GMG3 Matthew Williams

Hey Joey Vets,
This story comes from GMG3 Matthew “Bullet” Williams. I served on the Joey from 1973 to 1976. I’m sure everyone that was in 2nd Division at that time remembers this one. This incident happened soon after I first came aboard and was still being shown the ropes in 2nd Division. GMGC Morris wanted me to do PMS on the small arms weapons so he told GMG3 Winkie to take me around and show me all the places other than the small arms weapons lockers where there is a .45 caliber hand gun kept at all times, such as the different watch stations and the disbursing office. So as we’re checking around, at each watch station, GMG3 Winkie being the old salty gunner that he was, he would take the weapon out for an inspection and pull back the slide, look into the barrel to be sure that it was clear, release the slide, then pull the trigger “click”. Then he’d hand the weapon back to the guy on watch. Me being new, as we traveled around the ship, he’s giving me all the latest “scuttle butt” on who’s who and so on. When we got to the disbursing office, we were standing in the passageway outside the door when Winkie takes the .45 and just as he had done before, he pulls back the slide and looks into the barrel then released the slide. Only this time he had failed to notice that there was a magazine loaded into the gun. Yep, that’s right boys and girls. This time when he released the slide, he unknowingly chambered a round into the barrel. I was standing about two feet away from him. He pointed the gun to the ceiling and pulled the trigger. “BLAM!” The shot scared the hell outta everybody in the vicinity. After I checked my skivvies, I looked at Winkie and he was about as white as he could possibly be and shaking like he was about to ask the Captain for his daughters hand in marriage. The disbursing officer had dropped to his knees and was peeping up over the top of his desk. Winkie and I looked up together and saw a hole in the padding around the firemain. No water was coming out. Whew! The firemain had withstood a direct hit from a .45 at close range. The bullet flattened out and lodged itself in the padding. Winkie quickly ejected the magazine out of the gun and handed it along with the gun back to the wary and also shaking disbursing officer. Winkie then stood on a chair and dug his flattened souvenir slug out of the padding and then left to go change his skivvies. No Shit! (well maybe a little in Winkie’s skivvies) : )