I rode more ships than I can remember during my years in the Navy and Marine Corps, and if it had a newspaper, I contributed, and if it didn’t, I started one, even it was just a few mimeographed sheets stapled together in the middle of the night. If I couldn’t gather any news hanging around the radio shack, using a spare circuit to listen to AP or UPI broadcasts, I would just invent my own. I always followed the dictum of The New York Times, which first appeared in red neon letters on an illuminated sign over New York’s Madison Square in 1897 – the seven most famous words in journalism: “All the news that’s fit to print.” The motto is still on the paper’s masthead today.
While I never put out anything unprintable, on a slow night I would write about anything that crossed my mind and whatever I thought might hold my reader’s interest. When you are on a ship in the middle of nowhere, getting mail about once a month, if you are lucky, long before the invention of cell phones, most are happy to read anything that’s not official. Usually, I would write about what seafarers thought about most: something about home, getting off the ship, and girls. Here are three stories I wrote in such underway newspapers.
(1) The first time I rode in an airplane, it was an Army C-130, and I parachuted out of it, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t be scared. Until then, all my serious travel was by bus. Back in the late 50s, unless you were relatively rich, you were bus bound and saw the country through the window of a Greyhound bus. During the first ten years of my military career, I was familiar with just about every major bus station on the east and west coasts of the United States and many in between. There was this kid who graduated high school a couple years before me who got a job driving a Greyhound bus, and we all thought he was hot stuff, strutting around town between trips in his snazzy uniform, with gold buttons, and peaked cap, looking like a junior Nazi.
The only time I ever got my pocket picked was on an overnight bus to Norfolk, but she sure was pretty. She didn’t get much, though, because I had my money and my ID card in my sock. I was from the country, but I didn’t fall off the back of a turnip truck. Busses were crowded back in the late 50s and early 60s. You were often lucky to get a seat and would end up standing until the next town when the load shifted. Then you would often have to give up your seat to an old lady or a woman with a baby.
I really had some adventures on bus trips overseas. I remember one from a ship in Sattahip Port, Thailand, and I had signed up to take a day tour up to Bangkok. I don’t remember exactly when I began to suspect that things would go wrong.
Perhaps it was when I looked up and noticed that our tour bus, another bus, and a freight truck loaded with hogs in bamboo cages were hurdling down the narrow two-lane in a line abreast formation at 90 miles an hour. Or maybe it was when our “nine-course” lunch turned out to be fried rice and a warm Pepsi in the back room of the sleaziest hotel in Bangkok.
The day had certainly started out with promise – an escorted tour to Bangkok, a visit to the most interesting Buddhist temples, and back to the ship by 1900 (7:00 pm). Not bad for $10 American. Somewhere, however, about two miles east of Bang Bo, our guided adventure turned into a fiasco. It was about 1830 (6:30 pm) and we were halfway home, looking at our souvenirs, thinking about midrats (the midnight meal on every ship) when, with a crash, the transmission fell out of our bus. It was obvious, even to a semi-nonmechanical type like me, that the old Mercedes was mortally wounded. We coasted over to the side of the road, and our tour guide trudged off into the darkness to telephone for another bus. He assured us that this was just a minor inconvenience and that we would soon be on our way.
Providentially, or so it seemed at the time, we broke down within sight of a small sari-sari (variety) store whose owner obligingly decided to remain open for the duration. Things began to go sour about midnight, however, when five hours of Singha beer and fried rice began to tell on several members of our party. One of our slicked stalwarts then managed to throw up all over the interior of the bus, leaving the rest of us with a hard choice, in or out, nausea or malaria, because somebody had obviously forgotten to tell the local mosquitos that the war was over, and their Viet Cong buddies had won.
Finally, about 0100, two teenage Thai “mechanics” rolled up on a motorbike and announced that they had been sent to “fix” it. While unloading their tools, a few socket wrenches in a gunny sack, one of them was overheard to remark that the bus was “the biggest Honda he had ever seen.” Just to make sure you’ve got the scenario down, let me review: it’s one hour after midnight, dark as sin, alongside a rice paddy two miles east of Bang Bo, Thailand; we’ve got a Mercedes diesel bus with a wasted transmission that won’t get repaired this side of Stuttgart, Germany. and somebody sends us two boy mechanics who probably spent the day tending their water buffalo.
They were not successful, and about 0300, after innumerable coffee breaks, conferences, and mysterious treks into the darkness, with greasy Mercedes guts lying all over the ground, the head mechanic solemnly declared that the bus was a basket case and that we should call for a replacement – which was, as you will remember, where we came in.
Our poor tour guide, who was a decent enough fellow, took one look at our sullen mob of temple devotees, and decided he must do something immediately. Leaving with the motorcycle mechanics, three guys on one motorcycle, he reappeared in about 30 minutes with a city bus that he had apparently borrowed from the city of Bang Bo. After scouring the rice paddies to make sure that none of our group had wandered off, we roared back to Sattahip Port, only to be stopped at the gate because the city bus wasn’t cleared to go on the base. Finally, at 0515, after walking the last two miles back to the ship, 21 hours after we’d left, the last of the weary “Bang Bo Twenty” dragged themselves onboard just in time to start the new workday.
(2) This reminded me of a bus trip that I wrote about in another ship’s paper. While we were in Subic Bay, two busloads of hardy volunteers spent a couple interesting and productive afternoons with me painting a schoolhouse at the New Cabalan Negrito (aboriginal) resettlement project, a few miles outside of beautiful, downtown Olongapo City. In a sense, the project was like a free tour because it provided an opportunity to get out into the countryside. The school, a pre-school intended to facilitate the Negrito child’s success in the Philippine public school, is located on top of a mountain, and it is accessible only by foot after the bus has gone as far as it can.
The Navy Base provided us with a bus and a driver who must have had a kamikaze pilot or two in his family tree. When I was a kid, everyone said that your car was “fast” if you could outrun the Greyhound bus. Well, our driver must have felt the same way about Victory liners and Philippine Rabbits (local bus line) because he tried to pass them all. The Navy really gave us two vehicles – the bus and a pickup truck. After being told the bus would have to return to the base and would pick us up at 1700 (5:00 pm) every day, I got to thinking about something one of the aircraft carrier officers had told me. He said that a few days ago, while playing golf on the Subic course, he had almost stepped on a bamboo viper, the so-called “three-step” snake (it bites you; you take three steps and die). This was right after our shipmate had been hospitalized for a spider bite in Singapore, so I knew I didn’t want to have someone snakebit or zapped by some exotic spider while we were stranded on a mountain top – hence the pickup.
Our painting effort turned out well after we got a few problems sorted out. First, we were immediately surrounded by dozens of curious children. RM2 Bill Jergensen broke out his traveling magic show and solved that problem. Next, we discovered that Project Handclasp had given us 40 gallons of water-based paint – not too good for your basic monsoon season. After straightening that out, we discovered that the kids were casting covetous eyes at the box suppers the mess deck had prepared for us. Without dissent, everyone immediately agreed to divide their evening meals up among the ragged, hungry children. Naturally, this produced more ragged, hungry children.
Finally, after two days, we left the schoolhouse sparkling and bright atop the mountain. Hopefully, our efforts had a positive effect on the education of the Negrito school children, and to a man, we gained more from the children than they did from us.
(3) On one ship, I decided to spice up the paper with advice to the lovelorn. Since “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby” were already taken, I decided to be “Uncle Harry.” I was both writing to and answering myself.
Dear Uncle Harry: I slipped up and invited two different girls to meet the ship in Long Beach. Neither one knows about the other. What should I do? Signed: Seeing Double.
Dear Seeing Double: The answer is simple. Go home with the one who is the prettiest and who has the most money. Tell the other one her ship is just over the horizon. Signed: Uncle Harry
Dear Uncle Harry: My hair sticks up in back. I feel like Dagwood Bumstead. What can I do to keep it under control? Signed: Waving in the wind.
Dear Waving in the wind: Before I went bald, I had the same problem. A kindly girl recommended that I comb my hair with hot water. It worked every time. Signed: Uncle Harry.
Dear Uncle Harry: My girlfriend sent me a “dear John” letter. What should I do? Signed: Shafted.
Dear Shafted: Do nothing for at least six weeks. Seriously, let her stew in her own juice. She expects you to get down on your knees, to send her telegrams and flowers. She probably already has her “I’m so sorry” response worked out. By doing nothing, you may bring some mystery and excitement back into the relationship. If not, what have you got to lose? Signed: Uncle Harry.
Dear Uncle Harry: I’m new onboard. I have been on the ship for three weeks, and there is not one person that I can call my friend. How can I get to know people and feel a part of the crew?
Signed: Lonely in the crowd.
Dear Lonely in the crowd: I suggest by just doing your job and going about your business, you will meet more and more people and relationships will blossom. I’m sure there’s some neat guys in your division with whom you have something in common. They are probably anxious to meet you. Remember, to have a friend, you must be a friend. Signed: Uncle Harry.
Obviously, sailors and Marines will read anything.
Light a candle for me.
Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
