Carrier Daze
Tales from the USS Oriskany and USS Lake Champlain
by
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ENSIGN BENSEN BAGS A BIRD
One of the last of the new crop of Ensigns to report on board that late summer of 1955 was Ensign Benjamin Benson III, of the New York and Newport Bensons, direct from four years at Yale and ninety days at OCS without passing go and without collect¬ing his $200. But then, he didn't need his $200. Ben was alternately called Double Ben or Triple Ben by the various groups on board, and it was clear from the outset that there were certain aspects of naval officer life that he took to with relish. He delighted in ordering Filipino stewards around, they were so much like the help he had at home, and he fully appreciated the deference that was supposed to be given to him in his status as an officer and a gentleman. He had not, however, learned in his short time in the service that deference really had to be earned.
He wasn't long in getting the eye of the Captain. Double Ben was assigned to Gunnery, a good starting spot for a line officer. His general quarters’ station was in the Mark VII gun director. The Mark VII sat high in the island superstructure of the carrier with an unobstructed view in all directions. It tied into the radar and could lock onto an incoming target. Once it had a target locked on it could lock one or more of the five inch and/or 40 mm guns onto the target with the appropriate angle of deflection to reflect the relative location of the gun, the speed of the approaching hostile and the angle of deflection from the Mark VII director. However, once you locked the guns with the director, as you moved the director you moved all guns that were locked onto that director.
A Benson never waited to be told. Once he re¬ceived his assignment and had some free time he, immedi¬ately searched out the Mark VII and inspected it. It was terrific! There was a great console seat from which you could look out the slits on the front of the director. In this way, you could sight the guns manually if your radar failed, or you could use the director for sighting if you were shelling a shore installation, although 48,000 ton aircraft carriers wouldn’t normally be expected to be shelling shore installations. However, the Oriskany had done just that in the Korean War.
Well, Double Ben dropped into the seat of the gun director and examined the console. There was a large red switch that was obviously the “on-off” button. A Benson doesn’t wait to be told how to do something, so he experimented and turned it to the “on” position. Immediately lights came on and motors started to hum. This was great fun! Then there was this control stick. Ben touched it and the director made a slight move. So he touched it harder and it moved more. In the distance, or at least it seemed like a distance, there was a klaxon horn sound. Actually, the klaxon was on the Mark VII and sounded whenever it moved to warn anyone in the vicinity to stand clear. However, with the door closed the sound was very muffled. Benson now had the gist of the thing, so he started swinging the director left and right, then all the way around, then up, then down. Man, was this fun. It was like a carnival ride at Coney Island. Next there were all those buttons. Fantastic! You pushed a switch and the red lights went to green. He started pushing the switches and swinging the director, and man was he having a ball.
Down on one of the five inch gun turrets seaman first class James Hinshaw wasn't having quite as much fun. He had been assigned to paint over some rust on the top of the turret. First he hears the sound of a klaxon horn, and while trying to work through where the sound could be coming from, suddenly the gun mount he was riding started jerking back and forth under him. Before he could reach for the paint, Hinshaw and the paint bucket went sailing off in opposite direc¬tions, the paint right onto Hinshaw and Hinshaw off in the direction of the barrel of the gun and the Pacific Ocean gleaming directly, and far, below. He clutched the barrel just before being thrown rapidly over the side, all the while screaming for all he was worth.
Hinshaw wasn't the only one screaming. The Captain, while not in the same imminent peril as Hinshaw, and definitely not covered in paint, was screaming loud enough to drown out air operations had they been underway. Ben had also locked on the aft five inch gun to the Mark VII, and while it had no one on it or in it at the time, its gun barrel had an arc of swing that encom¬passed a portion of the flight deck. A portion which, unfortu¬nately, happened to be occupied at that instant by a parked Banshee fighter-bomber. The gun, con¬trolled as it was by Benson's wildly swinging Mark VII, caught the Banshee just right, knocked it off of its landing blocks, and shoved it over the starboard side of the ship into that same Pacific that Hinshaw was clutching desperately to avoid.
The Captain, alerted by this time that something was very much amiss, grabbed the 1-MC public address system and was scream¬ing for whoever was operating the Mark VII gun control system to report to the quarter¬deck, immedi¬ately. Over and over he screamed, and around and around went the Mark VII and all the guns to which it was locked. Unfortu¬nately, while Benson had put on the earphones that hung from a hook over his head, he failed to turn them on. All the ear phones did was serve to drown out the noise of the gear inside the Mark VII, the klaxon, and the sound of the 1-MC. Several brave soles tried to get into the Mark VII to alert Benson that he was wanted by the Captain, but as long as it kept swinging around it was impossible to get a hand-hold on the entrance hatch.
Benson finally stopped the device long enough for one brave seaman to leap onto the hatch and open it. Inside, the grinning Benson was clearly having a ball. He hadn't had so much fun since his first roller-coaster ride. When told, howev¬er, that the Captain wished to see him, and on the double, Benson was puzzled. He had no idea why that great man could possibly want to see him, except possibly to commend him on showing the initiative to learn the use of the Mark VII even before the first drill.
By this time the Captain had sent a squad of four marines to bring Benson to the Bridge, which was fortunate as Benson had not the slightest idea of how to get there. As he was being escorted to the bridge, he failed to notice the paint covered, shaking enlisted man named Hinshaw being led past him to sick bay.
On the bridge the Captain was not a happy man. When Benson was led onto the bridge, there facing him were the Captain, the Exec, the ship's Navigator, Commander Nelson, and Command¬er Latter, the Gun Boss. Latter introduced Benson to the Captain.
“Captain, this is Ensign Benjamin Benson, new on board this week right out of OCS, and he appears to be the young man who climbed into the Mark VII and locked on the guns.”
“Yes, Sir!” replied Benson, “I was familiarizing myself with the equipment, Sir, in anticipation of my duty assignment during general quarters.”
“Young man, you’re an idiot,” said the Captain in a barely controlled voice that kept getting louder with each syllable, “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR LITTLE PLAYING AROUND UP THERE DID? YOU KNOCKED ONE OF THE BANSHEE'S OFF THE FLIGHT DECK AND INTO 3,000 FEET OF PACIFIC OCEAN -- DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT ONE OF THOSE PLANES COSTS?”
“No Sir, but not to worry, Sir,” replied Benson, bringing himself to his full height of 5' 8” and snapping off a perfect imitation of a Marine Corps salute, “have them send the bill to my father, he'll be happy to pay for it.”
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About the Book
In 1951, as tensions escalate on the Korean Peninsula, a Stanford freshman who prefers a dry ship to a wet foxhole, and who has a ferocious fear of flying, joins the Stanford NROTC on the promise of a Marine Colonel that he never has to fly in the Navy. The Colonel of course meant fly like at the controls of an airplane. Our young hero thought he meant fly like in an airplane. And thus began the hysterical adventures of he who didn’t want to fly but ended up in the air.
Four years later, he is commissioned an ensign after graduating from Stanford and completing two years of law school. He then receives orders for Japan and nervously boards a cargo plane, beginning an unforgettable adventure to keep America safe for democracy with a laugh a minute. When Dick finally arrives on his assigned ship, the USS Oriskany, he is appointed temporary legal officer and even more temporarily, a lieutenant commander. In the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, he handles legal cases, makes new friends, and learns how to survive life on an aircraft carrier. His adventures eventually lead him to the girl of his dreams, literally, and onto the deck of the USS Lake Champlain where more hysterical and some very moving events await.
Carrier Daze shares tales of a naïve naval officer’s entertaining adventures on the water and beyond as he serves his country and becomes a man.
About the Author
Dick Maltzman served as a regular naval officer From 1955 to 1958. Prior to being commissioned he attended Stanford University and Stanford Law School, where he was a Regular NROTC cadet. After leaving the Navy, Dick returned to Stanford to complete his legal education and practiced law in San Francisco for more than fifty years. He and his wife, Charlene, live in Palo Alto, California, where they raised their three sons and still are heavily involved with Stanford. Their love is still as strong as described in this book, if not stronger.