PB12 Face to Face (Cheek) with the Sov’s

There was only one day in my Naval career of some 29 years that I was ashamed to be a sailor. I was assigned to an aircraft carrier (long ago turned into razor blades), on station in the Indian Ocean. We had been at sea for well over two months and nothing had happened. The weather was perfect every day, sunny and 70 degrees, and seas were invariably calm. The ship had established a regular workweek of 8 days. (I have no idea why it wasn’t 7 days but it was 8.) We would work long hours for seven days, but on the eighth, we took the day off, at least those that were not involved in actually operating the ship. The flight deck was secured from flight operations and several large barbeque grills were hoisted out of the hold. Uniforms were not required on deck so most of the crew were in tee shirts and jogging shorts. We called it a steel beach picnic. The officers cooked burgers and hot dogs, large containers of iced pop were set up, and ice cream was scooped for those ready for desert. Members of the crew not eating were tossing footballs or Frisbees, or just sunning themselves on a blanket.

I was standing next to the rail chatting with one of my enlisted sailors when suddenly a Soviet Kresta class cruiser appeared from behind on the horizon, coming towards us at full speed. Now there was something very wrong about this. While we knew we were always being shadowed by the Sov’s, we were also supposed to be shadowing THEM. A carrier never leaves sight of land without at least one escort ship. When deployed, as we were, carriers become part of a battle group (now called a strike group). A battle group consisted of the aircraft carrier, two cruisers for anti air protection and two destroyers for anti submarine warfare. Now I’m just a supply guy but it seemed to me that if I was looking down the barrel of a Soviet 5” naval gun, I should have seen our escort ships with a whole bunch of American naval guns pointed at THEM. I didn’t. All I saw was a Russian ship coming up fast.

Soviet ships were scary looking. While our ships tend to have few weapons, but with lots of ammo for reloads, Russian ships had lots of different weapons. The Krestas bristled with guns, torpedo launchers, missile launchers, and all kinds of other nasty looking stuff. They probably had smaller magazines but they also allocated far less space for crew comfort and berthing. In any case, when the Kresta came alongside at full speed, no more than 50 feet from our ship, it was an awe inspiring sight. Soviet sailors were lining the rails in their dress uniforms (they wore little pom poms on their hats) while the officers were snapping pictures from the bridge of us in our gym shorts playing Frisbee and eating hot dogs.

I just stood there with my mouth wide open like the Iowa farm boy I used to be. Apparently a significant number of my shipmates chose to demonstrate their patriotism by extending their middle fingers or, worse, dropping their shorts in a classic “moon” position. Our admiral was livid. The Sov’s had caught us with our pants down in more ways than one. There are lots of rules about military to military protocol and none of them involve mooning. Those of us who pride ourselves in being professional were embarrassed and so was our Navy.

Somewhere in the archives of the Soviet Union are pictures of the crew of a U.S. warship at its worst. It was the only time in my career that I was embarrassed to be a sailor. But I was damned proud to be an American! My only regret is that my bare butt is not in those pictures. You know I’m right!