And also from Andy Anderson.


TYPHOON -
As Prok said, we must have enjoyed this storm as we were in it so long, five days per my count. In October 1964 the Segundo was in transit from Subic Bay P.I. to Hong Kong when we got caught in the middle of a major typhoon. As the storm grew in intensity the lookouts and the officer of the deck were harnessed in so they wouldn't wash overboard. The Captain abandoned our course to Hong Kong and put the bow of the submarine in the direction of the waves which we estimated to be twenty to thirty feet. For the first couple of days we were getting hammered big time. I had a bottom rack in the after battery, the boat took a big roll and one of the guys sleeping above me came out of his rack and hit the deck. Fortunately his mattress came out also and he landed on it rather than the hard deck. I would wedge my shoulders into the bottom of the bunk above me to keep from being tossed out. Up in the conning tower we were taking water down the hatch and I had heard that electronic equipment in the control room below was shorted out. I remember while on watch in the conn, going up to the bridge. The conditions were hard to describe. The wind was blowing over 100 knots and blowing water horizontally in sheets. Exposed parts of the body felt like you were being sandblasted. There was no visibility; you could hardly see the bow of the boat. I think it was during this storm that Lt. Boley was injured on the bridge. The roll of the boat or a wave hitting the bridge, not sure which, bounced him off the TBT. Knocked him unconscious and cut his face and head pretty badly. I remember trying to help get him off the bridge down below where the doc did a masterful job of patching him up. In the conn my friend Skip Freeman manned the radar with his trusty barf can close at hand. It was shortly after Lt. Boley was hurt that the Captain ordered all personnel off the bridge and the conning tower hatch secured. We ran for the next two and a half days with the hatch closed using radar as our eyes and sonar as our ears. Since there were no lookouts on the bridge the periscope was raised to scan the horizon for other ships. I'm not sure how effective that was. When I was on the scope the roll of the boat made it almost impossible to stay focused on the horizon. I found myself either looking down into the trough or up at the sky. I constantly adjusted the elevation controls on the scope in an attempt to find the horizon. On some of the rolls I would lose my footing and with arms draped over the periscope handles I would be spun around 180 degrees from port to starboard or vis-a-versa. In any event it was better with the conning tower hatch closed. We were bouncing off of bulkheads but didn't have to deal with the water coming in. We limped into Hong Kong beaten up pretty good but not broken. It was after that storm that I started smoking to calm my young nerves.