Reporting, as ordered

On 3 May, 50 years ago (a Saturday then), I began what I still consider my “real” time in the Navy. I walked down a D&S (destroyer and submarine) pier in Norfolk, Va., went up the gangway, saluted the ensign on the stern (the U.S. flag, not a most junior officer), requested permission to come aboard from the Officer of the Deck, and reported, as ordered, aboard USS Biddle (DLG-34), a warship soon to deploy to sea.

Though I doubt I realized it at the time, I was quite fortunate in being ordered to what was then the newest warship in the Navy. Biddle had been commissioned on 21 January 1967, a little more than two years earlier, at the Boston Naval Shipyard. (Still a student at Boston College at the time, I could have attended that ceremony, had I known. :))

These are pages from a “Welcome Aboard” pamphlet provided me, probably on arrival.

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While the pamphlet’s message from the Commanding Officer is signed by CAPT Maylon Scott, first Biddle CO, the commanding officer when I reported aboard was CAPT Alfred Olsen. That Biddle‘s commanding officer was a Captain and not a Commander reflected the status of DLGs at the time.

DLG was the acronym for Destroyer Leader, Guided Missile. Biddle was the last of the Belknap class of DLGs, the third class commissioned since 1960. Though larger than typical destroyers, these ships could not be called “cruisers,” because much larger ships with that title, such as the Chicago and Newport News, commissioned right after World War II, were still active. (In 1975, when the older cruisers were no longer active, DLGs were renamed cruisers and Biddle became CG-34.)

Biddle had not been sitting in port, waiting for me. She had put to sea on 28 March, bound for the West Indies. There, she conducted tests of recent modifications made to her radar, making six missile shoots. Returning to the Hampton Roads area (as shown in photo at top), she loaded missiles, torpedoes, and ammunition at Yorktown, Va., on 30 April and returned to her Norfolk berth on 1 May.

At some point that weekend, I likely met my two fellow ensigns — Jack Roberts and Steve Curran. Curran was a special surprise, because, though we had not known each other at the time, we had been classmates at Boston College. So we had connections and common memories that helped forge a quick friendship. Roberts was from Texas and had gone to school in Arkansas, so he was the someone different one would expect to meet in the Navy. (Curran and I were the “someones different” to him, of course.)

Curran, commissioned from OCS in mid-March, had attended CIC school in Dam Neck, Va., and had likely reported to Biddle on the same weekend as me. 

“One of my first impressions was how quiet the ship was on a Sunday,” Curran said. “Then Monday morning began with a flurry of activities, like morning colors, plan-of-the-day etc. I had to report to Capt. Olsen that morning, who gave me some very stern ‘fatherly advice.’ He said that on board his ship he wanted all his officers to respect the enlisted personnel and to realize what they wanted from their officers. That key word was ‘consistency’! He advised that I not try to be a ‘hard ass’ disciplinarian one day and their long last friend the next day. That behavior would only confuse the men and lead to a breakdown in morale. I should be ‘consistent in all your dealings with the men.’

“Another impression,” Curran added, “was getting oriented to the different levels and passageways on the Biddle. I didn’t want to look like a ‘freshly minted Ensign’ and have to ask one of the enlisted personnel how to get to ‘Officers’ Country’ or which ladder led to the wardroom.”

Roberts, the “bull” (senior) ensign, having reported to Biddle in January, said his first thoughts upon reporting onboard were that “I was totally unprepared for what I had gotten myself into. Four months at Newport had not made me a competent naval officer and I knew that. I was glad I was the Assistant Combat Information Center Officer and not in charge of anything. I just hoped my ignorance and inexperience were not so obvious that I would become a favorite target of the other officers.”

I must have also met with the Captain and have heard much the same speech. I certainly had the same feeling as Roberts. I later had the opportunity to spend “alone time” with Capt. Olsen, which I will report on. Safe to say, it was not a comfortable experience for a dumb ensign.

I earlier referred to the time after OCS as the “real Navy.” That didn’t start until the Biddle.