Happy Halloween all!
At the risk of offending Kun-chan's delicate sensibilities (and anyone
else who had a problem with my Sesame Street post, I humbly apologize)
I'm writing you this. It's not about anime, or manga, it's not even
fictional beyond changing a few names. This is Halloween though, and I
have a ghost story for you. It's not a scary one, and I'll leave it to
your own interpretations as to what really happened.
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Chief Joe's Toolbox.
by J. Austin Wilde
USS Kamehameha SSN-642
Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Pier S-21
Vallejo, California.
02:07 April 4th, 1993
The ship had been out of drydock for a week now following the extensive
conversion from ballistic missile sub to SEAL platform. Everyone was
very tired, as it had been a long week. I was new on board, had only
been one of the crew for six months.
I didn't have the Duty that day, but one of the guys who did had a son
get sick and needed to take him to the hospital. He needed a replacement
to stand the rest of his duty day. I had just qualified Shutdown Roving
Watch, the watch he would have stood, and as I said, I was new. Guess
who got picked to take his place.
The desk watch on the living barge tied outboard the sub woke me just
before 2 AM, when I was to relieve the Roving Watch. I got dressed and
crossed over the brow to the boat. It was drizzling, and the Topside
Watch was taking shelter underneath the massive winglike fairwater
planes that projected from the sail (conning tower). He was talking to
the Below Decks Watch, and it was the kind of bull-session that would
last the rest of the night.
I went below and relieved Andrea, the Roving Watch. Short timer that he
was then, he was nice enough to have not taken the 2 o'clock log
readings. Nub that I was, I grudgingly relieved him and he left the ship
to go to bed.
Kamehameha is an old ship. She was 28 that year. Five years older than
me at the time. Old ships attract things like this I guess, and the fact
that a man had died twenty years ago in the AMR1 space was enough for
what followed. (I did not know the story of Chief Joe at the time. It's
one of things that no one on board talks about unless someone has an
experience with him.)
I made my way forward of the reactor compartment to take my log readings
on equipment in the AMR1 space. It's three levels high and contains all
of our atmosphere control machinery, (i.e. CO2 scrubbers, O2 generators,
C0-H2 burners, etc;) We were in port, so nothing was running. This is
also the space that A-Division inhabits, and Chief Joe was an
'A-Ganger'.
I walked between the O2 generators and the scrubbers in middle level and
listened to the sound of the Low Presure Air Compressor cough and wheeze
and spit in lower level. I passed by the A-Gang toolbox, which as usual
was locked with a bar and padlock to keep M-Div'rs like me from stealing
all of our tools back from A-Division. Making my way to lower level down
a short ladder through a hole in the deck just big enough to gash your
ankles as you pass through it, I took my logs on the LPAC. This took
about thirty seconds. Then I was back up the ladder.
I saw a man in a khaki uniform out of the corner of my eye and thought
immediately that it was the Duty Chief Petty Officer making his 3
o'clock tour a little early. I dismissed it. Then I saw that the toolbox
was wide open. Tools were scattered everywhere. I was pissed. This was a
space I was responsible for! I ran after the khaki man to get an
explanation for why he had just dumped tools all over my space. He was
gone.
There isn't anywhere for a man to hide in the Missile Compartment at
this point. It's just two long rows of seven foot diameter missile tubes
that extend from the bottom of the boat to the top of the pressure hull.
The berthing spaces hadn't been built yet outboard and between the
tubes. I was staring down a hundred foot long empty space.
As I put the tools back in the box it hit me.
The Duty Chief wasn't a Chief that day. It was a First Class Petty
Officer. First's wear the same blue dungaree uniform that I was wearing.
The Nuclear version of the DCPO was a first class as well. The only
khaki wearing people on board that early morning at 2 o'clock were the
two officers, and they don't have keys to A-Gang's toolbox.
I was puzzled but left it for the next morning at quarters. It was then
that I was told the story of Chief Joe, and that I had probably met him
that night.
Chief Joe was an A-Gang chief on board in the late 60s early 70s when
the boat was baased in Guam. He was killed late one night while working
without authorization on a leg of High Pressure Service Air piping and a
leaky valve. The leg of piping wasn't depressurized. Apparently while
loosening the bonnet of the valve to get it apart, it blew off with 4000
PSI of air behind it and the valve handwheel and bonnet struck him in
the head. He was killed instantly.
The events I have recalled are true, the interpretation is up to you.
Happy Halloween.
--
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// ======= \\
|| J. Austin Wilde
<jaustin@aloha.net>-** // ||
|| Head Ranger: Fission Park Press-------** //======\ ||
|| Hired Gun: P-P-P-Chan Productions-----** // // // ||
|| Knight Bachelor of the Crimson Sword--**// //====/ ||
|| "Those who have fought to preserve----** // Fission ||
|| freedom find that it has a flavor----** // Park ||
|| the protected will never know."------** Press ||
\\_____________________________________________________//