I reported on board the USS Sanctuary in September of 1969 and went to the personnel office for my assignment. This won’t surprise anyone who was ever in the Navy, but they seemed to have no idea that I was coming. After conferring among themselves, they came back and told me that I would be senior corpsman in sterile surgical supply.
Sterile surgical supply was where we prepared and maintained all the equipment necessary for conducting surgery as well as the sterile equipment used in the clinics and wards. The Sanctuary had several surgical suites that were busy almost all the time when we were on station in support of combat operations. It was a busy place and went through a lot of equipment.
Life on board a Navy ship is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week job. There are no days off when you’re at sea. Fortunately, as a member of the hospital crew, I was what they called a shift worker. Which meant I had a set schedule. Members of the ship’s crew were watch standers. That meant they worked in four hour rotations that changed every 24 hours. We could at least have some type of a routine for awake and sleep time, but for a watch stander the schedule was constantly rotating. As a petty officer and a supervisor, I was exempt from some extracurricular duties such as working on the mess decks and taking part in working parties for regular ship maintenance and supply.
The work was hard and continuous. There was no shortage of casualties in 1969. Our job was to provide direct medical support to our troops in combat. The wounded were flown by helicopter directly from the battlefield to the ship. We got the most severely injured; the ones who couldn’t be effectively treated at a field hospital.
The crew was highly trained and incredibly efficient. From the time a wounded soldier or marine landed on our flight deck it was only minutes until he was in the operating room. The survival rate for the wounded in Vietnam was far greater than it had been in either World War II or Korea. This was largely due to the speed with which casualties were transported to definitive medical care.
We generally didn’t treat civilians, but one day, unbeknownst to us, one of our medevac helicopters was bringing in a pregnant Vietnamese woman. When she was offloaded on the flight deck she was already in labor. They brought her down to the preoperative holding area which was adjacent to our sterile supply room. When there was a heavy influx of casualties, we helped out in the preop area that functioned somewhat like an emergency room.
We were standing there, an anesthesiologist and three corpsmen, trying to figure out how to deliver a baby. Thank goodness the woman took it in her own hands and delivered the baby herself! Of course, that didn’t stop us from congratulating each other about delivering the only baby born on a Navy hospital ship during the Vietnam War. If only all our patients could have turned out so well.
When I remember my time on the Sanctuary, I try not to dwell on the suffering of our patients. Their sacrifices still move me to tears. I prefer to be grateful that I was mostly out of direct combat and to focus the less intense episode that helped us maintain our sanity.
One unexpected benefit of being the senior corpsman in sterile surgical supply was being able to order those supplies. One day while going through the supply catalog I discovered it was possible to order five gallons of pure medical grade grain alcohol. And even better, it required no approval. I also ordered a large five gallon glass beaker. We had wall mounts in our work room where there were glass beakers with soap solution and acetone. We also had an empty wall mount.
The alcohol arrived, along with the five-gallon beaker. I put the alcohol in the beaker and pasted a large poison sign on it. I got green food coloring from the mess decks in return for a promise to share. It’s easy to be generous when you have five gallons. I did have to emphasize that it couldn’t be drunk straight but had to be diluted by fifty percent with fruit juice or soda.
The food coloring gave it an appropriately poisonous appearance. It also gave us the advantage of hiding it in plain sight. I quickly became the most popular corpsman on the ship.
Right after Thanksgiving the CO of the ship issued an announcement that the crew was now authorized to put up Christmas decorations. (I think I’ve mentioned before that sometimes I don’t always think through my wise cracks.) The fact that we were now authorized to have Christmas got me thinking. I made a large sign that said “All enlisted personnel desiring to have a Merry Christmas must report to the ship’s office to obtain a Christmas chit. Personnel having a Merry Christmas without an appropriate chit will be subject to nonjudicial punishment.” A chit was basically the Navy’s version of a permission slip. I thought this was pretty funny. Apparently, the ship’s office did not agree when people started lining up to get their Christmas chits.
This resulted in a stern lecture from our leading chief. It generally consisted of about every third word beginning with the letter F. I was sure I was going to be reassigned, reduced in rank, sent to the brig or something even worse. Surprisingly, after many blistering words, he dismissed me with a wave of the hand. As I was leaving, much relieved, the chief said, “And you can drop off the rest of that grain you got to the chief’s mess .” That depleted my supply and ended my short-lived popularity on the USS Sanctuary.
Right after Christmas, we had the opportunity to have a Bob Hope show on board the ship. Everyone was crammed onto the main deck to watch Bob, a few musicians and some dancers put on about an hour and a half show. I was way in the back as we had all the patients in the front. Bob’s jokes were corny. I’m sure the dancers were pretty (I wasn’t close enough to tell for sure) and the musicians weren’t particularly talented, but a good time was had by all.
Navy ships at sea in a combat zone practice strict blackout at night. Hospital ships don’t. Not only are they painted white, but they are lit up like a cruise ship with large flood lights hanging over the side of the ship to illuminate the red crosses. This illumination led to what quickly became one of our favorite pastimes.
Inshore ocean waters in Southeast Asia are infested with sea snakes and they are attracted to light. One sailor had his parents send him a sling shot and BBs and before long the ship’s rails were lined with sailors firing BBs and watching the snakes rolling in the water. For most of us, these were the only shots we fired in Viet Nam.
Once, while cruising close to the mouth of the Perfume River near Hue City, the ship went dead in the water. The rumor quickly spread among the crew that the NVA had attached a mine to the hull. Everyone rushed on deck to watch as divers went over the side to investigate. Imagine our disappointment when they surfaced dragging a large fishing net that had wrapped around the propeller.
I don’t remember as much about the trip home from Vietnam as I do about the plane ride over. I do remember that as soon as the plane lifted off the ground everyone on board started cheering and applauding and whiskey bottles were passed up and down the aisles. (Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember much about the flight.) Needless to say, it was a very happy trip.
There were other events that I may share at some point, including a misguided trip to Camp Eagle and several port calls to the infamous Olongapo in the Philippines. However, this post has gone on long enough, but I may return later to revisit these memories.
We arrived at Norton Air Force Base, which I now knew was in Ontario, California, not Ontario, Canada. They took us through customs and started searching our bags. I was wondering why, because I couldn’t imagine anything we could possibly be bringing back that would be valuable enough for customs to worry about until I saw them going through bags and pulling out weapons, grenades and even a mortar shell.
This was in the spring of 1970 and the height of the Vietnam War protests. As soon as we cleared customs, they put us in a large auditorium and gave us our welcome home briefing. One of the few things I remember from this is that we were told that if we did not have civilian clothes that we should go to the base exchange buy some and put them on before we got to LAX. Under no circumstances should we go to LAX in uniform because we would be harassed or possibly even assaulted by protesters. This was not quite the welcome home any of us were expecting.
I was on my way to an officer training program and four years in college. I was sure that by the time I graduated and got commissioned the war in Vietnam would be over. But, like many things associated with that war, nothing would ever be certain, and I would see that sad country again.
Travels of a West Virginia Boy Part I, Hong Kong
By John Turley
On February 20, 2023
In Commentary, Travel
The first time I left the United States I was 21 years old and on my way to Vietnam. In one of those little ironies of life, I would visit Hong Kong three times before I ever made it to New York City. Growing up in West Virginia, my family thought a trip to Myrtle Beach was the height of travel. It’s still the destination of choice for many West Virginians and I still love the South Carolina low country and fried sea food.
My first trip to Hong Kong was in the spring of 1970. I was serving on the USS Sanctuary in the coastal waters of Vietnam. I had my R&R (Rest & Recreation) trip planned to Australia later in the summer. However, I received orders ending my tour early because I was to report for a training school in San Diego in early June. This meant if I wanted to go on R&R it would have to be soon. The only R&R destination available in my time frame was Hong Kong. I knew next to nothing about Hong Kong. The closest I had come to Chinese culture was chop suey at the New China Restaurant in Charleston.
R&R was basically a five-day vacation that the military gave you when you were serving in the Vietnam area. It was something you looked forward to for the first part of your tour and then you would dream about it for the remainder.
Even flying into Hong Kong was an exciting experience. The old Hong Kong airport was almost in the middle of the city. The flight path carried you down between the buildings. I remember looking out the window of the plane and into the window of an apartment building. There didn’t seem to be enough room for the wings in between the buildings, but somehow the plane landed without incident. That initial look out the window may have been one of the most surprising things that I have experienced.
When we first arrived, we were given the typical military orientation lecture that included warnings about venereal disease with a large map that showed us the areas of Hong Kong we should avoid. Of course, for many of us that meant those were the areas we were going to head to first. They also gave us a list of hotels we could afford without spending all our R&R money.
Hong Kong was like nothing I had ever seen before. I spent the first day wandering around the crowded streets watching the people and trying to sort out the multitude of sights and smells. There was an odd combination of delicious, exotic and downright strange. Street food was everywhere and so were street vendors. The first day I was determined to sample as many different foods as possible. They varied from delicious to inedible. I’m sure that was just me, because the Chinese people seemed to most enjoy the food I couldn’t eat.
I also looked in a lot of shops trying to decide what I should buy. The shop people were friendly and spent a long time answering my often rambling questions. I had been advised to be very careful about negotiating prices. A Chief Petty Officer who was familiar with Hong Kong (his wife was Chinese) told us, “The Chinese people are basically honest. They won’t steal from you, but if you’re a bad negotiator, they are glad to let you pay three times what it’s worth.” In Hong Kong you even bargained over the price of a pack of gum, a skill I never really developed.
I eventually decided I would have a suit made because I had never had a tailor-made suit. I also had some shoes made. I’m sure that because of my poor negotiating skills I paid more than I needed to, but I was happy with the price and that was all that mattered to me. I thought I was pretty fashionable, but looking back I probably could have done better in my selection of material. The shiny shark skin material that looked so cool on Frank Sinatra didn’t do anything for me. The shoes were nice though. I wore a size 14 narrow, and it was nice to have a pair that actually fit.
The second night in Hong Kong as I was leaving the hotel, I ran into an Australian sailor who had been to there many times before. He said he’d show me the “real action” in Hong Kong. As we walked along, he turned down a narrow and dark side street and then into a basement level bar that had a big neon sign that said “Club Red Lips” with a big pair of neon lips underneath it. The place was dark and crowded with a lot of Australian sailors and Chinese women. It smelled of stale beer, cigarettes and sweat. After two beers my new friend turned to me and suggested getting out of there and going someplace where there would be some better action.
We started down the street and as he was ready to turn in to an even darker and narrower alley, I suddenly remembered I had someplace else to be. The “real action” was starting to seem a little too risky to me.
I begged off and headed back to a better lit part of town to have dinner and drinks with other American sailors. I suppose it was something he was accustomed to, but it was a little too much for a West Virginia boy to deal with. It turned out I was not as rowdy as I thought.
Most of the rest of my R&R was spent doing the typical tourist things and riding tourist buses. I didn’t venture down any more dark and narrow side streets. But I really did have a good time.
My next trip to Hong Kong was in May of 1975. By this time, I was in the Marine Corps and was an infantry officer. I was part of a Marine Amphibious Force that was embarked on Navy ships. We had recently completed support of the evacuations of Saigon and Phnom Penh and the recovery of the merchant ship SS Mayaguez. Our ships anchored in the harbor in Hong Kong for liberty call for the sailors and the embarked Marines.
Since I was one of the few officers in our battalion who had been to Hong Kong, I was tasked with briefing the troops on the things they could do there. I spent quite a while going through the ship’s library to find a few things about Hong Kong and then doing my best to remember some of the things that I had done during my previous visit. Of course, there was no internet to check.
I was happy that I had come up with a quite detailed list of sights to see and places to go. I gave my briefing. I told them where they could catch buses and where they could catch the ferry and where there were good places to shop and where there were good places to eat. When I finished, I ask for questions and the first question was, “Is it true that there’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong?” Yes, it was true.
While I didn’t have any fried chicken in Hong Kong my friend Walt and I decided to be a little adventurous. We went to a “non-tourist” restaurant. Walt ordered pigeon, thinking it would probably be Cornish Game Hen and I ordered beef with bitter melon thinking how bitter can it really be, after all it is melon. Well, Walt’s pigeon was pigeon, and it came complete with head, beak, eyes, and feet. My melon was so bitter I couldn’t eat any of it.
Our stay in Hong Kong lasted four days and then we were back onboard ship to return to our home base in Okinawa. I knew I would be returning to Hong Kong in a few months when Margie joined me for Christmas leave.