USS MULLINNIX DD-944

Vietnam 1972 - Page 17

Riders On The Storm
Bone-jarring storms that left the crew sleepless and walking like zombies...

A percolating mix of wind and sea and rain was brewing together, welding into a wicked mass of energy. The storm had formed as most typhoons do, in the warm waters of the western Pacific near the Philippines. An isolated thunderstorm set off its birth, upsetting the surrounding high-pressure front by causing warm air to converge with cold. Funneling warm air off the ocean’s surface, the churning winds gradually blew into a tempest. Moving unabated across the sea, the storm grew in intensity, radiating a devastating force of wind. Surface winds raged higher and higher, until exceeding 160 miles per hour. The ‘super typhoon,’ as they are now called, crept almost straight north before curiously shifting direction to the northeast. Directly in its path were the ships of DesRon 32 heading to Japan for liberty.

The air turned a chemical green and contained a density that you could hold in your palm. Rain rings chained the swells between the white caps. The wind smelled of salt spray. On the horizon, a long black hump began to gather itself on the earth’s rim, swelling out of the water like an enormous whale, extending itself all across the horizon. You could not believe what you were watching.

It was 0010 and the rain, the ground mist, and the dark sea rising against the sky wasn't a good sign. A thick layer of towering white clouds overhead brought the scent of rain. Gray sheets already hung over a distant part of the horizon. The storm, hovering in the low greenish-gray clouds, broke in earnest.

The rain was like prison bars. A downpour that went on until the sky was lost in the heavy clouds that seemed to rest on top the ship, replicating a recent fog. The sea and sky seemed to have merged, a gray mass that was nearly indistinguishable behind the fresh squalls on the horizon. The air was blue and thick with falling rain, and visibility was done to fifty feet or less.

The storm rolled through into the mid-watch. Mullinnix shook as with the blows of celestial hammers, and flashes of lightening lit the mast with blue fire. I had just come off of the 2000-2400 after-steering watch, I bounced off the bulkheads working my way forward for midrats on the messdeck. BT3 Greg "Bo" Bohmert managed to crawl out of the hole of the aft boiler room. His face was drained of color. The JP5 fumes from the engine room mixed with the smell of vomit and salt water and fear, gave off a new odor that wrapped itself around me, hooked into my nostrils, and wouldn’t let go.

"You OK Bo", I yelled over the rain that rattled like birdshot against the aluminum super structure.

"Do I look OK, Woody?"

"Sorry, thought I'd ask."

Many of the officers and men were on all fours, heaving their guts out from days of extended seas sickness caused by the relentless pounding, pitching, and swaying of the ship as we fought to keep our bow into the sea. One poor Ensign on his first cruise couldn’t keep even the soda crackers down and stood his watch walking around the bridge with a bucket in his hand.

Thirty-foot seas and seventy-knot winds. The rain was falling almost horizontally, slicing through the air. The sea became confused with the sky. Lightening, like bright varicose veins, cut across the black sky. Thunder sounded like dice being rattled inside a cup.

Suddenly the wind went to a force so powerful and unrelenting that it nearly lifted me from my feet. As it was, I’d lost my ballcap, and did well to grab onto a valve, using it to keep from being slammed into the deck. Once on the mess decks, I looked out one of the portholes. There was torrential rain and great crashes of whitecaps onto the deck. Brilliant flashes of lightening in a midnight sky, and the wind, always the wind. The ship looked in utter disarray. Anything that wasn't tied down was gone. The main deck was completely abandoned. I’d seen enough, and duck-walked back to the chow line.

The smell of Navy powdered eggs, burnt toast, vomit and cigarettes drifting down the passage was enough to kill what little appetite I had. And the undigested food that lay greasy and cold in my stomach, was waiting to fountain out of my throat. I happened to glance down at my boondockers, they were caked with somebodies dried vomit.

I thought to myself, “If I survive this storm and when I get out of the Navy I’m going to start walking from Norfolk west towards Nebraska with a pair of oars. I’m going to keep waking until somebody stops me and asks, “What are those things?”

I grabbed a tray while steadying my stance against the 1/2-bulkhead between me and the cooks. It was slim pick'ins tonight - yesterday’s lettuce and tomorrow's bananas. I looked at the tomatoes and something looked back. I spotted the Vienna sausages - one of natures’ perfect foods. I grabbed 1/2-dozen.

A destroyer rolls, pitches, and plunges so violently in a typoon that the crew thought they should receive both flight and submarine pay because they’re in the air half the time, and under water the other half.

I grapped some bug-juice and sat down next to a boatswain mate. He was shoveling food in like he was hid'in evidence. His table manners weren’t any better than a prisoners. His arms wrapped around each plate like someone was gonna steal a greasy drumstick.

I dug into my full plate of Vienna sausages and crackers that smelled almost good. Finished, I fought my way back aft - a quick stop in the aft head then to bed. The sickly, sour smell of urine and ammonia in the aft head about made me up-chuck. Couldn’t these guys hit the pisser 50% of the time? Flush it once in a blue moon? Tied in the corner was my favorite mop and cadillac (my 'part-time' job of cleaning the aft head), and me wondering, “Why the fuck me?”

__________

Typhoon (ti'foon)
A tropical storm in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans

__________

Mullinnix faced several typhoons during 1972. On one occasion, she and many other ships were ordered out of Subic Bay and underway for typhoon evasion. However, her engineering plant was torn down and she couldn’t get underway on her own, so she was towed to an anchor buoy in the harbor. As it turned out, after all the other ships were out to sea – storm evading – the Mullinnix put her boat in the water and the crew had liberty.

__________

Another time, heading to the gunline from a Sasebo, Japan port visit (8 days), she had to evade a typhoon enroute. Before Mullinnix could make it back to the gunline, she had to refuel from an oiler in some pretty heavy seas. The normal distance between ships during refueling was around 40 feet, but the heaving seas were tossing the Mullinnix to around 20 feet and then titled her back from the oiler to around 60 feet, then back to 20 feet, etc.

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Fortunately, Mullinnix never received any weather related physical damage to the ship during her ’72 WestPac cruise. Combared to aircraft carriers, 'tincans' take a rough ride in storms such as typhoons.

I recall during one of the typhoons, the Mullinnix was taking rolls something in the neighborhood of 36-38 degrees. I remember being told by someone that the rolls she was taking were about 5 degrees above what she was designed for. I believe it was the one enroute from Sasebo.

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During these storms, my friends and I would stand at the front of the signal bridge hanging onto the handrail that was attached to the 4-5’ high bulkhead enclosure. We would wait until a wave would hit the bow – watch (and hear) the water completely engulf MT51 and head towards the bridge and signal bridge. Just before the water would hit, me and the boys would duck behind the bulkhead and let the water spray fly over our heads. Crazy! We would do that wave after wave after wave. Something like this...

Thunder rumbled in from the north as low dark clouds let loose. Hard rain pelted the ship with thick drops, splattering droplets across the deck. Cold rain soaked the foul-weather jackets of the lookouts. The typhoon was dumping buckets of rain and churning up waves taller than houses. The ship was rocking and guys on the mess decks were trying to match the rolling motion while bringing a cup of Joe to their lips. Some succeeded. The wind and salt spray were one. The crew was getting beat up pretty badly below decks as the ship rolled, smashing head long into giant waves, and dropping ten feet all at the same time.

Cecle Doyle had to abandon the ship store due to flying missiles in the form of Zippo lighters, film canisters, and Mullinnix belt buckles. At that particular moment, he would have given anything to be dead. He had that feeling, 'you are never going to be on dry land again'.

Walking down the main corridor resulted in some being slammed against the overhead, the bulkheads and then the deck all within seconds. Who could imagine that the sea could be so noisy? One had to yell to make yourself heard.

It was so dark and the rain was so thick that you couldn’t see a foot in front of your face. Occasional claps of thunder seemed to shiver every bulkhead on the ship. Suddenly it seemed to the most insane chanciness, a madness, to be afloat on a mad-made vessel out here in the middle of nothingness. Why should I have the slightest faith that the ship was well constructed? A ship that hundreds of men had worked on, each capable of any of a multitude of small mistakes that might see us all dead.

It was 1900 but the sun still glared as though hoping to make up for the storm clouds. We were hanging onto the handrail at the forward-most section of the signal bridge, just above the closed windows of the bridge one deck below, watching each monstrous wave break over the bow, burying MT51 in tons of water and frothing white foam. Rain was pebbling on the lenses of my glasses and soaking my un-shaven face.

The towering sea, the color of molted Coke bottles, engulfed Mullinnix. The ship crested the next wave and slammed down as if it had been hit with a sledge hammer. Signalman Ken “Gus” Gustin had forgotten to flex his knees, and the deck he was standing on came up and struck him in the face. “Fuck!”, as he split blood from a cut lip. BTW, the flexed knee position is also an excellent position in which to throw up your last meal.

Lightning continued to pound the horizon like artillery fire. The water whipped our faces. “Fuck, this is fun!”, I yelled. Signalman Stan “Stash” Stockam glanced at me, then laughed, “‘Yoo Woody.” Never a dull moment...

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My buddy "BO" has told me on a number of occasions, that the statue of limitations has run out on most of our antics on Mullinnix in the early 70's. So keep that in mind while reading the following. On the other hand, I maybe, just maybe, made this up...

We were standing on the torpedo decking smoking a joint when the wind suddenly changed, coming from the west bringing a noticeable chill to the humid 108 degree day. We could hear distant thunder from the darkening clouds that had just began to blot out the western sun. No problem - the threatening clouds weren’t overhead yet.

BT3 Jim 'Slick' Holland estimated they had a good 15-20 minutes before the rain would start. The sky was turning blue-black and bruised with garish clouds that looked heavy. No problemo! This was the Pacific Ocean – SOP! As long as no funnels were visible, we were good to go. Thump! FTG3 Greg "Birdman" Berry looked up only to see a golf ball-size hailstone bounce off the canvas covering the ship’s liberty boat. MMSN "TR" Daniels looked up. The sky was deepening to a dark, leaden gray, but bloody hell the clouds were still NOT overhead. Thump – Thump! Whack! Two more hailstones into the canvas, one off the starboard torpedo tubes. The sky was clouding over. Slick could feel a chill creeping into the breeze. A shaft of sunlight broke out from between gray clouds like a bright wound opening in the heavens. Thump, wallop, whack, thump, smack! The hailstones were quickly enlarging. Bang! One shattered against the forward stack.

Thunder growled overhead, and the sky had turned the color of dulled steel. Covering their heads with hands & arms, they sprinted towards the nearest hatch. The thick air was blowing across the ship from Southwest to Northeast – not a good sign. Thump-thump-thump-whack-thump-thump-thump-bang-thump-thump. They’d grown to the size of bloody baseballs. So big in fact, they weren’t just bouncing of the ship, they were burying themselves into hail made-divots in the aluminum superstructure. It sounded as if the Jolly Green Giant was hammering the deck with a 500-lb sledge hammer.

I was born and raised in Western Nebraska and have lived in “tornado alley” most of my life, but I’d never seen hail this large. TR was stunned that it could come that fast, that big, with very little rain or wind. Fortunately it was not wind-driven and last only about 5-7 minutes. Afterwards, they gathered 11 stones and had one of the cooks weight them - a staggering 2 lbs! TR was from South Central Kansas and recalled the worst hail storm he’d ever seen wasn't this bad.

When driven by wind, hail regardless of size, can be devasting. Only pea-size, but driven by a 50+ mile/hour wind and lasting about 30-40 minutes, Hays, KS - an entire town of 20,000, looked like it had been defoliated with Agent Orange. About the time we humans get to 'big-for-our-britches', Mother Nature shows us a little humility and who really is in charge.

Lyrics to the Door's "Riders On The Storm"

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man
Girl ya gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

Wow!

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm


Mullinnix Coming Into Leyte Gulf

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