U.S.S. YANCEY AKA-93

Ken Grooms's Navy A story for the USS Yancey

Cinderella Liberty - Last Call 2330 Liberty Launch

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by David Chestnut

In the last issue, Jim Way, in recounting his story of his liberty party returning to the ship in the "M" boat and the sailors throwing the hats overboard, reminded me of a liberty party returning on the "M" boat in Sasebo.

When the Yancey was doing a 6 months tour on station in Sasebo in '52-'53, I was one of the duty LCM coxswains. I considered that was the best job I had while in the Navy. Among other things, being a coxswain of an "M" boat gave one a feeling of superiority, especially when using it as liberty launch.

Most of the other ships in the harbor at Sasebo were ships of the line and, of course, their launches were the low gunnels variety. As you remember, during this time frame, we didn't have overnight liberty and the last liberty party pick up was at 2330. This meant that Fleet Landing was a large jockeying mass of boats trying to reach the landing floats at the same time. This is where the advantage of having an LCM as a liberty boat pays off. Being the largest boat there and having twin engines for maneuverability, plus the fact that the "M" boat's exhausts were at about the same level as the gunnels on the other launches, assured that everyone got out of the way when they saw the boat coming. Diesel exhaust on dress whites does not go together.

Anyway, being the last liberty run on this particular night, the boat was nearly full in the well deck and the deck around the coxswain's station was loaded with chiefs and officers. Of course, regulations required that all passengers be in the well deck while underway. You can imagine how easy it was encouraging chiefs and officers who were feeling no pain to join a well deck full of highly inebriated sailors!

It was a particularly dark night, overcast and rainy. And as those of you who were there at the time remember there was a small island in the middle of the harbor with a blinklng light. Near the island on the port side outbound there was a mooring buoy. The tide was coming in at a good clip, which was probably fortunate because the buoy was slanted toward the oncoming boat. Not seeing the buoy while watching the island led to a glancing blow off the buoy with the boat. This took care of the standing passengers on the top deck of the boat. Most, if not all, ended up in the well deck. Fortunately, no one was injured and no one fell overboard.

This quieted all the ruckus on board. Surprisingly, I never heard any complaints.

Does anyone remember the night?

David Chestnut,
Submitted by Ken Groom

Submitted 2/10/07
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