Shore Patrol

I was assigned to Shore Patrol in Valparaiso Chili in 1969.  The duty of a Shore Patrolman is basically to patrol the bar section of town and keep your shipmates, in various states of intoxication, out of trouble with the local police, merchants and citizens.

 I asked a fellow photographers mate to take a picture of me, wearing the SP Shore Patrol arm band and wearing the police baton and looking tough.  But as he was taking my picture, some of my old friends from 2nd Division were leaving the Yorktown and started to point at me and laugh!  "If Bernath is Shore Patrol tonight, we'll get away with murder!"  I warned "You'd better behave, Petty Officer Bernath is on duty Tonight!  ..and you know he's a hardass" 

 All I got back from the boatswains mates in Second Division was hearty laughter!  Talking tough and looking tough but I just came off as a maritime version of Policeman Barney Fief (Don Knotts) in Mayberry RFD.  I wore my night stick belt low on my hips.  Not to look tough but because I was so skinny that was as high as I could get it!

 As I recall, no big incidents ashore that night.  We just scooped up a couple of drunk Yorktown crewmen and drove them back to the ship to sleep it off.

Shore Patrolman Petty Officer 3rd Class Daniel A. Bernath

A Yorktown sailor is a guy who is worked too hard, gets too little sleep, takes verbal abuse no civilian would take, does every imaginable kind of job at any imaginable hour, never seems to get paid. Never knows where he's going, can seldom tell where he has been; yet accepts the worst with complete resignation, and last but not least he really kinda of likes it!
When you're dog tired, been up since 0400 (4 a.m), working like hell all day, and about to hit your sack at 2000 (8 p.m.) a voice shouts "'turn to' on a work detail!" Then you unload a ship's cargo of perishable refrigerated foods. You are about ready to die at 0200 (2 a.m.), but the job must be finished before dawn. Soon you don't care if you live or die, and suddenly, you're a sailor, it's over and you did it.

You think of all the people you know and how they would react under the circumstances and you being to grin. You grin because you ain't scared of nothing, and it is a fact that there is no ordeal you can't face- and you know it.

You're a sailor of the United States Navy.

Editor's Note: The consumption of alcohol on board U.S. Navy vessels was prohibited by General Order 99, effective 1 July 1914, issued by Secretary of the Navy Josephus "Joe" Daniels on 1 June 1914. 

Thus, a cup of coffee, became known in the US Navy and to the world as "a cup of Joe."

 

Thanks for the vino shipmate!

During World War Two, normal practices were carried out aboard the Yorktown.  One of the duties was checking the lifeboats.  Ted Rohrbough checked Number Two Whale Boat.  As Ted lifted up the cover to see whether rations were intact after some recent rough seas he noticed two gallon jugs. 

He looked closer and discovered the jugs were filled with homemade wine!  Ted took the wine back to his division where he and his shipmates toasted the end of the fighting in Europe.  There were probably some angry sailors when they discovered the fruits of their fermentation had been taken but no one reported the loss to the Master at Arms because US Navy ships are not permitted to have alcoholic  beverages aboard.

submit your Yorktown Sea Story