One Dark Night at Sea
Our ship was a service ship, the U.S.S. Canisteo AO 99. We carried ammunition, two types of fuel, and occasionally personnel for the 6th Fleet. From March until early November 1976, we were in the Mediterranean Sea. This night in particular, we were running maneuvers in the dark which means there were absolutely no running lights or any lights at all topside. It was done during a new moon, so the only light you could see were the stars which reflected on the smooth water like so many tiny diamonds. Before being at sea, most of us had never seen a night sky without any light pollution. On those nights, our galaxy spread out above us and down to the horizon in every direction. It was easy to see why it was named the Milky Way.
This late October night, the movie selected was The Exorcist. I had never seen it before; I watched it with a bunch of friends from our division. Our division was the Gunnery Division which had both Gunner’s Mates (GM’s) and Gun Fire Control Technicians (FTG’s). The movie left an impression because when I hit the rack, military term for going to bed, I had nightmares. They were unrelated to the movie but nightmares that left me in a cold sweat when I was awakened for my 02:00 watch. Night watches were two hours each. At the beginning of each watch, we were handed a flashlight, the keys to the locked compartments and a loaded 45 caliber pistol in its holster.
During the watch we checked all compartments containing munitions. We had three decks on the forward part of the ship. They were accessed from the deck below the ship’s main deck, each storage deck below the other. We entered though a hatch and down a ladder. Stairs onboard Navy ships are called ladders and are quite steep. The ones leading to the decks where the munitions were stored were actual ladders fastened to the bulkhead. Each deck containing munitions had a small landing and a hatchway to the compartments where the missiles and bombs were carefully stacked and strapped down. On watch, we checked the temperatures of the compartments and logged them onto log sheets every hour. These compartments had swamp coolers that kept them constantly cool at around 70 degrees. Alarms went off when temperatures ran above 80 degrees. During hot days, it was not uncommon to find someone lounging or sleeping on a stack of 500 pound bombs and or the missiles. They were about 8 feet long and 16 feet long, respectively.
That particular night the sea was as calm as I had ever seen. The surface of the water was so flat it looked like you could walk on it amidst the star’s reflections. The ship was pitch dark and everything on it was a shadow. The ship’s normal creaking and aching was nowhere to be heard and there was no sound of waves tapping or slashing at the hull. It was eerily peaceful.
Our last stop before handing off our watch to the next sailor was always the locked munition storage that was on the main deck, aft. It contained pyrotechnics and percussion and concussion grenades. It resembled an old fashioned chest freezer only much larger. There were three sets of keys to the locked compartments onboard. One set, we carried on watch. A second set which the Division Chief Petty Officer had, and a third set kept by our Division’s First Class Petty Officer. On my last trip making the rounds, I unlocked the padlock on the munition’s locker. Someone had gotten the bright idea to hide in it covered with a sheet. He sat up slowly when I opened the locker’s heavy lid. I almost shot him. It was so dark I couldn’t tell what it was. The whole thing looked like a dark shadow coming at me. He had lifted the First Class’s set of keys to scare me, and while it definitely worked, it almost cost him his life.
‘Happy Halloween’ he hollered as he frantically pulled the sheet off of himself.