John Myers remembers: An incident involving the boilers on the 69' cruise. The Mullinnix was coming in off the gunline to Subic Bay, Philippines, and was scheduled to have the boilers torn down, inspected, and rebricked. The ship rumor machine reported that we might not be staying in port long and could be sent to North Korea due to the Pueblo capture, which just happened.
But by the time the Skipper sent word down to the boiler room crews not to tear down the boilers, they were way ahead of him. They had not waited for the boilers to cool, but hand already torn out bricks. Of course they said, “Sorry Skipper. If we’d known we might be going right back out…”
So the crew got liberty in Subic instead of heading off to Korea to steam around in circles while diplomats pissed and moaned and did absolutely nothing for the crew of the Pueblo being tortured by the North Koreans
Those boiler techs got many a free beer in the Subic bars that night.
"Throw me Peso, Joe..."
Main drag, Po City, Subic Bay
Subic Bay Main Gate during 1960s
The white building on the left is where we mustered for Shore Patrol Duty
