Wherever aircraft carriers go they always supply Shore Patrol. They just can’t turn loose upwards of 3000 men on any port without Shore Patrol. This incident was in 1967.
The carrier pier was way out on Cubi Point, Philippines next to the Air Station. Our destroyer escorts were able to pull into the Subic Naval station pier, but we had to stay out where the deep water was. Of the 5500 plus men on board about 3000 a day needed transportation from Cubi Point to the liberty gate from Subic to Olongopo. The Navy came up with a novel idea, a 60-foot cattle car pulled by a truck. The cattle car was full all afternoon taking people out to the gate and full late at night returning men from the gate to the ship. The real problem came at the end of the shift when curfew caused a mass of late sailors to be jammed onto the car and run back to the ship. Sailors and Marines would be very inebriated and uninhibited and confrontation was frequent. The Shore Patrol Chiefs were smart and as the crowd began to build they would load them onto the car and send them back before there was trouble. Each car had three or four Shore Patrolmen riding with the drunks. There were stories of drunken brawls erupting and the Shore Patrol being tossed off the moving trailer. I can’t verify if the tossing happened or not, but this I next part I do know because I was on duty as Shore Patrol.
The end of the night was upon us and the crowd began to accumulate. It turned out there were about 20 Black Sailors, 20 Marines, and 20 Rednecks stacked up waiting for the car. The Chief in charge saw this was a volatile mix so he herded them onto the car. They huddled in tight groups, no mixing. The Chief called out for extra Shore Patrol. I wasn’t due to make a run but the Chief added extra Patrolmen to keep things calm on the trip and I ended up being part of the re-enforcement trying to keep a lid on this ticking time-bomb. The Black Sailors moved to the front, the Marines claimed the center and the Rednecks took to the back of the car. There were no doors on the car, just a single chain across the two open doorways. Five Shore Patrolmen separated the front and center and five separated the center and the rear. We hooked the chains and the truck rolled away. I hadn’t perspired all evening, but I was sweating bullets on the run back to the ship. The truck was moving at nearly 40 miles per hour and there’s no way to get thrown off a moving vehicle at that speed and stay upright. I would have taken bets that somebody would have gotten hurt on that run, but I, we were lucky, there wasn’t even any shouting, but that was a long trip back to the ship.
I had a friend in the squadron who had Shore Patrol duty another time in Olongopo. He walked into a bar with his Shore Patrol partner to end a disagreement between a sailor and a bar girl. He got between them and shoved them apart. He was asking the sailor what was going on when he heard a beer bottle break. He turned to look and the bar girl swiped the broken bottle diagonally across his face from his forehead to his chin. His partner was standing away instead of protecting his back. I don’t know how many stitches he received, but it sure changed his looks forever. The Navy didn’t have any plastic surgeons that I knew of so his face didn’t fare too well. This was the same poor sailor who was in the plane that landed badly and went over the side of the ship earlier on carrier qualifications.
The bad part of Shore Patrol duty was being placed with someone you don’t know and don’t know if they will fight with you or fall back. In this case the partner didn’t watch the shore patrolmen's back.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
The carrier pier was way out on Cubi Point, Philippines next to the Air Station. Our destroyer escorts were able to pull into the Subic Naval station pier, but we had to stay out where the deep water was. Of the 5500 plus men on board about 3000 a day needed transportation from Cubi Point to the liberty gate from Subic to Olongopo. The Navy came up with a novel idea, a 60-foot cattle car pulled by a truck. The cattle car was full all afternoon taking people out to the gate and full late at night returning men from the gate to the ship. The real problem came at the end of the shift when curfew caused a mass of late sailors to be jammed onto the car and run back to the ship. Sailors and Marines would be very inebriated and uninhibited and confrontation was frequent. The Shore Patrol Chiefs were smart and as the crowd began to build they would load them onto the car and send them back before there was trouble. Each car had three or four Shore Patrolmen riding with the drunks. There were stories of drunken brawls erupting and the Shore Patrol being tossed off the moving trailer. I can’t verify if the tossing happened or not, but this I next part I do know because I was on duty as Shore Patrol.
The end of the night was upon us and the crowd began to accumulate. It turned out there were about 20 Black Sailors, 20 Marines, and 20 Rednecks stacked up waiting for the car. The Chief in charge saw this was a volatile mix so he herded them onto the car. They huddled in tight groups, no mixing. The Chief called out for extra Shore Patrol. I wasn’t due to make a run but the Chief added extra Patrolmen to keep things calm on the trip and I ended up being part of the re-enforcement trying to keep a lid on this ticking time-bomb. The Black Sailors moved to the front, the Marines claimed the center and the Rednecks took to the back of the car. There were no doors on the car, just a single chain across the two open doorways. Five Shore Patrolmen separated the front and center and five separated the center and the rear. We hooked the chains and the truck rolled away. I hadn’t perspired all evening, but I was sweating bullets on the run back to the ship. The truck was moving at nearly 40 miles per hour and there’s no way to get thrown off a moving vehicle at that speed and stay upright. I would have taken bets that somebody would have gotten hurt on that run, but I, we were lucky, there wasn’t even any shouting, but that was a long trip back to the ship.
I had a friend in the squadron who had Shore Patrol duty another time in Olongopo. He walked into a bar with his Shore Patrol partner to end a disagreement between a sailor and a bar girl. He got between them and shoved them apart. He was asking the sailor what was going on when he heard a beer bottle break. He turned to look and the bar girl swiped the broken bottle diagonally across his face from his forehead to his chin. His partner was standing away instead of protecting his back. I don’t know how many stitches he received, but it sure changed his looks forever. The Navy didn’t have any plastic surgeons that I knew of so his face didn’t fare too well. This was the same poor sailor who was in the plane that landed badly and went over the side of the ship earlier on carrier qualifications.
The bad part of Shore Patrol duty was being placed with someone you don’t know and don’t know if they will fight with you or fall back. In this case the partner didn’t watch the shore patrolmen's back.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment