Columbia (CL 56) - Naval Cruise Book

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had one, but this was discarded when the bugle calls could not be explained. Some swore it was a modern orchestra practicing, but these strange calls hailed from the quarterdeck, and we knew that nothing so terrible would be allowed there. Some said that it could be a series of love calls of the inhabitants, but this was immediately ruled out because of the limited effective range of the Hsquawk boxes. The Hnal conclusion, and the one still most generally believed, was put forward by a psy- chology major. This learned gentleman de- clared that undoubtedly this was the result of a distorted conception of the old phrase that Music hath charm to sooth the savage. He supposed that someone had taken this to heart and had immediately arranged for this strange music to soothe and relax us during our day's labors. He further pointed out that the whole reasoning was wrong, for truly instead of civil- ized music to soothe the savage, savage music had been imported to soothe the civilized. The attempt had, therefore, been in vain as evi- denced by those poor souls wandering dazedly around the deck strumming their lips. We have 1 X0 A -if in 2 OWL 1 I i t ar by X galil' it I 1 2 twenty - ll np it - Q? 1 'f ,, Ml 17 Q., be , l 8 I Xl lf J- Tx' if 5 ca -any 1 l wq . mV. , A K I: . iff XE, 3 ar ' V: - N K I reported as much to the Navy Department in a coded dispatch on the subject, but, unfor- tunately, it seems to have been lost in red tape for these eerie interludes still continue. We came aboard on Friday. After two days on a bar-room floor for some and watches for the rest, we launched into a regular schedule on Monday. We were divided into groups and sent to various departments for instruction. Some were sent to Gunnery, some to C8zR, some to Communications, some to Engineering, some to Navigation, and some to C.I.C. After we served out our time in one department, we would shift to another, so that by the time the cruise was over we would have spent some time in each department learning the intricacies of each departmenfs duties and where they scraped paint. For most of us the classes were boring .... damned boring .... for we saw old Films and studied already familiar books once again. Some of the periods were interest- ing as we recaptured an old skill of a former rate or as we looked in detail Qscrubhing detail, scraping detail, steel wool detailj into the deep secrets of the modern technical fields. Our class day was divided into four periods.

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to the head to wait in line: first to wash and shave, and second to attend to Nature's neces- sities. Then we would dash to the breakfast line. After a morning of classes we would dash to the noon chow line that would often curl aft to the fantail, curve around the turrets, and even to the bow. After chow, it was the ship's service line, a line to get laundry, and another for mail. In the afternoon there were the lines tb get paint scrapers and the line to get buckets and rags. Later there were the lines to get on the liberty boat and a line to get off fof course, that was according to an old Navy traditionj. As a final act of the day, there were the lines to get on the liberty boat, and still another to get aboard the ship. For variety, there were the intermittent lines that came up occasionally, such as the small stores line, the pay line, the line to submit cleaning, and the line to draw it out again . . . and the crowning touch, a line to get discharged. Although we soon fell into the routine of waiting in line about half the day, we did, however, become forcibly aware during the cruise that they had things well lined up! At first we were confused, then amazed at the weird noises that came over gadgets that were latter called nsquawk boxes. These strange noises varied from a garble of notes that re- sembled Harry James playing Shostakovich to a shrill ear-splitting call that lapsed occasionally into a canary warble. When we first heard these sounds, we would turn blankly to each other and guess what they could be about. We knew they meant some- thing, and we feared that we might, indeed, miss the pay line sometime unless we could get the word on this secret code system. Finally one day, one of the braver souls, who cared nothing for his reputation as a salt, dashed up to a seaman after the latest outburst and asked, What in the hell was that? The seaman's face lit up like a lightning bug on a dark night . . . he reached over, patted our hero's head affec- tionately, and drawled in a sable voice, What in the hell was what . . . sir? The atmosphere became heated with guesses as to the reason for it all. Some charged that it was a dog whistle for the ship's mascot, if it

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The Hrst, an instruction period, was devoted to lectures, movies, and field trips to the gear being studied. During the second period we manned our gun drill stations and painfully learned what not to do, so that by the time we Bred the guns, we did not blow up the ship. This concluded our morning activities and we raced like mad to the noon chow line. In the afternoon we had two more periods. The first was called Departmental Drills. We soon found this to be a glaring error and that a dozen more apt names could be used. Under this heading came chipping paint, wiping grease, scrubbing decks, and on Friday we were carefully instructed in the values and proce- dures of Field Day. The last period was devoted to much the same thing as the opening period: films, lec- tures, field trips, and sleep. This was our procedure for the cruise, and whatever our ideas might have been, we were suddenly aware that we were back in school and old classroom habits cropped up: sleeping, writing, doodling, and occasionally listening to the lecture. The main purpose of any Navy lighting ship is to get its guns to the scene of action and when there to maintain the greatest rate of fire possible. Pursuant to that purpose we learned how to fire the guns, fired them-and there the purpose ends-no ship. We spent fouriweeks in gunnery training. Each week found us tackling a new phase of the whole shipboard gunnery system and a new place to scrape paint. ' One week was spent in the six-inch turrets wavering between attacks of claustrophobia and suffocation and trying to gain at least third hand the principles being discussed by the knot of men sprawled and jammed over the breeches and rammers of the guns. In the class room we learned that Explosive D was not a new, de- vastating perfume but was truly that-Explo- sive D. The paint scraping area for this week was on the fantail. One week was spent on the five inch turrets. We saw many films on the five-inch gun of a revolutionary new character. These films had little fairy bells that rang periodically: first, to Q? ,ETA-Jrgxyfb Qt f . f,aQ5 F gi' :MTL '11 fmfm ? Ogg ini: fc! l K f 0 SQ 10 vu. 7, ,, K, , N S4-. 1:.' ix if ZW -lg bn.:-'fr-X 1 S Q W