One Last Wisconsin Story

 During practice trails at Norfolk Harbor on May 6th, 1956, the Battleship USS Wisconsin collided with the destroyer USS Eaton.  The popular story states that during heavy fog a sailor was announced to have been thrown overboard while participating in  practice trails.  The wind had actually caught his hat and blown it off the deck into the water.  The sailor hat was spotted and  the recovery protocol was  established but not followed. All the ships were in a formation, the last boat was to turn around to pick up the man overboard.  There was a higher ranked officer on board the Wisconsin that was showing off to some dignitaries that were on board and gave the command to take a hard turn to the right and he rammed directly into the Eaton.  The bow on the Wisconsin was missing and the Eaton used there anchor chains to keep the 2pieces of their boat together.  They got both ships into the boat yard. They cut the bow off a ship (the USS Kentucky) that was in construction but only 70% completed and welded it onto the Wisconsin bow. The Wisconsin was put back into service 16 days later.  Thus  the ship was unofficially named the WisKy.  The Captain of the ship, the higher ranked officer and the sailor that pushed the button to make the ship turn, were all relieved of their duties.

Today was cleaning, laundry and mouse duty.  We cleaned every square inch of this boat to try and figure out where the little turdknocker is.  He has already gnawed on a rubber hose, 18 rolls of toilet paper and the baggie of chocolate. David took a $30 Uber to the store for more mouse traps.  Game on!!

My what large.....fenders you have.

In the commissary, destroyed toilet paper.

Chewed hose, now that’s a problem!

A huge tanker, huge!

Postcard that tells part of the story I told above.