Pawcatuck (AO 108) - Naval Cruise Book

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CHOW DOWN lcontinuedl Netto Burnett CM3 was the butcher on the cruise and performed this big job of cutting up the two hundred or more rations a meal and keeping the butcher shop clean despite the mess cooks. Very few of us stopped to ponder how much food is prepared in our galley every day. We say the William- sons eat a great amount but we forget that the rest of us eat a great deal too. For a crew of our size, we have a big appetite. Coffee making was almost a full time occupation for the cooks and strikers. We drank on an average of 40 to 50 gallons of coffee a. day. Cold drinks served on the average of two meals a day ran up to around 22 gallons a day. Meat was another large item. We ate at least 150 pounds of beef, ham, pork, chicken or turkey a day. We used 'about 175 lbs. of potatoes. Off hand I would say we put away about 1,950,222.5 tons of beans. Enough said for the beans. The diet was always varied with salad, meat of somie kind, potatoes, a vege- table, dessert, coffee or some iced drink. Few ships can boast of chow as good as ours, especially the big ships. By Navy tradition there are three hot meals a day and the schedule was carried out despite the Mediterrean climate. But, all was not work for t-he galley crew. Almost everyone went on the many tours to Rome, the Isle of Capri, the Riviera, Pompeii and Athens. They took some excellent photographs and Bunn especially has a good collection. The tour that seemed most popular was that of the inns. Most noteworthy are the Cove, the Red Lantern, the Zig Zag Club, the Snake Pit, the Arizona, the Nationale, and the American Bar. All places of out- standing reputation. . This was the galley during the Mediterranean Cruise. We may make the cruise again but never again with the same crew or with the same experiences. Whenever I go for chow now I do so with a much better idea of the men behind the line, and their work, three meals a day. I41I

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THE END OF THE STORY y The time passed quickly, and the four months tour of duty streamed out behind us like the wake of a ship. For those four months we worked hard and played hard. Maybe there wasn't as much liberty as we might have wished but what there was we made good use of. Remember those tours to Rome and Paris. The Snake Pit in Naples, the cool nights and warm days on Capri, swim call in the middle of the Med and the girls and bikinis on the Riviera. There is a lot to remember.- The ships we fueled, the friends we made, and of course the rumors on the way back, what stops we might make that would delay our return to the states. We did get back on time as scheduled and first liberty beat anything liberty-wise that we had in the Med. No sooner were we back than We began to lose some of those we came, to know so well, and on the fifteenth of August Captain Fitzgerald was relieved by Captain Wilson. - The End of One Chapter and the Beginninglof Another. T431 -