1959 Phone Call

For me, 1959 was a pivotal year and one filled with memorable events. Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. While on a visit to Guantanamo Bay early that year, we were able to see smoke from artillery exchanges between Castro and Batista forces in the mountains from our position at the Naval Station. Vice President Nixon visited the Soviet Union and engaged Premier Khrushchev in an impromptu “kitchen” debate. China invaded Tibet, causing the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of his followers to flee to India. Alaska became the 49th State, Hawaii the 50th, and primates Able and Baker were launched into space.

I had completed my A School training in Electronics at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in the fall of 1958 and joined the crew of the USS Maury AGS-16 in November of that year. We did a short “shake down” cruise to Cuba in January of 1959, after which we left our home port in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and headed for a 9-month cruise to the Mediterranean. Our primary assignment was to conduct deep sea survey operations along a section of the southern coast of Turkey, part of a long-term project arranged between our two nations.

Over time, the Maury and her sister ship the USS Tanner were to complete a maritime survey of the entire coastline of that country. Our specific area was near the coastal cities of Antalya and Alanya. On our way to that area, we made short visits to ports in Morocco, Spain, Italy, and Greece. We also made a number of side trips over the time of the operation for relief and relaxation, including Athens and Rhodes, Greece and Izmir and Istanbul, Turkey.

That fall, as our work was nearing completion, we received word that before returning to the US, we would be entering the Black Sea and conducting a general underwater survey of the entire area. It was projected to take approximately six weeks. We moored in Istanbul to prepare for the project, which would require taking on enough fuel and food supplies for the duration.

During that short visit, our crew was “augmented” with about 25 men. They arrived in civilian clothes, but within days reappeared in uniform and displaying rank from Commander to ordinary Seaman. They also were dispersed among the several regular units, and while their presence was never officially explained, we presumed they were DIA or NSA agents on temporary assignment.

Of special interest to our division was the loading of electronic equipment, none of which was used for survey operations. The new arrivals commandeered our chart room, which was located one deck above the bridge, into which much of the unusual equipment was installed. We helped carry the gear up to that space, and assisted in its temporary installation, but the room was immediately declared off limits to the regular crew. We were able to observe that most of the equipment was designed for listening and recording. There was an assortment of tape recorders, and hand-held listening devices which were directional.

Every day during our time in the Black Sea, the visiting personnel could be seen scanning the horizon with specialized listening gear, and we presumed they were also monitoring a range of radio transmissions and making tape recordings of them for later analysis.

The day came to enter the Black Sea, and we learned that our ship would be the first US Naval vessel to do so since President Roosevelt made the passage in 1945 to attend what was called the Yalta Conference along with Churchill and Stalin. A Soviet submarine net across the Bosporus Strait was lowered to allow our passage into the Black Sea. During our first day underway a large Soviet Cruiser approached on an opposite course.

As it neared, we could see that it was conducting a man-the-rails exercise, which was a naval custom for ships to formally greet each other. Our Captain immediately ordered our crew to change into dress uniform and line up on our own rails, facing the Cruiser. We passed with less than a hundred yards between us, the crews of both ships coming to attention and holding a salute while we were broadside. The Cruiser then reversed course and began following us for a several weeks, remaining just visible on the horizon.

Two days later a Soviet Submarine appeared and executed the same maneuver. It then dove and disappeared from view, although our Sonar operators could detect that it was also following us.

Finally, three days later, we saw a large Soviet amphibian aircraft approaching. It was only a few hundred feet above the surface, and it passed so close that we could see the plane’s crew. It made the same passage every day for about a week.

We had a helicopter on a small flight deck on our stern, and one of its crew was a photographer. He had a large camera normally used to capture aerial landscapes. His assignment was to be on duty whenever the helicopter’s engine was running, to record any anomaly or unusual incident that might occur.

The camera was a wooden boxy unit of Korean War vintage, and contained a large roll of film with about 100 frames. It was held in both hands, with one used to advance the film frame by frame. One day, as the Soviet plane approached, he took his camera to the bridge and began taking photos as the aircraft passed close by. Later, after the film was processed, it was discovered that in one window of the plane a Soviet crewman was shown taking pictures of our ship — using an identical camera!

We didn’t have a particular course to follow, so our route was more or less random. We were supposedly working to obtain an overall general sense of the depths and configuration of the Black Sea’s bottom. We did make one brief stop at a naval port on Turkey’s northern shoreline called Trabzon, near which was located a US Air Force listening station. Our crew was not allowed ashore, but some of our “visiting” crew did so. Several days later word came that we were going to make a stop in Ukraine at the City of Odessa, at the invitation of the Soviet Navy.

Remember, this was 1959 and the height of the Cold War. On the day of our arrival, we passed by a major submarine base, which resulted in a ship-wide order to avoid any use of cameras. It was pouring down rain, and as we reached the pier we noticed Soviet sailors waiting in threesomes, at attention, waiting to catch our mooring lines. They remained in place, soaking wet, not moving until our lines sailed over their heads.

The Soviet pilot, whom we had taken aboard outside the harbor, was very good at his job. He brought us in at an angle, then as the sweep of our bow passed the pier’s edge, went full reverse and maneuvered our ship to settle against the pier in one gentle twisting turn. As crewmen, we were allowed a few hours shore leave starting the next day, with orders to stay in groups of four and absolutely no fraternizing with young females. If we remained aboard, doing our usual work, it was not unusual to receive orders to get into our dress uniform and get onto a waiting bus.

We were then delivered to an opera house, or circus, or theater to be entertained. Our Captain made sure any bus that arrived would be full, to avoid any embarrassment we supposed, so it is fair to say that all offers of entertainment were well received. I went to an an Opera House to see Swan Lake, and on another day to a circus show, and finally to a theater to watch a lively variety show with military bands, costumed dancers and singers. We also held open house every day, during which time local citizens and a few dignitaries toured our ship. We also hosted a visit by a group of local orphans, a custom practiced by our Chaplain during out stops at a number of foreign ports.

What was interesting during these tour hours was the presence at the foot of the gangway of a squad of tough looking guys who checked each visitor. Some, apparently, didn’t pass muster and were rudely turned away. We of course had no idea what criteria they were subjected to, or who they were. We guessed they were either military police or KGB officers. Many of those unable to make it aboard, and hundreds of others who apparently didn’t even try, would gather on the pier close to the ship’s side.

With low tide, they were almost eye level with those of us who engaged them in conversation. It was clear they were hungry to hear and learn about life and times outside the Soviet Union. The ship’s library was close by, and I had an idea — calling on some shipmates to join me in the moment. We went into the library and grabbed all the newspapers and an assortment of slightly dated magazines (Time, Life, etc.) and began handing them out to the locals on the pier. The items were immediately tucked inside coats, clearly for later reading.

At some point the thugs (as we called them) controlling access to the ship took notice of what we were doing, and immediately came to our area instructed all those on the pier to stay back several yards and beyond reach of any more of our gifts.

On the last day of our visit, I was informed that I was to get into my dress blues and join two other shipmates for a trip into town. It seemed that our officers selected the three of us to represent the crew for a telephone interview by the US Press Corps based in Moscow. One was a senior enlisted from Oregon, the next a mid-level enlisted from Texas, and me, the youngest and lowest level enlisted from New England. The officers apparently decided we covered the ranks as well as different regions of the country.

A taxi took us to the Hotel Odessa, where we were escorted to a suite occupied for the occasion of our ship’s visit by an Admiral and his wife. He was the senior military attaché from the US Embassy in Moscow. This was where the pre-arranged phone interview was to take place. What I noticed immediately was how chilly the Hotel’s interior was. It was decorated in marble stone, dated in style, with high ceilings. I remember that the Admiral’s wife was wearing a fur coat, which she kept on the entire time we were there. It was explained that under communism heat in the Hotel was scheduled to be turned on in about a month — a city-wide policy of the USSR for all public accommodations as well as all government housing facilities.

A short time later, apparently preplanned, the phone rang and the Admiral’s aide answered. It was from Moscow, and one by one (I was last) we were asked for our background and then questioned by the press corps on the other end of the line about our visit — what we had seen, how we had been received, what we had done, etc.. As was last to be interviewed, I presumed our task was done.

However, a minute or two later the Admiral’s aide pointed at me and said the press corps had some follow up questions “for the youngest crew member.” One question was “and what did you think of the girls you met during your visit?” Since we were ordered not to fraternize, I had no real answer, so I turned to my shipmates and repeated the question. One of them said, “tell them they look like weightlifters.” I laughed, but then replied to the callers with a quickly made-up response, saying something about how friendly they seemed and appeared to be strong and healthy as farm girls. To my surprise, this “quote” appeared in subsequent news articles about our visit to Odessa in the Boston Globe.

We left Odessa, spent another day or so completing our “survey” work, and returned to Istanbul. The two dozen or so temporary crewmen departed, taking their equipment with them, and a few days later we began our return journey to the States. We made one rest stop, in Gibraltar, and then a last fuel stop in Rota, Spain, after which we headed for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We were back in the States for only a few weeks when word came that we were being reassigned to a new home port at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. The plan was to move on from there to begin operations in the Gulf of Thailand.

When we arrived in Hawaii, we were moored next to the dry docks. Just below us, in one of the docks, was a strange looking vessel. It was clearly an underwater type, but not a submarine. It turned out it was the Trieste, a diving bell, and just two weeks prior to our arrival had made a dive to the deepest known site in any of the world’s oceans. It was call the Marianas Trench, and with two men aboard, it had reached the bottom of the trench at a depth of almost seven miles, or 35,000 feet.

Our Captain apparently was able to obtain the actual coordinates of that dive, and on our way from Hawaii to Thailand, we passed over the site and attempted to record the depth. To no one’s surprise, that depth was beyond the capacity of our sonar gear, but we did make the attempt. We would spend a few months in the Gulf doing a general survey, after which we would return to Pearl Harbor making brief stops in Hong Kong, Formosa, and Guam.

The ship was put into dry dock for a six month stay, during which time it would be air conditioned and undergo other repairs, following which it would return to Thailand for the next three years to conduct a detailed survey. I left the ship a short time after our return to Hawaii, scheduled to return the “48” States for discharge. This was necessary because Hawaii hadn’t been a State long enough for such procedures. I ended my enlistment at Treasure Island in Oakland, California, and returned to Maine as a civilian once again.