one more step in my escape plan.
The next morning, we got underway for Hong Kong. When we arrived, it looked exactly the same as it had the year before. The harbor was still bustling with everything from big freighters and junks to thousands of little bumboats. The British police came aboard and gave us the same pitch as the previous year, and we caught what looked like the same water-taxi when we went ashore.
Once ashore, I made a bee-line for the Hong Kong No-Squeak Shoe Company. This time, I bought two pairs of the tailor-made boots. They were the most comfortable shoes that I had ever owned, and I was not taking a chance of losing them this time.
After I had the boots ordered, I went to the tailor that I had worked with last time and ordered a couple of pairs of slacks and some shirts. While I was doing this, I ran into some other sailors from the ship. We talked a bit and decided to go to the China Fleet Club (the British pub and restaurant for military personnel) for something to eat. We picked up a couple of other Cogswell sailors on the way. When we got there, the place was crowded with British and Australian Sailors from two ships that we’d seen in the bay. There were about ten Americans with us by now, all from the Cogswell, and we had a bit of trouble finding enough tables, but we finally settled in at two tables not too far from the door.
We ordered our food and, of course, beer for everyone. After we ate, we relaxed, had a couple more beers, and talked a bit with the Aussie sailors at the next table. We were getting along fine with the Australians, but for some reason, the British sailors were giving both the Americans and the Aussies a hard time. They threw a lot of cheap comments about how nice it was that their government built nice clubs like this and let people from “the Colonies” use them. It was a little intense, but I was proud of my friends. We just ignored the Brits and their comments. The Aussies were a bit more responsive, but I thought that they were rather restrained too, in spite of their reputation as brawlers.
Finally, we finished up and paid our bill, getting ready to leave. I stood up and turned to the table next to us and said a pleasant, “Goodbye” to the Aussies at the next table.
They seemed startled that we were leaving. One big petty officer looked up at me and said, “But the fun hasn’t started yet, Mate!”
I didn’t understand, so he said, “Wait a minute.” He stood up, picked up his chair and threw it at a big table full of Brits. At the same time, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Fuck the Bloody Queen and the fucking horse she rides on!”
The place erupted.
I found myself standing right next to a big Cogswell gunner’s mate named Johnson. We got back-to back and started heading for the door. We yelled at the rest of the Cogswell crew, and they merged with us, forming a kind of phalanx headed for the outside. We took some tough hits. I got nailed with a solid smack in the gut, then a kick that almost dislocated my jaw, but I stayed upright and gave back as much as I could. Johnson caught a beer bottle on the top of his head, but he kept going with blood streaming down his face. There were a crowd of Brits guarding the door, but we bulled through them and finally made it to the outside world.
Fighting just wasn’t in our plans for that day. The Brits and Aussies could kill each other if they wanted to, but this was not our idea of fun. As we got out into the air, we could hear sirens headed our way, so we sprinted down the street further into the Wanchai District, found a bar, and ducked into it. That got us clear of the fight area and the police who were descending on the pub, so we proceeded to fix our hurts and have another beer or two. It turned out that Johnson was the most injured of us, and after the tender ministrations of a Chinese bar-girl who washed and bandaged his wounds, he was up for a few more beers. All-in-all, we had been lucky. If we had been seated further towards the back of that place, we would have been in real trouble.
So obviously we had to celebrate our good luck.
I got back to the ship at about ten that even
ing and went immediately to sleep. When I woke, I had a horrible hangover and some very sore ribs. But, all told, I was in better shape than I had any right to be.
The story of the fight was all over the ship for the next few days. Johnson and I were the heroes of the story because we had led the phalanx to the door. We tried to tell everyone that we were just trying to escape, but it was no use. The crew apparently needed heroes, and we were temporarily elected. With the story of this fight added onto our recent escapade in Baguio, which the rumor mill had blown to incredible proportions, I was really getting a reputation on the ship. I was amazed when even my Department Head, Lieutenant Dun, stopped me to tell me that he had heard that I “had done the ship proud” during the fight. It was actually pretty embarrassing.
I had a few dollars in my pocket thanks to my reenlistment bonus, so I did one of the more prudent things I had done in a while: I took most of it to the ship’s disbursing officer and had it locked away in the ship’s safe. Then I took a bit of it and headed for town again. This time I ended up in Kowloon with Fred and a few other guys. We had a ball there. It seemed that the bars and bar girls were the same on the Communist side as they were on the “free” side of town—except everything was less expensive!
The police had warned us about Kowloon, though, when they came aboard ship the first day. They told us that, since Kowloon was on the mainland and was officially Communist Chinese territory, we would not be protected by the US or Hong Kong governments if we went there. They specifically warned us about the “White Russian” girls in Kowloon. They were, purportedly, often spies who were trying to find out anything that they could about us, our ships, and our missions through the use of “feminine wiles.” Well, of course, many sailors went looking for the White Russians as soon as they got off the ship. I guess they were curious as to what constituted feminine wiles in such a free-loving port.