Sailors of the Caribbean

On this date in 1970, 50 years ago, Biddle returned to sea. The ship left Norfolk for a 32-day cruise, mostly in the Caribbean.

According to shipmate Jim Treadway’s Hard Charger! The Story of the USS Biddle (DLG-34), the cruise was for training and for evaluation of modifications to the SPS-48 radar that had been accomplished during the in-port stay.

Among the port calls were San Juan and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. I remember the cruise as pretty much Monday-Friday at sea and in port on the weekends. I assume I stood CIC and in-port Officer of the Deck watches, but don’t recall anything of note in that regard.

Then-Ensign John Graham recalls that the departure from the Destroyer & Submarine Piers in Norfolk was his first as a sea detail Officer of the Deck. “What a power trip,” he says.

John also remembers a somewhat “exciting” entry into San Juan harbor when he had the deck and conn.

“We had a pilot aboard, but he spoke no English and my Spanish was limited to gracias and de nada.

“The tide was flooding, I believe at some four knots, as we came past El Morro on the port side. [That could well have been just when I took the picture at the top of the post.] Biddle’s steerageway was, I believe, six knots. Blowing past El Morro at 10 knots over the ground was like a roller coaster ride.

“The Navy piers were off our port bow and the channel made about a 120-degree turn east and then to the north for the piers. I brought her left, slowly. We found the channel and parked at the pier. The pilot never uttered a word, but our navigator, Bob Combs, did. After the lines were across, he pulled me aside and we looked at the chart of the harbor with our path neatly marked on it. Our turn to port was more of a loop than a turn.

“Bob pointed his finger at the southern-most portion of our path and said, ‘What’s the depth here?’ ‘Thirty feet’ I said. ‘And what do we draw?’ ‘Thirty-four feet with the sonar dome.’ ‘You know that means we were technically aground,’ he said. I thought of the paperwork and of the Captain being relieved of command and said, ‘Looks like a barnacle-cleaning evolution to me, Bob.’ ‘I agree,’ he said, ‘and now I’m going to clean these damn pencil marks off this chart.’

“My God that O Club rum and tonic tasted good!”

What I remember most from the cruise is a who. Whilst in a resort bar in San Juan, sipping on a glass of 150-proof rum, I spotted an attractive dark-haired young woman. Used as I was to spending time with “working girls” in Asia, I initially suspected that Margarita might be so “employed.” Wrong.

I believe ENS Curran was with me that day and he and I paired off with Margarita and her sister. They showed us some of San Juan and they joined us in the Biddle wardroom for lunch one day. This was a more “normal” relationship with a young woman, but it was still a brief and casual frolic. I remember her, however, and hope her life has been wonderful.

UPDATE: Found some more pictures from the cruise. Gallery includes a picture of me and Margarita.

There was Navy work, too, of course. Biddle conducted naval gunfire support exercises, firing onto Culebra Island, according to Graham and our fellow Ensigns Steve Curran and Jack Roberts.

“They dumped bags of lime on the cliffs of Culebra to make the targets,” John remembers. “Biddle steamed by, firing off the beam. As I recall, there were two exercises: one firing with the fire control radar and the ‘direct fire.’ Eyesight from the director: ‘Fire for effect.’ Then ‘Up five mils, left five mils. Fire.’ ‘Bingo. Target destroyed.’ Biddle scored 100 on both exercises.

“And, did I mention, I was the director officer for the shoot?” Yes, you did, John. 🙂
 

Our trip to the Virgin Islands may have had tactical and training purposes, but the purpose I remember was booze. One could purchase rum and other alcohol and bring it back to the States free of duty charges. Somewhere in my collection is a picture of a Biddle sailor laying on top of a few of many boxes of booze on the pier, soon to be brought aboard.

As Treadway’s book reports, Biddle spent the end of the cruise farther north. As a test of the radar’s ability to track multiple contacts, Biddle spent a couple of days in the New York Operating Area, with its multitude of airports and flights, before returning to Norfolk on 15 May.