During the transit from Pearl Harbor to New London, the sonar shack was short handed so I was standing sonar watches (despite the fact that I was striking for radio). It was fascinating to listen to the sealife. Right whales are called "carpenter fish" because they sound like a gang of carpenters framing a house (bonk bonk). Then there were the snapping shrimp. It sounded like 10,000 people snapping thier fingers in a cave.

--Bob Frasier

When I was onboard (May 77-Dec 79), on our first "detergent" patrol out of Guam(bodia), the "A" gangers generated what they called the "Raghat Night Order Book", a counterpart to the Engineer Night Order Book (or ENOB, which spelled backward is BONE, which is what we always got).

At the time the crew was well split between "nukes" and "conners", so when a couple of the nukes tried to make entries on the book, we were rebuked. One of our nukes (can't remember who) created a second green book simply called "The other book". This one took like wildfire, with lots of contributions from everyone, both "nukes" and "conners".

At the time we also had a bunch of inexperienced Diving Officers and we constantly kept "splash" testing our fairwater planes when we came to PD. Our COB used to "reward" this outstanding performance by awarding aviator wings to the Dive and Planes/Helsmen.

Also at that time, the big science fiction show was "Battlestar Galactica". One of our enterprising ELT's named Will Bivens, (who would later retire as an LT LDO NRRO Rep at MINSY) who could draw extremely well, created a comic strip called "Battlestar George Washington". In this strip he tracked the initial approach to PD and subsequent exit out of the solar system of the GW. It's encounter (and destruction) of the starship Enterprise, along with all the other routine (and non routine) stuff that happened during the next three patrols he was onboard. The strip was such a hit (as were the fumbling attempts of our Engineer and MPA in finding the book) that every week the skipper (CDR Droste) would come back aft, review AND sign the book showing his review and give it back to the nukes so we could hide it again. It got to be a big matter of pride in keeping the book away from the brown shirts (except for the CO). When I left in 1979 the book was going very strong and it was in its third volume.

I ran into the GW in 1983 or 84 (just before decom) when she was a tired old lady in New London. I went back aft, and what would you believe was on the M-Div workbench, not one, nor three but TWELVE green logbooks containing the "other book" entries for the last several years. I sure had some fun reading the stories and reliving some of the tribulations we went thru.

I just wonder where those books went to?

--Rod Rodriguez

25 Suggestions for the ex-submariner that misses "the good old days on the boat";

(1) Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can, then run to your kitchen with the garden hose while wearing a scuba mask.

(2) Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Two to three hours after you fall asleep, have your wife whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack".

(3) Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. Shower once a week. Use no more than 2 gallons of water per shower.

(4) Buy a trash compactor and use it once a week. Store garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

(5) Watch only unknown movies with no major stars on TV and then, only at night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then watch a different one.

(6) Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

(7) Put on the headphones from your stereo (don't plug them in). Go and stand in front of your stove. Say (to nobody in particular) "Stove manned and ready". Stand there for 3 or 4 hours. Say (once again to nobody in particular) "Stove secured". Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.

(8) Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or 6 hours before drinking. Never wash any coffee cups.

(9) Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

(10) Check your refrigerator compressor for "sound shorts".

(11) Every so often, yell "Emergency Deep", run into the kitchen, and sweep all pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor. Then, yell at your wife for not having the place "stowed for sea".

(12) Tag out the stearing wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, transmision and cigarette lighter when you change the oil in your car.

(13) Ask for 'permission to enter' whenever you go into the kitchen.

(14) Replace the windshield of your car with a panel full of gauges and widgets. Make your wife stand up thru the sunroof and give you directions on where to drive. Drive thru as many big puddles as possible.

(15) Replace all doors in your house with windows so that you have to step up AND duck to go thru.

(16) Have your kids stand at attention everytime you enter the room and make them state quite loudly, "Attention on Deck" or "Make a Hole".

(17) Repeat back everything anyone says to you, followed by the word "aye".

(18) Use kool aid on all your breakfast cereals for 2 months.

(19) (Optional for Nukes and A-Div) Leave lawnmower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level.

(20) When you spill a beer, rope off the area, turn off the AC, put on a suit made of garbage bags with a zip lock bag tied securely around your head, clean up the beer and then have your wife scrub you down with a hose and a broom.

(21) Rig 700 PSI air to the bottom of all toilets.

(22) Whenever someone enters a room you're cleaning, shout "up and over" at them so they'll go thru the attic to get to the kitchen.

(23) Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.

(24) Tell your kids to "go find me a can of relative bearing grease".

(25) Start every story with "This is no-shit".

--Bob Frasier

After we came out of the yards in 1966, we were on a shakedown cruise for the usual reasons. As I recall, we were on the surface performing some emergency maneuvers. Captain Merritt was on the bridge giving orders. I had the reactor console. I can picture the guys around me but their names escape at the moment. The drill for the test was a propulsion machinery shakedown. We would proceed all ahead flank. Making turns for the best we could do. The order came back "all back emergency". Nukes should remember what that means. We no sooner recovered the system and were making good sternway when "all ahead flank was rung up. We barely began to make headway when "back emergency" was rung up once again. That was all she could take. With temperatures and pressures out of whack and alarms going off everywhere, I finally got a reactor scram from low pressurizer level. The recovery had no sooner started when the Captain called down to maneuvering and told the EOW, "got you bastards that time".

--Richard Jones 

In early 1969 the Gold Crew returned to Holy Loch, Scotland with leaks in several pumps in the reactor compartment. As a result of these leaks, contaminated main coolant water was escaping in small but still dangerous quantities into the compartment.

The Blue Crew worked frantically with tender personnel for three straight weeks attempting to repair the pump seals.

At the appointed time when we were scheduled to leave on patrol, the repairs were not yet completed satisfactorily, so that the pumps were still leaking.

As a result, USS George Washington was unable to sail - becoming, to the best of my knowledge, the first Polaris submarine to miss her patrol commitment. This caused a large uproar in the office of COMSUBLANT. The fallout was so severe that two weeks later, when the repairs were finally completed satisfactorily, we were inspected from stem to stern by none other than Admiral Hyman G. Rickover himself.

As leading yeoman, I was assigned to accompany Adm. Rickover throughout his inspection, noting his every comment on a clipboard.

The Admiral was a man of very short and slight stature - probably standing only about 5' 6" or so. Even so, I had never before or since seen our ship's complement of officers so thoroughly intimidated!

Anyway, we passed Adm. Rickover's inspection and sailed the next day, about two weeks late.

--Jack E. Brown

When I was about 10 years old, my family went on vacation to Hawaii. We were staying at the Ilinai hotel on about the 15th floor. Well, one day I was standing on the patio and I saw a submarine cruising right past the hotel. I ran inside and grabbed a tinfoil pie pan, ran back outside and started "signaling" to the sub. I didn't expect a response but sure enough, withins moments the sub was signaling back to me. I have no idea what they were saying (or for that matter, what I was saying) but I thought it was very cool. I wonder if it had anything to do with my decision to join the submarine service 8 years later. For all I know, that could have been the Georgefish heading out for another patrol.

--Bob Frasier 

I was on G. Washington (gold) in 1962 for the Cuban crisis patrol.

--David Harvey

On my first patrol on the GW, I was one of only four non-rated enlisted men. This meant I had to mess-cook the entire patrol. One of my jobs was to assemble all the cans of food necessary to feed the crew on a particular day. We stored the cartons of food in the torpedo room and the missile compartment. At the beginning of the patrol, the boxes were stacked all the way up to the overhead. It was quite a chore getting a carton of canned food underneath ten other cartons! One day I was getting a little uptight, having looked for one carton of carrots with out finding them. I guess I was kind of cursing out loud when the C.O. walked by. Captain Ordell Smith had a great sense of humor and was a former white hat himself. He shouted out, "Who is making all that noise in there"? I didn't know it was the Captain so I shouted out a couple of choice expressions and was startled when I turned around and saw the C.O. looking at me. He said, "Have you ever been yelled at by a C.O. before"? I said, "No Sir, but have you ever been cursed by a carton of carrots Sir"? He walked away with a big grin on his face as I turned white as a ghost. Yes, I finally found the carton of carrots.

During my second patrol, on one of our scheduled drill days, Captain Smith told me to take off the amphenol connected to the MK 45 torpedo. This immediately caused an alarm. While I was making my escape from the torpedo room, TM1 Walters grabbed me. Now Walters was a big guy and strong as an ox. He just picked me up by my jump suite coller and showed me off like a mother cat holding her kitten. Of course the C.O. saw this along with the entire torpedo room gang and everyone who was quartered up in the torpedo's room hanging gardens area. Everyone had a good laugh and of course I was constantly reminded during the patrol by the guys to keep away from the MK 45 torpedoes.

I was an IC stiker during part of my second patrol. In fact I took the IC exam and was rated by my third patrol. IC1 (SS) Strom was my mentor along with MM1 Gibson. They helped me out a great deal in both, ships qualificastions and IC qualifications, BCP and AEF et.al. One day Lt Charles Williams a transplanted Texan was doing situps near the BCP panel and just to the side of the periscopes. He saw me walking around the area and asked me how I was doing in ships qualifications. I said, "I am doing fine Sir." He then asked me to find the nearest claxton in the Control Room. I said, "yes Sir" and started looking. To my knowledge there was no control room claxton. IC1 (SS) Strom got hold of me and said, "Tuck, we are going to place a claxton right above the area Lt Williams does his situps. After we placed the claxton up there and informed some well chosen crew members the scuttlebutt got to the other offices and C.O. Lt Williams did his situps as usual and he noticed the claxton up on the overhead. I think he assumed it was there all the time because he asked me where it was and I showed it to him. A few weeks later Strom and I took it down. By that time just about everyone but Lt Williams was in on the prank. One day Captain Smith said, "Charley, have you seen the Control room claxton"? Lt Williams looked up and pointed to the overhead and said, "its up....." Well, everyone in the control room started laughing and when the Captain left the area Lt Williams said, "Tuck, I don't get pissed I get even". Lt Willams never did get even with me but we did laugh about it together a couple of patrols later.

--Joel "Tuck" Tuchfeld

A Letter from the USS WASHINGTON (SSBN 598 Blue) 27 July 1968

Dear Mom and Dad,

I'm writing this letter from the crews mess on the G.W. As I scan this thirty by twenty foot area, I see five tables, three of them parallel to each other and the other two perpencicular to the three. These tables have been witness to countless meals, thousands of card games, hundreds of movies and numerous lectures.

On the aft bulkhead a plaque reads: USS GEORGE WASHINGTON Named for the first President of The United States of America Built by General Dynamics Corporation Electric Boat Division, Groton Conn. Authorized 20 January 1958 Keel Laid 1 November 1957 Launched 9 June 1959 Commissioned 30 December 1959

In just nine days, I'll be saying goodbye to this magnificent mass of steel; Its brotherly crew of 115 enlisted men and officers. I have been privileged to have spent four patrols, fully two years of my life with these men and this glorious submersible.

Only submariners who have earned their Silver or Gold Dolphins can understand my feelings at this juncture. Every one of us has worked 12 hour shifts readying the boat for its sojourn. Then on our 60 days at sea, we drill day after day to keep our mines and bodies tuned for action. Each one of our 115 different actions join in a symmetry as smooth as the humming turbine. Each one of my shipmates have formed within me a bond of memories ever lasting.

--Joel "Tuck" Tuchfeld 

I joined the George Washington in 1978 right after an extensive refit in the yards in Vallejo, Calif.. I had spent a few months in Pearl Harbor waiting for my crew (blue) to show up. When they did they were a tired bunch, a long stint in the yards and sea-trials had wore them out. They said that 100 hour work weeks in the yards were normal. When I announced that I was going to ship over STAR the guys in my division looked at me like I had just announced that I was a serial killer! "ARE YOU NUTS" one of them shouted at me, "you don't know what you are talking about!" After much counseling they finally convinced me to at least wait till I went to sea before reenlisting. As it later turned out I didn't reenlist. After the off crew we flew from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to Cape Canaveral, Florida to take the boat from the Goldies. We flew in a "Flying Tigers" cargo plane wearing ear plugs because of the noise. It was a loooong flight, we stopped once in Calif., and once in Oklahoma just to refuel. I was very happy to see Cape Canaveral. I know how Christopher Columbus must have felt the first time he saw the Statue of Liberty! Anyway we got the boat turned over to us so we could go out and shoot a missle. It was pretty non-stimulating. I was sitting next to the tube when the missle launched. It was relatively quite and the boat rocked a little. We heard that we had hit our target which we were pleased about. We needed to get the boat ready to take through the Panama Canal and up to Bremerton so the Captain played a little joke on us to help get us motivated. He announced that we were going to haveat least 3 days ofliberty in Jamaica. Boy was I excited, but I was the only one, the rest of the crew didn't seem to care. I later learned that this was only the Captains way of playing a little joke on the new guys, as he didn't believe in "liberty". Any how we sailed right past Jamica to the Panama Canal and we did have some fun there. We had a barbeque topside and got to go to the front of the line when we got to the locks. It seems that US warships have head of the line privledges. After the locks, we sailed thru the canal and took turns going topside, eating steaks, and burgers. I fished off the back of the boat, didn't catch anything but it was fun just the same. Then someone announced that a Russian ship was going to pass us going the other way. Word got out and soon everyone who wasn't on watch was topside. This was still during the cold war and everyone wanted to see what a Russian looked like. As the Russian ship got closer we could see that most of thier crew was also out to get a look at us! It was a tense moment as the two us us came side by side. No one said a word or moved. The Chief next to me muttered something about having a present for their mothers in the torpedo room. But it was an eerie silence as we looked each other over. The only sound that I can remember hearing were a few tropical birds calling out lazily in the afternoon sun. Then one of the Russian sailors began to wave at us, then one of the guys on our boat began to wave back. Then a few more, then all of us were waving back and forth to each other and smiling and shouting hello and for a few seconds we weren't enemies, but we were all sailors with alot in common, probably doing the same kind of work. Missing our friends, and families, defending our countries. But then as the boats began to part we stopped waving and the smiles left our faces and we became silent again. No one said a word, no one had to because we all realized the same thing at the same time. If we ever met again it might be on the battlefield, and we would do our best to kill each other to defend our families, and our friends, and our country. People on both boats started to move back below and no one talked for a while. The cook went back to grilling steaks. I picked up my fishing pole and cast far off the back of the boat. As my lure hit the shimmering water I looked up and saw a Russian kid about my age looking out across the water from the back of his ship at me. He waved once more then turned to go.

--Bruce Bushing