March 2005
                                       EARLY HISTORY OF THE USS CAPE MSI 2

By: James Nesbitt EM3

The following is the way I remember the USS Cape MSI 2 over 46 years ago, back in 1959. I am a Plank Owner of the Cape, and did serve there for almost 2 years. Some of the details were derived from a package of documents that I recently found in my attic. Ensign Miller contributed some items.

From Bellingham to Long Beach

In January of 1959 my friend George Heitman FN and myself a SA were transferred from the USS Leader MSO 490 in Long Beach California to the USS Cape which was being built in a fishing boat shipyard in Bellingham Washington.

Upon arriving in Bellingham, we were informed that we would be living in a hotel along with all the other 18 enlisted and 3 officers assigned to the new ship while we waited for the shipyard to finish outfitting the Cape. We were advised to wear civilian clothing for off duty. This did not seem too hard to take. It is my understanding that the rest of the crew was first assembled in SanDiego before leaving for Bellingham.

As I recall, each weekday morning we would report for duty at the shipyard. There may have been a couple of shake down cruises prior to the transfer of the ship from the shipyard to the Navy. Mostly it seems, we would go over plans for the ship, and details of things that I had no clue what anyone was talking about, but made more sense later on. There was a lot of talk about “Bupers” this and “Bupers” that.

On February 21st we packed up all our stuff, left the hotel and went aboard. I’m convinced that the Hotel management was very glad we were leaving… what with late night bowling in the long narrow halls, with real bowling balls, and smashed doors at the far ends of the halls… it was probably best that we left then.

At 0700 Capt. Thorpe, LTJG was on the bridge giving the orders, as we departed Bellingham, bound for Seattle. Capt. Thorpe was doing quite well until we approached pier 91 where we were scheduled to tie up about 1305.

While the ship was moving forward at about 5 to 10 knots, he gave the order to come full reverse. I was at my duty station on the forecastle; that’s when for the first time I heard the forlorn wailing of sirens emanating from somewhere aft… turned out to be the engine room. When the main engines fail, the sirens give warning, seems hardly necessary due to the sudden silence when they stop.

At this point I could hear frantic commands on the bridge a few feet over my head. I also heard the sounds of attempts to restart all 4 engines. Then I noticed that we were closing fast on the stern of some kind of very large ship tied to the pier.

We hit her square… dead-on in the center of the aft mooring rope casting… it shattered. At that point I was reminded of a Disney cartoon, where all the rats are coming out of every orifice on the vessel, to see what the sudden lurch and noise was all about. The Cape was built tough, it sustained minimal damage for as much kinetic energy as was dissipated at that moment.

The problem was clear, the 4 main engines are connected thru a clutch mechanism to the main propeller shaft. It all works well if first you pull the engine console on the bridge to neutral, wait a few seconds for the hydraulic clutch mechanism to disengage, then slowly pull it into reverse to reconnect the clutches and increase engine RPM which begins to slow the ship. Ensign Miller disagrees with me on this point, as to the exact cause of engine failure; and on a couple of other incidents in this report, but I’m sure we can agree to disagree.

From pier 91 we then went to some other shipyard I believe in Lake Union. Why not the original in Bellingham I do not know; we went thru some locks to get into the lake. All this was great as far as I was concerned; far better than the endless dreary exercises we had been doing on the USS Leader.

While at the Lake Union shipyard, the damage to the wood planking on the bow was repaired, as well as the non-magnetic metal sheathing covering the bow area… I believe it was 1/4 inch sheet copper or brass. This shipyard was rat infested, and the watch became very lively one night, what with him trying to kill the little monsters with CO2 fire extinguishers… this may be part dream, or conjecture…. I believe the watch fired off a couple of rounds from his 45 to keep the little guys at bay… this was not taken lightly, but since rats would not be good on the Cape I seem to remember it blowing over soon.

One day we were scheduled to leave this shipyard, at 1300 hrs… not a second later. At 1230 we all manned our posts, at 1245 the mains were lit off… at 1259 the mooring lines were cast off…. At 1300 Capt. Thorpe gave the command to begin reversing the ship…. Never mind that the worker on the scaffolding on a float at the bow was still welding the metal sheathing plate together. I remember looking over the side watching this guy reaching out still dutifully welding away till his stinger lost its arc as we slowly moved in reverse.

According to my records we departed Seattle on February 27th. The next thing I recall is being off the Oregon coast… close enough to see car lights on Hyw. 101. To say the seas were rough was the grossest understatement. I recall coming up the ladder from the crews quarters to relieve the helm just before midnight. As the ship rose from a trough to the crest of a swell, the acceleration was so rapid that it threw me to the bottom of the ladder. I then timed the rise and fall, and began my assent as the rising was minimizing reaching the top just as the ship came to the trough between swells. I then did the same routine to reach the bridge.

I was astounded to find no one on the bridge… and that huge wooden helm spinning at about 50 rpm, first one direction, then slam… shudder went the entire ship, as the rudder mechanism hit hard against the mechanical stops in the after-steering compartment…. then the other direction… etc.

I looked outside the port door and found someone laying on the deck hanging onto a stanchion, with his head over the side being very sick, with the spray and wind blowing it all back in his face and all over the port side….. he saw me and proclaimed that he didn’t care if he was court maritaled, he could not get up.

At that point I was watching the flailing helm to gauge the best possible/safest time to grab onto it and gain some control, which eventually I did. I could go on about the stories of the navigator taking fixes from car lights on 101, instead of light houses, but unless you were there you would not believe it I’m sure.

I have acute motion sickness and was never so sick as I was on that cruise. The next day I remember going out the port side exit by the engine room entrance to the fantail. I was hanging onto a davit as the ship pitched and yawed with mighty forces following the stormy seas. Folks I’m not making this up, I was so miserably sick that all I could think of was getting off that boat… jumping over the side seemed like a reasonable way to escape this hell on the water. At that moment the cook came out and perhaps figured out what was going on. He coaxed me back inside and possibly is responsible for saving my life.

A few days later we arrived at the outer buoy for the entrance to San Francisco bay. I remember getting to steer the ship under the Golden Gate bridge, however, I may have been relieved just at the moment of going under by someone more senior.

Soon we were approaching Treasure Island where we were scheduled to tie up aft of a buoy tender. You guessed it…. sirens from the engine room again… wham right into the buoy tender. As far as my friend George Heitman FN and myself were concerned this was great; because now we could stay in his home town for a long time while all those repairs to the bow were done again…. we had a great time.

Somehow we got to our final destination of pier 9 at Long Beach California to join up with the Cove.

The USS Cape’s first 2 years at Long Beach

While at Long Beach I transferred from the decks to the engine rooms, becoming FN then finally EM3.

One day we were scheduled to run the degaussing range to test the ship for magnetic presence which would not be good around magnetic mines of course. Somehow I missed ships movement, and was ordered to report to the degaussing range control tower. I watched in amazement as the instruments located an illegal pad lock and someone’s pocket knife giving the exact frame coordinates.

Prior to going to the degaussing range we were off-loading all canned goods. I’m sure there was no malice intended when the green cans of hamburger which had World War 2 dates painted on in yellow numbers… I am positive that it was a pure accident that about 8 cases of this malodorous food stuffs were dropped into the bay; what was particularly disheartening was the fact that they floated; you could see this long line of green cans with yellow stenciling floating slowly away from pier 9. We tried to retrieve them, really we did.

One day the Captain of the Cove was given a request to proceed to Santa Catalina Island to retrieve what was believed to be a beached mine. I don’t know if he was fearing that it may be a live mine and not knowing for sure how to deal with it, or if it was near a weekend and he had other plans; His statement to Capt. Thorpe: “we’ll just leave this little capers to the Cape”. Capt. Thorpe seemed elated, he soon had our enthusiasm going as well; no one cared that it may be a weekend; within a short time we were under way for Santa Catalina. When we arrived it was quickly determined that the mine was only a dummy used for practice, so we loaded it aboard and proceeded to the town for a day of …. well it was a fun day. I’ll say one thing, Capt. Thorpe was not a dull boring guy.

Another significant event was one called “hull structural evaluation”. When I first heard the description I believed it to be a highly engineered diagnostic evaluation of hull integrity, whereby the ship was put into dry dock then various hydraulic rams would bear pressure on strategic coordinates along the hull bottom, deflections noted and entered into a data base, engineers with slide rules calculating ultimate hull strength….. wrong!

A proper hull structural evaluation is done with real explosives not unlike a mine exploding under the hull… how else you gonna know if the hull will do everything the designers and builders put into it?

The way this is done is simple: Head out to sea… for some reason, we went way out to sea. Then you call on the radio giving your location; next you see a large ocean-going tug coming over the horizon towards you, next the tug is along side. At this point the captains exchange some rhetoric, the tested ship maintains speed and course, the tug increases speed till he is a long ways away, at that point the tug slows down, as a raft with a flag on it is towed about 25ft. off the port side. The raft has a large exposive tethered about 30 feet beneath it. As the raft is pacing us, all hands are called up on deck; with full battle gear, life jackets, hard hats etc. We are instructed to stand on deck, away from hatches and with our knees slightly bent.

When the captain was happy all was ready, the tug was radioed to fire the charge. I asked how will we know if we passed ? Never mind sailor, was the reply. A column of water shot up around the raft, destroying it, the Cape suddenly jolted vertically about 2 feet, hatch covers blew off from the tremendous compression of the hull on air tight compartments. “WE PASSED !” I heard… how do we know that so soon I said? “We are still afloat!” was the answer. My knees hit the deck under the rapid vertical acceleration.
The next week was spent tightening every structural bolt on the ship as well as repairs to the hatches etc.

The last significant event involving the USS Cape while I was aboard was when we were dispatched to Santa Barbara for Armed Forces Day. While there; it was mostly still and quiet. Then the bay suddenly emptied of water; then it filled up again within minutes. Capt. Thorpe began to time these events and concluded it best if we rode this thing out at sea. We were headed in, on the wrong side of the dock if you take into account the way a single screw ship backs… it screws into the dock instead of away if you are on the wrong side. In this case we had no choice, the dock was one sided. We moved away from the dock ok using the spring line procedure, then turned towards the sea. The tide came and went one more cycle, and Capt. Thorpe ordered flank speed… never mind the diving flags off to our starboard side… we had no choice if we were to avoid running aground. Capt. Thorpe saved our bacon yet one more time as we made it to the open sea just ahead of the next draining. Keep in mind that Capt. Thorpe was probably not over 22 years old at this point. Ensign Miller says that there was a Chillian earthquake that caused the erratic tides.

A few vignettes and legends that persist:

• As we were doing exercises laying out the minesweeping gear close to HYW. 101 near Long Beach, Boson Mate Arata stating “when I retire, I’m going to be sitting up there in my car drinking something cold and watching you guys work your butts off out here in the blazing sun.

• With my acute tendency towards sea sickness, the early morning fumes of diesel exhaust mixed with spray from the ocean, the drone of the engines filling the air, wearing life jackets and other gear… after a breakfast of pork chops and orange juice… working very hard to stream the sweeping gear. You get the picture, I’m sure.

• In the engine rooms “sound proof” watch station room you would need to cup your hands over your partners ears and yell loud so he could hear you over the 4 mains and a generator roaring.

• The tools they gave us to work with… non-magnetic as was nearly every metal item on board. The material was an expensive phos-bronze as I recall. One day I was doing maintenance on the batteries beneath the floor boards of the main engine room. I accidentally dropped my crescent wrench across the terminals, watching in disbelief as the wrench became a pool of molten metal in like 1 second.

• Boson Mate first class Holloway, got whapped real hard with a cable out there on the fantail one day when something hung up and recoiled… we all thought he was dead; but when he took off his kapok life jacket, foul weather coat, blue jacket and tee shirt all that you could see was the perfect imprint of the left hand lay of the cable that whapped him…. Praise God that is all that happened to him. Left hand lay cable is made special for the Navy so that it has the correct lift tendencies when streamed off the fantail…. Right hand lay on one side, left hand on the other.

• Our Signalman’s daily ritual of getting ready to go “over on the beach”… the overpowering aroma of aftershave and some of his rather earthy comments as he proceeded to make ready his escape for the night.

• The ships radio always tuned to KFWB, and belting out songs like “personality, personality” as only that particular artist could sing it. When the song “just walk on by, wait on the corner” played, it seemed so appropriate for downtown Long Beach.

• A certain electrician who was constantly being ribbed about a lady named Jo Jo who wore a yellow rain coat everywhere, and always showed up wherever the Cape docked, usually arriving before the ship. There were jokes about her following the Cape in an inflatable boat with outboard motor.

This is all that I recall after being aboard the Cape for the first 2 years of its life. I left September 6th 1960 for another assignment.