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Lost in a Sea Lane
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I read with enjoyment the various articles concerning the life and times aboard the LST’Äôs. The information in these articles is interesting, sometimes funny and certainly historical. The descriptions given by the various writers reminds me of a party in which a statement or phrase is whispered around the room to all present and then hearing what it sounds like after passing through the lips and ears of all present. This makes for some unusually funny phrases. It also proves a point that the ones repeating the phrase are doing it their way as they heard it. I don’Äôt mean to say the writers of these articles have their story wrong at all, but really that they are depicting the things that happened through their own feelings and eyes as they felt during that time. I don’Äôt believe I’Äôve read an article in the Scuttlebutt that I did not believe. I don’Äôt believe any writer tried to embellish on the situation to make them or their ship stand out in a way that was not true. I believe that that’Äôs the way they saw it then, and remember it now. I prefaced my article just for that point. It’Äôs been over fifty years since the time I was onboard my ship, namely The USS Snohomish County, LST 1126. The incidents I may write about are also as I remember them too. I was welcomed to the Navy Boot Camp in San Diego Training Center on my 19th birthday. Got a very good free haircut and straightway lost my high school sports sweater with the Jock stripes. No matter, I surely could not use it for any good reason now. Anyway, Boot Camp was uneventful except for all of the events. I got out in 13 weeks, went through Electrician Mate’Äôs School, Movie Operator School, and went to my choice of ships. Yes, I had a choice by finishing 4th in my class of the Electrician school. I chose the LST because of an Instructor at school. He had about 16 years with PhibPac and said his best times were aboard an LST. He described it as Dungaree Navy and that in itself almost did the trick for choice. He also related how close the men were to each other on this smaller ship. I choose the LST over an Aircraft Carrier, and other Destroyers. I never really regretted it, although sometimes I questioned my choice when riding the high seas. This brings me to my story as it may be. I made two trips to the Far East during my tenure aboard this ship and enjoyed them both. On each sojourn we visited Okinawa with troops and or materials. Each time we made this run we ran into very rough weather. The one that caused me to reflect on my choice was in 1954. We had been to Okinawa and dropped our load whatever it was, and started back to Inchon, Korea. We were about a day or two day out to sea when all hell broke loose with a typhoon of sorts in the area. During the bouncing around our Gyroscope Compass became locked with a safety latch in a freak bounce. Of course being unable to turn it toppled. We were in no way going to try to get it back on line and settled so we started using Ye ole Magnetic compass. You can imagine how accurate it was ... or was not. It was rolling and bobbling like a fat lady walking on soft boiled eggs. You could not call out commands fast enough to make changes with the way the ship was floundering. As time went on, and this seemed like several days, we were unable to determine where we were. They could not get a sighting on any star, moon, and or other thing to check it out with an azimuth. So here we are, by our lonesome, riding the high seas , and they were high, for days trying to use our Magnetic Compass the best we could. During this episode our main deck split in numerous places. Thirteen stress cracks comes to mind. You could view the light from the cracks above decks while in the tank deck. Finally we saw a ship way out on the Horizon. Each time we came on the top of a wave we flashed them with our signal light, but to no avail. It kept on it’Äôs way and we ours. You might wonder why we did not communicate with them by radio, and the reason was that our mast had broken at the yardarm. We had no out going or incoming communications. I had to climb the mast and install temporary running lights after the weather settled down. Later when the weather permitted, an azimuth was taken and we were on a sea lane heading directly on the path to our destination Inchon, Korea. I’Äôm sure we were somewhat late, but we made it. We dropped our load at Inchon, Korea and went on to Sasebo, Japan for some well deserved Dry dock and repairs. It’Äôs a little bit Ironic, but while we were fighting this typhoon in the Pacific, Hurricane Hazel was ravaging my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Calhoun C. Benton, EM3 (a couple of times) USS Snohomish County, LST 1126 (Attached is a chart I found on the web of the typhoon we encounter in 1954. As you can see there was no way in out route to miss at least a part of it while enroute to Okinawa. Also a photo of the broken mast)
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