USS MULLINNIX DD-944

Eregli, Turkey 1961

Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood

1961 Turkey Vistor's Guide (PDF)

Eregli was a Greek city in ancient times known as Heraclea Pontica after the Greek mythical hero Heracles. The Turkish name Karadeniz Ereğli means "Black Sea Ereğli" (kara="black", deniz="sea").



It was founded by a Megarian colony, which soon subjugated the native Mariandynians and extended its power over a considerable territory. The prosperity of the city, rudely shaken by the Galatians and the Bithynians, was utterly destroyed in the Mithridatic Wars. It was the birthplace of Heraclides Ponticus. According to Greek mythology, the cave guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus is located near the town. For his final quest, Heracles is tasked with entering the cave and capturing Cerberus.

It has a large natural harbor, located in the lee of Baba Burnu and therefore one of the few geographically attractive places for a harbor on the western Black Sea coast of Turkey. Because of its Black Sea beach, Ereğli is a popular tourist destination locally. In addition to fishing, Ereğli is also well known for its delicious Ottoman strawberry.

Social change and political radicalization in Turkey in the 1960s was a period of increasing violence and tensions in Turkish society which led to almost a civil war in the 1970s. The Muxmen would have to be extra careful in this port of call.

Secret societies, shadowy organizations, mysterious goings-on, Turkey secret service, it was all here. In the distance, stood the mountains dark to the point of purple, their peaks lost in the low strata.

The wooden dock was weathered gray, with broken planks leaving gaping holes over the dark water beneath them. On the left side, a warehouse seemed to be empty, a rough wooden door hanging open crookedly, swaying on a single hinge. Its rusty corrugated tin roof looked as if the next good wind would carry in into the water, but there wasn’t any wind, just the stillness of heat rising from dry wood.

Smythe and McGee were curious. Probably nothing else to do in this back-water corner of the world. As they edged along the warehouse wall to the doorway, they found that the wood was soft and swollen, damp on the outside and rotten inside. The door was hanging from the top hinge, so Smythe knelt down to get a better view, and saw a dozen small forms scattering from a pile of broken crates. Rats. Rats and garbage.

"Fuck!"

The smell hit them just before the flies did, and they backed off, swatting them from their eyes. McGee stopped himself just before he reached the edge of the dock, waving his free arm like a pinwheel while hanging onto the pint whiskey bottle with the other as he tried to fan the flies away. He tried to ignore the laughter from Smythe and make believe that his face wasn’t turning seven shades of green.

Smythe only stopped laughing when an insect darted into his mouth. "Damn flies," he spat.

A small two-masted boat had sunk at its mooring, rotting strands of rope still tying it to the dock. Palm trees lining the walkway along the embankment had dropped their brown and brittle fronds, crunching under their shoes. A dog darted out from a shack on the pier, and turned to bark at them before slinking off into the shade of the palms.

"Who picks these fucking liberty ports anyway," asked McGee.

"Some asshole that's never been here, that's for sure," answered Smythe.

"Must've looked good on the travel brochure," laughed McGee.

"You got that right."

The dock stopped at a variegated edge where chunks of tar met brown dust marking the boundary between sailor'’s delight and trouble. The buildings were squashed together like French fires in a greasy bag. They were on the outskirts of the city where palm trees lined the road and peddlers pulling donkeys plodded along on the shady side of the street.

I few blocks later, McGee and Smythe were wandered through the market - high quality leather jackets, meat-on-a-stick, oriental rugs, stalls selling rip-offs of name brand t-shirts, jeans, cameras, stereos, and watches. Next to lemonade sellers and porters balancing heavy loads, there was a guy selling Russian caviar from a table on the sidewalk for $2/ounce. Great price. No overhead and no middleman. No refrigerator either.

They smelled the slum odor as they passed deeper into town. It was a miasma of smoke from cooking fires, the stench of pot latrines, and festering garbage heaps, of sour beer brewing in open drums, and human bodies without running water in which to bathe. It was the smell of disease and starvation and poverty and ignorance.

It appeared sex may be out. Though low, sailors did have some standards of human cleanliness when it came to working women. Getting drunk was still in play as they adjusted to the alcoholic-laced odors of homemade hooch.

The bar must have been the dirtiest bar in Eregli, in a slum so foul that on maps it appeared as a blank space. The place didn't look if it had been new when it was new. A giant avocado tree spread over the front door. Fallen fruit littered the ground and filled the air with a pungent scent.

The cream-colored paint was so thick on the walls, it looked like spoiled milk. Fat bugs played in the dirty yellow light. Everyone in the room was so quiet you could hear their IQs drop. Of course, they didn't have far to fall. Roaches, bigger than McGee's thumb, scurried toward darkness.

They were starving, but this place creeped them out. They had a shot and continued their search. They walked between sacks of spices hanging along an endless tunnel, their nasal passages assailed by successive waves of aromas. Smythe sniffed and sorted through the myriad smells. Among the scent of dog shit and lingering sweat, he caught the faint scent of spices creeping out from the tightly shuttered shops. He spotted an ice chest so old that the plastic was mildewed. The city was dusty, and smelled of leather, exotic flavors, and sweat of a heaped-up mass of humanity.

This looked a bit more promising. The place had a little stove and grill, and there was a dirty glass cover where you could see, sort of, what they had cooked. There was some fried chicken (they thought) on greasy brown paper and hot links (they thought) and there was a place where you could get some slices of bread. The bread was looking pretty good. There were also a few sides, like some suspicious-looking baked potatoes and a pot of multi-colored beans in a congealed soup that looked as if you might need a pickax to crack the surface.

"What’s that?" Asked McGee.

"Fish ball soup", Responded Smythe.

"I didn't know fish had balls?"

The pair went inside and ordered what appeared to be the safest thing on the menu.

McGee tried to wash down a simulated sausage that was like a chunk of rubber. "Fuck, this food's burning the hair off my feet," He complained.

Ignoring him, Smythe went back to consulting his ice. The water was brown making his drink look like a straight shot.

"Water's like rice, brown is better for you," McGee laughed.

Pointing across the street, where a storefront was lit and a small Pepsi sign glowed dimly, with the name of the shop written in Arabic below. Smythe got up and walked across the little three-way intersection to the store. One street was unpaved, dirt. On the others, the curbing was intermittent. The parked cars were old and beat-up. The street lighting was occasional. This was not the high-rent district. Rather, it was sailor-town.

Damn, no American cigarettes. He bought a pack of what he thought might be a Turkish substitute. He lit a cigar and puffed a few clouds of blue smoke into the air, breaking into a deep, shuddering cough.

The pair decided to try one more place before calling it a night. The walked into the next dump that reeked of smoke, alcohol, sweat, and electricity. Smythe gazed at McGee through the cloud of smoke that enveloped him. Flickering lights threatened to bring on a seizure.

Beneath their feet was a Turkish carpet swimming with muted greens, browns, and brick reds. The bar had no doors or windows, just broken stucco walls with empty eyes and a gaping mouth. Years of harsh sea winds, sun, salt, and the absence of human care had left it the color of dust. Graffiti marked its walls, but even that was old; as much a faded part of the place as the vines and weeds sprouting from the walls outside. It was a lonely place, all the more desolate with the darkness of the end of day.

The beer was local. The brewery near the bar. The bar near the beach. The beach touched the ocean. They drank the amber full-bodied lager, which had a hint of...well, fish.

It was midnight or later. The sky had fallen. The air was as thick as gauze. The moon struggled through the cloud cover.

Finishing his drink, "You want to call it an early night?" asked Smythe.

"Why not?", replied McGee. "This entire fucking town is a waste of good pay."

To port, ahead of them, were the piers, cranes, and loading sheds. To starboard, the soot and grime expanse of Eregli, the port city's southern industrial suburb. As they neared the docks, the sea whispered to them and the night smelled of heat, fish, salt, wood, and rope.

To be continued...



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