USS Corporal SS346

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Interesting Diary of '52 Med Trip

author unknown

In July 1952 I was a recently promoted Electricians Mate 3^rd. Class aboard the USS Sennet (SS-408) stationed in Key West. The Sennet, skippered by Cmdr. Henry L. "Flank Hank" Vaughn, was no doubt, the best boat in the Fleet, as all who served on her at that time, will tell you.

Even so, when word got out that the Corporal (also a SUBRON 4 boat stationed at Key West) was to make a Med cruise, several of us single-pukes from the Sennet arranged swaps with married-pukes from the Corporal, (single-puke translates from thenspeak to "Joined the Navy to see the world".   Married-puke translates as "His wife wouldn't let him go").

My swap with an EM 1, was one of the last before the Corporal left for the Med and all lockers and racks were already taken when I reported aboard. I hot-bunked it the entire time I was aboard the Corporal and stowed my gear in a foot locker in the passageway between the racks in the crews sleeping quarters in the after battery. Surprisingly enough there were no complaints from the dozen or so shipmates who stepped/stumbled over/around that locker crammed into that narrow walkway.

Swapping with a PO 1 did not seem to pose any particular problems, although it was only a few months since I was standing Seaman watches. I stood underway watches on the controls in the maneuvering room and charged batteries when in the duty section in port, but as a 3^rd. Class I still hopped battery wells and chased grounds. For some reason which I don't remember, I was standing a topside maneuvering watch as port look-out in a photo of the boat entering the harbor at Valetta, Malta.

We snorkled from Key west to Gibraltar, during which time the entire main power electrician gang not actually on watch in the maneuvering room was in the battery wells chasing grounds. This consisted of working in a crawl-space on hands and knees, 120 degree heat, clothing sweat-soaked and dripping, and getting zapped on the ears by an electrical arc if you got close to the steel beams in the overhead. This happened fairly often as at snorkel depth we got tossed around quite a lot down there.

While snorkeling we pulled some pretty good vacuums, sometimes shutting down the main engines. When a vacuum lasted that long it was hard to pop your ears fast enough to stay equalized and there were ruptured eardrums from the trip over.

When we left Key West we had three movies aboard, checked out from the Tender Gilmore. These were shown over and over until everyone had all the lines memorized and could speak them along with the movie. This caused some amusement for the Brits when they came to watch. We showed the movies topside while tied outboard several English subs and tender In Malta. The Brits didn't have movies and came aboard to watch. They did have a grog ration and were allowed to save it up, and were not averse to sharing a bottle of rum with a Yank. We reciprocated with coffee and gilly-juice.

I had the opportunity to go aboard an English sub and was very impressed by the English submariners, if not by the British Naval Engineers. The cramped space and hazardous conditions were unbelievable. Compared to a converted Fleet Type- Guppy Snorkel it was like a T model Ford to a '52 Cadillac. What served for a maneuvering room was a small space in the engine room passageway with a panel of bare bus-bars and knife switches for operating the motors. A very inadequate railing separated this panel from the passageway where the Electrician on watch stood. Not where I would want to stand a watch in a rough sea.

We took on stores from the English Tender including freshly baked bread. Good bread, but their flour was full of cockroaches. When sliced it looked like raisin bread. After a meal everyone had a pile of dead cockroaches beside his plate. The Tender had a wooden main deck and I actually saw a deck being holystoned.

Officially we were part of the Navy's European Occupational Force and our reason to be there was as a "show offeree". Many of the places we visited were in countries with strong anti-American sentiments. Pulling Shore Patrol duty in some of those places was a bit hairy. Taranto had been a large Italian Naval base and an invasion point during WWII and still showed a lot of damage as well as unexploded shells laying around the waterfront and beach. A $1 bill was worth about 1,000 Lire and all American sailors were thought to be millionaires. Changing a 10 or 20 American meant walking around with oversized currency with denominations of 1,000 to 10,000 stuffed in your socks, hanging out your jumper pocket, or on your head under your white hat. Barter was good, nine cent packs of sea store cigarettes were especially good trading stock. In one of the ports, I believe it was Cagliari, Sardinia, a bumboat came alongside to pick up laundry. It must have been worth more on the market than the what they would have charged to clean it for we never saw it again.

The skipper of the Corporal was Cmdr. John H. Dolan, AKA "Whiskey Jack Dolan". After we had followed the 6^th. Fleet around for some weeks with liberty calls in Sicily, Sardinia and Italy, Captain Jack decided we had seen enough American sailors and our next liberty was a week-end in Cannes, France, where we were the only Naval vessel there. The Navy maintained a beach guard there and we were provided a small Landing Craft for a liberty boat from where we were laying to off the beach.

Whisky Jack came back aboard on Monday morning as we were at quarters topside prior to getting underway. He declared a two-week "Refit and Upkeep" and hopped back on the waiting liberty boat and headed for the beach.

About six of us put in for ten days leave in Paris starting the next morning, but by then the sea was so rough we were told the liberty boats wouldn't be running. After waiting an hour or so the Landing Craft did show up, but getting aboard was something else. The only place the craft could get close enough was up by the bow planes and the high seas made it tricky. After we were all aboard we passed a white hat for the Coxswain in admiration of his seamanship, and for coming out in the rough water when no one else would.   The hat full of large denomination bills looked a lot more impressive than it really was as it was mostly in Franks with an exchange rate of 600/1 American, and some leftover Lire from Italy, which was worth even less.

 We made it ashore in time to catch a train and were in Paris that evening. I have a photo taken from the top of the Eiffel Tower in which I was still wearing Seaman stripes on my dress blues. Stationed in Key West we didn't wear blues much and I hadn't gotten my PO3 rating sewn on. The expensive French perfumes I bought to impress all the women in my life back home all evaporated through the cork when we pulled vacuums on the boat while snorkeling on the way back. It did make the boat smell good for a while, covered up all the usual stench of diesel fuel, feet, armpits and assholes, but man was it strong. Also the beautiful guitar I bought in Italy and stowed in the overhead of the Motor Room didn't fare well in the heat and humidity which popped all the glued seams..

On the return trip back to Key West we got word that the USS Rasher (SS-269) was being brought out of moth-balls and converted to a Radar Picket Boat (SSR) in the Philadelphia Naval Yard. After some months in the shipyard the Rasher was to be re-commissioned and deployed to COMSUBPAC in San Diego. Crewmembers were being selected and most of the same bunch of boat-hopping single pukes from the Sennet all put in for it.

When we returned to Key West, changes had been made. In addition to the Sub Tender Howard Gilmore (AS-16) and the Rescue Vessel Petrel (ASR-14) of SUBRON 4, the Tender Bushnell (AS-15) and the Penguin (ASR-12) were also berthed there, along with a few SUBRON 12 subs. Key West had become homeport of both Squadrons in our absence.

Shortly after the Corporal returned from the Mediterranean, I transferred to the Rasher where I eventually got the proper rating sewn on my uniform. I was discharged from the Navy in 1954. I first enlisted in 1949 and in five years served on four boats. The first was the Cubera (SS347) in 1949.

I was only on the Corporal for a short time, but it was one of the best boats in the Fleet, and "Capt. Jack" was a real sub skipper of the old breed. I have since learned that Cmdr. Dolan served aboard the Sennet as a Lieutenant prior to taking command of the Corporal. No wonder he ran a good boat.

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