EM3 Charles Sebastion

My time aboard was sometime between about May, 1976 and October 31, 1979. I have a few recollections of some of the good times—and some maybe not so good—but all were memorable. There was one Captain–I think it was Fromholtz, who said that calling the Joseph Hewes “Joey” was fine but, “I don’t want to hear anybody use the term, “Joey Boat again!” Of course most of us called her the “Joey Boat” on occasion and looking back on it now, I don’t believe there’s ever been another ship like it. Maybe it’s just me. At any rate I think the Joey is still actively patrolling the China Sea for the Taiwanese Navy and I wonder if she still carries the ghosts of us who were there. These years later I still remember the incredible ride and the equally incredible cast of characters. I remember the hard early days of the yards and dry-dock, and I remember having to take my turn as a “mess-crank.” I remember that ancient radio that stayed on all the time in Electrical Central and as far as music, Gordon Lightfoot was one that caught my fancy at about the time of our dry dock days. We were quartered in those institutional lime-green colored barracks on the base. Remember the bus rides? After that I remember some really cold days being in the Philadelphia shipyard and then when the Joey got underway after a long period of being outfitted with sonar, She did nothing BUT move! Later, there was a North Atlantic cruise in early 1978, lasting only a couple of months. Whether we were gone for a few days or weeks or months, I usually had to stay over and do the shore-to-shore hookups when we got back home. I could stand above on the boat deck and look down at all the lucky rascals who got to walk down the pier to liberty… I remember some hot days in places like Gitmo and Djibouti and I remember other more subdued times in homeport. In Charleston, I remember cool quiet nights when some of us “snipes” would have to walk those lonely passageways on the lower decks on “sounding” watch. Underway, I remember trying to stay awake while “watching” the 60 Hz meter as the needle edged one way or another on the dial, not knowing when the monotony would get shattered by a generator-trip. When you heard the bang of the generator tripping off you were in for an adrenalin rush—watch out! The activity of bringing ship’s power back online was hectic! A lot of people did a lot of things at once and a lot of chatter went on between stations. More often than not I’d have to run (this was when I could run…) down to the diesel room to get the emergency diesel generator online to power the ship’s lights while at the same time other guys would do whatever it was that they had to do in order to get the main turbine back up to speed. The boiler guys (BT’s) and the machinists (MM’s as I seem to recollect) would get the steam up and the condenser set right and the turbine sped up and then you could sync the main generator in (am I leave anything out?). But before you could trip the diesel off, you’d have to sync the main generator in. Then, let’s see—did I leave anything out? Wait till the meter was “5 minutes till” then turn the handle then lift the big breaker—then kill the diesel…is that it? Anyway it was a hive of chatter and activity—probably half a dozen guys or more in three different spaces doing all that to get the lights back on and it sure did add to the excitement of a boring watch! I can’t remember all those old startup procedures now but I do remember the ruckus and I remember trying to stretch one hand to turn a dial stepping over and stretching over with the other hand for the squawk box (because somebody lost the headset!) to say, “Main, we have the load”. Then there were the guys that had to take care of the diesels—they had to wait something like half an hour or so before they could shut those things down. Surely you remember how loud bleeping loud those diesels