Brinkley Bass (DD 887) - Naval Cruise Book

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After we left Hong Kong, the cruise was down- hill all the way. Hong Kong is such a hard place to leave because no matter how long you stay, you know you haven't done it all. But if y0u'rG a sailor six days is plenty of time because if you stay any longer, you run out of money. BRINKLEY BASS spent two days in Keelung, on the northern tip of Taiwan while the crew went to Nancy's Bar and to Tai'Pei for two more days of R 85 R before we moved on to Sasebo, Japan. All along the weather was getting colder and colder. More than anything else, the change of climate from the tropical warmth of the Gulf made the trip to Sasebo. Also Fiddler's Green. We had a ship's party at Fiddler's Green, two days of good times, a loud band, plenty to eat and drink and Go Go Girls. All too soon this was over and the BRINKLEY BASS was steaming back to the gunline via Kaohsiung for fuel. This time we went to DaNang in I Corps. The North Vietnamese were up in the mountains on the northern side of the harbor and the ship was assigned to harassment and interdiction of the en- emy positions while the 101st Army Airborne Di- vision worked on the landward side, boxing them in. For Christmas in DaNang there was a ceasefire intermittently interrupted by machine gun fire. In DaNang the ship followed a routine of firing all night and steaming out to sea during the day for refueling and replenishments. We had a call for fire south of DaNang in the Dodge City area and destroyed a large cache of rice and several structures. Ranging up and down the coast in the vicinity of DaNang, on New Year's Eve we were 3,500 yards off Mui Chon Mai Dong firing into the coastal mountains north of the har- bor. At the stroke of midnight, all the Marines, Destroyers, and swift boats firedenough pyrotech nics and tracer bullets to light up everything for miles around. After that the weather got worse and worse and we were steaming off the coast by the DMZ when the word came that we were relieved and detached. We joined the ISBELL and USS CONSTELLATION in Subic Bay and headed for home via Yokosuka,

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44 'fr in-' if-: GLI LINE The bow wave curled translucent sheets from the dark water. The BRINKLEY BASS was on the move again. Last night she fired at trails and base camps, fired blind into the darkness of a silent shore- line. A few days before that she'd hit rice caches 'along a strip of the coast known as Dodge City , pockmarked by shells until it resembled Verdun. A month had passed since she finished pounding Viet Cong positions in the Rung Sat Special Zone, and so it went, watches became days, days, weeks, and weeks ran into months with only church services and an occasional mail call after refueling and rearming to break the monotony. ln such times, seemingly minor experi- ences became the focal point of subcon- cious thoughts which gradually evolved in- to an emotion, an emotion expressed for those who knew it by a single word, gun- line . Who would forget the stack gas and salt . water of refueling stations, or the weari- ness which overtook men who cradled and carried the endless stream of projectiles and powder charges to the magazines ? How many would recall the simple divers- ions of life on the gunlineg the letter you read until you memorized the second para- graph, the candy bar from the ship's store, the old black and white movies, the soup and crackers for mid-rats , and in recal- ling them, who .would smile ? What was it that made such trivial things important? Perhaps it was the grim business of cyc- ling ammunition up from the stuffy confines of the magazines. Perhaps it was the effort to maintain a condition of constant readiness waiting in CIC or on the bridge while radio circuits crackled to life, ending momentary lulls in the firing. .... target, height four zero meters, de- scription, bunkers .... Or perhaps it was waiting below where men knew nothing of what was happening until the ship shook with the recoil of the first salvo.