It was New Year’s Eve, 1966. We had just finished a 2 month patrol of the coastal waters around PhanRang. It had been an interesting time. We had chased a suspected V.C. craft into the harbor only to lose him. He had timed his run to coincide with the sailing of the fishing fleet. We also were called upon to extinguish a fire aboard the S.S. Rutger’s Victory.

Back to New Year’s Eve. There were at least 3 of us on board who played the guitar. Gary Lehwald, Steve Borgens and myself.

We were required to keep our instruments and amps in the upper sonar hold.

We were steaming to Sasebo, Japan for 2 weeks R & R, and were about a day out. I had just finished a 1600 to 1800 watch and wanted to get a little practice in. After opening the hatch to sonar and turning on the light, something seemed very wrong. As I stared down to the lower sonar area, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I immediately called the Captain! "Sir, I believe we have sprung a leak! Lower sonar is filled with water up to the hatch!"

Well, we limped into Sasebo in the nick of time. We were told that we would have sunk within the next 24 hours. Not good news for an expectant father! We were immediately put into drydock, where we remained for the next 2 weeks.

It was one really strange voyage to and from Japan. On the way up, the A/C for the 01 level wouldn’t shut off and the heaters would not fire. On the return, I left C.I.C. for some reason and swore I smelled smoke. After again waking the Captain, it was discovered that there was a fire going in Dave Kyser’s store. The end result of this was, as a result of some long forgotten infraction, Paul and I were given extra duty, which included scraping the burned paint and charred wood down to a paintable surface.