Man overboard

[jimlongley]

While in the Navy I, like every other swab jockey, had to take the requisite man overboard training, and we got a new lecture on it regularly while on sea duty.

A man overboard drill consists of throwing a dummy overboard and retrieving it using all of the required methods. The dummy is usually a couple of life jackets stuffed into a dungaree uniform and stiched together with a canvas needle, at least on our ship it was. The dummy also always had a name, but for the life of me I can't recall it right now, so I'll use my best guess - Oscar.

We had conducted multiple drills during this particular afternoon, the first one being a surprise and a total "flapex" with the bosuns unable to launch the ready lifeboat properly, the helmsman and Officer Of the Deck conspiring to almost run the ship right over the top of Oscar, and then the boathook, a position on the boat, almost fell in trying to drag Oscar out of the water by himself, tearing his shoulder in the process, and necessitating a return to the ship for medical attention without recovering Oscar.

The captain decided that we needed a lot of practice, so we put everything back in place and proceeded to do the drill over and over again.

Of course all the gunner's mates had to do during each drill was pass out Garands, BARs, and the machine gun , load them up, stand shark watch, and put them all away when done, which was much more complicated and stressful than it sounds (pop a clip out of a Garand sometime, and then try to reinsert the single round back into the clip.)

We had this Second Class GM who redefined "deck ape" even if he was a gunner. This guy had the longest arms mounted on an average height body, and he looked kind of like an Orangutan. I once saw him load both 5" guns in a twin mount at the same time palming both 60 pound projectiles - needless to say he was pretty strong too. The name he went by would not qualify under the ten year old daughter rule, so I will just call him Antlers. He hailed from southwest Pennsylvania and had grown up shooting and was a crack shot with every gun I ever saw him shoot.

Antlers was assigned to the bridge for shark watch and was chatting up the captain as we started the last drill for the day, and kind of bugging him to turn the gunners loose for some small arms practice. The dummy was floating off the starboard side, waiting on the boat launch and such, and the captain turned to Antlers and said "Antlers, there is a bunch of sharks circling Oscar, what are you going to do? You have permission to fire."

Antlers raised his Garand over the bridge rail, which was a little over shoulder height to him, and without really aiming, emptied an entire clip from his Garand into Oscar. As the dummy sank slowly into the Mediterranean, the captain turned with a shocked expression and said "Antlers, what on earth did you do that for?" and Antlers responded "Well, cap'n, I could see that nobody was going to get to poor Oscar before the sharks got him, so I just put him out of his misery, sir!"

We never even tried to recover the dummy that time.

[shaggydog]

You, Sir, may well be the "LawDog" equivalent of the seas.

Good stuff.

[Kerbouchard]

Antler was a better shot than the guys we had on cvn68...They used to throw crates and stuff overboard for the guys to 'target practice' with. I went up and watched a few times(I was mostly stuck in the Eng Room) and I swear, the safest place to be would have to of been sitting on those crates.

[DoubleJ]

You, Sir, may well be the "LawDog" equivalent of the seas.

Good stuff.

well put.

[AEA]

OSCAR is indeed correct Sir!

[jimlongley]

Antler was a better shot than the guys we had on cvn68...

The Nimitz.

Antler was truly one of those natural shots that didn't seem to have to use the sights. Those shots he fired at Oscar that time were from a Garand held pretty much over his head, and he hit Oscar enough times to sink it, rapid fire.

I also witnessed him firing a 1911 .45ACP upside down with his pinky and scoring quite well.

OSCAR is indeed correct Sir!

Thanks, I thought so, but that was 40 years ago.

[Liko81]

* wipes off spewed coffee from monitor *

[tboesche]

If I recall from my Navy days, The dummy was called Oscar because during a man overboard, drill or real, the signalmen always raised a a signal flag called the Oscar flag.

When i was on Ike, we used a huge inflatable red ball to qual on the .50's. Bouncin tracers off of the water at night was purdy cool too.

[jimlongley]

If I recall from my Navy days, The dummy was called Oscar because during a man overboard, drill or real, the signalmen always raised a a signal flag called the Oscar flag.

When i was on Ike, we used a huge inflatable red ball to qual on the .50's. Bouncin tracers off of the water at night was purdy cool too.

I had the pleasure of bouncing five inch tracer rounds off the water during a night shoot - also cool.

Reminds me of a night shoot story, actually more than one.