1 Feb. 2012

A TINCAN SAILOR IN KOREA
(Tentative Title)
by Gordon Pelton

 Hi shipmates. I am presently working on a book about experiences aboard the Twining during the period of the Korean War. I am tentatively calling it A Tincan Sailor in Korea. I was aboard the Twining from Nov 1952 through May 1954 when I left the ship for return to the US and discharge. I was a FireControl Technician.

 I remember many things that happened during my time on the Twining. I am asking for your help, though, concerning events, dates, names, details, etc. for the entire period of the Korean War. Anything you remember that you think  might be interesting. I intend to include personal stories, personal experiences, personal anecdotes – in short, exciting or fun things that happened to us both on liberty and on duty - at sea, tied up at a pier or anchored in the stream. If you remember any action or event that the Twining was involved in during the war or that you or your shipmates experienced, I would like to hear from you about it. If you have logs, diaries or letter to home that contain dates of certain events, let me know about them. You can help to confirm the details of things that I may remember but may not be clear about. Anything at all could make it into this book – and I will not mention the names of anyone who does not want to be identified. This can be totally anonymous.

 In case you are wondering, I have already written and had published two books (on different subjects). If you are interested in these, just google my name and you will get references to them. Or you can go to my website http:///www.ComputerForensicsOne.com.


I can be reached by US Mail or by email:

Gordon Pelton
13669 Hemlock Drive
Penn Valley, CA 95946
530-432-8414
gpelton@aol.com

The following is an excerpt from one of the chapters.

While attached to Task Force 77 steaming off the East Coast of Korea, the Twining occasionally detached from the Task Force to take on patrol duty in Wonsan Harbor. This occurred during a time that was known as The Siege of Wonsan, the longest siege ever conducted by the United States up to that time. The siege of Wonsan Harbor began 16 February 1951 after US minesweepers had swept though Wonsan Harbor for four nights opening a 600 yard wide mine free swath through the harbor. Because the Communists came out into the harbor in small boats every night to lay new mines, minesweeping operations continued throughout the siege, normally during hours of darkness. The siege ended 27 July 1953 with cruiser Bremerton and destroyers Wiltsie and Porter continuing to fire on shore targets right up until until one minute before 2200 hours, the official end of the siege.

Throughout the siege of this Communist transportation center, US ships had a variety of tasks to perform while patrolling in Wonsan Harbor. In addition to clearing mines and rescuing downed flyers (occasionally steaming into mined waters to do so) they fired on roads, bridges, tunnels, trucks, trains, railroads, military buildings, ships, small boats and on concentrations of enemy troops. It was the practice of the US Navy to fire a round or two at shore targets each hour during the night. One reason for this was to keep the enemy awake (aboard the Twining, it also kept me awake – that is, when I was not already awake and at my battle station).

My battle station was in the Main Battery Director (a boxy-looking affair at the highest point of the ship that was not on a mast, the box that had the big radar antenna mounted on top and those strange tubes sticking out both sides). Its purpose was to control the ship’s five big guns, the Main Battery. Ingress and egress to and from the Main Battery Director was through a small hatch located at the top of a ladder that was just between the Captains sea cabin and the bridge.

My bunk was in the after sleeping compartment which one entered only from the main deck just forward of the after five inch thirty-eight gun battery. In other words, to get from my battle station to my bunk, I had to go aft on the main deck, traversing about half the of its three hundred foot length in the open.

Naturally, in Wonsan Harbor at night, in a war zone and within range of shore fire from various Communist guns, we steamed under darkened ship - no lights allowed. On one particular night, a moonless night with total cloud cover, it was the end of the mid-watch and I had just been relieved. A little dim red illumination below the Main Battery Director provided enough light for me to comfortably descend the ladder to the deck behind the bridge where my relief waited at the  bottom of the ladder. We exchanged a few words and I stepped out into the total blackness of the morning. It was just before 0400.

I could see nothing, not even the proverbial hand before my face. Usually, even on a moonless night such as this one, a small amount of starlight was enough to see things close up. But not that night. That night the stars were completely obscured by a heavy cloud cover. I was totally blind, completely without sight. Once on a tour I had travelled into a Colorado mountain gold mine. When we were a mile into the narrow tunnel, they doused the lights to demonstrate absolute, total darkness. That’s what this night was like; absolute, total darkness.

Having stepped out onto the Flying Bridge, I groped tentatively around to the right toward the first ladder. I found it and descended to the deck below, the cold of the ladder’s steel railing biting bitterly into the flesh of my palms and fingers. I proceeded carefully, feeling for bulkheads and ladders, endeavoring in the total blackness both to avoid gashing my head on cold protruding steel and to avoid tumbling from a ladder. Finally, I reached the main deck. Good, I thought, now only one hundred fifty feet of open deck to cross before reaching the hatch leading to sweet sleep.

With arms protectively outstretched in front of me, I attempted to walk aft, staying close to the bulkhead. That would give me about six or seven feet of deck before reaching the edge of the ship where the lifeline, three narrow steel cables spaced about a foot apart, would keep me from walking off the deck and into freezing Communist waters. The enemy wasn’t my main worry however. We were miles from shore and it wasn’t likely there were any Communist boats nearby - if there had been we would have been shooting at them as we had before. No, my worry was that if somehow I were to fall through or over that lifeline, no one would know. I was alone out here on the main deck in the pitch black, there would be no one to sound an alarm.

With these terrifying thoughts still in my mind, my head suddenly banged hard into something that did not give. I lost my balance and stumbled. Dazed momentarily, I barely managed to stay upright, catching my balance before hitting the deck. That bump in the night made me stop and think about what I was doing. Here I was, trying to make my way aft on the open deck. But I could see absolutely nothing, there was no way to be sure about which way to head or how to avoid more head-bumps, not without feeling my way along the bulkhead. But there were all these unseen obstacles, one of which had just almost knocked me silly: an air duct, a life raft, a fire hose, something hard, I didn’t know what.

My mind raced. In my head  visions appeared of me treading water in the Twining’s wake, screaming hopelessly into the wind, knowing no one could hear. I realized that I must crawl along that deck on my hands and knees. I reasoned that would give me a lower center of gravity and make it almost impossible to stumble and less likely to go through or over that life line. Down on all fours I proceeded uncertainly. I went cautiously, groping for the bulkhead, groping for obstacles, still unable to see anything in the absolute darkness. Sensing that I had just crawled past the closet-sized Mark 34 radar room that stands on the main deck underneath a 40 mm quad gun tub, I knew I was perhaps a third of the way home. Beyond the radar room, moving aft, still on hands and knees, I felt for the bulkhead on my right. It was there about a foot away. I paused trying to remember what was on the deck in that area. I knew the 20 mm mounts out on the deck would easily be avoided because I was hugging the bulkhead.

Then I recalled that one of the five main battery mounts was above me, on the next deck up just above my present location. It was nothing I had to be concerned about though, down here one deck below -- there were at least twelve or thirteen feet between me and the muzzle of that five inch cannon. But I suddenly heard its drive motors whirring. In an instant I knew they were training the gun out to either port or starboard to fire the hourly round at some shore target. I was frozen. If they were training to starboard, that muzzle was already moving further from me and there would be a whole lot of the ship’s superstructure between me and it when that gun went off. But I quickly understood that the gun was training to port. And that gun was certainly going to go off at any moment. I would be exactly under the muzzle when the gun fired in a few short seconds.
 
My mind still racing, I reviewed my options. There were no good ones. The concussion from the blast would move me up or sideways (probably both) in some unpredictable way. I didn’t dare get up and run because I was still totally without sight. Crawling would not help because I couldn’t get far in the few seconds I had left. I flattened myself hard against the steel of the deck. That wouldn’t help much either, I knew, and the steel deck was cold and wet. I was sure the concussion would lift me off the deck. But what then? I couldn’t be sure how far it would throw me. Would there be enough energy in the concussion to toss me toward the life line? I didn’t know. How high off the deck would I go if it did? Could I be tossed over the rail? Is it possible my body could be forced  between those cables and into the water? If so, the ship would steam off without me and I would either freeze or drown before daylight. I wouldn’t be missed until revile.

I had to think fast. If I were being lifted off the deck, wouldn’t I know that? I decided that if I did know, I would thrust my arms and legs stiffly out as far as I could in different directions. That surely would allow me to catch on one or two of the lifeline cables – unless I were lifted high enough to go over all the cables. The whirring drive motors stopped. I was certain the gun was trained out and ready to fire.

The gun did fire. The deafening explosion from that muzzle filled my ears, filled my mind, filled my skull. I felt myself being lifted off the deck. I did thrust out my arms and legs, certain I had been flung forcefully toward the sea. I tried to focus, desperate not miss the feel of the cables against an arm or a leg. I would grab a cable if I could.

I thudded back down onto the steel  deck, unable to breathe or to hear. I knew I was still aboard, that I had been lifted off the deck but had fallen back down. I could not hear it but I knew the five inch gun, unconcerned about its ill-treatment of me, was already training back amidships. I lay there a minute aware that I was unhurt, aching from the fall but unhurt, a loud dull numbness reverberating in my ears and through my entire body.
.
With ears ringing but glad to still be aboard the Twining instead of swimming in the frigid waters of Wonsan Harbor, I continued the long deliberate crawl aft toward my bunk.

It was days before I could hear normally. I never did know how high or how close to the railing the muzzle blast had thrown me. But I had resolved that in the future I would try to avoid that long crawl to bed.

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