[or-roots] Pacific Typhoon

[wm0g at comcast.net]

After leaving the USAF, I worked for Sanders Associates in Nashua, NH as a Field Engineer for the Electronic Countermeasures gear aboard Navy aircraft. I had an assignment from them to work at their field depot in the Phillipines. I lived and worked at Cubi Point NAS for a couple of years during the Vietnam era. I was also the delegated "Zoomie" for our company. That means whenever there was a problem with our ECM gear at sea I would fly out to the aircraft carrier aboard whatever aircraft was available and provide technical assistance to the US Navy techs. Still being flight certified at the time, that trip from Cubi Point to the Aircraft Carrier off the coast of Vietnam could be in any aircraft that had room for me. I logged 56 carrier takeoffs and landings as a civilian during my two year tenure there. 
Anyhow, I was sent aboard the carrier USS Coral Sea (CVB 43) in the late summer of 1966 to assist on their "sea trials" as they were just coming back on line from stateside. We were between Yokosuka, Japan and headed for Subic Bay in the P.I. when we hit a huge typhoon and the Captain tried to stay to the outside of the storm. We were escorted by 2 Roberts Class destroyers and 2 nuclear powered Frigates, one of which was the USS Bainbridge, I think. 
As an aside, I grew up working on small charter fishing boats in the Atlantic Ocean from our home port in Point Judith, RI. My father was an avid big game sportsfisherman and a freelance sports photographer. Since from about age 12, I was part of the crew for his many fishing trips up and down the Atlantic Coast and into the Caribbean all aboard a 56 foot sportsfisherman. We saw many days of big seas and rough water and even rode out a couple of hurricanes during my times on board this relatively small boat. So, not being a stranger to the ocean, I felt that it couldn't be too bad to ride out a typhoon in the Pacific on board a 968 foot long ship... WRONG!! 
Large ships like that with a hangar deck full of aircraft and a belly full of bombs and other ordnance does make you think about the consequences of tossing around in 80' waves for a few days.
The first thing that happens is the expansion joints on these great ships tend to stretch as they are supposed to but when they do, the wire bundles in the walls of the carrier with all the electrical power tend to stretch and break!! When they do, they usually cause a fire. So, for three days we had constant alarms of wire breaks and electrical fires throughout the bulkheads of the ship on all levels. Another thing that happened was.. after I had went to sleep in my cabin which was senior officers quarters on the 07 level of the forward part of the ship (7 levels above the water line), I woke up in the morning to find water sloshing around in my room!! Seems that during the night the starboard (right side) sponsons had ripped off and took the hatch to the outside with it. So whenever the ship would dip it's bow into the sea it was bringing water through the open hatch and through the halls some 70' above the water line. I left my cabin and headed for the Ward Room for some breakfast and went to the very aft portion of the carrier or the "rounddown" and looked out to see if I could see our escort ships. The seas were pitching with 80' rollers and I could see a destroyer behind us some 1/2 mile away that would appear coming over the top of the crest of a wave for almost half the length of the destroyer (about 150') and then it would nose down over the wave and ride this mountain of water at a 45 degree angle to the bottom of the trough of that wave and bury itself for some length of that ship and then it would disappear as some large wave between us would block my view. It looked like a scene from a grade "B" movie with lousy special effects except, that it was real and it was happening now. I remember thinking "glad I'm on this ship and not that one".
I headed back to the Ward Room for breakfast and I was the only person there, except for the cooks and a  few stewards. I ordered my breakfast and asked where everyone was and the steward said.. "seasick". After eating breakfast, I headed for the electronics shop and sure enough, no one was around except for an old salty Chief Petty Officer. He said his crew was suffering from seasickness. If I had a bottle of Dramamine tablets I could have sold it for hundreds of dollars. 4,000+ people on the ship and almost half of them were suffering from 'mal-de-mer'. 
Wish there were video recorders back then, I think it would have made some interesting footage!

Jack Ciaccia
WM0G ex K1IVY

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Cecil Houk" <cchouk at cox.net> 

> I have visited Hong Kong 5 times on 3 different ships. All visits required 
> passing through part of 
> a typhoon. Lots of fun. I sat out a typhoon on a tin can in Subic Bay, PI. 
> Even more fun! 
> 
> Cecil USN Ret. 
> AG6I ex W6KGY ex W7ZNB 
> 
> PS: Merry Christmas! 
> 
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