Forty years ago this spring, I went to sea for the first time, on board the destroyer escort Daniel A. Joy (DE-585). Homeported at the foot of Randolph Street in Chicago, she was a member of the “Cornbelt Fleet,” the ships that trained reservists who lived in the Midwest. The itinerary was ambitious for a two-week cruise: four of the five Great Lakes, out through the recently opened St. Lawrence Seaway, south along the Atlantic Coast, and then to Miami.
Before the first day was over, we were under way, headed north in Lake Michigan, under the Mackinac Bridge the following day and into Lake Huron. I did not sleep well before the midwatch that first night. Maybe that was the night of the foghorns, or maybe it was the totally unfamiliar environment. During the daytime, I was part of the weapons department, which included a 5-inch gun that seemed huge and a Hedgehog antisubmarine device that had been state of the art 20 years earlier. As a seaman apprentice,
I belonged to the deck force, which was the world according to boatswain’s mates. I remember one in particular who went shirtless and thus displayed the tattoos on his chest. Above one nipple was emblazoned “Sweet.” The other was labeled “Sour.”
Another of the boatswain’s mates told me at one point to go fetch something from the port gear locker. As I started to move away smartly to get the desired item, he asked me, “Do you have any idea where the port gear locker is?” I meekly admitted I didn't, so he told me. On deck, the boatswain’s mates always found things for us new fellows to do. There was, for instance, my introduction to a chipping hammer as a means of removing old paint before new would be applied. And there were lockers to be polished and decks to be swabbed. When the ship went through the locks of the Welland Canal from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, I spent long, sun-burning hours holding a wooden fender over the side so that hull would not be scratched.
The crew experienced a brief respite when we pulled into Halifax, Canada, for a night of liberty after having endured rolls of up to 30°. Fortunately, I was blessed with a stomach that was not bothered by the motion, but I did not realize what it did to my stride until I stepped ashore. In a few days I had acquired a set of sea legs, and once I was on dry land again, I had sort of a rolling gait for a while as I adjusted.
At times on watch I was a lookout, at others the helmsman, once I received some instruction on how to steer the ship. My initial tendency was to apply too much rudder. One of the officers of the deck suggested I was creating a scallop pattern in the water, but I improved quickly as I got the hang of it. During quiet periods on watch, I stood and listened to salty crew members tell about voyages to such exotic places as the Persian Gulf or sing old songs with bawdy lyrics of their own invention. As I recall, the officer of the deck was on a deck somewhat above and behind the pilothouse, either not hearing what I was hearing or else tolerant of innocent fun.
Keeping an overall eye on the events of the cruise was Lieutenant Commander Carroll “Deek” Jones, the commanding officer of the Daniel A. Joy. I saw him during bridge watches, and the image of his face went into my memory bank. Years later, I came across that same image in the Naval Institute’s files on DE-585. Included was a picture accompanying a news release about his taking command of the ship. My first cruise on board any type of ship had been his first as a skipper. He has long since retired from active duty, and a few weeks ago I called him to reminisce about that cruise we made together nearly 40 years ago.
It was interesting to compare our perspectives. He was operating the destroyer escort in the Cold War era when other ships had to be crewed after they were pulled out of mothballs in response to the Berlin Crisis. A reserve ship was normally undermanned anyway; but Jones told me he had to run his ship with a “skeleton-skeleton crew.” There was no shore-side steam at the ship’s berth in Chicago, so at least one boiler had to run all the time, leaving little respite for the boilermen. His executive officer also served as navigator, operations officer, and chief engineer. Officers of the deck stood port-and-starboard watches. Whereas I had recalled the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway in terms of holding a fender over the side, Jones remembered “a hell of a time getting out of the locks because of the wind.” It is all a matter of viewpoint.
During our conversation, Jones chuckled when I told him about my favorite memory of the Daniel A. Joy. A cold wind was blowing when I served as lookout during the morning watch on 7 June 1963. As we proceeded north in the St. Lawrence River, the city of Quebec towered above us to port. A signalman on watch looked up and saw flags at half- mast throughout the city. Mindful of the custom whereby merchant ships “dip" their flags as a form of salute when passing warships, he exclaimed, “Look, the whole city is dipping to us.”
It wasn’t that at all. Quebec’s flags were lowered in honor of Pope John XXIII, who had died four days earlier.