USS MULLINNIX DD-944
Vietnam 1972 - Page 14
A Night Watch To Remember
by FTG3 Frank A. Wood
The nights were filled with uneasy feelings throughout the ship. The eerie glow of flares dropped from circling aircraft gave the sky a surreal look. The flashes of light that would completely engulf the northern horizon made you remember thunderstorms back home, until the delayed bone-rattling boom reminded you it was the B-52s taking care of business. The flashes from numerous barrels mounted on dozens of ships, a reminder that we weren’t there alone. Anxious about what the next day might bring, the crew sought some rest on what they knew would be another sleepless night. Call for fire wasn’t dictated by the cycle of the sun.
The sky was bright but a thick fog was still rising off the water. There was no horizon, just a white wall of mist all around Mullinnix, like the white lining of an expensive coffin. It seemed as if you could reach out and touch it. The ship’s mast vanished a few feet above their heads. The fog muffled all sound. At 2 knots the engines were almost mute. The hull cutting through water was silent. The air smelled of smoke and steal.
The heat and trapped moisture inside the gun mount were stifling. Motes of dust and burnt cotton wadding floated as thick as gnats in a razor-thin shaft of moonlight that blazed through the open hatch of MT51. GM3 John Corrano, a tough street kid from New York City, didn’t seem bothered by any of it, insuring the gun machinery was ready for the next fire mission.
The only sound was the occasional hydraulic whine of 5”/54 mounts being traversed, searching the sky and sea for a threat that might be lurking just beyond the veil of fog. No one spoke a word. In MT53, it felt like sitting on the edge of the world.
GMG2 Jimmy Roland began to get that feeling, the one where the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you want to turn around but you don't because you're afraid of looking silly. Soon he couldn't stand it any longer and glanced out the pinned-open door of the gun mount.
“Woody”, Whispered Roland, through the 2MC. “I think I see something!”
“What is it?” I answered.
“I don’t know for sure.” A pause, then, “A ship. I think it is a fucking ship!”
“Are you shit’n me?”
“NO!”, explained Roland. “Call Combat and see if they see anything on radar!”
Roland stopped and listened. He tried to breathe deeply a few times to quit his heart. It still sounded like a bass drum banging in his ears. He strained to blank out everything else; the gun mount machinery purring in neutral, the sound of a faraway electrical connection pop far below in the carrier room, the little sounds you don’t really listen to until they get in your way. He only wanted to hear the slicing of a hull through the murky water so he could direct gun plot to its specific bearing and range.
“10/4”.
I switched channels on my sound-powered phone from 2MC to 3MC. “Combat, this is Main Battery Plot. MT53 is reporting something in the water just aft, between us and the coast. Roland wants you to check the radar.”
“Stand-by Plot”.
Time has no meaning with round-the-clock shelling and a never-ending stream of 6-hour watches. It was like living inside a mist.
“Combat to Main Plot.”
“Go ahead Combat, this is Main Battery Plot, over.”
“There is nothing pinging the radar, over.”
“10/4 Combat. I’ll pass onto MT53. Plot out.”
I switched back to the 2MC channel, “Hey Jimmy, Combat says there is nothing out there on radar.”
Pause.
“Damn-it, I’m telling you there is something out there. I can see it drifting in and out of this fucking fog.”
“Do you want me to check with Combat again?”
Death has such a strange sense of humor. Being scared to death, even stranger.
“Yes, tell them I definitely see something out there, about 200-300 yards.” Depth perception in fog is nil.
“10/4”.
Switching back to 3MC, “Combat, this is Woody in Main Battery Plot, MT53 is still reporting a contact, like a boat in the water a couple hundred yards off our port fantail. He wants you to double-check, over.”
“Stand-by Plot.”
I started to wonder how I would know if this were my last night alive, and what I would do differently if I did. Lots of thoughts passed through my mind, but they all seemed petty and childish. Not to say lewd. Maybe it’s better not to know and to go on doing whatever seems important. That was all the deep thinking I had time for as Fire Control Chief Waters yelled, “What’d Combat say.”
“Still waiting Chief, they are checking the radar again.”
Fog is romantic in a cozy sort of way. But not at sea. In primitive lobes of sailor’s brains, it also keys primitive alarms. The alarms remind the crew they’re not alone on the sea. During thunderstorms, sailors retreat in groups inside the ship to ride out the rain. The same is true with a slow, silent storm that is fog. Men stood watch all around the ship in the gloom.
“Plot, this is Combat. We double-checked, there is nothing on radar. Repeat, nothing on radar, over.”
“10/4 Combat. I’ll passed it onto MT53, over and out.” Switching to 2MC, “Jimmy, no dice. Combat says the radar is completely clear of contacts, over.”
“Woody, we just can’t sit here and let it get any closer.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t just open up and start shooting. CO would kill us.”
“Well, dead is dead if this thing starts shooting at us first.”
“Understand. I guess just keep watching is all you can do. Keep me posted, over.”
Time – each second a minute, each minute and hour. Nothing appeared to have its normal shape in the white shroud. A lookout walking on the 02-level loomed large as he rounded MT52, as if magnified by the murky light. A gunners mate, seemed to be walking forward into a milky curtain that clung to him and draped him until he vanished, a captive of some voracious sea monster. The aft stack poked its head out of the swirls as if a strange creature was dancing there high above the decks. Someone slammed a hatch shut, and the noise of it rolled down the side of the ship with waves of echoes. Roland thought, ‘fuck me…”
War destroys everything it touches. Some would say we were brave. Mostly we simply endured. So, GMG2 Roland and his MT53 crew, and I sat, and waited. A flicker of light in the distance. A deep rumbling noise began rolling in the night. B52s up north again.
The misty fog began to lift somewhat. Frail and wispy veils drifted across Mullinnix, formed and dissolved. Gradually shapes and muted colors revealed themselves, the mysterious and intangible became familiar and real. Then, moving away from Mullinnix was the apparition-like foggy black outline of a small ship...
In war, everyone’s off in his own little corner of worries, hopes, and fears, thinking only of doing his job and staying out of trouble, getting just a quick look now and then at the big picture. One moment erases another, the days erase each other, in the end it all seems the same.
Nowadays it is called PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). In Vietnam we were told, “You’ll get over it.” If you were there, no words are necessary. If you were not, no words can explain.
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