“Second to None” Does Not Mean “Next to Nothing”

By William J. Nissen

The Chicago Literary Club

November 27, 2006

Copyright © 2006 William J. Nissen

On June 15, 2000, a former U.S. Navy destroyer escort, stripped of her superstructure, engineering plant and other equipment, was towed to a location north of the island of Kauai, Hawaii. There she rendezvoused with active units of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, consisting of nine surface ships and three types of naval aircraft. The ships and aircraft then began firing Harpoon anti-ship missiles at the crippled and denuded destroyer escort. In short order, the old ship sank, after being hit by both surface launched and air launched missiles. Her final resting place is 2700 fathoms, or 2.8 miles, below the spot where she was hit.

The sinking of the old destroyer escort was an exercise designed to give target practice to a new generation of ships and aircraft. The old ship had been decommissioned since 1988, and would never have joined the fleet again. By giving the active Navy the rare opportunity to test its weapons and skills in sinking an actual ship, the old ship, now reduced to a hulk, was able to serve her country one last time.

The old destroyer escort had been proudly commissioned 33 years earlier, on June 3, 1967. At that time she was one of the most advanced destroyer-type ships in the fleet. Her name was the USS Ramsey, and she was the second in a new class of destroyer escorts with guided missiles, known for short as DEGs. Hence she was designated as DEG-2, and the number painted on her hull was the number “two.” She was 415 feet long, and was designed for a crew of about 16 officers and 240 enlisted men. In addition to the latest radar and sonar equipment, she had a gun mount forward, a missile launcher aft, and she also carried torpedo tubes and a launcher for the antisubmarine rocket, known as ASROC.

Destroyers and destroyer escorts are named for individuals whom the Navy wants to honor. The Ramsey was named for Admiral DeWitt Clinton Ramsey, who was born in 1888 and died in 1961. Following his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1912, he became one of the earliest naval aviators, and served in the Navy until 1949. During World War II, he was Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and commanded her in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. After World War II, he served as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The motto of the new ship, which was emblazoned on the ship’s seal, was “Second to None.” This was an obvious attempt by Naval authorities to prevent the ship’s designation as number two in her class from giving her crew the idea that their ship had second class status, and instead to turn the number two into a positive statement. The crew of the Ramsey, however, could not leave this motto alone. They decided that “Second to None” means “Next to Nothing” and this became a popular saying on the ship.

For those of us who served on Ramsey for her second deployment, which took place from October 1969 to April 1970, there was another type of second class status. Most of the crew on the first deployment had been on the ship when she was commissioned, and, as a member of the ship’s first crew, each had the treasured status of being what is called a “plank owner” of the ship. Those of us who did not arrive until the second deployment lost out on this coveted designation.

When a ship deploys, she leaves her home port for an extended period of time. In the case of the Ramsey, her home port was Long Beach, California, and she deployed for six months to what the Navy calls the Western Pacific or WESTPAC, which is East and Southeast Asia and adjacent waters.

Despite being on the second deployment of the second ship in its class, the experience of the officers and men of the Ramsey on this ship and this deployment was far from “Next to Nothing.” They steamed many thousands of miles, saw many foreign lands, carried out their missions in the Vietnam War and in other fleet operations, and developed bonds among themselves which have lasted to this day.

The deployment began in the morning of Wednesday October 8, 1969, as Ramsey got underway for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from the Long Beach Naval Station. Two short underway periods, however, came before this departure. On Friday October 3, the ship spent the day underway in the waters near Long Beach on a dependents’ cruise. The dependents, primarily wives and children, were about to say goodbye for six months to their Ramsey crew members. A dependents’ cruise just before a deployment is customary in the Navy, as it gives the families some time together and also gives the dependents a chance to see how their loved ones will be spending the next six months. On Monday October 6, Ramsey made a day trip to the Seal Beach, California Naval Weapons Station to load up on ammunition, as she was about to head into waters, far from home, that could be hostile.

Once outside the Long Beach harbor area on October 8, Ramsey joined up with several other ships in her destroyer squadron, and the group began its journey to Hawaii. The long transit was made at various speeds, with 16.5 knots being a typical speed. Away from land, the ocean and air became much cleaner, with the ocean being a beautiful blue color that is never seen close to shore. Ramsey was often accompanied along the way by porpoises and flying fish swimming and jumping alongside the ship as she made her way across the vast Pacific.

On October 14, Ramsey conducted her first underway replenishment of many that would come during the next six months. In an underway replenishment, two ships steam alongside each other and a fuel line is sent over from the ship providing fuel to the receiving ship, and the two ships continue to steam side by side while the fuel is pumped. The ship with the fuel in this case was a Navy oiler, but other larger ships, such as ammunition ships and aircraft carriers, also can refuel a smaller ship at sea. This is a dangerous evolution that requires great ship handling skill, as a wrong move could cause the two ships to collide.

On the same day that she refueled at sea, the Ramsey rendezvoused with a Royal Australian Navy destroyer to conduct antisubmarine warfare exercises with a U.S. submarine. Antisubmarine warfare, also known as ASW, was one of Ramsey’s primary purposes, as she had an advanced sonar dome on her bow together with the latest in ASW weapons. The ASW exercise continued for three days as the destroyers hunted for the submarine, and the submarine sought to evade the destroyers. On Friday October 17, the exercise ended and Ramsey arrived in Pearl Harbor that evening.

After a weekend in Hawaii, where the crew had much-anticipated liberty after ten days at sea, and after taking on the fuel necessary to continue the voyage westward, the Ramsey set off for Yokosuka, Japan on the morning of October 21. The departure from Pearl Harbor, which was expected to be a routine evolution in the long journey to Japan that was still ahead of us, instead presented one of the more critical challenges of the entire deployment.

As a single screwed ship, Ramsey typically needed assistance from tugs in approaching and leaving a pier, as she did not have the maneuverability of ships with two screws. Two-screwed ships could put one screw in forward and one in reverse to get in and out of tight situations, whereas single-screwed ships could only go forward and back. One explanation (which may or may not be true) for giving Ramsey and other destroyer escorts of that era one screw, even though they were larger than the two-screwed 1940s destroyers that were being replaced by the new escorts, was that the Navy had actually wanted more destroyers, but Congress would only permit the building of destroyer escorts, which were generally smaller and therefore less costly than destroyers. In order to outsmart Congress, the Navy gave its new ships only one screw, which allowed them to be designated as destroyer escorts rather than destroyers, but nevertheless made the ships larger than the old destroyers they were replacing.

In any event, Ramsey required the assistance of tugs as she left the pier at Pearl Harbor. Two minutes after Ramsey was underway, the tugs were no longer needed and they were cast off. Ramsey was proceeding through the channel to the open sea with Ford Island to starboard. Just off shore of Ford Island was the USS Arizona Memorial, one of the most revered sites in our country, as it serves both as a memorial to the beginning of World War II when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and as the final resting place for the crew of the ship who perished when the ship sank, leaving only part of her superstructure above the water line.

Eight minutes after getting underway and two minutes after the tugs were cast off, Ramsey suddenly lost all electrical and steam power. While this happens to a ship from time to time, it was especially critical at this point in a narrow channel. Because Ramsey had no power, she could not change direction, and would continue moving in the last direction where she had been heading before losing power. Unfortunately, this meant that Ramsey was headed straight toward the Arizona Memorial, and she would collide with the Arizona if her forward movement were not stopped or her course changed.

The captain was on the bridge, and his years of ship handling were immediately put to the test. With the ship heading for a potential collision with the Arizona and having no power to change course or speed, the captain quickly called for the two tugs that had assisted Ramsey in getting underway. Within one minute of the loss of power, which was a long time in a narrow channel with a ship out of control, one of the tugs was pushing Ramsey away from the Arizona, and one minute later the other tug was doing the same. A serious collision had been avoided by the captain’s quick action. Electrical power was restored almost immediately but it took about a half hour to restore the boilers, during which time one of the tugs stayed with Ramsey to keep her under control.

Once the boilers were on line and operating properly, the Ramsey completed her departure from Pearl Harbor and continued the transit westward along with four other destroyers. Following the close call in Pearl Harbor, the next part of the journey was uneventful. A refueling stop was necessary on the way to Japan, so three days later, on October 24, Ramsey and the other ships in her group moored at Midway Island for several hours to take on fuel. Midway is a tiny island, which a person can circle by foot in less than an hour. It had a few U.S. naval personnel stationed there, and an airstrip to connect it the rest of the world. Crewmen who were not needed on the ship during the refueling stop had the opportunity to go ashore before getting underway again in the late afternoon. Much beer was consumed during this brief stop.

It took a week to go from Midway to Yokosuka, our first foreign port. However, one of the days of that week never occurred for the crew of the Ramsey. The journey to Yokosuka took us across the International Date Line. Typically, when we changed time zones at sea, we added or subtracted an hour just as one would do when traveling by land. However, when crossing the International Date Line, the difference is an entire day. As a result, when she crossed the date line, Ramsey went directly from Friday October 24 to Sunday October 26.

On October 31, Ramsey reached the U.S. Naval Base at Yokosuka, which was on the island of Honshu close to Tokyo. Yokosuka had been a Japanese naval base before and during World War II, and was taken over by the United States in 1946, following the war.

A few days later, on November 6, Ramsey left Yokosuka and headed to Sasebo, Japan in the south of Japan, about 60 miles from Nagasaki, on the island of Kyushu. The Ramsey’s initial stay in Sasebo on November 8 was for only a few hours at an anchorage, and she left that same day for operating areas near Okinawa, where she engaged in ASW exercises for the next week with both a submarine and an aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier was equipped with fixed wing ASW aircraft as well as helicopters which would hover over the ocean and lower their dipping sonar devices to listen for the submarine. The surface ships and aircraft spent several days hunting for the submarine, and the submarine in turn practiced its skills at evading detection.

On November 15, Ramsey returned to Sasebo for five days, and on Thursday November 20, we went to sea again. This time our destination was Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. Yankee Station was an area in the ocean about 100 miles from the coast of Vietnam, where U.S. aircraft carriers launched and retrieved aircraft flying combat missions over Vietnam.

Before reaching Yankee Station, Ramsey and another ship in her squadron were diverted to Danang, Republic of Vietnam, to transfer the squadron commander and his staff from Ramsey to the other ship. Danang has a fine harbor, and it is surrounded by the green lushness of Vietnam, including a prominent landmark known as Monkey Mountain. This was the crew’s first look at Vietnam. We did not tie up at a pier or go ashore, but instead remained anchored in the harbor for about six hours before getting underway again. Although Danang was one of the principal United States naval bases in Vietnam, there were significant precautions taken by both Ramsey and the Navy personnel stationed in Danang to ensure security in the harbor. The harbor was patrolled by small craft and helicopters. During the entire time we were anchored there, there were men on watch topside, who walked around the deck continually and kept an eye on the ship’s water line to ensure that nothing, such as a small boat or a swimmer who could carry an explosive, came close to the ship.

We left Danang that afternoon for Yankee Station, and arrived that night. We immediately assumed plane guard duty with one of the carriers. A destroyer operating as a plane guard for a carrier steams astern of the carrier as it launches and retrieves aircraft. The purpose of the destroyer is to be ready to help protect the carrier, and also to engage in search and rescue operations in the event an airplane is lost at sea.

Destroyer-type ships served in a number of roles in the Vietnam War. Older and smaller destroyer escorts sought to prevent supplies from moving by sea from North to South Vietnam by boarding and inspecting coastal traffic. Older destroyers, which had two or three gun mounts, assisted the Army by providing naval gunfire support in areas close to shore. Newer and larger destroyers, known as DLGs or frigates, had sophisticated air surveillance and anti-air missile capability and carried air controllers, so that they were able to control and protect U.S. aircraft engaging in combat missions. Ramsey was well suited for the plane guard duty to which she and other destroyer-type ships were assigned. With her single gun mount, sophisticated sonar and ASW capability, and surface to air missile, she was able to fulfill the role of escort for a carrier, by being ready to assist in dealing with any surface, subsurface or air threat the carrier might face, or to detach from the formation to search for any downed pilots.

Air operations at Yankee Station went on day and night. At that time, the United States was flying combat missions only over South Vietnam and not over North Vietnam. President Johnson had stopped the bombing over the north in November 1968, after he announced that he would not run for reelection. President Nixon had assumed the presidency in January of 1969, and had not yet resumed bombing over the north. As we understood it, the combat missions flown by the carrier-based aircraft while we were on Yankee Station were directed at bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail just south of the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, between North and South Vietnam, in order to stop supplies and personnel from moving from north to south.

While on Yankee Station, we celebrated Thanksgiving on November 27, complete with Thanksgiving dinner. Morale is important for a crew spending many days at sea, and providing good chow for the crew is an important way the Navy maintains morale. There were also other ways the Navy sought to keep up morale on Yankee Station. We received regular mail service and newspapers while at sea. Carrier-based aircraft would fly back and forth to Subic Bay, Philippines where they would deliver and pick up mail and also bring back the newspaper, known as the “Pacific Stars and Stripes,” which was published for the U.S. military in Southeast Asia. The carriers would then distribute the mail and newspapers, and pick up outgoing mail, by sending a helicopter which would hover over the fantail at the stern of the Ramsey, and use a line from the helicopter to deliver and receive the mail, newspapers and other small cargo. Personnel were also transferred by helicopter by placing a sling under their armpits that was raised and lowered by the line. Chaplains periodically visited the ships on Yankee Station in this manner to hold services, and a helicopter bringing a chaplain was known as the “Holy Helo.”

There were also benefits to the crew that were available on Yankee Station and the surrounding areas within the combat zone. While Ramsey was operating within the Vietnam combat zone, we were permitted to send mail without postage by writing the word “free” in the corner of an envelope where the postage stamp would normally be. Each month in the combat zone also entitled the crew to combat pay of $65, together with a tax deduction applying to other income that month. Any amount of time within the zone during a calendar month would qualify, so ships were known to time their entries and exits so as to reach the combat zone just before the end of a month or leave just after the beginning of a new month to qualify for an extra month of combat pay.

Apart from the routine of air operations on Yankee Station, this tour of duty was relatively uneventful. We saw many non-combatant ships pass through the area, including fishing boats and Chinese-style sailing junks. We had one experience where a so-called Soviet trawler, which was really an intelligence-gathering ship, approached our formation. Serving her role as escort, Ramsey placed herself between the carrier and the Soviet ship, and also took pictures for our own intelligence analysts. There was also an incident where a pilot had to eject from his aircraft. The aircraft was lost, but the pilot’s parachute operated properly and he was safely caught in the superstructure of the carrier.

On November 29, Ramsey experienced rudder problems, and went to Danang for an initial inspection on November 30. This inspection showed that more extensive work was needed on the rudder, so Ramsey left Danang and headed for the U.S. Naval Station and ship yard at Subic Bay, Philippines on the evening of November 30.

Ramsey arrived in Subic Bay on December 2. After testing was conducted on the rudder, it was decided that the Ramsey needed to go into dry dock for repairs, so the next day we entered a large dry dock. After the ship was inside the dry dock and the entrance to it was closed off, the water was pumped out, leaving the entire hull of the ship exposed. One of the most prominent aspects of the ship in dry dock was the sonar dome on the bow. The bows of conventional destroyers were designed to cut through the sea with a minimum of drag. Ramsey’s advanced bow-mounted sonar, however, required a large rounded dome on the bow, under the water line. Ramsey also had fin stabilizers that were now more visible with the ship’s entire hull exposed in the dry dock. These fin stabilizers supported the guided missile system, by stabilizing the ship when a missile was fired. Older ships without fin stabilizers tended to roll back and forth more as they made their way through the sea, and would not have been as suitable for a guided missile launcher.

It took almost three weeks in dry dock to repair the rudder problem. The U.S. Naval Base at Subic was massive, with a naval station, shipyard, and naval air station. It was our largest naval base in Southeast Asia, and it was relatively close to Vietnam, so that the ships involved in the war effort, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and amphibious and service ships would typically stop in Subic on the way to and from the Vietnam operating areas.

Each night, thousands of men from the crews of the ships in port would leave the base to go on liberty in the town of Olongapo, which was just outside the gate. A narrow foul-smelling stream separated the base and town, and was filled with boats carrying young people who would call for the Americans crossing the bridge to toss them coins, which they would catch with nets. Olongapo itself was filled with street vendors, night clubs, bars and Philippine women, and many of the men never went beyond Olongapo into other parts of the Philippines during their port visits to Subic Bay.

One of the most distinctive sights in Olongapo was the jeepneys, which were brightly decorated jeeps, with numerous colors and designs, streamers and ornamentation. The jeepneys would carry passengers around Olongapo for a small fare. These jeepneys had originally been constructed from jeeps left by the Americans after World War II, but by 1969, the Filipinos were using new decorated jeeps because they had become so popular.

There was a bus available to Manila, which was about 2-3 hours away on roads that were in some places primitive, but they provided a view of the rural Philippines, where people lived in bamboo huts on stilts, washed their clothes in the rivers, harvested rice by hand, traveled in horse drawn carts and used water buffalo as their beasts of burden. Although World War II had been over for almost 25 years at the time, the Filipinos continued to express their gratitude to Americans for having saved them from the Japanese. Any American serviceman out among the Filipinos would be greeted with a wave and the greeting “Hey Joe.” Manila itself showed great contrasts between rich and poor, as it had wealthy gated areas which contrasted with areas populated by homeless squatters. As a reminder of the sacrifices of Americans in World War II, Manila has a large cemetery for Americans who died in the war.

On December 23, Ramsey left the dry dock with her rudder repaired and got underway for Sasebo. Christmas Day was spent at sea, and we arrived in Sasebo on the day after Christmas. While in Sasebo the crew celebrated New Year’s Eve. With money from the ship’s recreation fund, which was generated by the sales in the ship’s store, we rented a large room at a hotel in town and had New Year’s Eve parties on both December 30 and December 31, so that those who had duty on the ship on December 31 would not miss out. As one might expect, the parties were somewhat raucous and although no one was seriously injured, there was some damage to the hotel. However, on New Year’s Day, more recreation funds were used to pay for the damages, so the ship was able to leave Sasebo in good standing with the locals.

At midnight, when 1969 turned into 1970, the watch standers on the Ramsey’s quarterdeck observed an old naval tradition, by writing the deck log entry for the first watch of the New Year in poetry. Because part of the log entry is written in naval terminology, including the acronyms that the Navy loves to use, an explanation is necessary before the log entry can be understood by those unfamiliar with this terminology. SOPA means “Senior Officer Present Afloat” and refers to the senior officer who is embarked on a ship in the vicinity. COMSERVGRU 3 refers to Commander Service Group 3, which is the commander of a group of service ships, which were the ships, such as oilers, ammunition ships and refrigerator ships, which supported the combat ships. COMDESRON 29 was the Commander of Destroyer Squadron 29, who commanded a squadron of several destroyers, including Ramsey. Condition Yoke is one of the levels of watertight integrity achieved by dogging down certain of the hatches and doors on the ship. With that introduction, the log entry read:

It’s 1970, January first

The ship’s in Sasebo, Japan

India Basin 7 is our berth

The lines are doubled fore and aft

SOPA is COMSERVGRU 3

Embarked is COMDESRON 29 staff

We’re receiving all services from the pier

The Somers and the Ajax

Are some of the Seventh Fleet ships that are here

Condition Yoke throughout the ship is set

The sound and security watch

Has been careful to inspect

The Ramsey is ready

And so’s the crew as the New Year’s begun

To prove that

The Ramsey is still “Second to None”

On the day after New Year’s Day, Ramsey was underway again, this time for the Okinawa operating areas to conduct ASW exercises with a submarine, other destroyers and an aircraft carrier. After about a week of hunting for the submarine, Ramsey headed for a picket station in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Korea. The wintry January weather in the Sea of Japan was a stark contrast to the tropical weather we had recently left in Subic Bay. In some ways, the Ramsey was more exposed to harm in the Sea of Japan, with North Korea close by and few Navy ships in the area, than in the Vietnam combat zone where the United States controlled the surface and air in the Gulf of Tonkin and adjoining areas of the South China Sea. As if to bear this out, a North Korean MIG jet flew by while we were on station, whereas no North Vietnamese MIGs came close during our Vietnam duty.

After about a week on the picket station, we returned to Sasebo on January 14. While in Sasebo, we discovered a problem with Ramsey’s boilers. These boilers were a new model, which generated twice the steam pressure of the old destroyer boilers, and therefore Ramsey had only boiler room, whereas the older destroyers had two. Unfortunately, the newness of the design led to problems. It took a month in the ship yard in Sasebo to complete the repairs on the boilers, and it was not until February 16 that Ramsey was able to get underway again, this time for Buckner Bay, Okinawa. Okinawa had been governed by the United States for a number of years following World War II. It had recently been turned over to Japan, but we still maintained bases there.

Ramsey stayed only briefly in Okinawa and then went to sea in the Okinawa operating areas where it engaged in operations with several other destroyers. While at sea, we conducted a highline personnel transfer of the squadron doctor, who was embarked on Ramsey, to another ship in the squadron to deal with a medical emergency. In a highline transfer at sea, the two ships steam side by side and a line is shot over from one to the other. The person to be transferred sits in a chair called a boatswain’s chair, which then travels along the line from one ship to the other while the ships are moving forward together. A personnel transfer of this nature calls for excellent ship handling skills on both ships as the person in the chair would end up in the ocean if the ships failed to maintain the proper distance to keep the line between them taut.

Following this period of operating near Okinawa, the Ramsey returned briefly to Buckner Bay, and then got underway for Hong Kong on February 26. On February 28, Ramsey arrived in Hong Kong and anchored to a buoy in the harbor, with the island of Victoria in one direction and Kowloon, which adjoined the Chinese mainland, in the other direction. At that time, Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony, and it was a place where military personnel serving in the Vietnam Theater went for rest and recreation.

Ramsey stayed in Hong Kong for about three days. Because this was considered a rest and recreation visit, and because there was a policy against doing work topside that would indicate that the Ramsey was engaging in military operations in a British port, there was little work done in those three days. The crew went ashore in one of the Ramsey’s boats or in one of the many water taxis operating in Hong Kong harbor, and spent the money that they had nowhere to spend while at sea. Hong Kong offered duty-free goods from other countries, such as electronics and cameras from Japan, sometimes for less than these goods cost in the countries where they were made. There were also accommodating merchants in Hong Kong who quickly made custom-made suits, coats, shirts and shoes for a fraction of what they would cost off the rack in the United States. Americans were not allowed in China itself at that time, as President Nixon had not yet made his historic decision to establish relations with China, so the closest we could get was a hill in Hong Kong that looked across a river to China.

After the stay in Hong Kong, it was back to Yankee Station, and more plane guard duty with the carriers and their aircraft flying combat missions over Vietnam. As before, we fell into the routine of around the clock air operations, and keeping station on the carrier, with periodic underway replenishments and visits from helicopters hovering over the fantail with mail and newspapers.

In mid-March, it was time to start the long journey back to the United States, as we were due back in Long Beach on April 8, 1970, exactly six months after we left. We departed from Yankee Station for Subic Bay, from which we were to return to Long Beach via Guam, Midway and Pearl Harbor. While in Subic Bay, however, our schedule abruptly changed. We were assigned to replace another ship on operations out of Guam with a nuclear ballistic missile submarine, and this operation was to result in a delay in our return to Long Beach. Although the crew was not happy to hear about a delay in returning home, after almost six months away, our next assignments provided experiences that the crew found well worth the delay.

We transited from Subic Bay to Guam, and while there, we found reason to appreciate our good fortune at being on the Ramsey. In Guam, there was a submarine tender, which is a large repair ship that provides repair services to submarines. It can get underway and move to a different port if needed, but a tender typically sits in her home port and goes nowhere. Guam was not considered a desirable home port when compared with places such as Pearl Harbor, Long Beach or San Diego, where most Pacific fleet ships were home ported. At that time, the Navy had a rule that if a sailor could find a need for his specialty on another ship, he could obtain a transfer to that ship merely by requesting it. As a result, when a sea-going ship such as Ramsey, with a desirable home port, stopped in Guam, the sailors on the tender would quickly find out what openings were available on the visiting ship, and ask for transfers to fill those openings so they could leave Guam and their pier-bound submarine tender.

After a short stay in Guam, the Ramsey went to sea and while at sea, we were able to witness an unforgettable sight: a test launch of a Polaris missile from a nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Before and during the launch, we were escorting the submerged submarine. We knew when the launch was scheduled, and as launch time approached, we were eagerly watching the place where the submarine was submerged. When the time for the launch arrived, our waiting was rewarded, as we saw the missile burst powerfully forth from the sea on a trajectory that took it far over the horizon until it disappeared from view.

During this time at sea, the crew of the Ramsey also had the opportunity to experience the ancient ritual of the “Crossing the Line” ceremony that takes place when a Navy ship crosses the equator. Because the Navy operated primarily in Northern hemisphere, most of the crew had never before crossed the equator. The tradition was that those who had previously crossed would initiate those who had not.

Those who had crossed the line before were known as “shellbacks,” and the uninitiated were known as “pollywogs.” Regardless of formal rank, for purposes of the initiation, the shellbacks ruled over the pollywogs. During the ritual, shellbacks carried cut lengths of canvas fire hose, with which they swatted passing pollywogs, while berating them for their lowly status as slimy and lowly pollywogs.

Leading up to the ceremony, the pollywogs were required to stand special watches. For example, the third division pollywogs, who typically stood watch in the sonar room with sonar equipment that emitted pinging sounds to locate submarines, were required to patrol the main deck pinging every fifteen seconds with their voices to try to find the equator. The pollywogs of the second division, who normally manned the ship’s weapons, stood their special watches on the top of the gun mount scanning the horizon for King Neptune, using two rolls of toilet paper as binoculars, and calling out every fifteen minutes: “King Neptune where are you?” While the second division pollywogs were looking for King Neptune, the first division pollywogs, who were the deck hands who typically stood watch on the bridge, were scanning the horizon for the approach of the equator using binoculars made of two lengths of twelve inch pipe wired together.

The pollywog officers were also required to stand special watches. Some of us were required to stand our watches with a broom in the ship’s bull nose, which was at the most forward end of the ship. Our watch consisted of sweeping the horizon with the brooms. Other officers were required to dance a waltz around the main deck handcuffed to Oscar, which was the man overboard dummy we used for man overboard drills. The most senior pollywog officer, who was the ship’s executive officer, was required to recite the following over the ship’s public address system, known as the 1MC, every 15 minutes for an hour:

“I am a grubby, slimy, pollywog. To prove my worthiness to be a shellback I will now recite a little poem: Mary had a little lamb, Her fleece was white as snow, And every where that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”

The night before the actual initiation rites, the shellbacks held a beauty contest, in which the pollywogs in each division of the ship were required to put forth one of their own as a contestant, dressed as a woman, and the shellbacks voted on which one was the most beautiful. The pollywog who was chosen as the winner of the beauty contest was entitled to preside over the initiation as Queen, along with King Neptune, and was not required to go through the initiation. During the beauty contest, music was supplied by a band made up of the pollywogs among the chief petty officers, who were the most senior enlisted men.

Finally, after the special watches, the beauty contest, and the general harassment of pollywogs by shellbacks, the time came for the initiation. The ceremony covered the fantail, located at the stern area of the ship. King Neptune and his Queen reigned. Each pollywog was required to proceed through the various stations. These included a specially constructed wooden coffin filled with foul-smelling fire fighting foam. Each pollywog was forced to climb into the coffin and have the lid shut over him. There was also a station called “Davy Jones Locker,” which consisted of stocks, such as were used for punishment in colonial America, in which each pollywog was required to place his head and arms. A particularly loathsome station was the royal baby, who was a shellback dressed only in a diaper with ample fat on his bare stomach, which was covered with grease. Each pollywog was required to kiss this stomach, and during the kiss, the royal baby grasped the kissing pollywog’s head, pulled it into his stomach and rolled it around in the grease-covered fat of his belly to make sure the pollywog received the full benefit of the kiss. Finally, the last station was the garbage chute, which was a plastic tunnel filled with the remnants of the last few meals from the garbage generated by the crew’s mess. After crawling through this chute, and coming out the other side, each pollywog was greeted by a shellback who welcomed him as a new shellback.

Now that every member of the crew had been properly initiated as a shellback, things returned to normal on the Ramsey. We returned to Guam, and from there we embarked on the long journey back to our home port of Long Beach. Once again, we crossed the International Date Line, and this time, instead of skipping a day, we observed the same day twice.

On April 18, 1970, six months and 10 days after leaving, we arrived back in Long Beach. As is customary, the returning ship was greeted by wives, children, other family members and friends whom the crew members had not seen for over six months. The ship stayed in port with reduced working hours for the next month to allow the crew members to take time off and become reacquainted with their families.

While on deployment during the previous six and a half months, the Ramsey had not done anything to achieve a prominent place for herself in the annals of naval history. Historical accounts of the Vietnam War do not mention Ramsey’s service as a plane guard for the aircraft carriers on Yankee Station. Nor has Ramsey’s service on picket station in the Sea of Japan been given significance by historians analyzing the long and difficult relationship between the United States and North Korea that has continued to the present. This lack of special recognition, however, is the norm for military units and personnel who carry out their duties and contribute to the overall effort without achieving individual fame.

In addition to serving in the Vietnam and Korea Theaters, Ramsey and her crew provided other valuable service to their country during the period of time known as the Cold War. Merely by her presence in the Western Pacific and her readiness to take action when needed, Ramsey successfully carried out the Navy’s primary mission of keeping the seas free and maintaining the peace, by acting as a deterrent to hostile action by the Soviet Union or any other potential enemy. Twenty years later, due to the collective service of the Ramsey and other units of our armed forces, together with American diplomacy, we won the Cold War.

In September 2003, more than 30 years after the Ramsey’s second deployment ended, and 3 years after she had been sunk to provide target practice for newer ships of the fleet, the Ramsey’s crew held their first reunion in Las Vegas, Nevada. A number of members of the crew from the second deployment, including the captain and executive officer, as well as junior officers and enlisted men, were there. The cake for the reunion was cut by the same naval officer’s sword that had been used to cut the cake at Ramsey’s commissioning in 1967. A bell was somberly rung as the name was announced of each crew member who was known to have died in the intervening years. The bonds that had been forged during months at sea so long ago were still strong. Although the crew members still recalled the saying that the Ramsey’s motto of “Second to None” means “Next to Nothing,” it was clear that serving on the Ramsey had been an experience for them that was “Second to None.”