USS Chicago (CG-11) finally relieved Biddle on the morning of 1 August 1969. It was several days overdue, principally because of the presence of Typhoon Viola.
Before heading to Subic, we had to deliver something to Danang. The Meredith had delivered the North Vietnamese fishermen to us that morning and we were to drop them and their rafts off in Danang. The fishermen were berthed in the helo hangar and their rafts on deck.
Speaking of our shotgun, the Meredith had issued a press release on 30 July reporting their rescue of the fishermen. As my journal noted, “. . . didn’t even mention us.”
Indeed, the May 1970 issue of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, in its “Naval and Maritime Events, July 1968-December 1969” lists among items for 30 August 1969 the following: “The destroyer USS Meredith (DD-890) rescued five North Vietnamese fishermen from three rafts adrift in international waters 70 miles north of Dong Hoi off the coast of North Vietnam. It was the second group of North Vietnamese fishermen rescued by the Navy within the past three days.”
Here’s video from the film shot by GMG2 George Boyles or GMG2 Jerome Kuczmarski, showing the transfer of the fishermen to Biddle.
On the transit south, we rendezvoused with the cruiser St. Paul (CA-73), flagship of Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Force Seventh Fleet, a rear admiral. The admiral came over to Biddle for lunch. Among the things he mentioned then was that trips to Australia were being reduced significantly. They would only go, my journal noted, “to particularly deserving ships.”
There’s been allusions to this in previous posts, but we had been told Biddle would return from this deployment via Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Dream trip, or what! I didn’t know anyone personally who did it, but there were rumors, at least, that some guys had reenlisted to get that trip. Hearing that the trip might be in jeopardy was a bummer.
The admiral also indicated Biddle might spend its third line period off Korea.
While the admiral was on board, Biddle was about three miles offshore, just south of the DMZ. “Saw some air strikes,” according to my journal. Very soon after the admiral returned to the St. Paul, it began Naval Gunfire Support.
We arrived at Danang at 1830. My journal noted what happened then: “A PBR came out to pick up the NVN. All sorts of guys with M-16s. One of them gave the peace symbol. Some mortar rounds started coming in on the hillside north of us. As soon as the NVN were off, we hit flank speed getting out of there.” We were too big a target to hang around.
Cool!