“Eight SUB-SAILORS conducted the ONLY GROUND COMBAT OPERATION on the Japanese “homeland” of World War II.” is a great read found aboard ULTRAQUIET NO MORE, a submarine focused blog.

Here’s a snippet:

In the four days the saboteurs had anxiously watched the skies for cloud cover, the inventive crew of the Barb had built their micro switch.

When the need was posed for a pick and shovel to bury the explosive charge and batteries, the Barb’s engineers had cut up steel plates in the lower flats of an engine room, then bent and welded them to create the needed tools.

The only things beyond their control were the weather .. . . and time. Only Five Days Remained In The Barb’s Patrol.

The tail is something of legend or a movie but better; it really happened.

I encourage you to read the full story - U.S.S. Barb, The Submarine that sank a Train.

Radio, not just operations support.

Deployments are tough for many reasons. Separation from family and friends is toughest. How does the ship’s radio figure in?

Receiving actual letters from home while underway is sporadic at best. Submarine life means even less mail runs. Port calls are exciting just for the mail bags.

Radio helps in the between with one way notes from home – family grams. Family grams are short messages your loved ones draft for sending over the Navy radio system. Stateside commands would take a note from a spouses, screen it for ‘flagged’ words, and send it off to every ship in the Navy.

Yes. Every ship.

Radio men screened the initial note for overly sexualized language, death reports, and other potentially emotional words. No use in having a guy go AWOL over such a message, or everyone reading about how ‘satisfied’ they will be once they get home.

Receiving these wasn’t limited to in port time.  Family Grams were broadcast on a schedule.  We’d wait anxiously in the galley if they were supposed to be coming in.  It was a nice surprise though to be woken up and handed one.

Do you have fond memories of family grams? Was there one that really stands out? Did your spouse have a secret code for those provocative topics?

“As you celebrate the Fourth of July, please keep in mind that many of our Sailors are deployed and can’t be with their loved ones, but they do so in order that our fellow Americans can spend it with theirs. Currently, we have more than half of our ships and submarines underway, including five carriers and six large-deck amphibious ships, and more than 10,000 individual augmentees deployed ‘boots on ground’ around the world in support of overseas contingency operations.” from Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON)(SS/SW) Rick D. West Independence Day message

Missed many holidays?

Holidays, they are the high points of the year, where everyone celebrates. The Fourth of July is the largest national holiday of the year in the US. Many people plan for months for the perfect evening out.

Neighbors and even friends of a Navy family may miss the fact a loved one won’t be celebrating. Those sailors most likely aren’t just docked in Norfolk or San Diego. Carriers, slow boats, and more are deployed around the world, holiday or not.

Missing the big ones

Deployed for Easter might seem a small loss to some in the Navy, but to many Easter is a sacred day.  I was fortunate when not home for Easter weekend to have captains that encouraged Easter Sunday services.  Our spouses did a video of an Easter party during one deployment. It was a big hit.

Deploying never caused me to miss Christmas. Having duty did infringe a bit though. Not sure how I got lucky over the several years on two boats.

Finally, Fourth of July celebrations were occasionally missed. I never put much value on celebrating until I didn’t celebrate it at all. We did nothing special on either boat.

What did you miss?

So which holidays did you miss? How about beyond that? Miss a bunch of birthdays? Anniversaries perhaps?

(disclaimer – photo by bestrated1 on Flickr licensed as CC)

Beer.

It’s a beverage just about every sailor has consumed. Liberty or those beer rations perhaps, old and skanky or fresh from the tap, it’s all but synonymous with squids.

Growing up in the home of Budweiser and Falstaff, your idea beer gets a bit skewed. Heck, even in Great Lakes the primary beer was Bud Light.

Sailing to foreign countries and along the Eastern seaboard opened my eyes to lots of new things. Beer varieties were no small part of that. Who knew about Moose Head, Guinness, and more existed?

A truly novel experience for me was my first taste of Guinness stout. Sure man, you’re a six pack drinker in a night. That’s about one Guinness. It’s a good thing I could walk back to the boat.

Few things compare to watching the head settle on a tall pint of Guinness the first time. Dark, rich, and heady, it hits the mouth hard. The stomach harder.

Taste romping didn’t stop there.  I sampled local brews wherever we landed. Usually a bottle was all I could afford; sometimes that was plenty.  The big exception came in Belgium. Someone should have warned me Brussels has a brewhouse on every corner, and sometimes two.

Our couple of days in Brussels, we sample exquisite pastries and chocolates, bought teddy bears from one of the oldest manufactures in the world. The locals made us welcome at shops and restaurants but one group was especially welcoming, the tavern owners.

Two days, over a dozen beers, and only my second hangover ever.  It was a rough recovery but I was amazed. The idea of microbrews was still unheard of back home, yet I’d found more varieties of beer in one section of this town than I’d had in a dozen port calls or nights out on the town in St. Louis.

Post Navy

After that began my lifestyle of moderation and sampling. Opening my eyes to beer those many years back has kept me on the lookout for that perfect sip of beer.  Not just one either, but one for a thick steak, one for nachos, and one for sipping at a cafe in the hot sun.

With a glass here and there, I’m proud most of my most recent experience, a beer pairing.  It’s about finding the right beer for different food tastes. Good stuff for another post at my main blog.

What about your tastes?

What’s your most eye opening food, beer or whatever dining experience? Did you first eat seafood while away? Have your first pig’s Spill the beans!

(* the picture is of my wife and yet another beer)

Gibraltar Monkey by Tojosan, on Flickr

Liberty call can be pizza and a beer or sitting on the beach in Bermuda. There’s times you’ve likely spent an evening in the bar but I think climbing the Rock of Gibraltar was a highlight for me.

What’s your favorite or most interesting liberty call?

The photo, while on liberty at Gibraltar, includes one of the scary monkeys.  Word was the monkeys were very aggressive and disease ridden. Note how we carefully steered clear of them. Of course, they said the same thing about the British soldiers stationed there.

Sharing these memories with friends and family is fun, and often times met by looks of disbelief. Life outside the States and after months at sea can be dang unusual or crazy.

Got a favorite liberty memory? Care to recall it for us? How about one your spouse shared with you?

For this go round, be sure to keep the language PG.

Midrats. It’s like Taco Bell’s Fourth Meal except Midrats existed first and didn’t come in a sack.

What are your memories of Midrats?

Midrats is that meal at Midnight on the boat. It’s breakfast for the guys and gals just getting up to go on the mid-watch and dinner for 3rd watch folks. Midrats is notorious for not being a full blown meal and often more like an overgrown late night snack.

Beans and weenies has to have been my favorite midrats meal. Sure there was the random eggs being cooked, or left overs. Heck, sometimes we even had a sandwich bar.(read lazy cooks)

Nice thing about beans and weenies is it was simple. Throw it in a bowl, toss in some catsup and a drop of mustard. Add a slice of bread on the side. Bam. Meal time.

What was your favorite midrats meal? Were you a cook by chance and if so, what was your favorite meal to serve for the late nights?

Blue Overhead by Tojosan on Flickr

Blue Angels ripping up the sky sure is showy. For some that’s all the Navy they’ll ever get. We know the Navy from the passages, bulk heads, and bilges. Our families know it from the absences and the odors.(diesel smell never comes off)

Coming home it’s often our spouse or a single loved one greeting us on the pier. No cheering crowds or cameras.

What was your best homecoming memory? Or is best memories?

One of my best homecoming memories is my wife coming down on the sub when I couldn’t leave right away. There we sat in the mess chowing down on spaghetti and chatting with the other guys, some with their loved ones.

Sharon is an inveterate engager. She’s the first to strike up a conversation and make friends. The sub was no different.

Sitting with us in the mess was one of the cooks. I’m sure it was Toothless.(do we all have a guy with that nick name or was it just my crew?) Immediately they were talking, swapping stories. Talk about turning a boring evening on standby into laughs.

From that day forward I think my wife was better friends with some of the guys that I was. I’ll never forget the impression she made with the guys. Her visits were always welcome afterwards.

What’s one of your best homecoming memories? It doesn’t have to be a ticker tape parade. It could be the warm waters and cold beers poolside.

Going subsurface Navy makes on think you’ll not have those long gaps between port calls. Boy was I a fool. Our shortest underway periods were as short as a couple of day, up or down the coast, but woah, the longest was too long.

Few things were quite as exciting as pulling into port, any port. Heck, I was happy enough to pull into port for a few hours to load stores. That few hours of daylight was worth the heavy lifting.

My longest underway was about 89 or 90 consecutive days. On a sub you begin to think they outside world is full of ominous clouds and action music. (um, one too many movies?)

What about you? Months? Weeks? Just a few hours with your spouse? Do a quick tour of the bay with your son?

Me back in the Navy

Underway Life sets sail with this first post.

My goal with this site is to share and bring to life the stories of my time in the Navy, and hopefully those of my fellow sailors as well. Including only sailors, active or long out, would only be half the story.  There are families with stories to tell as well. Underway Life is for them as well.

It’s bare bones today. Over time the vision is to have videos, recordings, and photos from Navy men and women, and their families. Have a great tale of liberty call to share? How about how you managed three kids while your husband was gone for six months?

Consider this an open invitation. If you’ve got something to share, send it.  There’ll be a contact form but don’t wait for that. Leave a link in the comments, or something you’d like to see turned into a post.

Upfront I’m not interested in politics or such directly. Now if you’ve been personally affected by a policy and it’s story worthy, share.

Let’s set sail together!