Vietnam, 1968, During
the USS New Jersey's RVN exploits, I sailed for two years on the USAV
Page, a 338-foot beach discharge lighter, functionally similar to a
Navy LST. We were a bunch of seagoing dogfaces, as "USS" is the designation
given to Navy Ships with Navy Crews, and "USAV" stands for United States
Army Vessel. Anyway, we had just delivered a 2,000-ton load of napalm
to the Air Force in Phan Rang and were sailing at night toward Cam Ranh Bay AB.
Naval security Regs in force at the time
called for all vessels to challenge each other by flashing light signal,
day or night, by signaling "What Ship? Where From? Where To? and the
"word of the day." Ships unable to answer were immediately reported
to Market Time and subject to armed confrontation. Late one night we
picked up a radar contact dead ahead and about three miles out began
challenging by flashing light. No response. At about two miles out,
the skipper called us to General Quarters, while continuing to
challenge the unidentified and unresponsive vessel. At about one mile
out, the skipper spoke quietly to us on the bull horn. "I don't know
what we have out here, but let me say again "Fire only on my command."
I was on the foredeck strapped into a
20mm cannon. The skipper maneuvered us to within 75 feet of this huge,
totally darkened monster of a vessel. As we passed starboard (right
side) to starboard we realized that we had encountered the USS New Jersey
preparing for a night fire mission. We never saw them fire. Don't know
if we messed up their plan. Glad that our guys were not trigger happy
that night.
