U.S.S. YANCEY AKA-93

Ken Grooms's Navy A story for the USS Yancey

Yancey Boot Sailors and the "Crow's Nest Watch"

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Lyle Nelson and Ken Groom, Hubia Park, Tokyo, Japan - June 1953

I first met my shipmate, Lyle Nelson, when I joined the Yancey after book camp. Lyle had been onboard about two months. I had just been assigned to the 2nd Division to work with him. He was introduced to me by a leading seaman who said, "When Lyle came aboard he didn't know anything, now he knows everything". Lyle had on his faded dungarees and his "steaming hat" and had that steely look smoking a cigarette. I realized later that he must have seasoned that hat by tying a line to it and casting it over the fantail for a trolling of about two days. Lyle later moved into the ship's office as a Yeoman striker. A few months later, I was asked to strike for Yeoman in the same office. It became a lasting friendship. This is his story he sent to me for the Yancey Newsletter.

Ken Groom, Yancey Historian

Lyle Nelson's Story:

We were returning to CONUS after our first voyage to Sasebo and were approaching the Farallon Island area which is notorious for high swells and rough water. All of us who were SA's (60-80-100? in nurnber), who just got out of boot camp, came aboard prior to the first sailing, felt very salty with our new-found sea legs and were anxious to dock at Oakland and experience stateside liberty.

Little did we know that probably some of the CPOs and junior officers had schemed to instigate a "crow's nest watch" of only 15 or 30 minutes to provide sadistic entertainment and test the mettle of the first and second deck divisions....and so a watch list was posted for (as I recall) the daylight hours of that Saturday and Sunday. Because of the topside conditions - winds that blew the breaking waves' spray to coat the decks and probably halfway up the ladder to the CN (Crows Nest) and with the ship rolling, a climber nearly on all fours as Yancey rolled to starboard and hanging on for one's life as she returned to port, and below one was a stormy sea that held sure death if our grip with wet hands on wet ladder-rungs failed (this probably is just a personal assessment). However, more than one sailor gathered around the watch list, was offering a cash award to any man who would stand in for him. With white hat brim pulled down and foul weather jacket collar turned up, who, on the bridge, even with binoculars, could positively identity the imposter?

Upon reaching the top of the ladder it was necessary to step onto the platform, open the CN door, enter and close the door. With the ship's extreme port to starboard yawing, a slight tipping of the CN was discernable, and it was then that we noticed that rust had rendered the nest still welded at some points and not welded at others. After all, with the advent of radar, what BMC would ever think about chipping, scraping and painting that outdated and unused appendage.

All watches were stood by the majority of those so assigned without one incident, accident, man overboard or loss of life. After descending the ladder and with our feet once again on deck we felt very good about ourselves and so those responsible for this weekend lark, knowingly or not, helped to mold us "boots" into what we eventually would become, good sailors and true shipmates with memories of a half-century ago that are still with us.

Lyle Nelson YN1, (1951-1954)
Muskogee, OK 74403
(the writer's trepidation of heights "possibly" affected his viewpoint of events as they actually happened)

Submitted 2/10/07
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