Frank A. Wood is an author of military trillers and historical fiction. Last Gunship...is his personnel account of experiences in Nam in 1972. Destruction, exhaustion, humor, and terror is shown from someone pulling the trigger and killing on a daily basis. A book for adult historians.
In the face of such tragedies, stories perhaps, are the best memorials we have. In unflinching detail through vivid and poignant language, the author leaves nothing to the imagination.
50 Years Ago Today - Mullinnix Arrives in Trinidad, British West Indies
Excerpt from “The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944” - A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
Steaming at 18 knots the Mullinnix test fired her 40mm saluting batteries at 1315 on 18 August. At 2046 on 19 August the two ships sighted Cape Rojo Light, Puerto Rico bearing 117, distance 27 miles. By the midwatch, the ships were steaming in the Caribbean Sea enroute to Trinidad, British West Indies, arriving at 0857 on 21 August. The ship moored port side to Pier 2, US Naval Operating Base, Trinidad.
It had been since 1959 that Mullinnix and visited this beautiful port city. Time, as the old saying promised, had indeed marched on. Kevin Bostic and Barry Lister had both moved on with their careers and lives. The story of them finding and saving Master Chief Smalls from the voodoo worshipers however, still lived on during bullshit sessions, hot cups of joe, and smokes on the fantail. Chief Smalls had retired and later died. Rumor had it he’d drank himself to death.
FTG2 Howard McGee had been transferred to an oiler with its one and only 5” gun mount. He’d bitch about it the whole time saying the FTGs were born to be on fighting ships not support ships. Though he never said it out loud, the real truth was he was going to miss his old pal Brian Smythe. Truth be known, McGee was scared to death they’d never see each other again.
Brian Smythe was now the 2nd class FTG in Main Battery Plot having been promoted. He didn’t much care and was having trouble deciding whether to make a career out of this shit or not. The Mux just wasn’t the same without his mate McGee. Ah the times they had had. Smythe chuckled out loud, remembering the one-legged woman in Antwerp, Begium. Would he ever again have a friend that he was as close to? Probably not.
To be continued... Woody
50 Years Ago Today - Mullinnix Leaves Norfolk for UNITAS III
On 16 August, only after the shore patrol returned RD3 L. A. “Larry” Morton to the ship, Mullinnix steamed out of Norfolk to participate in UNITAS III - a multi-national anti-submarine warfare exercise and circumnavigation of South America. She would travel more than 18,000 miles during UNITAS III and received thousands of visitors during goodwill ports of call. She couldn’t have headed south without her trusty Radarmen like Morton, nor her steaming companion USS Lester, DE-1022.
The Situation: Somewhere off the coast of South America, the Mullinnix (Rear Admiral John A. Tyree, Jr., USN, Commander of the South Atlantic Force of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, flagship) sonar gear detected the presence of a submarine. A Uruguayan captain was immediately notified and he in turn detailed a Brazilian as well as an Argentine destroyer to form a search and attack unit to seek out the intruder hiding deep below the surface of the ocean. Working smoothly together the two destroyers located the submarine and forced it to the surface.
It was USS Picuda SS-382, the gadfly of Operation Unitas III, a series of combined antisubmarine exercises involving the navies of the United States and the maritime nations of South America.
Designed to stimulate the development of common ASW doctrine and techniques, as well as a unified system of communications, Unitas exercises were designed to link the navies of South America into an able and skilled ASW force capable of immediate action in case of a submarine threat to the sea lanes of the continent.
The product of combined planning, Unitas provided an opportunity for the navies of South America to work with each other, as well as with U.S. ships in the development of increasingly advanced ASW tactics. Though only three years old, Unitas had established itself as the high point of the South American navies’ annual training schedules, and their ships train throughout the year to reach peak effectiveness during the operation.
The outgrowth of limited bi-lateral ASW exercises along the east and west coasts of South America during the spring of 1959, Unitas developed into an annual continent-wide exercise involving as many as four countries at once.
Under the command of Admiral Tyree, the 1962 edition of Unitas included Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru. Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela were also scheduled to participate, but the Cuban crisis would force cancellation of the last phases of the operation.
