Simultaneously with graduation from CMA, August 11, 1956, I was commissioned Ensign, 1105, US Naval Reserve with BuPers Orders to relieve LTJG. Arthur Blank as Navigator of the Vega where I reported on Friday, August 25, 1956 to meet Captain Steffanides, the exec and several others, returning the following Sunday. Art Blank, was my kind of guy, a soft ball fast pitch player who, while attending Fordham, had seen Bobby Thompson’s miracle home run against the hated Dodgers.

In mid September we sailed for Sasebo and WesPac, a trip of some 14 days, highlighted by diversion near Japan from the path of typhoon India. Prior to sailing I had noted Chief Macholz, QMC, later to become a commissioned officer after OCS, measuring the distance along the 30^th parallel. I suggested he merely multiply by the cosine of 30 degrees for the same result. More on that concept later. On arrival at India Basin, Sasebo, I learned that Art Blank and I had a common talent, drinking of vast amounts of Japanese beer. Apparently enroute I had satisfied the CO of my ability to navigate, as Art Blank departed for civilian life, and soon we headed for Formosa with me finding the way. On the transit from Oakland to Japan in September with Art and me standing all the 0400 to 0800 watches, I learned that the First Lieutenant was a fellow who could not remember the speed, the wind, the route, maybe even his own name, who had the helm or anything else when relieved from the mid watch.

The relief of Art Blank also involved becoming a member of the control panel for alcohol (for lifeboats) and habit forming drugs, recreation officer and custodian of all the ship’s clocks which we had to change every two days in crossing into new time zones. I still do not know if all the clocks were there, I took Art’s word for it, and later Tom Kenny took mine.

To this day I can recall approaching Formosa in a fog, we couldn’t see it but sure as hell could smell it. We anchored off the northern port of Formosa, but later on went alongside in the southern port, Kaohsiung where our boarding officer from the station oiler was LTJG Kenny Moore, a 1954 graduate of CMA, whom I had known quite well from some midnight swims at Acapulco, Mexico. Kenny introduced me to the Brown Derby, a sort of nightclub, with dancing girls and slot machines. About to be married to my high school sweetheart, I looked and listened, but no touching. While in Formosa that trip, we encountered the birthday of Dr.Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Republic of China which involved full dress ship to the chagrin of the Quartermaster Crew.

After a successful underway replenishment exercise off Luzon, Philippines, 200 plus tons per hour, we sailed by Corregidor of WWII fame and came alongside in Manila, where Captain Steffanides was reunited with Commodore Francisco of the Philippine Navy, his Annapolis classmate. Thence off to Hong Kong for R&R. That is when I was reminded that the cosine of the latitude times the number of degrees is no way to calculate the distance, because the earth is an oblate spheroid bulging at the equator throwing the numbers off at the latitude of Hong Kong. I confessed to the CO why we still had a few miles to go despite my brilliant calculations and reported ETA. He excused the gaff.

Hong Kong and home made suits for $20.00 US dollars was wonderful as was the painting of the hull by Mary Sue and her side cleaners in exchange for the rights to our garbage. Russia sent off Sputnik while we were there, an unsettling experience for sure. (Actually, Sputnik was launched in 1957 on a later visit to Hong Kong.) That event altered the exchange rate US for Hong Kong dollars. All day shore patrol duty created some tired feet.

The return trip to Sasebo and Yokosuka was entertaining for the CO wanted to go east of Formosa, and we were bound that way, but altered course on account of high seas at midnight one evening with the desks in the com center overturning and stuff sliding all around the deck in officer quarters. Even mustang XO Hambly was rousted out of his bunk which I observed, but kept his secret from the wardroom. You know, old sailors like Commander Hambly slept through the roughest seas. Yeah!

Some time thereafter while at Yokosuka, Egypt seized the Suez Canal, so Vega was detained in WesPac thereby fouling up my scheduled nuptials in mid December. We ultimately did get back to Oakland around the 20^th, but not before one of my learning experiences. Each month at the end I had to forward the smooth deck log, the daily weather log and one other daily report, which required 90 signatures of mine and required that each deck officer complete his log entries for each watch he stood. The idiot first lieutenant was always late, which made me late. On inquiry by the XO, I rather innocently blamed the culprit. Oh my, big mistake! For the balance of his tenure at general quarters instead of the navigator being on the bridge where I belonged, I was the forward gun mount safety observer. To this day my ears ring. It was a joyous day when the idiot was relieved by Lt. Brown from Montana, and I escaped the forward gun mount.

Shortly before the Vega headed toward WesPac on my second trip over there we were joined by Ensign Clicquennoi and his ever present 35mm camera. He, with great expectations, related having driven over from Chicago and taking a roll of pix of Lake Tahoe enroute. When we got to WesPac and the mail contained the color slides, I had the unhappy task of advising Clicq that his pix were not Tahoe, but Donner Lake. Que lastima! This gallant lad, "Clicq", was the only officer in the wardroom with the balls to grow a beard during the whiskerino contest one WesPac cruise.

Somewhere during early stages of 1957, after Helene and I were married, and there had been another trip to WesPac, Captain S.W.Carpenter, relieved Captain Steffanides, and we underwent overhaul at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. Captain Carpenter had been a destroyer sailor. We soon figured S.W. stood for Salt Water. He liked to drop his own anchor at Subic Bay, San Francisco Bay and elsewhere, reliving his days as a twin screw destroyer sailor. The pictures of Vega in dry dock by Don Clicquennoi were taken during the Mare Island overhaul. There was a nine hole golf course on Mare Island near San Pablo Bay which was the site of many rounds by me, Helene and Bos’un Freshwater, a fine man. It turned out that Captain Carpenter was biding time to get his 22 year pay raise after which he intended to retire and get into civilian life in the defense industry where a position awaited him. In the meantime he played golf with me and Mr. Freshwater and tennis with Ensign Crook. At Olongapo, Subic Bay, the outside holes had no rough, you were either on the fairway or lost in the jungle.

Speaking of golf in WesPac reminds me that the 9 hole course at the sub base in Sasebo had sand greens with the course configured so an attendant could tend multiple greens smoothing out the sand for the golfers. On the 18 hole course at Naval Air Station Atsugi near Yokosuka the greens were grass and another feature was 12 inch high fences within the water hazards saving the balls, but a golfer hitting an errant shot was still penalized for ball in water hazard. At both courses were female caddies attired in hard hats and sun screens over their necks who laughed at lot at missed shots.

During the stewardship of S.W. Carpenter I learned another lesson in life, second hand. On the commissioning crew had been a chief engineman whose stature in the eyes of the bosses was enormous. Once when he was ordered transferred to the Graffias in Sasebo, the XO got the orders changed. The thought seemed to be that the ship could not get underway without this man turning the knobs in the engine room. While in WesPac that spring, the chief was complaining about no mail. Upon our return to San Francisco, he managed to get arrested for assault, domestic battery, etc. Turns out his wife had been cheating on him. LTJG Fred Everett, my ride to Alameda, was sent to the Contra Costa County Jail to bail the chief. He brought him back to the ship around 2200 at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard after which Fred and I went over to Alameda and were given permission to report late the next morning. On arrival the next morning we learned that the chief was enroute to Norfolk, Virginia, having been transferred to the Atlantic fleet. On our subsequent departure from SF Naval Shipyard, guess what? We pulled away without the chief to the surprise of no one. Moral: No such thing as an indispensable man.