17 Jan 2002
I was the Supply Officer in 1963-64. One time we were asked to return to the ship at 2200 to get underway for our next three week picket duty. This is not exactly the time to get underway if you want a sober crew but this time we were going to test our military readiness. Early the next morning we had target practice with an airplane. The airplane would pull a sleeve about 1/2 mile behind the plane for us to shoot at with our two mighty manually operated 3"/50 weapons. The Line Officers were all up on the Bridge and other locations to observe this important military event. Naturally, as Supply Officer, I was assigned to be the aft safety observer. Two deckhands would serve as gunnermate strikers to handcrank the weapon to sight the target. The plane flew by 2-3 times and the aft gun was silent because they had never seen the target in their sights. It is quite difficult to find a moving target with this manually operated system. The Officers on the bridge could see that the aft gun was silent. The first class gunnersmate explained in traditional Naval language to fire the gun regardless of what they saw in their sights. After the gunnersmate's scolding, the aft weapon fired each time the plane flew by and the officers on the bridge were impressed.. Fortunately, we never had to use our weapons in a confrontation with an enemy.
I think I still hear those Tracer guns going off.. Do you hear them?? Must be a bad dream??
Bill Bossert LTJG
1963-64
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