USS MILLER FF-1091
Reconnect with Shipmates
Photo of the Miller 1973,
Chesapeake Bay
do you remember waiting for the chow line to open and what we did
moooo baaa oink whiney crow and thenBlues Brothers - Rawhide.mp3
Larry gets lubed or the fricking aft steering incident wow
After steering was my area of responsibility while in A-gang; there was a
persistent oil drip coming off a fitting I thought would go away with a little wrench applied to it. Brian would be working in the reefer decks
on the other side of the bulkhead as we headed off to work that day. I dogged down the hatches and set my crescent wrench to the nut at
the bottom of a filter on the hydraulic steering system. This filter cleaned the hydraulic oil right after a big storage tank, which was cross connected to two or three other storage tanks in a redundant counter-failure method of piping the oil.
So, no sooner did I apply my wrench to this nut and begin to turn when it dropped off into my hand along with the whole filter and oil began to glug-glug-glug empty out of the tank. Which was cross connected to that one. And then that one back there. I tried to screw the shaft back in but it would not work.
Oil was fucking everywhere, accumulating on the deck and all over me. I freaked and got on the growler, called Brian for help…hoping he’d hear me over the racket of the compressors over there. I heard him answer, I hollered something a lot like help quick oil fucking everywhere or something like that. Then hung up and went back to trying to get this thing back together and stop the glug glug glug of oil. The shut off valves had a plate across them and no handles, so the oil could not accidently be shut off.
Shortly there after the pounding of footsteps overhead and the dogs popping on the hatch brought people to the rescue…“Holy shit!”…I remember EM1 Claude Wheeling taking a wrench and just bending the shit out of those plates over the valves and shutting it all off. Then I had to clean it up while the chiefs had to look into what happened. Thought my ass was grass for putting the steering gear OOC until they found that heli-coil on the shaft and the damage done by the shipyard.
Needless to say it was a day or two to soak up the oil with a sponge, squeeze it out into a bucket, carry it up a ladder to Aux 1, dump into waste oil tank, and go back to do it again. There was a whole lot of oil. And when it was down to just an oily film I had to use some kind of solvent trichloromethylethelyne or some shit wow it was powerful in that small space. I remember getting volunteers to help at that point…
A sea story from Ronald Cook did not happen on Miller, however it is good
Collision
USS Moosbrugger (DD-980)
VS
USS W.S. Sims (FF-1059)
I was a deck BMSN, serving on the USS Moosbrugger (DD-980) while undergoing ref-trai in Gitmo Cuba November 1985. It was a clear warm day. We were to conduct a towing and being towed evaluated exercise with the USS John Rodgers (DD-983).
( I know I said W.S. Sims in the subject line but bear with me. )
We got hooked up to tow the John Rodgers when somehow our towing hawser got fouled up in our screws. It almost parted when the screws were finally stopped. We had to drop a diver down to cut the hawser from the prop shaft and screws. What was brought up was one very big tight knot. Well, we later borowed an extra towing hawser from the John Rodgers and were to try again with the exercise with the USS W.S. Sims (FF-1059).
We hooked up and towed the Simms without incident. After we broke rig, the Simms was to hook up and tow us. Well, I was on the forcastle as the Simms was making her approach to our port side. The shot-line was fired and hit our bull-nose. I was in the first steps to run forward to retrieve the line when all hell broke loose, my Div-0 who was wearing the sound powers phones to the bridge suddenly yelled, "Brace for impact!!".
I stopped, looked to port and saw that the Sims was very close, too close. I knelt down next to the stbd forward virtrep hatch watching what was going on. The OOD on the Simms' stbd bridgewing threw up his binocs yelling "Impact!!!" and scrambled up the bulkhead to their forward lookout station, just as their collision alarm went off. I swear to God, he climed up and ran away, their OOD! I saw their Skipper, just standing there with his mouth hanging open but no sound was coming forth. Our collision alarm sounded and I saw the Simms' stbd bridgwing make contact with my port side forcastle, snapping out steel liferails like dried twigs. All Simms' personnel on their forcastle ran aft as they were looking up at our "980" hull numbers. Metal was flying, people was yelling, our Skipper had to take the Deck and Conn and ordered us into full reverse and a hard left rudder. My Div-0 who was for warned not to wear the phones' neck strap for the evolution but ignored the warning because ( he knew better, he went to collage) was running still wearing the phones and involuntarily doing an impression of a dog that ran out of leash, can you say, "YIPE!"?
He ran for good reason though, because the Simms' bridgwing was tearing up life rails heading straight for him. After all was said and done we had a new nick name for him, Scappy-Doo. Well, we was a young Ensign who aged some that day. Anyway, We ended up with one of the Simms' lifeboat barrels landing on our deck and it chased one of our third classes aft. A few people managed to stop, get control of it and for some reason, decided to throw it overboard. As it went over our Skipper yelled, "No, Don't...." but it was too late. We retrieved one that was found inflated and floating upside down. Also for some reason, we retrieved it using grapnel hooks, punching holes into it in the process. Damage consisted of a long horizontal dent-crease on our port bow just aft of the hull numbers, that remained until 1995. The life rails were gone from aft of line two area up near to line one area on the port side. I walked the decks of the Simms that evening and saw the damage to the Simms, which was worse. All bridgwing supports and deck drain pipes were gone, all life lines down the 02 level stbd side from bridgwing to just aft of their motor whale boat were gone, the stbd lifeboat barrels were mostly gone and the supports were either gone or bent pointing aft, the motor whale boat davits were damaged and the boat itself was cracked and part of the superstructure was caved in.
I later learned that their Skipper had a nickname also, " Captain Crunch"
Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.
GQ zebra was set in under 3 minutes.
Now there was some funny and scary stuff at the same time.
Ron
From Rocky R
From Ron Cook(superboats)
Heres a funny but true story.Did I ever mention about how I met my Skipper on my first ship? I was working on deck of the USS Moosbrugger, chipping paint from the underside of a life raft stowage ledge. I decided to try something new. I noticed a counter measure washdown pipe that ran just under the ledge and grabbed it and flipped myself over and wedged my feet. So now I was in a crouched position upside down, chipping paint. Soon, the Skipper was approaching and someone called "Attention on deck!" So I "stood" upside down with my hat still on my head, saluting the Skipper. I even said "Good morning Sir!" He took a double take, had a strange look on his face and turned and went back the other way as if to say " NO, I don't see you." It would appear that I was breaking the law of gravity. Well, I never studied law.
I thought that this true story might make you laugh a little.
Ron
A visit to Portugal
From Larry Goldfarb his story his picture.
July, 1976. Bicentennial celebration. The MILLER was completing a Med deployment with a stop over in Portugal. Local Portugese folk were encouraged to come and host MILLER sailors for a visit and I signed up to be hosted. Dressed in blues, I reported to the Quarterdeck along with the kid in this picture (can't remember his name) and were driven off by a couple with a small child into the Portugal countryside.
These people did not speak english and we knew no Portugese, but somehow we communicated as we were feted and fed, shown off to their friends then bundled back into their car, where we were driven who knows where. But it took a long time getting there; as we drove deeper and deeper into the countryside, we looked out the windows and wondered where the heck we were going. We were driving for over an hour and it was getting late, and it dawned upon us that we weren't going to make it back to the ship tonight. Eventually, in the dark, we arrived at a farmhouse and were shown inside. This kid and I somehow got across to these kind people that we needed to be back at the ship by morning. It took some gesturing and what not until it finally dawned on them what we were saying. Oh no, they said, we are so far away.
I don't know how we happened to have the phone number for the ship but we were able to call and explain our situation. Nobody had told these folks the ground rules about getting us back. I think they planned on keeping us for the weekend to work the farm. Or worse. As you can see in the picture, the little girl was overjoyed to meet her intended husband, while my shipmate was a little unsure about the translation of what he thinks he just heard.
We slept a bit uncomfortably until dawn when we got back in their car and they somewhat reluctantly drove us back all teh way to the port where to our great relief the MILLER sat tied to the pier; what a good feeling to be back "home".
I took the pic...it was at that farm when we woke up in the morning before we had to drive back to the ship. Honestly we were way out in the middle of Portugal, they had to drive like two hours to get us back...I can't remember the kid's name in the picture...we were called to the quarterdeck and told to go with these people, they took off with us....you can probably ID him from our last cruise book...
that picture of the kid and the little girl brought it all back to me...true situation...
can you imagine them letting people take sailors home with them today? I don't think anybody on the ship had any clue as to where we were or who we were with...I came back that morning and had the duty...turned out I was assigned as driver to a bunch of Career men going to a bicentennial party held by the French Consulate, so I got to come along and afterward s drove them to some Hot nite spot for more partying...I couldn't drink as I was driver, but they all did...
Tom McDade Memories
WOLFMAN JACK Might have been the seventy-five Med Cruise or the one the year after that Wolfman Jack courtesy of Armed Forces Radio boomed through the Miller FF1091 and seemed as much a part of the crew as Linda Ronstadt who sang plenty of “Desperado” and Glen Campbell whose “Rhinestone Cowboy” aired a lot more than many thought necessary especially some Black sailors I served with in Supply who longed for Soul. That was a long time ago but when I hear those tunes today on oldies radio I do momentarily think of cowpokes before recalling my fast frigate days and shipmates still in my life and ones I’ll never see again. And in some kind casket locker of my mind, long dead Wolfman Jack deejays on and sometimes I obey my direct order to crank up the volume to provide some daydream peace and quiet. T. M. McDade
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My orders said USS Miller DE-1091 but when I reported for duty, poof, it had turned into a Fast Frigate. It wasn’t the fore and aft crew’s lounges the bunk curtains the single screw or the ASROC that prompted the change. It was just too damned big to be an Escort anymore. No ceremony or shipyard visit advanced it up the alphabet. Typewriter, mimeograph, printing press and word of mouth worked just fine. “Fast Frigate” sure beat “Destroyer Escort” for creative cursing and it did conjure up those days of wooden ships and iron men sailors were always joking about especially when we were breaking away from a tanker or some other replenishment ship – Miller Beer Flag hoisted and “Dueling Banjos” blasting loud enough to shiver the timbers of any anonymous wrecks below. T. M. McDade |
Ron Cook (Superboats)
There was one time during my time on the Miller, I was BMOW for the first watch after getting underway from Newport. Noon was approaching and nobody brought up the bell from the quarterdeck. I sent BM3 Cushing down to get it but he wasn't going to make it back to the bridge in time. I told the OOD about the situation but he insisted that 8 bells to be rung on time reguardless. So I was forced to "improvise" I picked up the 1MC and verbally announced "Ding ding, ding ding, ding ding, ding ding".
Immediatly the growler went off with a howl and I knew who it was before I answered it, BMC Schaffer.
"Boats!, What the hell was that!?!" he yelled from Chief's mess. I tried to explain what happened but he would have none of it. "I want to see you when you get off watch!!!" he yelled. He didn't wait that long, he came up to the bridge. He told me that he was just sitting down to lunch in the CPO's mess with the other Chiefs when I came on the 1MC with my "dings" and all other conversations halted and the other Chiefs looked at him in unison. He said that he wanted to "Crawl under the table right then". He wasn't really mad though, that was just a pretense to keep face with the other Chiefs, instead we laughed about it.
After my watch was over, I got a standing ovation on the messdecks and someone mentions that I should get a "no-bell " prize. LOL
You can post this on the site if you want to.
Ron Cook ( Superboats)
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