My only ship was a tin can, USS Zellars DD-777 Commissioned 1944, sunk 1944 (JK) and still going '67-'70.lonewolf wrote:I did my "sharkshooter" during lifeboat duty with an M14 and 100 rounds. Those were the days. Indian Ocean, about 30 million degrees farenheit, sitting in the sun waiting to drop the motor whaleboat in case some goober dumped his bird while dropping supplies on the helo deck.....Ah, the good old days.....
btw, my first ship was a tin can. The USS Hoel, DDG-13, Adams class. Commissioned in the late '60's I believe. I was on her in the early '80's. Running, gunning little critter, she was.....Great movie of her underway on Youtube.....
We had a man overboard drill one day, and the GM (Hornberger, yclept "Horny") assigned to the bridge was an average height guy who would have redefined "deck ape" if he had been a Bosun, huge and overlength arms. The whaleboat had returned alongside while the Chief Bosun bawled the crew out for not being able to pick up the dummy.
During the interlude, the captain, standing next to the GM, turned to him and said "Horny, there are sharks all around Oscar, what are you going to do?" Horny, never daunted by such things and a man of action not word, raised the Garand over his head, so it would clear the bridge rail, and emptied it into the dummy, which sank out of sight amid multitudinous bubbles.
The captain, obviously shocked, turned to Hornberger and said "Why on earth did you do that?" and our intrepid Pennsylvania backwoods marksman replied "I put him out of his misery, Sir!"