Sea Stories

On the Road Again - CONCORD breakaway tune from the early 80's (song will play only one time).

Breakaway Flag

Photo submitted by SM2 Rodney Cooke

SKSN James Gollinger (73-75)
I remember our training at the GITMO base in cuba. One afternoon a small group of sailors were fishing while
the ship was tied up in port. There were two members of the crew from American Somoa aboard who caught a fish and began to eat it while the fish was still alive! This caused quite a reaction and to put the icing on the cake they asked if anyone had any salt as they said "it tastes better with salt."

YN3 Gannon (79-83)
Hey DP3 Johnson, you are right it was a military coup in Alicante Spain, I was out there with, MM2 Armando Gomez,SN James Brown, PN3 Frank Vinas and MM3 David Karue. We were also told to get back to the ship by SP. But instead we chose to go into another bar (typical huh). When we left that bar," after being told to report back to ship for the second time", We were approched by three Alicante Soldiers and were asked for our ID's. SN Brown told them to go to hell and one of the soldier reached back and slapped him across the face. We all produced our ID's real quick after that. After they told us to leave we ran back to the ship as fast as we could..

As for the hash that was stolen. Some one had gone over the false celing from the T&E room into the MA's office cut the hasp off the safe with a portable cutting torch put the torch in a trash can and tossed the torch over the Aft part of the ship but left the trash can there. When I went to open the MA's office the next morning I noticed the the lock cut and notified MAC Zinchuck.

P.S The Hash was found on the Helo deck by an Airman frrom the Helo Det. and was turned in the night before.

MM3 Tom Barron (68-69)
CONCORD was the first ship to have the AOS system on her main engine. The idea, (I surmise) was to eliminate the need for an E-2 to run around and do readings. So ... the thing didn't work worth a damn. Instead, it took three electronics (E-4's and 5's) to take care of this magic box.

The computers back when Concord was built were kind of primitive. Each seperate gague being read required it's own card.. which set back the government something like three hundred bucks a pop. And pop they did. Every single watch I ever stood in the engine room, the teletype (and IBM selectric typewriter) would start chattering out and if it wasn't just a single alert, it would keep typing and the SOP was to reach over and shut it off. The cards, when they'd go bad, would cascade the whole system and it would all go into alert status.

We were down in Gitmo undergoing shake down training and I was a talker. We had the IBM and were ignoring it, but for some reason, I looked down and there was a number out that I didn't recognize and it turned out we hadn't turned the lube oil cooler on to one of the ship's service generators. Hmm.. pointed it out to the engineering officer and we had to stop our drill and do the real casuality.

Well, we got through Gitmo, but with less than flying colors. Matter of fact, they passed us, but ..

We got back to Norfolk and had acceptance and other engineering trials. One of the engineering officers asked, "How in the hell did you ever get this plant through Gitmo?" I shrugged. "Well, every time we had a casuality control drill, we'd have a real emergency and I guess they figured we didn't kill anyone steaming it and so we kinda deserved a break." He gave me this 'what the hell' look, and just then the alarm went off and I checked it and yeah, another damn card fried. He just shook his head.

Not fun getting that thing to steam in the early days. I'd come up for lunch and find out it was mid rats. Sixteen, eighteen hour days were the norm. Always wondered what they ever did with that piece of garbage system we had to live with.

FTG1 Wayne Hostilo (73-77)
We had just entered the Med and were independent steaming toward Naples to start our tour. I'm guessing this was 74 or 75 but it's been a while. The mid watch had just set when all of a sudden we went to GQ for a man overboard. The fantail watch reported hearing a man screaming from the water. The ship came to all stop and we lowered the whaleboat. It took about an hour but they located the man and brought him back on board. Within minutes the ship was enveloped in pea soup fog. We were over 90 miles off the coast of Spain. the story gets better because the sailor reported he was thrown overboard by unknown assailants as he climbed the athwart-ships ladder on the way up to the mess decks to catch some midrats! Only a few in the crew knew the whole story but the CO placed the sailor under 24hr watch and as you know we didn't have a brig so we used sickbay. The reason I know this is because D3 Division got the job of standing watch on him until we reached Naples!

P.S. Scuttlebutt was he was a NARC as in those days drugs were quite a problem on our ships. At any rate, once we hit Naples he was escorted off the ship never to be seen again. The angels were watching out for that guy!

SK1/SKC Dan Kruse (83-86):

You may recall that there was always a giant sweat-x over the cookies that had to go in the billing package. The same was true the day of the New Jersey engagement. But when the NJ CO decided he wouldn't come alongside, Capt. Dougherty got P O'd and insisted that the cookies be removed... Can't remember if he and the bridge crew ate them or if we had a spare box in stock control.

DP3 Darryl Johnson (79-82):
The place; Alicante, Spain. I was on liberty with a shipmate (can't remember his name) but we had just gotten a bottle of rum and a military coup happened. Well, shore patrol was telling everyone to head back to the ship. We proceeded to find a place to down our bottle of rum expecting to see troops or tanks rumbling through Alicante. After the bottle we were walking along and the shore patrol party saw us again and yelled after us as we took off running. My buddy fell down, but I got away, or so I thought. LCDR Bender, whom I had worked with in the helo tower durning VERTREP, happened to be cruising around in a car and offered me a ride. I was probably pretty lit. I proceeded to accept his offer and I guess I told him what had transpired. Well I ended up explaining the whole story again in a much more sober state at XO screening with the XO reprimanding me for eluding shore patrol and sternly telling me to get a haircut (the 'fro was a bit 'Linkish) before dismissing me and the charges. (Whew!)

EM3 Kevin Canney (79-83):
I have got so many stories, I'm not sure which ones I should tell and which ones not. Let's throw out a few headlines and see what everyone remembers!
By the way Darryl I think it was Barcelona, and we heard machine gun fire...and I did not fall down!!!!
Anyway...Atlantic crossing, Portugese sailor nearly cut in half helo transported to the Concord and the doc performed emergency surgery, in that little sickbay!!!
Rock apes (not Deck) in Gibralter stealing and biting everyone (thing) in sight! Fantail frolic where that yeoman dressed in a pink tutu and did a little dance. Helo'd off the next day!
Heavy seas in the Med 30-40 degree rolls, all fork trucks break loose and start smashing everything in sight, a JP-5 line crushed nearly cause an explosion HT1 Hoole lasso's them down and saves the day.
On our way back to States, big Hash package found and locked tightly in MAA's office. When hit Norfolk, NIS boards and someone had re-stolen it.
Fire on the Pier; welding accident on large white ship (USS Lasalle) in front of us. I just happened to be on duty (fire team);several of us end up in hospital for smoke inhalation. Got more but not enough time,

FTG1 Wayne Hostilo (73-77):
In 1975 we set sail for Concord MA with the idea of supporting the July fourth celebration commemorating the 'Shot Heard Round the World' starting the American Revolution on Concord Bridge. In preparation for that trip we formed a marching division, if you can imagine, and each day we would march up and down pier #6 at Norfolk NOB. What a mess. Everytime I see 'Animal House' and those guys crashing into the wall I think of our marching ability. The XO finally gave up and reported to the old man we were as ready as we'd ever be. We got underway and headed out to the mid Atlantic for exercises before turning to the North West. Only problem was by the time we made the turn were in the teeth of a Cat 3 hurricane. We steamed at full speed for three days and made about three knots of headway. We had green water over the bow and the weather decks were secure but being an FT we would always have to get up on the 05 level and check out our gun directors. I remember very clearly having to lean into the wind at greater than a 45 degree angle to make any headway. The boat pitched so deeply that you could go forward near the bos'n locker on the cargo deck and jump a foot or two in the air and the boat would drop from under you and we'd fly through the air like supermen. After a valiant attempt to make port the skipper gave up and we turned away from the storm and we just happened to be a hundred miles East of the 'Big Apple'. We got three wonderful days there and it made all the marching and drills and sea sickness worthwhile.

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