Tomas Stories n' Links

I belong to the American Legion and to a Navy Newsletter that writes about the ship I was on for 3 months during Operation Dominic.

They the newsletter always ask members of the newsletter to write them about what happened on the ship while we were on it. Some folks were on the ship during World War II and some folks were on the ship at other times until it was decommissioned (sent to mothballs).

They (the newsletter this month) asked us for a feeling of sad or lonely times we were on the ship?

I for one did not remember any lonely or sad time.

Well there is one time on a different ship that things got out of hand while working in the scullery. We banged garbage off of those stainless steel trays into 55 gallon trash cans under a stainless steel table with large holes in it. We then rinsed them, then we placed them into a steamer for sterilization along with the stainless steel silverware.

 Refueling at sea

One of the members of the scullery said that he was in charge of the scullery so we called him, "Our Scullery Captain" for a few days until he did not show up. We were out at sea on our voyage to Hawaii from Long Beach. As it turned out one day while refueling we also send people home and transfer them onto the refueling ship. We spotted our friend from the scullery in a strait jacket being sent across those ships lines on a bosun's chair (in the middle of the photo below).

A bosun's chair.

Now that is sad but I really do not want to send that to the ships newsletter as it was not that ship. We felt responsible but we realized that we were not as we were never asked what happened. So it was cumulative on his part just being out at sea.

***

A different story about the same scullery. 

One day in the scullery while the crew was eating a tasty lunch of barbecued chicken with a lots of barbecue sauce  a Navy Second Class Seaman came by the scullery very upset. It seems that he had left his upper partial (dental) on the stainless steel tray while turning it in at the scullery (we never noticed (Too Much Barbecued Chicken and Sauce)).

Well we had to (after Lunch) turn each 55 gallon drum upside down in the scullery and hand pick each piece of chicken and after the third drum 55 gallon drum had been turned over he found his partial (not a scratch) and was very happy to see it before the chicken to was sent aft to feed the flying seagulls at the rear of the ship.