Page 6

The Rolling Stone Online Newsletter

Text Box: While we were in Chesapeake Bay things really got interesting. At some point the ship went to the gunnery range for gunnery practice. We were supposed to shoot down, a radio controlled target aircraft. At that time the ship had an assortment of twenty millimeter and forty millimeter anti aircraft guns including one five inch gun.
After a couple of days of gunnery practice, having failed to hit anything, we secured from gunnery practice. Having spent five months at Okinawa during its liberation from Japan I sure was glad it was not on the Whetstone. We did have a lot of damage to the ship caused by the five inch gun. The gun was located forward of the bridge, and firing the gun blew out all the light bulbs in the vicinity of the gun and all the wiring in that part of the ship was hanging down, and had to be replaced. The picture I have of the Whetstone does not show a five inch gun mount so I guess it was removed at some point.
It was while we were at Norfolk that I had another new experience for me and that was I had to do Shore Patrol duty .The fleet was required to supply half of the personnel and the local Naval base supplied the other half. This was truly a new experience for me. Every Lady of the night insisted we look at pictures of her in action, and she told us if we knew any sailors who were interested to send them to her. A very interesting night.
At some point the Whetstone docked in, I believe Portsmouth V A. We were on one side of the dock and on the other side was a Cruiser. A certain crewman from the Whetstone who was quite drunk, tried to board the Cruiser and he was told he didn't belong there. He insisted and in the battle that followed he demolished the gangway watch on the Cruiser. He was finally subdued and was brought aboard the Whetstone strapped into a metal stretcher and was taken to sick bay where he spent the night, on the operating table.
Most of the time we were anchored quite far out in the bay. That meant when we went on liberty we had to go by landing boat. Now getting off the ship and into a landing boat was difficult in itself and all hands were sober at that point. Getting back aboard when you were drunk was a real adventure. One poor soul tried and missed and ended up in the water. The call went out over the ships loudspeaker "Man Overboard". That got everyone's attention, and with the help of the ships searchlight he was located and picked up by the landing boat crew. It was amazing to me how far he had drifted in the short time he was in the water. He was brought back aboard and taken to sick bay. I remember the water running out of him, and it was a miracle he didn't die. I guess someone was watching out for him.
Finally the Whetstone got orders to leave Norfolk, and head for the West Coast of the US. Now I was really worried I was already three months past time for my discharge. There was one more duty to perform and that was we had to take on ammunition. As you know that was an all hands operation. No exceptions.

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