Minesweeper by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

We left San Diego Harbor the second week of June 1950. We were a ten-man contingent carved out of the larger Underwater Demolition Team Three and were traveling along as guests on a destroyer. UDTs basically never had homes of their own, and so were always hopping rides with vessels that were going where we needed to go. Appropriate that we were always hopping, homeless bunch of frogs that we were.

The destroyer rendezvoused with a task force that included four other destroyers, four oilers, and two cruisers. None of us had any idea why so many vessels were shipping out at once, but I don’t think any of us cared much, either. We were starting on the big adventure, to see the world.

And we were going to surf the promised land of surfing—or at least I was. Though that probably should have been the promised waters of surfing.

It took five long days of sailing to get there, and I spent a good bit of it throwing up alongside some of my mates. We had all spent time aboard boats, of course, but we hadn’t spent time crossing the vast and mighty Pacific. Nor were we aware of just how top-heavy the deceptively beautiful and sleek US Navy destroyers were.

The thing rocked and rolled basically every hour of those five days. Not only were we a nauseated bunch of frogs, we were also periodically skittled around the ship like balls in a pachinko machine.

Added to that, the actual crew of the ship was put through surprisingly strenuous training the whole way. Because so much of the Navy’s personnel were dismissed at the end of the war, there were loads of new guys on the job these days. They needed all the training they could get. And these destroyers, bless their lethal guts, were rampant with opportunities for practicing with live and lively firepower.

The ship carried six five-inch, 38-caliber dual-purpose guns in dual mounts, sixteen 40-mm antiaircraft guns in four quad mounts, two batteries that fired twenty “hedgehog” antisubmarine mortars each, and five 21-inch torpedo tubes.

For much of the time, it sounded like they were all being tested at once.

But all was forgiven when we pulled into port at Pearl Harbor. We’d seen about a million photographs of the place, so it was like we had all been there before.

Still, that didn’t help with the sadness that came over me like a tidal wave as we cruised in slowly along the long slipway and everyone saluted the entire way.

Once we settled in, we were welcomed into the base. I was looking forward to some chow and a good night’s sleep without the turmoil of the open sea.

I didn’t think the weather could get any better than Southern California, but there was something about this place that added a sweet extra. The air itself tasted different: saltier, greener somehow, and certainly wetter. It was heavy on the tongue, and the skies at sunset were streaky and layered in so many reds, oranges, and pinks that I wondered for a few minutes whether my brain was making it all up.

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