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Text Box: The Old Rust Bucket

By: Tom Lucas (MM-3)

From what I have heard, most of the crews of older ships call them “rust buckets”, and this was not lost on the Whetstone. From the time I reported aboard, I heard this, and never thought much of it until:
In late 1966 the Stone was in the yard at Long Beach, and the engineering section was ordered to chip and paint the bilges. We pumped the bilges dry, and went to work.
I was assigned to chipping bilges in starboard pump room. It was, I think three of us at the time. We were getting large chunks of rust with every strike of the chipping hammer. We were joking with each other as to who would be the first to chip through the bottom.
I don’t remember how many days we had been working down there, but one day I struck my hammer, and a large chunk of rust about the size of my pointing finger popped loose. Water began to seep through the bottom at the place where the large rust chip had come from. Just out of curiosity I struck the spot again, and a small stream about the size of a pencil spurted upward. I knew this wasn’t a large enough leak to immediately threaten the integrity of the ship, but I knew that it had to be reported. I found MM chief Cruse, and he came down for a look. The chief ordered us to stop chipping, and he left the pump room. In a little while Cruse returned with the Damage Control chief and three ship fitters.
I showed them my leak and then the large piece of rust I had broke loose. They discussed the problem, and come to a consciences. They would drive a wood plug into the hole. They first drove a large round tapered metal punch into the hole, to open it up a little, then they drove in a wood plug up to about two inches deep. The plug was about 6 " long and was about three inches in diameter on the big end. Then they left the space for a little while. It wasn’t long before they came back down with a piece of 4 inch pipe about 8” long. which had threads on one end.
The ship fitters dropped welding leads down the escape hatch and welded the pipe around the wood plug. Then they screwed a pipe cap onto the threaded end of the pipe, and I thought that was the end of the story.
In a few days, an engineer came aboard with a few instruments. Fireman D. O. White of M division was assigned to assist this engineer with his gear. White and this engineer hit the bilges in starboard pump room. They took sonar readings of the hull thickness. The pattern was to check every four inches in every direction. They eventually checked every engineering space on the ship. It took a long time to check every four inches in all that space. I don’t know how they managed to check under the boilers, or under the main condensers in the engine rooms, but they did. In a few days they were finished with the testing, and we steamed back to San Diego. It wasn’t long before we forgot all about the incident.
Before long we started hearing rumors about going to Seattle. Finally we did get the official word that we were going to Todd ship yard in Seattle, but it would be in the spring.
Finally we got the orders; we were to sail to Seattle. We arrived in Puget Sound, WA. early April 1967. It was still cold up there when we were unloading our ammo at Banger WA. Then we went the short distance to Seattle. The first thing upon

Text Box: arrival was to off load all the fuel oil. We had to use the steam manifolds in the fuel tanks to heat the NSFO so it could be pumped off the ship. The tugs had towed us to a pier, across from some of the new LPDs that were being built there, at that time.
            We were put to chipping paint again, but this time it wasn’t in the bilges. Before long they moved the crew to a barrack barge that had been tied behind the Stone. After we had gotten set up on the barge, we woke up the next morning and the Stone was gone; they had moved it during the night. We marched down the pier, and found the ship perched high in a floating dry dock. We went aboard and continued chipping paint.
            Every day we made that trip to the ship twice, including noon. I always looked at the Stone as we passed in front of its bow. It looked strange after the bottom had been sand blasted. One morning I noticed it had patches welded to the bottom. Then the next morning there were more patches. I hadn’t thought anything about it until after I saw the patches, but it was the water leak that I created that caused all those patches. Before it was all over, the bottom of the whole engineering section looked like a giant checker board.
I still have that finger size piece of rust, after almost 40 years. Funny what kind of things you hold on to.
Tom Lucas

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