Sea Stories

Ok all you Vets out there, time to put up or shut up. You now have a fresh audience for those amusing anecdotes from your time in service. I'll start -

I was standing 'messenger of the watch' when this happened...

Our Captain ***Hated*** the Captain of the USS Coral Sea. They were constantly in competitions with each other, usually winding up in taunts being shot back and forth across blinker light, via signal flag, or on the red phone, and degenerating into a full-on hatefest.

Well one day we're doing operations down in the South Atlantic. We get unrepped (underway replenishment for you non squids - it's when a tender ship pulls alongside and restocks your ship - fuel, groceries, personnel, the works), then go out on patrol to watch over Coral Sea while she gets hers. Coral Sea's Captain kept whining the entire time we were doing refuel about how long it was taking and how inept and antiquated our crew and ship must be. So here we go. Captain calls away 'gun stations' - think General Quarters minus all the damage control fluff. We pull up directly alongside the side of the tender opposite Coral Sea, and the fun begins.

Captain orders a 3 round salvo from turret 1 fired across the bow of both the tender and Coral Sea during a live refuel! Boom! Baaaboom! The ship rocks.

I have never in my life seen a carrier do an emergency breakaway so quickly. Oh, and the red phone never again rang with taunts from Coral Sea.

So let's hear 'em!