Guam

Biddle pulled into Guam on 20 June 1969. Maybe it looked like the photo above, another Pacific paradise. I don’t remember it that way. The photo is not of the naval base, so that could have something to do with it.

According to CAPT Olsen, writing in Biddlegram #2, “In our 3,300 mile voyage between Oahu and Guam, we encountered only a half-dozen ships. This is not a commercially profitable route and very few merchant ships make the run. In spite of the width and breadth of the oceans, it is a fact that those paths that ships use are relatively narrow and heavily traveled. The route between Hawaii and Guam is not one of those.”

We were in Guam less than a day. It was a stop for supplies, etc. (Perhaps it should have served as a signal for our Guam experiences, as the same thing happened heading east months later. But we thought our route would be elsewhere.)

My journal noted that I went to the Exchange and had one beer at the bowling alley. We left Guam at 1800.

We had been given permission to grow mustaches and beards, which were not normally permitted at the time. They couldn’t be any mustaches and beards, however.  We would be inspected and those found wanting would be ordered to shave.

My journal entry for 16 June did not portend well for my hirsuteness. “Hair on face has been growing for 2 1/2 weeks now. It’s beginning to become noticeable. Actually, the hair that’s there is fairly long, it’s just that seven of them aren’t enough.” There will be a status report on beards later.

I began working more on Intel stuff. I learned that the Intel team would be based in UB Plot, where the sonar technicians worked and, as my journal noted, “is cold,” even for CIC. Nearly all the enlisted guys working with me would be sonar technicians. The Gulf of Tonkin, our ultimate destination, is relatively shallow, which severely limited any submarine threat. That, and the North Vietnamese had no navy really beyond torpedo boats. Sonarmen were available for Intel duty.