| John Rogers |
12-24-2013 03:47 PM |
Here is a real one from aloooong time ago when I was on the "Big E". It goes like this...
In 1971 India and Pakistan were fighting pretty hard at each other and the government decided to pull the Americans out of both countries so a LPH was dispatched to the IO to gather the civilians in. As a cover the USS Enterprise CVA(N)65 was also sent to provide cover which would have been fine except we had been on Yankee Station for about 3 weeks and were getting ready to go to port and get food, parts, ammo, etc. But since we could go ANYWHERE at 30+ knots, away we went, even through the Straights of Malacca which generally was done about 10 knots!
We mounted a bunch of 50 Cal M2s on the sponsons so the Marines could keep an eye out for small boats as neither country had much of a navy. So we got on station, steamed around in a big oval watching the LPH ferry civilians out and we got some too. Well after a couple weeks we were still there and we were starting to run out of food by God and all we had was frozen steaks, instant mashed potatoes, powdered eggs and home made bread. Even the donut machines had run out of mix! Christmas was coming and we had no idea when we were going to be cut loose but then on Christmas eve, we got the word that the supply ship was coming and should be there on Christmas!
Sure enough on Christmas morning up sailed our savior and on the wing of the bridge was their CO, Capt CC Smith (later to be our CO) dressed in a bright red Santa Claus suit waiving like crazy! The whole main deck on their ship was piled 10 feet tall with mail bags and those huge Tri-walls that supplies come in. Our whole crew was on the flight deck cheering like mad and then the vert-rep started and ran for nearly 20 hours until we emptied them out! It took 3 days to sort all the mail with 100s of helpers running mail into squares marked onto the hanger deck for each department and then departments dividing it up. Real food that night also which was really nice!
Yep, a Christmas I'll never forget as will 5000 other guys I imagine!
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