U.S.S. YANCEY AKA-93

Ken Grooms's Navy A story for the USS Yancey

Buddy can you spare a Dime?

If you don't see the Index to the Left, click here

I will have to disguise the identity of this individual to protect the innocent. I will call him "Gunner E".

"Gunner E" came on board the Yancey about the same time I did. He was a very likable sailor and made friends easy. I would describe him as thrifty and sharing with others.

Thrifty? Well he was the kind of guy that probably bought irregular underwear - but you can't fault him for that. He did have some characteristics that separated him from the run of the mill. For example, during abandon ship drill, at sea, he could sleep standing up staying in tune with the roll and pitch of the ship. At the time I could not identify the reason for this unusual physical attribute - but in the passing years I determined by unshakable evidence that his center of gravity was some where near his knees.

Another trait of his was that he was quite often without funds to enjoy his liberty. He soon discovered a system of leverage where he would pop his head into our office door and say "Hey - could you chunk a quarter on me for liberty". How could you refuse when only 25 cents prevented him from going on liberty? Later, I realized that there were something like 200 sailors aboard and if he only contacted half of them he was $25 ahead. I did say he was thrifty.

Ship's Laundry facilities

Recently I was surfing the web and came across this item. Several ex-sailors were polled about the type of laundry facilities they had on their ships. They fell into the following categories:

1) Dirty laundry is thrown in a community bin, the ship servicemen pick it up, it comes back and people on duty sort it and put it on each individual's bunk. The Yancey was similar to this, but we sorted our own as I remember it. My second ship, a carrier,

followed the above method.

2) Restricted washing: Clothes washed in salt water and rinsed with fresh water.

3) Washing with salt water only, folded wrong side out causing the clothes to stick.

4) All clothes thrown in a big net, tied to a line and thrown over the side and towed for
a given time. In event the line breaks, you wear shorts for 3 days and then turn the shorts wrong side out for another 3 days. Didn't say what you did on the 7th day - maybe stayed in your bunk.

Ken Groom - Yancey Historian

Submitted 2/10/07
To write this Shipmate, write Admin
and ask to have this person's Email.
be sent to you.

---

Return