BT1(SW) Frank Johnson

This is a little tale of why needle guns were a nightmare on “Joey Boat”. It
was a Sunday afternoon Holiday rooty tooty, I was on watch in the Oil Lab
when I got a call to come down to the fireroom, I walked into the console
and asked what was up, they told me to go to the lower level behind Alpha
boiler, when I got there big Danny Satcher was standing there with his
finger on the foward fireroom bulkhead. I asked Danny what the hell he was
doing, he smiled and said check this out, as he pulled his finger away a
nice stream of fuel shot out of a pin hole, which happened to be the fuel
service tank 76-0, we just stared at each other and laughed!!. After the
CHENG, Captain, and XO were told the great news, Danny utilized his high
tech repair skills and we got a sheetmetal screw with a small o-ring and
inserted it into the pinhole, and we than used JB weld to seal the head of
the screw, the funny part about the whole thing was NAVSEA approved the
repair and we steamed all over the North Atlantic with it.


Thanks to the MM’s in main control, chipping away in the angle iron on the
starboard side about 1 ft above the waterline, and all of a sudden a
bubbling crude of seawater. This was also on the North Atlantic cruise, we
proceeded to Plymouth England. Upon arrival BTCM Reynolds and myself had to
put a 7 degree port list on the ship to give the HT’s enough room to apply a
patch on the hull. We transfered everything we could to the port side of the
ship. The bad part about it was the ship had to be listing overnight, that
was no fun, Aux steaming and trying to live on the ship with a 7 degree list
was crazy. Needless to say @ 0600 the next morning I was opening up the
manifold in Aux 1 leveling out the ship. There was a Picture in the Navsta
Ingleside newspaper of the Joey pierside in Ingleside with a 7 degree list,
yes we had to do it again to have the repairs made after we got back home.
Not sure how I could find that picture, it would be a cool one to add to the
collection. After that happened all needle guns got put under lock and key
by Captain Frey.


Frank Johnson
BT1(SW)RET