USS MULLINNIX DD-944
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Antwerp Belgium 1960
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Antwerp Belgium
Click on the picture above to open PDF file of the liberty instructions that were given out to the Mullinnix Crew
Plan of the Day - 1 October 1960
Plan of the Day - 2 October 1960
Belgium Currency - December 1999
FTG3 Frank Wood's Dinner Receipt
December 1999
(Note: Anthwerpen = Anthwerp)
Antwerp Belgium
December 1999
Photo by Frank Wood
Antwerp Belgium
December 1999
Photo by Frank Wood
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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
1960 Mullinnix Antwerp, Belguim Vistor's Information (PDF)
Like many Flemish cities Antwerp grew up around two settlements: the 'aanwerp' or 'alluvial mound' from which the city probably derives its name, and Caloes, 500 meters further south. A fortification was built on the mound around the seventh century. Christianization also began in that period. In the ninth century, when Antwerp became part of Lorraine, that ‘castellum’ was destroyed by the Norman's.
Antwerp, daughter of the River Scheldt, host of the VII (7th) OLYMPIAD in 1920, and second largest city of Belgium. The inhabitants call it the 'Metropolis' (Antwerpians are known in Belgium for not being too modest). It is the second largest harbor of Europe (after Rotterdam). Antwerp is a splendid city with numerous architectural highlights, most of which date from the 16th (the golden era of Antwerp) and the 17th century. The destructions of the Second World War, unfortunately, had scarred somehow the fair face of the old town. Still there are enough monuments left for those who like monument-hopping to spend a few days admiring them. The past is also represented by the numerous paintings of Peter Paul Rubens who lived in the Antwerp in the early 17th century.
Antwerp is also the diamond center of the World. 'If diamonds really are a girl's best friend', than a number of the crew didn't waste their time visiting the diamond district near the railway station. The presence of many 'Chassidic' Jewish people in this same district gave the city a flair that couldn't be found in other Belgian cities.
The night life? Well, in a word, it would put the strip outside D&S Piers to shame. The crew felt like they had arrived in a northern wonderland with places like Cafe d'Anvers, situated in the city's red light district (called "Schipperskwartier"), considered by many to be one of Belgium's finest dance clubs. From flashing lights to flashy decor, the scene was for extroverts, and sailors, only. Once inside, a balcony provided the crew a bird's-eye view of the dance floor, where crowds grooved to house beats.
Or De Pelgrom - with its ambiance of a charming tavern serving Belgian brews, occupying a 16th-century cellar. Most aspects of the decor fit the age-old theme, from long wooden benches to candles for (almost all) the illumination. Distressed brick walls contributed to the medieval aesthetic.
Or De Vagant which boasts Belgian gin over its better-known cousin, Belgian beer. Here, jenever is the only drink on tap, although it's available in more than 200 formulations. Shipmates drank from traditional gins to wild concoctions like blood orange or passion fruit jenever.
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Antwerp was as lively after dark as it is busy during the day. FTGs Howard McGee and Brian Smythe couldn't wait to hit the beach. The thick wet fog was just lifting as they walked off the gangplank but mist still rose from the harbor's water. Taking a deep breath of icy air, Smythe said, "Howard (he never called McGee by his first name), ya'know something? Everything to do with women is foolish and, therefore, absolutely essential."
McGee sighed. It was like listening to two people talking out of one face. Knowing Smythe had a catch and release attitude towards women, he answered simply, "As the old expression goes, women need a reason to have sex; men need only a place. Let us go find that place, what do you say Mr. Smythe?"
"Let's shit and get then, I'm ready for some horizontal mumbo."
The both had a passion for blues and bluezy-jazz, and beer, and women, and women who drank beer but they didn't feel like walking in the chilling ground mist. The solution was obvious, look for a small cozy place located near the ship docks with live blues and jazz that served in the order of a couple-of-dozen European beers. Simple. Surely, not too much to ask?
They headed down the fog-wet pier towards the dangling lights swinging in the light wind. The narrow streets and alleys were filling with shadows from the fast approaching darkness. They past the first two corners, then stopped at the third. The narrow street to the left was lit smoky gold from the street lamps that lined the buildings near the edge of the sea. A single lamp blazed from the corner of one of the nearer buildings. She passed, with a slight limp in her gate, through this magic circle of yellowish white light and disappeared into the darkness beyond. Smythe, immediately wondering would he ever see her again, "Did you see that?"
"Yea, so what?"
"Let’s go!"
The street, called 'popcorn alley', was lined with a majority of whore houses in town. The name coming from the constant opening and closing of doors all night. Near the end, sat a club with a simple red neon sign that pulsated 'blues'. Steam rose from the street drains, people loping along to the music drifting out of the nearby clubs.
"Check it out McGee, I think she went in here."
As the pair neared the 'blues' place, they saw a heavy, twisted ring of iron, reminiscent of the sanctuary rings of medieval times, hanging from the heavy wooden door.
"'The Blue Boar'," read Smythe. "Sounds like my sort of place."
"mythe, you remind me of where an Irish family goes on vacation?"
"Where's that?"
"A different bar."
Entering through the door, they were met by a pub that was high-ceilinged but flat. The bar was tall & heavily carved as if it had come from an earlier building that had been replaced. There were long tobacco-stained opaque windows on both sides of the wood-carved wall. A tarnished almost black brass rail protected the displayed bottles. Through the smoke the depth of the bar seemed to go on forever.
"The smoky dark depths of a blues joint - nothin' better, huh McGee?"
Ignoring his buddy's remarks, McGee sighed, "Fuck me!"
"What's wrong?"
"Look over there," said McGee, pointing towards the bar. "There's Gunny."
"Who?"
"You know - McMullan. Better known as GMG1 Billy Ray McMullan, straight from the hills of Tennessee."
"Don't worry about it, He's OK," said Smythe.
"On the ship maybe," replied McGee. "Going on liberty with him is like liberty with a corpse."
McMullan was at the bar making love to a glass of scotch. A ribbon of smoke rose from the cigarette in the ashtray and curled toward his bare arm.
Jenever was the drink of choice for most, blues the music, smoke the preferred atmosphere. You could hardly see across the room. Like most bars, the Boar stayed open until 0700 - just in time to make it back to the ship. This was a bar for the seafaring crowd hence not many locals bothered to patronage the place.
When the band began it was behind the enchanting voice of a blue glow that suggested eroticism. A silhouette danced, dark against darkness. Moments later, a dirty blonde in her mid-thirties emerged from the blackness. She wore tight-fitting red trousers with a tighter top with a plunging neckline that tickled her naval. She was singing about a provocative femme fatales that sung blues in a smutty vulgar strip bar in some dirty filthy den of a city. Maybe, just like this place.
McGee looked at Smythe. He knew the look - he'd lost him. Smythe was in 'love' again. McGee just shook his head. He had to admit she sounded pretty good. She had a blue-light song voice that drilled holes through your body, straight to your soul. Her black eyes seemed alive, shinning like moist marbles, the pupils immense.
Smythe closed his eyes, a trail of smoke wafting slowly up to the ceiling fan fixture directly above his head.
"Wake up asshole," McGee said, jabbing Smythe with his elbow.
"I'll hit you as hard as a hurricane if you do that again," cursed Smythe. "I’m just suckin' in all this fine vibe."
He opened his eyes again and continued to stare at her. The woman was wearing three rings on her left hand. They were big enough to serve as brass knuckles, which could help to fend off sailors like Smythe. She hung on the microphone rather than using the small stage’s area to her advantage.
Half way into her second song she made eye contact with Smythe. In his opinion, the rest of the song was for him. She talked and she laughed before the third song - a throaty laugh that was warm and filled with humor. Most of which appeared to be directed only in Smythe’s direction, according to Smythe.
McGee continued to be amazed. He didn't really understand how Smythe did it - much of the time without really trying that hard. He ran through women like a shark through a salmon-fall. Baby faced and a faint Southern drawl, he'd broken up recently with his Wave girlfriend. He'd felt that Norfolk moved too fast for him. Some days, he confessed, he wouldn't mind just staying on the boat. You couldn't help but like him. He had kind eyes, a handsome mustache, a strong neck, and broad shoulders that inspired confidence in his shipmates - and lust from most women.
She sang song four and song five then the band took a break. Through the hanging veil of cigar smoke she snaked among the tables, walking somewhat haltingly on the cobbled floor. Smoke so heavy it blurred your vision. Scent of roses mingled with cigar smoke as people's movement caused currents and eddies in the thick air.
She picked up Smythe's pack of Chesterfields, shook one out, and put it between her lips. He flicked his Mux-encrusted Zippo on and she leaned forward, the dancing flame cutting deep shadows under her cheekbones. She really was beautiful. He lit a cigarette for himself and then their unordered drinks arrived. Smythe felt like they were the only two people in the club. McGee knew his night was screwed.
"Well Fuck! My fun meter is about pegged! I might as well go hang out with gunny." Pausing, "I can't believe I just said that." McGee got up and headed to the bar to get McMullan to buy him a drink. Smythe didn't even notice he'd left.
"Do you want to get out of here?" asked Smythe.
"We have one more set." She answered, speaking surprisingly good English.
"You didn't answer my question."
"We will see."
The man often acquires control for a time after the woman has surrendered her power of sexual denial. But some women, instinctively, retain a different but related influence, establishing inside the man a subtle dependency, so that his sense of need endures. For almost every man, no matter how otherwise strong an independent, there is some women who retain that emotional authority and skill. Rarely do both parties simultaneously balance the emotional and the sensual. Smythe was no exception.
Her irises were almost purple, the whites stained with a paler blue. She had pale, honey-colored skin, with flaxen hair that flowed over her bare shoulders. Her red jeans were pulled tightly over strong thighs. She introduced herself as Dolores - Dolores Duval. He wondered if that was her real name. But, it didn't really matter did it? Five days and a wake up and he was out of here, never to return.
"I find sailors very attractive." He looked her up and down and up again, then down again.
"I imagine most of them meet you half way." She laughed from her throat. She had breasts the size of a midget's head. She leaned forward to put a bottle on the table, and they showed round and full in the dim ochre light.
"On the house," she whispered. She stood up to head for the stage for the last set. Her flamboyant jeans rode low on her hips below a smiling dolphin jumping between the dimples on the small of her back. She stopped suddenly, turned to face him and pushed into him.
"You will wait for me?” Her mouth was near his but not on it. The words came out in hot little puffs. "Well?"
"Sure - sure thing," stammered Smythe.
The music started once again. McGee, drinking with 'Gunny', had just realized the dwarflike barmaid had a face of a BT.
"More?", she asked, breathing smoke.
"You up for another round Gunny?"
"I don't know fucking why not!" slurred McMullan.
"Two more," requested McGee.
She turned to the business of refreshing their empty glasses, her flesh rippling under her cotton dress as she rolled towards the bar breathlessly.
McGee knew McMullan was divorced. He'd ask him once what had happened. He'd told him his ex thought cooking and fucking were two cities in the Philippines. To hear him tell it, he had two monsters, Billy P-Ray Jr and Claudia, eight and six years' worth of nastiness. He'd wanted his son to have the initials of his favorite beer - PBR. But in his celebratory state at the hospital he’d got 'confused' while filling out the birth certificate. When drunk, he’d wonder aloud sometimes if Claudia was wetting the bed again that night.
To keep from dying of boredom, McGee asked, "So Gunny, what do you think of Belgium? Not bad, huh?"
Not listening to McMullan's scotch-filled response, McGee stared into the tower of bottles behind the bar with as much interest as at a pair of dungarees hanging from a bunk. He had never experienced the advantage of not smoking. To hear the propaganda, the lungs would expand, the scent of roses and violets became denser, the taste of stake sharper, the air cleaner, the rain more crystalline, the clouds probably fluffier. He took another deep drag, held it, held it a little longer, exhaling through his nose. Nothing like a Marlboro buzz this time of night.
McMullan knocked back the rest of his scotch and his glass of beer. His face blooming, his eyes lit with a perilous alcoholic shine. Time can draw out like a blade. McGee sensed, more than heard, that the band had stopped playing. Hey glanced over his shoulder and saw Smythe and Dolores headed for the stairs.
Smythe let her lead him up the stairs. She appeared to have difficulty with the steps, limping with what appeared to be an arrow of pain in her leg. Tired after standing on stage all night McGee mused.
Hers was the far room at the end of the narrow hall. It was a medium sized L-shaped room, with a small lamp on a night stand burning next to the bed in the long part of the L. A dresser was up against the wall and held a couple bottles of something. In the far corner was a couch, almost matching chair, and a coffee table covered in magazines. A small closet and a narrow doorway, probably to the head, finished the room.
"Relax. Fix us some drinks, while I'll change out of this costume," she said.
Closing the door behind here, the silence was filled by barking dogs, a motorcycle echoing between the walls of the tiny alley, and the laughter of men in a nearby bar coming through the half-opened window. The wind blew back the curtain from the window. Damn, it's cold in here, he thought. He closed the window. It had begun raining, a gentle, misting drizzle that glossed the surfaces of the city and diffused the light from the street lights. Pools of rainwater collected on the uneven surface of the brick pavement. The metallic echo of a train passed close by filling the long silence. "Brian," she said at last, "Come here."
He stood up and opened his mouth to answer, but his emotion got there ahead of him. "I've got to go," he stammered. His legs were shaking, He bent, grabbed his knees while his stomach decided if it was going with him or not. His momentum propelled him backward into the door. He fumbled for the door knob, finally jerking open the door, lunging into the hall.
McGee pulled on his scotch whiskey, rescuing the ice cubes from drowning. He figured he'd be here a while longer. Then he heard something - running. He glanced up only to see Smythe half-running, half-stumbling down the stairs with a strange look on his face.
Smythe managed to get himself to the bar. His eyes were large, and so dark they looked black in the fractured light. His face drawn and shiny with sweat. Upon approaching McGee, Smythe doubled over and vomited.
"Fuck me!" McGee said as he jumped back to dodge the splatter. "I'm going to stick my foot up your ass so far you're going to be able to taste it in the morning! What-the-hell is wrong with you?"
Smythe grabbed McGee's drink, downing it with one gulp. "Give me another!" he demanded.
McGee, still with no understanding in his eyes, handed Smythe McMullan's double. Smythe downed it like bug juice. He grabbed McGee's lit Marlboro and took a long drag on it. Held it, letting the smoke seep out of his nostrils.
"What the hell's the matter?" asked McGee.
"Her leg!" he gasped. "Her leg - it's fake."
"What?" he asked. "What'd you say?"
"Her leg! It's gone! She’s got no fucking leg!"
"You mean...", started McGee.
"Yea, that’s what I mean asshole! Son-of-a-bitch!" Smythe gasped. "Fuck me..."
McGee laughed until his lungs were ready to burst and his arms and legs were trembling with cramps. Even McMullan, with glazed-eyes and coughing on his smoke and spitting a piece of his thumbnail off his tongue. "You shitin me?" Adding, with an appalling slur in his voice, "Back home, I dated ole' Hog Henderson's daughter - Hogget. But, hell 'Smitty', she had two good legs..."
McGee, rolling off his stool hollowing with laughter, "Stop it, Stop it! I can't take this shit!" His heart was pumping like a six-inch hose at a four-alarmer, his gut ached like he swallowed a bone, and his face ached from laughing. "You guys are killing me!"
Smythe, pounded down the refills from the BT-faced barmaid. He took a final drag and crushed the cigarette butt in a dirty glass that looked as if it had been sitting on the bar since the previous night. "I got to get out of here. Head back to the ship."
He finished the last drink and stared into the glass as though mystified that it didn't immediately refill itself. "Shit, what a night!"
Still trying to smooth the pain from his cheeks, McGee said, "Boo fucking hoo". So you didn't get laid for a change. Big fuckin' deal." Grapping his friends shoulder, he added, "starting tomorrow, it will be only another sea story you'll tell in bars back in Norfolk. The only difference is - this will bring the fucking house down!"
"Bite me!" said Smythe.
As the trio headed back to the ship, the gaslights cast blue and orange halos over the fronts of the buildings. The snow had turned heavy and wet, causing water to stream down in thick ropes from the gutters of the rooftops, where it formed sloppy puddles. A grey mist oozed from the sea and the dampness bit through them. While walking across the brow, Smythe slipped on the slush and landed chest-first on the quarterdeck.
"Fuck, am I jinxed or what?"
Smythe was awakened by a late morning fire drill. He watched as McGee came down the ladder lugging the firehouse over his shoulder like Captain Nemo entwined with a giant squid. His head pounded, his vision blurred, and his ankle had swelled to the size of Boris Karloff's neck in Frankenstein.
Getting drunk, starting fistfights, brawling in bars, vandalizing property (while drunk), fighting with shipmates (while drunk), driving under the influence, and occasionally attempting to shoot or knife each other...that was the life of a sailor. Smythe rubbed his temples, "I guess we'll add screwing one-legged singers to the list."
To be continued...
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