Adventures On Land, Sea and In The Sky

The fireboats were spreading water over the ship and ignoring the swimmers, but other small craft came by and pulled the crewmembers on board their boats.  That is, all but the Gay.   He was screaming with max lung pressure – “help, help, I'm going to die, save me, I can't swim!” Two very brave men in their high-speed fishing boat pull under him and let him drop into their boat. 

The rescued seamen headed across the river to the near-by Coast Guard station.  Some of the men had on only underwear, some were fully dressed in their work clothes and one who ran from the shower was nude.   What a sight!  The author could not find the picture of the burning ship to include in this book, but it looked something like the one below that was hit by a German U-Boat’s torpedo off the Coast of Florida:

Recall that the Lake Charles Cajuns left bruises and cut marks on several of the men. The news reporters thought that they were heroes by getting hurt fighting the fire. The headline from the local Jacksonville paper reported the major disaster with "TWENTY TWO SEAMEN MISSING FROM BURNING SHIP".  The 22 missing men found their way to the Coast Guard station, but that didn’t make exciting news for the paper.

The fuel depot plant manager called the shipping company that owned the tanker.  A company’s agent told them. “Take the 22 seamen to their finest hotel and that they would pay for everything.”  The Coast Guard bus loaded the men and headed for Jacksonville’s most sophisticated five star resort hotel.  Remember that these men were wearing pants without shirts, hair not combed, and their clothes were still damp from their swim. Most of them needed a shave, a hair cut and as you know some had cuts and bad bruises on their faces because of their fight in Lake Charles. The crew was very hungry; therefore as the “war damaged group” passed through the 5 star dinning room they requested something to eat.

The first action was to lead the “heroes” into their five star dinning rooms. It was noontime and the dinning area was filled with well-dressed wealthy guests.   Their facial expressions were priceless as the  “hero” crew waltzed into their view. The only thing that kept the sophisticated guests from leaving was a war was being fought and the guests sensed that they were “heroes” from a torpedoed ship.

The crew went "hog" wild.  They ordered their best wine and gladly accepted the free cocktails. The prime rib was the most ordered item, but some of the men tried their wild duck with all the trimmings. The more they drank and ate the louder they became. At first they were accepted as heroes, but as the hour became two they were just ill mannered seamen. The hotel manager finally got them to leave the dinning room and to check into their rooms.

The Bell Hop took the men to the top floor (so that they would be out of sight of most of the guests. On the way up the First Engineer asked the Bell hop.  "How much do you get for call girls?"  The Bellhop was very embarrassed.  “Sir, this fine hotel does not allow call girls to enter the building.” The First Engineer was very loaded so when he made it to his bed he immediately went to sleep. 

A little later he had a nightmare about the ship's explosion and thought that he jumped off the rear of the ship, but landed on the highly polished oak floor.  He ended up with an out of socket collarbone.  The bellboy heard his screaming and called for a Doctor.  The doctor came to the hotel room and pulled the Chief Engineer’s bone back into its socket and placed his arm into a sling to keep the weight of the arm from hurting too badly.

The company agent wired money to the hotel so that the crew could buy some clothes. What a shopping trip!  Most of the men came from a lower economic level and had never shopped for good quality clothes.  Since money was not limited and they were not paying for the clothes the best was just what they needed.   The hotel’s men shop had a very successful day.  They sold 22 suits, many shirts, pants, underwear, socks, ties, shoes, etc. The crewmembers changed their clothes, but the clothes didn't change the men.