Memory from Patrick NOLAN 

Paul:

I have a few stories. Here's one. In 1956, the division got caught in two typhoons. With the second, we were able to make it to port, I don't know, Yokosuka perhaps, can't remember now. Gusts, at their peak, I believe were in the 150 mph range, and it was raining. Turned out we got sent into a small basin with three sides of it being able to hold two ships bow to stern. The fourth side was half seawall and half opened to access to open water. We made the basin before the winds really got to blow. The Prime was placed aft of another division MSO, the Reaper, the Force, can't remember. As the winds increased, we quadrupled all lines, and when the wind got over 100 mph, we put over the towing cable. And then the wind really powered up. After maybe 10-15 minutes, all the mooring lines parted. We were beginning to bounce around like a billiard ball at the end of a string of spaghetti. Then, believe it or not, the towing cable parted, and it sounded like a 16" gun went off. And then we became the billiard ball. With winds now over 125 mph, we started bouncing off the other ships along side, off the Reaper and off the other four ships alongside the seawall pier. Turns out that right alongside the Prime, there was a small railway for a yard crane to ride back and forth. At its height, the wind blew over the crane directly across the bridge of the MSO in front of the Prime. The wave action was so high in the confined space, the the Reaper, I think, began, as it rode the churn of the waves, to saw its bridge in half, even as we began to make some serious hits on other ships. All four engines on line and we could not counteract the wind. The Capt., Capt.Ball, then decided the only thing we could do was to get out to sea. It would be safer there than sinking in that basin. So, we tried to clear the opening to open water. The sea wall was concrete, and the winds powered us right down on that wall, stoving in the port bow. Later, we could see daylight through it. No open sea now. We had to make it as a billiard ball. Somehow the yard got a tug to us, and it tried to pin us up against the other ships alongside, but the typhoon had its own ideas. We not only were now hitting other ships; the tug was ramming us. The C.O. finally had to throw his flashlight--this was all from about 8PM to perhaps 5AM the following morning--at the tug. The tug got the idea. We then had to try and put a mattress over the side and get it snug against the hole in the hull. With the rain blowing near 150 mph now, opening my eyes was a bit of a problem, but with the help of two exceptional Electricians 1st, Koy and Miller, we got the thing done. I should say, they got the thing done. In desperation, the Capt. decided to drop the anchor, and for some damn reason, it held on something, with no drag to it. At short chain, we were able to circle without hitting the other ships again. And thus, we rode out the typhoon.

We had to part the anchor chain in order to get back alongside when the winds died down. The first thing Capt. Ball did when we got doubled up was to open the liquor locker and everyone on board had his drink straight up. And then we watched a barge come into the basin to retrieve our anchor. It almost defied belief to watch that little chain of ours come up with the anchor hooked onto a cruiser's anchor chain. It was enormous by comparison. Seems the Japanese Navy had dropped the chain there for reasons no one could fathom, for the basin had been a sub pen during the war.  Almost immediately after, all five of the division MSO's went into one dry dock--five, stem to stern in one dry dock. The picture of that was on the cover of some Naval magazine a couple of weeks later. That was a night to remember. Though we had to have a few bodies topside during the whole thing, no one got injured; no one went over. It was one hell of a night.