LSOZI reader Liam weighs in on the traditional blue jacket rite of passage with the great story below:
During a winter transit of the North Pacific en route to the Realm of the Golden Dragon (including the Viet Nam combat zone), somewhere west of Midway, as I was JOOD with the conn of the USS NICHOLAS (DD-449), the Boatswain Mate of the Watch requested permission to set the “Mail Buoy” watch. I accompanied him to the starboard wing of the bridge and briefed the new man, DCSN Wong, on his Mail Buoy Watch duties.
DCSN Wong was properly outfitted with foul weather jacket, safety harness, Mae West, helmet liner and binoculars. Some 20, or so, minutes later Wong (whose first language was not English) was heard shouting from his position near the top pf the haze gray portion of the mast, and pointing off the starboard bow. I asked the OOD to take the conn, in order that I might discover the cause of Wong’s excitement. When I reached the level of the mast where he was, and looked in the direction toward which he was pointing, there was a buoy, adrift in rough water in the middle of the North Pacific!
“Good man yourself,” I said as I raised my binoculars for a closer look (knowing that the captain would probably not appreciate holding a bumper drill, in such seas, to recover the buoy). After a moment’s contemplation as I focused my binoculars on the drifting buoy, I said. “That’s a mail buoy, alright, but, as you can see, the little mechanical flag has not been set. It’s just like a postman ashore raising the little metal flag on an ordinary mailbox to announce the presence of mail. Keep up the good work.”
About ten minutes later DCSN Wong reported to me on the bridge, saying “I now understand Mail Buoy Watch.”
[Being that I had worked, at age 16, as a temporary letter carrier, in deep snow, for the Christmas rush, I could somewhat identify with adjusting to new postal responsibilities.]
Wong and I got along famously after that experience. He would even help me translate letters written in Chinese, and some time later, before he left the ship (as a DC3), he presented me with a ship’s plaque, which he had fabricated in the DC workshop.
USS Nicholas, a hardy Fletcher-class tin can Circa 1968 underway to Vietnam as seen from the USS Intrepid (CVA-11). From the collection of Dennis H. Hough. Can you make out DCSN Wong through the spray? Image via Navsource
