The USS YORKTOWN was designated as a CV, In Naval parlance, a CV is the largest of the aircraft carriers.  The average CVA (Attack Carrier) is over on a thousand feet long an many decks high.  The crew numbers over 3,000 officers and enlisted men, including air groups.  These city-sized ships are sometimes called "Floating shore duty."

A ship feels alive with it's own personality due it's own noises, smells and traits.  When one of these floating communities is tied to a dock, it emits hums from generators, pumps and electric motors.  The exhaust fans from the kitchens and bake shops sometime provides the aromas of almost forgotten Mother's kitchens.  The voices of the crew are different due to the backgrounds of the Petty officers.  Some ships are crewed from the East or West Coasts and others are manned by Southerners.

A few ships are homes for the men who have been aboard them for years.  These ships operate well because all hands and the ship are in tune with each other.  A newly recommissioned ship like the Yorktown could have a diverse crew because the personnel would be drawn from the entire Navy.  Time, and through shakedown cruises made it into a cohesive unit with it's own Spirit and Soul.

With this, the Fighting Lady, went to the Far East to perform her duty with Task Force 77, off Korean shores.  In early 1954, the Lady and two destroyers were detached from the Task Force.  The three ships were to steam to Hong Kong.  After three months of continual flight operations, we deserved a ten day R&R visit to the mysterious Pearl of the Orient, the British Crown Colony...HONG KONG!

We sailed south through the Yellow Sea, past Shanghai.  At night we could see the blinking, yellow lights of the Communist China mainland.  We avoided the dangerous Communist controlled Formosa Straits by maintaining course East of Taiwan.  We we turned West, we ran into some rainy weather.

We were under free water rationing at the time.  Some members of the crew ran to the Flight Deck an stripped their clothes off.  When we were near Korea, the weather was cold, but in the south China Sea, the men were taking advantage of the free, clean, fresh, warm, rain.  They soaped themselves over to enjoy a shower with a no limit of water usage.  They were playing the in the rain like children under a lawn sprinkler.  However, the ship ran out of the squall before all the soapy sailors had time to rinse their bodies of the soap.  They put on their clothes and ran below to complete their showers.  The impromptu shower with rain water was appreciated.

The weather got worse.  The rain increased.  The gray sea began to have big waves with long, tall, white caps.  With increasing wind velocities, the large carrier was not yet affected by the sea or wind.  It was gigantic, it would take a typhoon to threaten us.  The little destroyers were beginning bob up and down, taking gray water over their bows and spray drenching their superstructures.  Their keels were seen as they rose to the top of the swells before plunging into the next deep trough.

In the notorious South China Sea, the wind velocity increased above the 65 mile per hour Gale Force rating and showed no signs of abating.  The sea developed large twenty foot swells.  We heard scuttlebutt that we were attempting to sail around a major storm.  The big ship was beginning to pitch up an down.  The side to side roll was very evident on the Mess Decks.

In the Mess Decks, the coffee pots hung from the overhead.  When the ship would pitch or roll, the pots would remain in true down position because of gravity.  The angle of the pots would indicate the pitch or roll of the ship.  In normal seas, the containers would drift to a slight angle.  The approaching storm caused the pots to arc higher and higher.  As we ate our meals and watched the blue pots go up, then down, the up and the other side of the  semi-circle, they would sometimes stop at the peak of the roll.  Being aware of the swaying coffee pots made some of the men very sea sick.  They would get up, leaving their trays of food on the table and run out of the mess area to vomit.  Normally, it was inexcusable to leave a tray without properly disposing of it.  When this situation arose, the Master At Arms on duty would just smile.

Usually at night, the ship would slow down to enable to crew to get a good night's sleep.  But, when the ship is in foul weather, it must maintain proper speed so it won't "broach to" and capsize it in the deep troughs between the high swells.  The roll of the hull was getting worse.  At Taps, the crew and the ship were beginning to show signs of strain.

My bunk was beside a storage rack that held twenty, five gallon cans of emergency fire foam, held in place by a mere angle iron.  The heavy cans began to vibrate and rattle.  I crawled up into my bed.  Lying there, I was concerned about the stability of my sack.  I worried about being rolled from it and falling down to the steel deck, five feet below.  I tied myself in, put my head beneath the blanket, and listened to the noisy foam containers.  I was remembering, when a ship sunk, approximately eighty percent of the crew went down to the bottom of the sea with it.  I slept very uneasily.

At breakfast, the coffee pots were staying at the peak of the arcs longer than they were the night before.  Now we had another problem.

The mess tables were of a folding design.  When the ship would hold the roll too long, the legs of the lower end of the tables would collapse. They would cause a steep incline, the mess trays would slide down the angled table top and onto the deck, splattering food, coffee, stainless steel trays and silverware across the deck. More dangerous than that, the folding benches were beginning to collapse.  The sailors were reminded to keep their legs and feet from under the seats.  Some of the crew's legs and ankles were badly hurt from the weight of several men on the bench as it collapsed.  The ship and crew were beginning to be concerned about their safety.

That morning, destroyer 886 came alongside to shoot a line to the Yorktown.  In the very dangerous seas, a boatswains chair was used to transfer one of her crew to our ship.  The man had been hurt during the storm.  the small ship did not have a medical facility to handle the injury.  The Yorktown contained a complete hospital with competent doctors and personnel.  I managed to get several photos of the operation from the Number Two Refueling Station, right outside the Photo Lab door.

As the day progressed, we could feel the ship beginning to porpoise through the water.  The Yorktown would bury her bow into the great well, tripping the stern upward.  When she did that, two of the fours screws would raise up out of the water and caused a measured thump, thump, thump as each turning blade would strike the sea.  The carrier would pivot like a teeter totter and then bury it's bow deep in the water and seem to stop!  Men would be grabbing at something solid to prevent being thrown forward into each other, equipment or steel bulkheads.  Then as the stern would settle, the bow would raise and break through the well and raise high out of the water.  Many feet of the keel would break free of the sea.  With the bow out of the water, the ship would be at a great angle.  This moved the screws deep in the water, causing a great surge forward. The gigantic ship would then pause with it's bow high, then plunge deep into another swell, causing the action to begin all over again.  We were in a full fledged Typhoon!

During this, while on duty in the Photo Lab, at compartment B-109-L, I decided to go topside to a weather deck to see how bad the storm actually was and if I could gets some photographs.  While I was checking out a 4X5 Pacemaker Speed Graphic and film, Chief Blair asked me what I was going to do.  After listening to my intentions, he reminded me to "be careful."

After making my way aft, climbing to the 02 level, through the door to the passageway that led to the watertight door that opened out of the catwalk, I noticed the pitch and roll of the ship became more pronounced. The further away from the center of the ship, the angles became more noticeable.  I opened the door and met with a spray of hard, cold, stinging, salty sea water.  it was like someone turned a fire hose on me.

As I stepped out onto the catwalk, on the steel grating, far below me, the gray water was rushing rapidly by the ship.  I was on the extreme aft end of the steel mesh/grid walkway.  There was nothing below me except the cold, gray, deep and deadly water and the wake of the ship.  The only thing separating me from eternity was the thin, ten year old metal grating I was standing on.
While closing the door behind me and holding fast to a metal life line, I pulled myself forward a few feet to metal rungs welded to the side of the ship.  It was a short ladder to the flight deck.  Desperately clutching the big camera with one hand and pulling myself up to the wood flight deck with the other, I became aware of the probability of damage to the very expensive US Government owned Navy camera.  The bellows were especially vulnerable.  After closing the camera, I put my belt through the hand strap to keep it safe.

In attempted to stand up on the flight deck.  It was impossible.  The wood was wet and slippery and the wind was terrific.  I could only crawl on my hands and knees on the nearly 1,000 foot deck.  Moving forward about 20 feet, I again attempted to get up.  I could see white spray coming over the forward edge of the flight deck.  It shocked me, after all, the deck was ninety feet above the water line.  Over 900 feet feet of flight deck was ahead of me.  The ship seemed to twist.  While holding tightly to one of the built in tie down cleats, I watched the long flight deck warp!  It appeared as if a giant was holding both ends of the ship and with a monumental effort, attempting to spiral it, similar to a loaf of French bread.  The amazement of it was tempered a bit when I remembered the flight deck has several expansion joints built into it for just this situation.  The ship was flexing, instead of breaking, as it was designed to do.  With this realization, I became somewhat overconfidence and again attempted to stand up on the Yorktown's flight deck.

Immediately, the wind blew me backwards and down on the hard deck.  The pressure of the blast caused me to begin rolling.  Uncontrollable rolling, over and over, further and further aft, toward the end of the flight deck, heading toward the cold sea.

Once I began to roll it was hard to stop the momentum.  The camera was flopping through every rotation, but not enough to stop me.  Eventually my reflexes caused me to spread eagle my arms and legs.  I stopped rolling toward the end of the flight deck, the cold sea and my death to grab a hold onto another tied down cleat and pulled myself to safety.

Soaking wet and obviously still suffering from the realization of what might have happened, I returned to the Photo Lab. Chief Blair looked at me and could guess what had transpired.  An "Old China Hand", he was very knowledgeable.  With a comment concerning our responsibilities of the Navy's equipment he added "...and I hope you learned a damn good lesson.  Stay off the weather decks when the ship is in foul weather..."

Anybody can make mistakes.  A smart person learns from them.  Never again did I go out on the weather deck in foul weather.

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