50 Years Ago Last Night Mux pulled into a foreign port for the first time!

(Excerpt from “The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944” - A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood)

Diamond Rock Light passed abeam to port, signaling the arrival at US Naval Station, Port of Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies the morning of 26 June.

Her first visit to a foreign port, Port of Spain. The shear spectacle of the U.S. Navies newest man-of-war tied up portside to the antiquated pier, not even leaving room enough to dock a dingy, was inspiring. With the sun boiling overhead the crew could see heat lighting in the distant clouds and smell distance rain. Ignoring the potential weather, three-thousand visitors came on board Mullinnix in three days to explore the ship and meet the crew.

Calypso, a form of topical song that originated in Trinidad, was one of the first popular music traditions from outside North America and Europe to be commercially recorded. For those short periods of time when the crew wasn’t coughing dust at the local watering holes or dancing at these Calypso clubs, they were able to take in the famous “Red House of Parliament” and other historical landmarks.

To be continued...

Cheers,
Woody

50 Years Ago Today - Mux heads home from Gitmo for the first time!

(Excerpt from “The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944” - A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood)

Graduation day, 13 June 1958. Shakedown completed, behind them, never again. “Halle-fuckin’-lujah! Let’s get the fuck out of dodge and haul-ass home!”

With 40,715 gallons NSFO (Navy Special Fuel Oil) safely on board, Mullinnix was underway at 1421 for home – Norfolk, Virginia, in accordance with COMDESLANT Notice 03120, serial 0264, of 17 March 1958. At 1437, the crew gave the Fisherman’s Point Light a collective ‘fuck you’ as they steamed to open water.

The trip home was filled with days of white hot sun that forced heat to rise off the decks, making the horizon look liquid, almost molten, like a painting that was melting. Each evening the sun would set like a molten planet descending into its own smoke. The nights were black, wrinkled in the wind, the Mullinnix bladed by moonlight. She glided through the two and three foot swells like a three dimensional knife through butter. Almost noiseless. The faint whistle of her self-generated 20 knot wind rushing by the ears of the crew, cool to the salt-flecked skin.

Steaming home feels different than other steaming. With water to the horizon in all directions, one would wonder how sailors could tell. They can. An internal compass that all sailors posses alerts the senses that home is forward of the bow and getting closer with each passing minute, with each passing nautical-mile, with each watch stood.

To be continued...

Cheers,
Woody