by Jeff Noonan
When I left, he was still standing there looking absolutely confused.
This type of thing went on day after day. After the stupid head trick, he kept trying, but he just couldn’t seem to be able to find anything more rigorous or demeaning. By the sixth day, I was starting to feel like I would survive this after all.
Then, on the last day, he found something really tough for a little guy like me. He met me at the Chief’s Quarters as usual, but this time he led me up to the main deck, in a partially hidden spot between the ASROC Launcher and the bulkhead under the ship’s bridge. A gunner’s mate met us there, carrying an old Springfield rifle. The Chief took the heavy old gun and handed it to me, “We’re going to do some working out today, Noonan.”
Then he had me hold the gun out in front of me, horizontally in both hands, with my arms fully extended.
I knew that he finally had me. I couldn’t possibly do this for two hours. He just stood there with a nasty smile on his face, watching me. Every few minutes, he would tell me to raise the rifle over my head as far as I could reach. Then, when that got so heavy that my arms were shaking, he would have me hold the rifle out in front of me again. It was absolutely excruciating.
I was still determined, but my body was weakening fast. About forty-five minutes into this, my arms just wouldn’t hold the gun up any more. It started sagging, and the Chief, standing there with a triumphant grin on his face, started yelling, “Noonan, this is a direct order! Get that rifle up in front of you.”
I struggled to get it back to the horizontal, but it soon sagged again.
“Noonan, you’re disobeying a direct order.”
Again the struggle and, again, the inevitable drooping of my arms. Again the yelling. I kept trying, but I just couldn’t do what he wanted. By now, he had a grin that was splitting his face. He was finally breaking me, at least physically, and he knew it.
Then he stopped talking, except to tell me where to hold the rifle next. I looked around, and saw that we were being observed. A group of about ten sailors, as well as two of the missile system engineers, had appeared, leaning on the ship’s lifelines on the side of the ASROC launcher beside the Chief.
I was about at the end of my rope, with the rifle at a low angle and my knees shaking, when I saw the group assembling. They were all very quiet, but grim looking. They were a really mixed group that included some of my fellow missile system people, but also other sailors that I had seen around the ship as well as the two engineers.
The Chief told me to hold the rifle above my head, and he turned to them and told them to move on. “This isn’t any of your business. Get out of here.”
The sailors looked at each other and seemed a bit uneasy.
Then one of the engineers said, “I don’t take orders from you, Chief, and I kind of like it here.”
This was followed by an older boatswain’s mate, who said, “I’ve gotta stay here to make sure my deck doesn’t get fouled,” and a gunner’s mate who said, “I work on this launcher. I’m staying.”
The whole group just stood there while the Chief’s face got redder and redder. Finally he turned to me and said, “Okay, Noonan—take a break.” He was beaten. He knew that he couldn’t keep doing what he had intended to do. Not with so many witnesses.
I still had almost an hour left on my punishment period, but I made it through. After the group showed up, the Chief conducted the session as if it was just routine physical exercise. Interestingly enough, not one of those guys left until it was all over, and the Chief dismissed me. They just sat there on the deck and the bollards, quietly watching.
My shipmates had saved me. Every day, one of my friends had been following me, watching what happened. Today one of the missile radar crew had been watching and had seen what was going on. He had run back to the missile radar room and told the crew what was happening. The two engineers working on the systems at that moment had stopped work and told the sailors who were working with them to go get their friends and meet them on the ASROC deck. When they had arrived, the Chief had been yelling his threats at me, and they had heard him. That was all it took to make them take the action that they had.
My week of extra duty was over and I had survived, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before the Chief got to me. He had been humiliated by this incident, and he wouldn’t forget me anytime soon.
Shortly after this, the ship arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for an eight-week period of Underway Training. We were scheduled to go to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, to fire our first Terrier Missiles as soon as we finished the training period and left Cuba. With the training exercises ongoing and the missile firings imminent, our work schedule went from bad to absolutely horrific. We went through continuous training drills during the daylight hours, with the crew learning how to handle all of the various battle conditions and damage control processes. Then, during the nights, we tried to get the missile systems to work.
In October 1962, just after my 22nd birthday, we arrived in Guantanamo Bay for training. Within days of our arrival, President Kennedy announced to the world that Soviet Missile sites were under construction in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis was on, and we were in Cuba!
We were in a training status and had no real ammunition on board, so our contribution to the naval blockade that ensued was minimal. We were there, and we sailed impressively, showing the flag to all that would look, but the Navy wisely kept us out of all potential firing zones. We were told where to get ammunition if we were needed, and our training was accelerated just in case, but we weren’t needed and the crisis passed us by.
But it was exciting to be on the cusp of history.
In the meantime, the work kept going. We were only able to catch an hour or two of sleep at a time, usually whenever we could sneak it in. In my computer room, we would cover for each other during the daytime drills, with each of us grabbing a couple of hours of sleep behind the switchboards while the alarms and the drills went on around us. Then we would work on the missile systems all night. It was the only way we could get our jobs done.
The engineers working on the ship’s missile systems had only one objective during this time. They were under contract to bring the missile guidance systems on line so that the ship could take its place in the operational fleet. They didn’t take kindly to all of the interference by the Command. They understood the need for the battle drills and tolerated them, but they weren’t so kind about the unnecessary interference that they encountered on Leahy. The showboating was bad enough, but the Chief’s continuous interference with the technical work was something they couldn’t accept. They regularly mentioned this interference in their weekly reports back to their companies, with copies to the Naval Weapons Station in Port Hueneme, California.
We were almost through with the eight-week training period when the word came to us via the engineers’ grapevine that Port Hueneme had sent a very strong message about our situation to the ship’s command. Suddenly we were given more freedom to work the systems, and the Chief almost disappeared, just staying in Chief’s Quarters all day. Lieutenant Cohen was around regularly, but he was always a help, not a hindrance.
Slowly we began to get ahead of the multitude of system problems that we had been working on for months. We actually started hoping that we might actually be ready to fire the missiles when we were scheduled to do it. We were still working around the clock, but we were able to concentrate on the systems
We finished the training period and headed off to Roosevelt Roads. Working around the clock, getting one system up at a time by cannibalizing parts from other systems, we did finally fire the missiles. It was not what any of us would call either a successful missile exercise or one without problems, but we managed to fire missiles under the control of each of the missile guidance systems, with a reasonable number of successful shots. By the time the last missile left the launcher, none of the missile crew, neither engineers nor the ship’s crew, really cared anymore. We just wanted it to be over
so we could get some rest.
When the last missile left the rail, the ship turned and headed north. We were going to Norfolk, to go into the shipyard for what the Navy called the “post-shakedown availability.” The engineers all left the ship and headed back to their regular jobs with their work on Leahy finished. The entire missile crew saw them off, and then went to bed. I think that I must have slept for the next twenty-four hours straight.
When I came to, and we were back to work, Lieutenant Cohen called me to his stateroom for a meeting. I thought nothing of it, but when I got there, he had a very serious look on his face. He asked me to sit down, and then he looked at me and said, “Noonan, I’ve been very worried about you, so I’ve been making some contacts with friends of mine.”
I was startled, and I asked him, “What’re you worried about? I thought that I was doing a good job.”
He replied, “You are, you are. In fact, you’re doing a terrific job. That’s why I’m so worried. There’s someone aboard this ship who’s out to get you, and you don’t deserve his crap.” He said it again, almost thoughtfully, “That’s why I’m so worried.”
He was so serious that I couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Oh.”
He leaned back in his chair and said, “I talked to my counterpart on the next ship leaving Bath, the Yarnell. We’re old friends, so I could talk honestly to him. I told him the kind of bum deal that I thought you were probably going to get here. To make a long story short, between the two of us, we have some pull with the guy who assigns fire control technicians their orders back in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. If you want us to do it, we’ll get you transferred to the Yarnell as soon as we get back to the States. Are you interested?”
This was a real surprise to me, but I knew where the Lieutenant was coming from. All of us knew that the Master Chief was just waiting for a chance to get to me. I also knew that the Lieutenant and my friends wouldn’t be able to protect me forever. This transfer was probably the only way out for me, but I hated to run, and I also had some good friends on the Leahy, so it was a hard decision.
“Do you really think its necessary, Sir?” I asked.
“Yeah” Lieutenant Cohen replied, “I really don’t know any other way. Off the record, that sneaky son-of-a-bitch is out to get you, and eventually he will—even if he has to trump something up. You and I both know it. I just don’t have any other answer. If you’re on Yarnell, you’ll be out of his reach. But here, you’re in his world.”
I looked at the Lieutenant and replied, “Okay. Let’s do it. I should be able to help on the Yarnell. I’ve learned a lot these past few months. But I sure hate the thought of doing all of this all over again!”
The Lieutenant smiled sadly and reached out to shake my hand, “I’m honestly going to miss you, Noonan.”
“Me too, Sir,” I replied, and I started to get up.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ll make the calls to get this to happen, but I don’t want the word to get out about this before we have the official orders in hand. I don’t want the Chief to have any warning of what is coming, and I don’t want to give him any ammunition to use against me. Mum is the word, Noonan.”
I replied, “I understand, Sir. Thank you again.”
The official orders came through via message while we were still enroute to the States. I was to be transferred upon arrival. But I was not going to Bath this time. Instead, I was to meet the Yarnell in Boston when it arrived from Bath. The timing was such that I was not granted any leave enroute. Apparently they wanted me aboard the ship and working as soon as possible. That, I thought, was a good sign.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Goodbye, Little Sister
I was preparing for my transfer when I caught a real blow in the form of a letter from Mom. My sister, Patty, had died. It had happened over a month before I got the letter, but she was gone. She would never again sit on the floor in front of Dad while he played the guitar and sang to her. I kept thinking about that. I just couldn’t get that picture out of my head.
It was a long letter, and Mom had poured her heart out in writing it. It was, at twelve neatly written pages, one of the longest letters that I had ever received.
It turned out that there was a lot that Mom hadn’t told me about in the year that had passed since I had been home last. Apparently Dad had been laid off for the winter, and things had gone from bad to worse. He had gone on a weeks’-long drunk and had repeatedly attacked Mom and the kids. It had gotten so bad that Mom had gone to the Sheriff for help. He had talked to Dad and had given him a good scare, but there was no permanent solution to the problem.
But Dad’s deterioration had one very real consequence. The family had no money, and Mom had no choice but to go to work. Her letter said that she had tried everything, but she just couldn’t work and take care of Patty. Finally, she said, it had come to the point where she only had one option open to her, and she had done what she had to do in order to feed the family. She had committed Patty to the state home for the disabled in Warm Springs, Montana.
With Patty’s care no longer an obstacle, Mom had found work almost immediately. She was cooking school lunches at the local school and working in a café downtown the remainder of the day. She said that with my allotment and her wages, the family was in better financial shape than they had been in years.
But, it had come at a cost. Patty was just eighteen when she went into the home. She died less than a year later, just after her nineteenth birthday. According to the doctors, she had died of natural causes related to her condition, but Mom was sure that the real cause was loneliness and a broken heart.
Reading between the lines, I could tell that Mom was devastated by Patty’s passing and was blaming herself for it. That was, I thought, almost certainly the reason she hadn’t written me sooner.
Mom said in the letter that she knew that I was very busy and probably wouldn’t be able to come home for the funeral, so she was just sending a letter rather than having the Red Cross send a telegram. The funeral had been over for more than three weeks when I got the letter. I was devastated. Patty had been a big part of my life, and she was gone! Even worse, I had not been able to say any kind of goodbye. I had not even known that she was in the state home.
I hid in one of the missile equipment rooms, crying and thinking for hours. Then I wrote Mom a very nice letter, commiserating with her for her loss and being as cheerful as I could be. I never told anyone how much it hurt to not be a part of saying the final goodbyes to Patty. Somehow it was even more than not being part of the funeral. It was almost as if I had been told that I was no longer part of the family. I knew that this kind of thinking was silly, but the impression lasted for a very long time, and it hurt.
I guess that the fact that I was bone-tired when I got the news made it even worse than it would have normally. But Patty was my sister, and she was the first close relative that I had ever lost. It was hard.
Mom’s letter went on to tell me that she had purchased two adjoining plots in the St. Regis Cemetery and had paid to have one headstone made for the two plots. The names on the headstone were Mary K. Noonan (Mom) and Patricia Robin Noonan (Patty). Mom intended to spend eternity with Patty, the child she had loved and cared for so unselfishly when she was alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
My Second Shakedown Cruise
I was less than thrilled to be reporting aboard USS Harry E. Yarnell. Except for the number on the bow and the name on the stern, the ship was physically identical to the ship I had just left. The Leahy had been a nightmare for me, with all of the Command’s showboating while we agonized over the missile systems. That had been my only experience with a new ship, and I was very afraid that all of them would be the same. But at least I was free of Master Chief Martinez.
I soon found that, although we had a couple of chiefs aboard Yarnell, they were there to get the job done. I never had a single problem with any of them. Our division officer was the man that Lieutenant
Cohen had called to get me transferred to the ship. His name was Lieutenant Swan, and he was very much like Cohen in that he was there to help.
The most interesting guy on the crew was an older first class petty officer named Mark Wilcoux. He was in charge of the missile radars, and he had been doing this kind of work for several years. He had commissioned two ships previously and had taken them through their shakedown cruises and missile firings. He absolutely loved this kind of work. When I met him, he had been in the Navy for sixteen years, and, in my opinion, he could have made chief whenever he wanted to if he had tried. But he didn’t want to leave his hands-on electronics work to become an administrator. He absolutely loved the challenge of working with the new, often experimental, radar systems.
I had only been aboard about an hour when Wilcoux looked me up. I was unpacking my seabag when he introduced himself. As the Division’s senior petty officer, he was my immediate superior, but he didn’t come from that angle at all. He introduced himself, shook my hand, and then told me, “I’ve been working with these new ships for five years, so I know the engineers they send on shakedown cruises. I’ve heard all about you and the Leahy, and from everything I hear, you’re my kind of guy. You work hard, you know what you are doing, and you care about the job. If you take the computers, and I take the radars, we can make this into one of the best missile ships in the Navy—but we’ll have to work our asses off to do it. Are you in?”
I just looked at him and grinned. I held out my hand, and we sealed the deal. That was the start of a good friendship that endured for years.
I was not aboard Yarnell more than two hours before I was up to my elbows in the computers. I had arrived just as the crew was getting into making the system changes that came after commissioning. They were a new crew, much as the Leahy’s had been, and they were struggling with the ORDALTS, many of which I had put in Leahy just a few months before. Suddenly, I was the old hand, a person with experience! I went to work with real gusto. Before long, I was directing the work on all four computers, and even people senior to me were looking to me for guidance.