This message was posted by Bob Mueller on Bravenet Forum
Date: 10-03-2009
Subject:Old Times
Email: ram.pa@comcast.net
Hi -
I have a remembering thought of the shark being brought aboard I might have a picture of that moment...
I was one of the radiomen gang on the 133 during 1958 thru 1959....
Does anyone remember that hurricane we were in and had to run with the storm for a day or two...
The waves were really BIG. I also was in Boston shipyard for repairs....

Mike,
I don't recall if it was a hurricane, or just a storm, but I do remember being relieved late on station.
Otterstetter was supposed to be our relief, but she lost comms shortly after leaving Newport.
I don't know who did relieve us, but it was late. We were scheduled for the yards in Charlestown, had to lay off for a day because Otterstetter was in our drydock, she had recieved severe storm damage. We were just offshore, and the seas there were tremendous. It was an interesting ride.

Denis LaCrosse

I do remember a 13 ft long shark being brought aboard in 1956. Ensign Shumate bashed it with a stantion as it thrashed about the fantail.

Joel Brandes

Mike,
I'm not too good on remembering dates, probably 1958 or 59, but I recall a time we were on Station 1, and were warned that we were in the path of a hurricane. Were advised to change course to avoid it, and the hurricane changed course, and we were right in it! I was standing a starboard lookout watch, hanging onto the compass repeater, It was VERY windy, sea state 5, we had barely enough power to keep into the waves. Shortly the wind started to come off the starboard beam, then ceased, the sky turned pink, and the sea was as flat as a table. It was like being in a vacuum. We were in the eye! I thought it was the end of the world. EERIE!!!! After about 15 minutes, the wind swung to the starboard quarter, and the seas picked up again. We had to come about to head back into the seas.. /P>

So many memories... the whales on the way to station 4, the hurricane we rode out in Boston Harbor, taking a 56 degree roll, Dana Armour finding a parachute on the beach in Argentia that his bride, Melba, used to make her wedding dress,etc,etc.....

Robbie Robinson

Dennis:

Your memory of the Storm is correct. Not a hurricane. In addition, we spent a few extra days on station.

Bob Muller:

The shark on brought on board during the years 1958-1959 pictures are also available in my photo album.

Mike:

A new image of myself will be provided in the near future. Two years into retirement and my time is full used be many activities. I do not know how I had time to work.

Good to hear from shipmates!!!

Best regards,,,

Bob Turocy

It wasn't a hurricane, but the mother of all storms! When I relieved Jim Grau as OOD, he was in the process of ordering starboard engine ahead flank, port engine back emergency full (not that I, or anyone else had ever heard such an order) and hard left rudder. Even then the ole Pill kept steering clockward. We were running ahead of huge following seas trying to stay on course for Boston where my wife was happily running up a monstrous hotel tab at the Copley Plaza where she had booked us a room, but in spite of my best efforts, couldn't get in to share it or even stop the economic disaster when Maida, and her girt friend who had driven her up from Newport, decided that chateaubriand and champaign would make an adequate, celebratory, room service dinner.

After about an hour of emulating Jim's cockamamie engine and helm orders, (which weren't doing us any good, anyway as far as getting us to Boston was concerned as we could only maintain bare steerageway) we came about into the seas for another twenty-four hours, during which I was blissfully unaware of the ongoing economic catastrophe taking place ashore.

Can't contribute anything about the shark incident, as I don't remember it, but the timing doesn't sound right. I was on the Pill from November of "56 until September of '59 and Bob Turocy places the incident in "58-'59, but states that Jim Shumate was an Ensign. I'm almost positive that Jim was a J. G. by '58.

Can anyone else clarify this?

Paul Jacobson

All Hands,

Yep no hurricane just a big storm with a following sea....I recall looking out the hatch on the port side on the fantail and watching breaking swells of at least forty feet chasing us south away from our eventual destination .... Boston.

How about the evening ...on what I believe was a Sunday..on Station 2 or was it 3?...we were lying too and took what is now called a "rogue" wave....I was on CIC watch...I recall someone on watch from the bridge on the sound powered phone saying the clinomometer registered 58 degree roll?????...I recall holding on to the repeater and a few things flew across the deck behind me.....I remember Capt. Harward told the OD to get the Pill underway quick soon after.

And no one remembers the evening the ET's were suppose to rig for movies on the fantail and they threw the movie screen off the O1 level?.....I musta dreamed that?

Or the late evening arival of Seaman Abel to the Pill Quarterdeck after a tough evening in Le Harve....a broken nose and bit of blood on his lip....he thought a local civilian running at him wanted to borrow a cigarette...when he looked up he caught a righthand....I was PO that evening on the quarterdeck.

LtJg Greco helped me back to the Pill after a ships party in Le Harve....he left me on the dockside of the Brow and said you get aboard yourself....somehow I made it.....I think I crawled?

Its funny how I recall so much of my 3 1/2 years in the Navy a lot less of the 17 1/2 years I spent in the Air Force afterwards....musta been cuz theres no such thing as Air Stories?.....just Sea Stories....*LOL*

Best to all.....

Tom Cummings

It seem to me, that A div was unrigging the screen when it slip from out hands, and down it when///

Merlin W Kingston

NOTE: The way I remember it , the IC's were the one that lost the movie screen over the fantail.

Mike Lambert ET

Thanks, Paul (Mr. Jacobson!) for the really good chuckle! Chateaubriand and champagne indeed!

I thought I had remembered something like turns for 19 knots, making less than one, but didn't want to seem overly dramatic based on memory alone. I do remember facing into huge, but not breaking seas, up one side, down the other. Seems I'm not alone. It was a memorable trip.

As were many events aboard Pill. She was my first ship, (and the reason I decided to make the Navy my career,) but certainly not my longest tour by far. Yet I have many memories, as do others. One of my favorites was after we entered the yard (2nd time?) at Charlestown, and busses had been arranged to take the Newport sailors with families back home. Uneventful trip, until we entered Fall River, when both busses pulled over near a tavern, Captain Harwood stood up in the front, and announced that he was stopping for a drink, and would be honored if we would all join him!

The skippers, the officers and the crew all made Pill a little more special somehow.

Denis LaCrosse

The message was posted by Dick Beers

Subject: Old Times Revisited Email: rbeers1@rochester.rr.com

Message:

Have just spent an enjoyable hour browsing through the updated web site.
Many memories rekinled. Does anyone know whatever happened to the plaque about the U-505 and Lt.
David that wes mounted in the athawrts ship passage way aft of the wardroom?
Isn't it about ti,me we have a Pillsbury reunion?

All the Best Dick Beers

Email: thomas.cummings@comcast.net
Date: 10-05-2009 2:10 PM
Subject: New Sea Stories & GED Pic

All Hands,

I've attached a picture (jpg) for Mike to add to his site...I believe I cut it out of an old All Hands magazine while aboard Pill..... I got my High School GED then and it wasn't until 1973 I received an official diploma from the State of Alaska while I was stationed at Elmendorf AFB....(Pictured Left to Right.....Back Row First) LtJg Mettert...believe he was Electronics Officer at the time.....next unknown ....RDC Adams....I was seventh from left.....(Bottom Row) Second from left Wallander....second from right...Vasquez..... I'll let you all name the others.
USS Pillsbury GED Graduates

Another "cold war like sea story" memory. Believe it was Station #1....Sonar reports sonar contact and classified it possible submarine.....we track it on the DRT in CIC moving at a few knots underwater...suddenly it stops moving...we report our contact to higher authority......we back off away from sub position and let P2V from Newfoundland make run over last sub position....they classify "non sub" using MAD gear.....we are being relieved from station the next day by another DER...while highlining mail & movies CIC reports radar contact at aproximately same position as last contact with sonars possible sub.......I think we cut the lines and made dual ship run over the position?.....anyhow I recall a bit later the Captain announcing that CIC picked up a flock of seagulls on our search radar?.......hope a few of you can fill in the blanks?...I still tell everyone that the radar picked up a sub periscope.....*LOL*

Best To All

Tom Cummings