Commander, Seventh Fleet directed by priority message that the Enterprise should proceed, at best possible speed, to arrive in Subic on 21 May, offload all dud and battle-damaged aircraft, and get underway at 1800 that same afternoon to recover a dozen or so replacement aircraft that would fly out from the Naval Air Station at Cubi Point to land onboard that night. Nothing was said about liberty.
As the Enterprise entered Subic Bay at first light on Saturday, 21 May, the weather conditions were ideal, with a clear sky and a light breeze. The tugs were waiting so the ship was able to make up to Alava Pier at 0630. As I stood on the starboard wing of the bridge watching the crew send over the heavy mooring lines to the pier, the XO, Capt. Sam Linder, joined me.
Sam, a fine officer who had stood close to the top of his class at the Naval Academy, had relieved Capt. Pete Peterson as XO three months earlier. Sam had gone through flight training before getting his master’s and doctoral degrees in nuclear physics at the California Institute of Technology. He had been selected by Admiral Rickover for the nuclear program and been ordered as XO of the Enterprise. He had been selected for promotion a year early for captain, before his arrival on board the carrier. In addition to his being a doctor of nuclear physics, Sam was a fine naval officer who served his captain well and dealt harmoniously with the crew.
After lamenting the fickleness of fate that had deprived the crew of their five days of hard-earned R&R, Sam, ever the conscientious executive officer, proposed to me that officers be permitted to go ashore for lunch and the chief petty officers be allowed to do the same. Also, perhaps some especially deserving first-class crewmembers could go ashore for an hour or so to the PX. Because of our 1800 departure that night, nobody else would be permitted off the ship.
But I thought this through and said, “I think we should grant liberty to half the crew, sections 2 and 4, to commence at nine this morning and to expire at 5 o’clock this afternoon. We will keep sections 1 and 3 on board as the duty sections.”
Like any solid, responsible XO, Sam stepped back a pace, obviously aghast, and said, “Captain, you’re joking. Sections 2 and 4 are half the crew, three thousand men. We can’t keep them from drinking once they are ashore, and we’re bound to have some drunks and probably a number will miss the ship’s sailing.”
My rejoinder was, “You’re absolutely right, Sam. That’s why we’re sending them ashore. They deserve to tie one on. They have been working their tails off and we owe it to this crew to give them every break when we can. Frankly, I trust these guys. I think that we can run this liberty in a way so that half the crew can have a real liberty and we’ll still get the ship underway without any trouble.” I recalled that when the Enterprise went through shakedown training in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the fleet training group insisted that we conduct an exercise that required the Enterprise to get underway with only two sections of the crew on board. This was to simulate a situation in which there was either a disaster at the naval base or a nuclear accident on the carrier during normal liberty hours that would require the carrier to be moved for the safety of either the base or the ship itself. The hard part was to have enough qualified reactor operators and engineers to run the propulsion plant safely while getting underway. At the time I thought this was a ridiculous drill and questioned whether we should actually try to get the carrier underway with only two duty sections. But it was a drill we had to perform in order to complete our shakedown training, and it turned out to be not that difficult. Now, with almost a year of fleet operations under our belt, the Enterprise crew was even more competent. I was confident that the engineering and reactor departments had enough trained and qualified people to handle all of the supervisory tasks in the nuclear operation.
Next I outlined my ideas on how the ship would handle the liberty. Sections 2 and 4 would go ashore for normal liberty, which would expire at 5:00 PM. This meant they could go do their shopping or sports on the Subic base or they could head for Olongapo to the bars and hot spots that would be open and ready for them — they operated on a twenty-four-hour basis. There would be sufficient members of the master-at-arms’ force to meet the liberty party as they came on board, and sufficient numbers to make sure all of them went directly to their compartments. There they could shower, put on their clean skivvies (underwear; the sailors’ pajamas) and get in their bunks and turn in. But no member of Sections 2 or 4 would be allowed out of their compartments until midnight, when they would be scheduled for their first underway watch. The sailors would have eight hours to rest or sleep it off and a big aluminum tray of midrats (midnight rations) under their belt to start off their new day. I called over the boatswain’s mate of the watch and said, “Boats, I want you to pass the word to all hands, that liberty for sections 2 and 4 will commence at 0900 and will expire onboard at 1700 this afternoon.”
“Boats,” a first-class with twenty years of service, just stood there, bewildered. I repeated my instructions and made it clear that I fully intended that liberty be granted as had been indicated. Boats saluted, went over to the general announcing system microphone on the bridge, punched the “all hands” button, pushed the actuating lever down, blew his boatswain’s call, and piped, “All hands.”
Then he said in that raspy voice that all boatswain mates eventually develop, “Now hear this. Now hear this. Liberty will commence for sections 2 and 4, to commence at 0900 and to expire onboard at 1700 this afternoon.” Then Boats said, “I repeat” and growled out his message again. The microphone lever snapped up, and for about five seconds there was absolute silence about the ship. The normal noises of klaxons blowing, hammers banging, and gangways creaking as the ship rigged its inport facilities were absent.
Then suddenly there was a tremendous cheer as the sailors realized that half of the crew would have liberty ashore, which was more than any of them had planned or even hoped for. The reaction of the men in sections 1 and 3, those who would stay onboard with the duty, was interesting. To their enormous credit, and probably characteristic of this crew, there were no complaints. They were just pleased for their shipmates who were getting to get off this iron lady even for just eight hours.
At 1630 Sam Linder and I took station on the starboard wing of the bridge overhanging the Alava pier and looked down the road toward the main gate. There wasn’t a sailor in sight. Our liberty party had gone ashore in their whites with round hats and black neckerchiefs looking like a million bucks. They would be easily spotted among the numbers of base sailors and working parties, who were in their blue dungarees. At about 1645, one of the to-be-expected tropical cloudbursts occurred, a tremendous downpour that drenched the entire base.
Then in the rain they came in a crowd, filling up the entire road from curb to curb as they headed toward the ship at a fast walk. By ten minutes to five the liberty party had reached the brows and were pouring across the gangways to the ship. At two minutes before five, the last dozen arrived on the backs of their comrades, semiconscious or unconscious, but on time. They looked awful. Their once-spotless white uniforms were drenched with rain and soiled with mud. The only thing wonderful to see was the smiles on their faces.