Popeye's Sea Stories

Jeff Head said:

Like you say...you just can't make this stuff up! LOL!

Glad it was the alternate patch...hehehe.

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Yep here's the real patch of VS-33.. the time I served, Jan '81 - Nov '82 the squadron was officially known as;

Air Anti-Submarine Squadron Thirty Three... We were assigned to CVW-11 a west coast air-wing..but our ship was the USS America (CV 66) in Norfolk VA. we had 10 aircraft.

The official patch..



Fortune favors the Brave.

When I retired from the USN I had no ceremony..a move that I regret to this day. Stupid on my part. I just did not want all that sentiment drooling all over me...

I was allowed to "check out" in civvies.. I got in my car and drove 15 miles home...

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As I've mentioned before I was stationed in the Philippines in '75-'77. I worked at the Weapons Depy at NAS Cubi Pt. One of our work centers was the Target shop. We had to supply AQM-37 target drones when ever there was a target shoot as conducted by VC-5. This did not happen very often..

We had an AO2 AM and a couple of airmen working in that shop and needless to say they sometimes got bored. At one time they had a mini zoo in the target shop consisting of lizards and snakes and other reptiles. In the PI you need be careful of those larger lizards many of them are poisonous. One day AO2 AM had the bright Idea of shooting some of these critters in rockets skyward. Sooo.. He saw an ad in a comic book for some rockets. And he ordered them and received them in a couple of weeks. In the mean time he had caught a small rat and decided that would be his first victim err I mean astronaut. So AO2 AM and his boys set up a few rockets to see how high they go. They really don't go that high but high enough for his use. So he had saved the largest rocket for this poor little rat. He even made a parachute for the rat. Stuffed the poor little critter in the top of the rocket. Attatched the nose cone and fired that bad boy off. Needless to say the parachute did not work and the poor little rat came pulmming to Earth. AO2 AM picked up the barely alive rat..feeling sorry for it he fed it to one of his larger lizards..

No foolin'!

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I was on CVA-19 we had 600lb "M" boilers were a piece of crap. We were breaking down on a regular basis. Our evaporators sucked too. At times we un-reped water. But almost always had enough steam for the cats.

During REF-TRA (refesher training) in January of '75 some boilers went off line and we had to put into NAS North Island for repairs. As soon as we pulled in we had a Zone inspection as always on the Hanna. The word was passed that we would be in port only a day and liberty was restricted and expired at 2200 that evening! Well that sucked. We spent 6 days in San Diego always planning to get underway the next day. We finally got underway on a Saturday or Sunday believe it or not.

One day myself and AO2 WG standing on the flight deck behind the island and spotted some young lovelies on the "Quay wall"(dock/pier). AO2 WG shouted out to one of them that caught his eye..."Hey baby..what's your name?"..she responded "My name is Pay Day!"..ouch ! That hadda hurt!

The problem with Hanna she'd been traversing the Pacific Ocean for Thirty one years with only one major re-fit.

The USS Hancock CVA-19 earned four battle starts for action in the Pacific during WWII and five battle stars for service during the Vietnam War.

The Hancock had the proudest crew of any ship I served aboard...

We called her Fightin' Hanna.. she was the Queen of the sea.

I served aboard the Hanna during Operations Frequent Wind and Eagle Pull..My next several post will be about those operations.

For those of you that do not know hat Operations Frequent Wind and Eagle pull were..follow the links below.





We called her Fightin' Hanna..she was the Queen of the sea.

18 March 1975 on board the USS Hancock CVA-19

On the cover of the cruise book it says ..Last West Pac..I was there over 38 years ago..This is going to be an on going log the next few days of my experiences on the Hanna during Operations Eagle Pull and Frequent Wind.

Yep.. It was gonna be a regular post Vietnam War WESPAC. Lots of time in port.Yee haw!! Lotsa training. Boo Hiss!! Guys in G division were making plans on the stuff they were gonna buy in the Navy exchange in Subic. Some fools were vowing NEVER to go off base in Subic.

There was a even pool to see who would catch VD first. Guys were tellin' lies to boot campers about what to expect in 'Po City.

The best laid plans of mice and men were soon to change..

North Vietnam was over running the South. The fall of South Vietnam was drawing near..And old Fightin' Hanna would be a major player in what was to come. We regular white hats had no idea at the time what was to come.

I remember standing on the flight deck in my dress blues manning the rail not realizing that the Hanna would be makin' history once more.

I remember passing under the Golden Gate bridge thinking "I wish we could just pull into to Subic tomorrow"..

In actuality the Fightin' Hanna was going to answer the call for duty one more time.....

bd popeye said:

Air Anti-Submarine Squadron Thirty Three... We were assigned to CVW-11 a west coast air-wing..but our ship was the USS America (CV 66) in Norfolk VA. we had 10 aircraft.

Fortune favors the Brave.

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S-3 Vikings?

Of course^^....but ours looked like the one below... That one you have pictured is from VS-41 the Green Pawns..a fleet replacement squadron. They were shore based of course. But they did have to do carrier quals from time to time.

VS-33, Screwbirds, S-3A Viking firing a Zuni rockets near Fallon NV in October/November of 1980.

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"Deep Purple !! Deep Purple!!"

The continuing saga of the USS Hancock CVA-19 last WESTPAC.

By the way for those of you "Navally Challenged" WESTPAC is a Western Pacific cruise.(deployment)

That's another thing..When did the USN start referring to a cruise as a deployment? And does the USMC still call a deployment a "Float" if they are on board a ship??

Enywhoo...

"Deep Purple !! Deep Purple!!"

20 March 1975..Hanna en-route to Pearl Harbor HI

I remember waking up that morning and feeling a rumble coming from the aft part of the ship.. I thought.."This boat is hauling arse or draggin' a screw!" I wondered what was goin' on?... Went to the fantail. Sure enough the Old Hanna was steaming!.The rooster tail was a site to behold!!. The snipes(engineering) said we were doin' 27 knots.

Went down to the mess decks to grab some chow and man oh man "Mess Deck Intelligence" a.k.a. MDI was in full effect...some of the rumors where.."We got orders to go to Pearl and offload the Airwing then go to J-pan and
get some Marines".."Naw naw" another salt sez..."Were gonna off load the whole airwing in Hawaii then go to PI and pick up some Jar-heads"." Nope says another shipmate.."Were going to Pearl..Offload the F-8's Onload Marine A-4's then go to 'Nam and bomb the crap outta them!!"....so on and so forth. All half truths..We hadda to hear the straight scoop from the skipper...

"Deep Purple !! Deep Purple!!" had been called away. That meant that all Departments heads, Air wing CO's ETC.. hadda report to the skipper to be briefed about something "heavy" i.e. something top secret comin' down. Well the word was passed. Hancock was to proceed to Pearl. Off loadVF-24 & VF-211. Then on load Then proceed to Subic Bay at all speed... off load the entire Air Wing. On load more Marines. Head to the Tonkin Gulf(off South Vietnam). Then standby for evacuation orders. Cambodia and South Vietnam were about to fall in the coming weeks..to the Communist.

"Standby for a word from the Captain".. The skipper was Captain Fred "Field Day " Fellows. A very fair but strict skipper that stood up for his men. Got some good stories about Capt. Fellows. Well the skipper came on the 1MC that morning..like he should..To explain what was happening. He did in a brief and concise way. The skipper made it clear that he would pass on all info he could. He did as time went on. He was a man of his word.

Poor Old Hanna had been suffering long list engineering problems since I had been on there since August 1974.. We kept up 27 knots for about a day and a half. Then we lost some boilers. Our speed was reduced to 16-18 knots. .All in all not bad for a 31 year old ship that was built to be in service for about 5 years..

We arrived in Pearl Harbor Hawaii on 24 March 1975....

Why was the code "Deep Purple !! Deep Purple!!" used? Probably had to do that in '72, '73 & '74 in any bar/night-culb in the Philippines or anywhere in WESTPAC the song you heard everywhere was "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple.

More to come...

22 March 1975 Hancock arrives at Pearl during her last WESTPAC.

Our arrival at Pearl harbor was uneventful. I did get in a little trouble for being topside out of uniform. When you enter Pearl Harbor usually the rails are manned with sailors in their tropical whites. If you are not manning the rails you have to still be in whites in any of the weather decks. Popeye thought he could sneak a quick snapshot of the USS Arizona memorial as we passed by. But as soon as I opened the door to the catwalk a master at arms nabbed me and wrote me a "speeding ticket" for being out of uniform. Myself and about 50 other shipmates got 3 hours EMI. Extra Military Instruction. Which coulda been anything. Usually nasty. But naturally I skated out because when I went down to the MAA shack after we left pearl the shipmate that was to administer the EMI was someone I knew. He said I have a special task for you. He took me out to the passageway and told me to got hide out somewhere for three hours..so I did.. Hook ups you gotta love em'.

Anyway while in Hawaii Hancock off loaded her two F-8 squadrons and onloaded HMH-463. An CH-53 squadron. I remember the unusual events because HMH-463 flew on the ship while we were inport at Pearl. You'd think this would have been done at sea. Nope inport flight quarters..Weird.

The F-8 squadrons were sent packin' to NAS Cubi Pt in the Philippines. We would not see those boys back on Hanna for about two months..

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March 1975 Hanna departs Pearl..

Well now the Hanna was loaded up with 16 CH-53s of HMH-463 and their squadron of 300 airdale Marines to suppourt them. The Marines had no problem adapting to Navy life. Most had been on a "float"{cruise/deployment}as they called it. They all said the Hanna was the cleanest ship they were ever on. They said gator freighters were POS. The Hanna being a CVA affored the Marines more room than they ever had on a LPH. They were a couple of old, rusty
crusty,dusty type SSgt/GySgt types that had been on an old straight deck 27c{Essex class carrier}...All in all the Marines adapted well to the Hanco*k.

One of the things that HMH-463 hadda do on the way to Subic was repaint their birds with a non reflective paint. They did this on the fantail of the flight deck. The scooter{A-4 Skyhawk)types on board were afraid at first that over spray would get on their aircraft. And it did at first, But after a good respot the overspray problem was solved.

Rumors abounded on the way to Subic. MDI(Mess Deck Intelligence) was in full effect. The rumor one was no liberty in da' PI because we were on a 24 hour notice to get underway.Another was that we were really going to Okinawa to onload Marines.

Well traveling at a reduced speed because of engineering woes the Hanco*k would not arrive in Subic until the 6th of April. So we had plenty of time to ponder the rumor mill and what MDI was saying.

The trip to PI was not uneventful ..as we shall see...

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And now the continuing saga of the USS Hancock CVA-19 on her ..Last WESTPAC...

1 April 1975..Hanna steams towards da' P I..

Actually the word steaming is a misnomer. It was more like
chugging. We could only make about 19 knots because of our engineering problems. We could not make enough fresh water. Our top speed was 19 knots. Not enough steam for the cats or enough speed to launch aircraft.. etc..etc..etc..

Taking an shower on the Hanna when on water hours was intresting. First off you could only take a shower every other day. Then you could only take a Navy shower. Dunno know what a Navy shower is?
Water on for one minute to soap down. water off for one minute to scrub down. Water back on for one minute to rinse off...That sucked. Oh they had master at arms with stop watches checking us out..The hanna was the only ship I was ever on that had water hours.

As we "chugged" past Guam some yard workers from Subic were flown out to old CVA-19 to start working on the engineering problems. But those boys were more interested in buying smokes and such in the ships stores than fixing the Hanna. they did work on the ship and we could make enough speed and steam to launch the rest of our fixed wing aircraft before we arrived in Subic Bay.

Back in '72 & '73 and in '81 I made a MED cruises and have seen the Russian Bears over fly the ship. Always escorted by USN fighters. Well as the Hanna steamed across the Pacific we were over flown by a Russian Bear. I don't remember the date or the ships position. Well I think the Hanna was in an alert 30 status. Big problem ..

We could NOT launch the alert thirty because of the condition of the flight deck. Embarrassing! It was fouled with CH-53's blocking the A-4's. Remember that our F-8 were off loaded in Hawaii.

I don't know why the deck was in such bad shape. But after we were over flown by the Bear a major respot was in order...more too come...

The continuing story of the Last WESTPAC of the USS Hancock CVA-19 in 1975..

5 April 1975 Hancock was in near collision with USS Kawishiwi.....

By my recollection we were along side the Kawishiwi about 1800 or so to take on fuel and water. Oh yea the Hanna had to unrep water...I was behind the island in the bomb farm watching the unrep.

It seemed to me that the Kawishiwi was very close and moving back and forth in a very calm sea state. I decided to go down to the shop..so as I got to the front of the island I heard a horn blast from the bridge then on the 1 MC & 5 MC I heard "Take a brace!!, Take a brace!!" The Hanna made a turn to port. I dove down and hit the flight deck and grabbed a couble of padeyes on the flight deck. as the Fightin' performed a real emergency break away.

Next the collisional alarm was sounded but there was no collision. Actually what had happened was the USS Kawishiwi had lost steering and we had an emergency breakaway with them. We almost had a collision.

Some say our STBD aft aircraft elevator did hit the Kawishiwi. I did not see any damage though.

Well I went down to the hangar deck and saw Bos'un mates covered in fuel. Fuel lines ruptured during the emergency & them fellas were covered with fuel & needed to be hosed down. I did not see any injuries.

Shortly the skipper passed the word on just what had happened.

When we finally arrived in Subic the next day I went down on the pier to get a good look at that #3 aircraft elevator. I saw no damage.

Another recollection of that incident by a man who was on the bridge.

The following was posted on a Hancock website by a QM2 Shaklett who was on the bridge at the time of the near collision;

"I was that "Quartermaster at the helm" during the UNREP with KAWISHIWI in '75. And believe me, it was the most difficult evolution I had ever done!

According to our division chief (QMC Steve Brown), the problem was caused by KAWISHIWI losing power to her rudder and the venturi effect pulling the ships together.

I had only been on the helm about 10 minutes when things went wrong, in a hurry. For the record, I was one of only six qualified Special Evolution helmsmen on board. As you know, the Special Evolution helmsmen have the responsibility for driving the ship in and out of port, and taking the helm during Flight Ops and UNREPS. We would generally have 2 or 3 Special Evolution helmsmen for each UNREP,rotating every twenty minutes.

Here is what happened on the bridge. My compass heading would not hold, no matter what I did on the helm. I reported to the Conning Officer that I was unable to hold my course. But with each correction in the rudder, the lines and hoses between the ships would pull us closer together. Capt Fellows on seeing the danger, relieved the Conning Officer, because we were not gaining distance between ships fast enough. He ordered the Quartermaster of the Watch to sound the Emergency Breakaway signal on the ship's horn and ordered the 1MC announcement on the breakaway. We successfully pulled away, after "All Ahead Flank,Emergency" was ordered. The first and only time I had ever heard that particular command. It's a funny thing, after writing this, I remember it like it was yesterday. Hard to believe it's been 25 years!!!

Only by speeding up and literally pulling away, did we get out of harm's way. Our division Leading Petty Officer (QM2 Mende) wanted to relieve me in the middle of the breakaway, but Chief Brown refused to let him on the helm. Mende thought I wasn't turning the rudder fast enough. Capt Fellows was giving me rudder commands every few seconds. And believe me, I had never done so many rudder reversals in my life. My arms felt like lead.

The credit really goes to Capt Fellows for recognizing the danger we were in and directing me correctly on the helm. I later received a commendation from him for expert performance on the helm.

I'm just glad there were no serious injuries.

Even though UNREPs can become routine, you must always be prepared for emergencies. I also want to give credit to Chief Brown for my training and his guidance. It saved the day.

Footnote: It should be noted that while I was doing my best to keep up with rudder commands and course changes, my counterpart in after-steering had to match everything I did on the bridge. The after-steering gang really saved everyone, by staying alert and by keeping both steering engines on line.

Fred Shacklett, QM2, N Division 1974-1976 (Last LPO of
N-Division of CVA-19)

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The below photo is of an VS-33 S-3A Viking firing Zuni rockets near Fallon NV in late 1980. At that time VS-33 was the first west coast S-3 squadron to fire Zuni rockets.

VS-33 Screwbirds S-3A Viking firing Zuni rockets near Fallon NV..late 1980.

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The continuing saga of the Last WESTPAC of the USS Hancock CVA-19.

6 April 1975 USS Hancock arrive at NAS Cubi Pt, Republic of the Philippines.

NAS Cubi Pt RP was part of the massive Subic/Cubi Pt USN complex. We tied up at the Carrier pier in Cubi Pt. Cubi was about 10 miles from Subic Bay "main gate". Not to fret!!! It cost a nickel to catch a bus or it was a .75 cents taxi ride.. Or there were limited free liberty buses.

Oh yea! Can you smell it!? We're in 'da P.I.!. Oh yeah!!
Liberty time! Our department had max liberty because all our spaces got outstanding during zone inspection..Yahoo!! Ooppss!! Actually we did have max liberty but the ship was on alert to get underway in 12 hours or something like that.

So guess what? ALL hands liberty expired on board at midnight the 3 days we would be in P.I...That was way below average...Believe it or not I did not go on liberty . Very hard not to go on liberty for me at that young age in Olonogpo and not stay out all night..I did have Shore Patrol the second day inport.

While inport Weapons Dept big wigs planned the upcoming ammo off load and onload. We hadda unload some of the fixed wing ordnance. Then onload some helo weapons. 50cal, Mighty Mouse & Zuni rockets and such..Was not really that hard. An easy day for an ordanceman.

Mean time the rest of the airwing (CVW-21) left the ship and was billeted at NAS Cubi Pt. More Marines came onboard as the Hanna was transformed into an LPH of sorts...We had HMM-164 & 165 Ch-46's. HML-367 with their Cobras. And loads of 1st Battalion Marines (Grunts). Some of the Grunt Marines had to sleep hangar bay one..Things were happening at a quickening pace. All in all we had 36-40(I think)USMC helos by the time we left P.I.

By the time we left 'da P.I. we knew what our mission was ...we just did not know when it would happen.

More to come!!

A very rare pic..USS Hancock as an LPH..April 1975

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10 April 1975 Hanna is now an LPH!

Hanna storied from Subic Bay as an LPH..

Well..not offically. But we were operating as an LPH. We had
departed Cubi Pt. RP on the 9th{I think}..coulda been the 10th.

About 1/3 of hangar bay three was full of pallets of diapers,baby formula, medical and sanitary supplies. C-rations, blankets, cots..etc..most anything you may need for a humanitarian effort was stored there.

In hangar bay one elements of the First Battalion Marines were living there. Oh we had enough berthing on the Hanna for them but a lot of the berthing vacated by the Airwing was reserved for the "Refugees" So some,not all, the Marine "Grunts" were quartered in Hangar Bay one. This type of berthing and the storage of humanitarian supplies in Hangar bay 3 limited space for helo maintenance

Any way one of the first things we did at sea was off load some of our fixed wing ammo in favor of helo ammo. This consisted mostly of rockets, small arms and flares. I think we had to only empty two or three magazines. I worked the flight deck during this evolution. I was the hook up man during the vertrep. Basically I passed the tether to the helo crewman hanging out the belly door (Hell Hole) on a CH-46. I will never forget that on the bottom of HC-3's CH-46's was painted the slogan.."Slipping the meat to the Fleet"..No kidding.

After the UNREP/CONREP the Hancock spent a lot of time operating it's new Marine airwing in order to get the flight deck crew use to handling strictly helos. We had to be ready because the first evacuation "Operation Eagle Pull" the evacuation of Phon Phen Cambodia would occur on the 12th of April 1975. Hanna would be ready!!