A Storm Called Vera

“We’re going back to The Rock on this thing?” I gasped.

“At least it ain’t the Henrico.’ A grunt from 1/9 opined.

“You think the Henrico was bad? You should have been with us on the Greasy George Clymer. Fifty-seven straight days of cruising off Vietnam on that miserable excuse for a ship. Hotter than hell. No ventilation. If you slept on the deck, you got covered in soot. I was ready to charge ashore into machine gun fire just to get off the damn thing.” Said my buddy Al.

The Navy gray semi-trailer bus we called a cattle car stopped by the ship. It wasn’t sitting at a dock like a normal ship. It had simply driven itself up to a ramp. Its clamshell bow doors were open revealing a couple of tanks inside. We couldn’t see the name on the stern, but the bow bore the number 1170.

“Hey look! It’s an LST. No climbing up any cargo nets today.” Another Marine said.

“Them flat-bottomed scows ain’t much good in the open ocean.” Grumbled an old Gunnery Sergeant.

We shouldered our packs M-14s and grabbed our seabags to board.

“This thing looks kinda new. Bet it’s never even been hit by a Kamikaze.” Someone obviously knew what had happened to the Henrico 20 years before off Okinawa.

“Look at it this way. If someone shoots a torpedo at this thing, it will just go underneath it.”

We continued joking as we slipped by the tanks to board. We were hung over from a night in Olongapo with its famous San Miguel beer, but our spirits were high. We were going home. Well, sorta home. We were returning to our base o9n Okinawa. The Rock was a tropical paradise of emerald-green hills, sandy beaches, and coral reefs.

We climbed a ladder into the troop compartment and noticed things we weren’t used to seeing. The ship was spotlessly clean and freshly painted. The canvas on our bunks was bright white without the usual soiling and tearing.

Someone stuck his hand up to a round tube protruding from the bulkhead. “I’ll be damned!” he exclaimed. “The ventilation system works.”

We were on the USS Windham County and a good ship she was. Loading through the cavernous tank deck took no time at all. Within a couple of hours, the ship was backing into Subic Bay. As she turned about, we got a last glimpse of the USS Princeton at the carrier pier. The big Essex Class carrier had been our home for the past two months. The Sweet P was big and fast. Mostly we loved her because of all the room she had on board. With half of the battalion and one helicopter squadron, it wasn’t very crowded. Platoons ran laps on the flight deck, we rode the huge elevators with the choppers, and there were movies on the hanger deck. Good ones too, like The Pink Panther with Peter Sellers and Claudia Cardinale. Man, that woman could act! Goodbye, Sweet P. Have a nice war.

We sailed close to Bataan as we exited the harbor. The ghosts of McArthur’s besieged troops hung in the mists of its jungle. We made a steady 13 knots as we turned north into the South China Sea. Not up to the Princeton’s 30 knots, but a nice gentle ride on fair seas. An old salt told me that LSTs were designed to take on seawater for ballast to make them more stable on the open ocean.

A crew of sailors limbered up an anti-aircraft gun on the upper deck. “This oughta’ be interesting,” I thought. Then a Navy plane towed a target slip by us. The crew fired away. They missed. Well it was fun watching the black puffs of smoke as the shells exploded.

In the Galley, the chow was good. One thing we all liked about the Navy was their canned whole milk. None of that re-combined condensed crap we got on land. For the most part, their eggs weren’t green either. We had a good-sized space on the deck to roam and shoot the breeze. Mulliner ran a crap game while Chiado got me to play our One Thousand, Seven Hundred, and Eighth hand of Crazy Eights. It had been a long cruise. Long after dark, we headed down to our racks. Someone played music on a short-wave radio after lights out. Life was good.

In the morning we awoke to find the vessel rolling and heaving through the swells. The weather must have picked up. Up on deck the wind was blowing and the sky was turning gray. We could see the swells raising the bow, then letting it down with a big splash. The ship shook as it bobbed up and down in the swells. This was getting to be a fun ride. After morning chow, the seas had picked up some more and the clouds grew more ominous. We were running into a brisk wind. As she rose and fell on the swells, the ship began rolling from side to side. The shaking and shuddering got more pronounced as the bow rose and fell farther than before. This was very cool, like some of the rides at Disney Land.

The wind got stronger and the swells higher. The spray was starting to get us wet. Big white caps were starting to crash over the bow.

The louspeaker whistled and a voice cackled. “Attention on deck! Attention on deck! Now hear this! Now hear this! All Marines go below. Repeat, All Marines go below! We are entering a tropical storm. Expect winds of 50-60 miles an hour, rain squalls, and heavy seas. All sailors on deck, don your life jackets. Sailors don your life jackets. That is all.” We were in the middle of a tropical storm called Daling by the locals and Vera by the Navy.

“What the hell? Didn’t the damn Navy know there was a storm coming? This tub wasn’t meant for heavy seas.” Someone said to a chorus of groans. We went below. Some found a seat in the Galley, but most had to return to their racks in the cramped troop compartment, it felt like we were trapped in a submarine while depth charges were raining down. The waves banged off the hull. The ship rose higher, fell farther and groaned more as the waves pounded it. Some of the guys got sick. The lucky ones made it to the Head before their stomachs erupted. Most of us had our sea legs by then and laughed as the weaker ones lost their guts. The ventilation system helped with the smell. It became harder to stand or walk as the seas churned more and more. It was best to keep your knees bent and hang on to something. The ship’s pitching and yawing kept getting worse.

Then things got crazy. The damn ship was turning around! It rolled sharply as it turned throwing loose items and unsteady troops into bulkheads. “What now?” The ship righted itself and plowed along for a while. Someone came in from the Galley and said the tank doors were leaking. That explained the turnabout, but isn’t a ship supposed to run into the weather?

Men swore oaths. “If I ever ship over in this damn outfit, it will be to get into the Air Wing!” someone muttered.

Mulliner suspended his crap game when the dice kept rolling off the bottom rack. Then the ship turned around again.

“I hope the Skipper knows where he’s going!”

“He’s probably some damn Six-Monther getting his ticket punched. Bet he’s a used car salesman from Dago in the real world.”

“This ain’t nuthin’. Did I ever tell you ‘bout the time….”

“Shut up, you lying sack of seaweed!”

The ship continued its roller coaster ride on the sea. There was a thunderous crash each time it slammed down into a trough. The steel hull groaned as it twisted. It was going to be a long, long night. Lights out didn’t help. Few slept. Most of us kept a hand wrapped around the tubular frame of our racks.

The big guy in the rack above me kept shifting position. His butt was about 3 inches from my belly. I had to twist to roll over on my side. Then he threw up. I grabbed the towel hanging from the end of his rack and tried to help him clean it up in the dim light. It took three trips to the Head to finish the clean-up and rinse out the towel.

Late that night, I finally fell asleep. The next morning, I awoke to the gentile humming of the ship’s diesel engines. The seas had calmed. I grabbed some clean skivvies and went to the Head to shower.

On deck, it was a perfect morning in the South China Sea. A flying fish jumped from the crest of a small wave and disappeared into the peaceful blue ocean. The Windham County was no worse for the tough night it had just endured. She still sails today but with a different Navy.

Me? I will be sleeping in the top rack from now on!

LDT July 24, ‘24

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