They should make a movie.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19637_the-5-craziest-war-stories-all-happened-same-ship.html

 

McHale's Navy?

Mister Roberts?

 

The first time I manned the throttles, I put the ship into the dock.

 

That's one hell of a sea story. Never had anything that wild happen.

I remember one of the most embarrassing moments on the ship , The USS Okinawa AKA 'The Brokinawa'. We had emergency orders to head to the Indian Ocean from San Diego in late 79 after the hostages were taken in Iran. The ship was not even close to being ready to sail that distance and in fact we lost all power right off the coast of California and could still see the lights from the city at night. The Captain requested we be towed back into port for repairs. The reply (that I read because I worked in main radio) said that we were going to get to our (censored/salty language) destination even if it meant being towed across the Pacific to get there while we repaired the engine problem(I think it had something to do with leaky stream condenser pipes).

It was a long slow tow half way to Hawaii before it was repaired and I remember all the message traffic wanting updates on our condition from CINCPACFLT.

 

No sucky, no ducky. If you lose your pressure sink(vacuum), you can't go far.

Your luck is like mine....getting stuck on a one engine ship. It's hard to believe the navy had a ship that big with just one turbine and shaft.

We had an oar bolted on the engine room bulkhead with red letters that said emergency engine no. 1.

 

No sucky, no ducky. If you lose your pressure sink(vacuum), you can't go far.

Your luck is like mine....getting stuck on a one engine ship. It's hard to believe the navy had a ship that big with just one turbine and shaft.

We had an oar bolted on the engine room bulkhead with red letters that said emergency engine no. 1.

We lost engine power again several times after we left Pearl and were down to one SSTG several times but the snipes finally did a good patch and we were off the coast of Iran when we were needed. The whole mission was jinxed from the start but the cruise was a blast during liberties in all those ports.