We returned to Pearl Harbor after an agonizingly cold three month's in the Aleutians but our relief ship blew a main engine and we were "volunteered" to go back for another three month stint.  We were not happy campers.  After having spent a scant couple of weeks in Hawaii we prepared for the trek north but this time they loaded our ship with some mighty strange gear, as evidenced by this photo of Lipan's fantail.  The mission was highly secretive (at the time) and ultimately involved the detonation of a nuclear device on the Aleutian Island of Amchitka.  Circa 1969.
We were to work with the Atomic Energy Commission in testing an underground nuclear explosion on the remote island.  We were told the test was a demonstration of the abilities of nuclear devices in the use of excavations.  It was all a ruse cover story and I didn't learn the true reason for the test until I looked around the Internet years later.  Its now information in the public domain.  Our task was to visit all the surrounding islands and setup monitoring equipment with the AEC science-types guys embarked aboard Lipan.  One of the islands we visited was Great Sitkin, shown in the photo.  Many of these islands had large volcanic mountain peaks and almost all were uninhabited.  Few have tread there.
The Soviets knew something was going on and we were tailed by the "Tajm" everyplace we went.  It was U.S. Territorial waters and they had to stay beyond the borders so we did our work on the opposite side of the island so they couldn't see what we did.  Actually we were closer to The Soviet Union than the mainland United States.  This was Russia's backyard and they were very interested in what was going down.   Circa 1969.
Me and my shadow.  The Soviet Intelligence ship was always there.  When we'd disappear behind an island and conduct our mission there, sometimes we'd try to sneak out the other side, but the Trawler always seemed to know where we were.  Quite different from our Vietnam mission where the Soviet Intelligence ships were the focus of our attention.  Now we ignored them.
We also had some guys from The Fish & Wildlife Department and they were to monitor the effects of the nuclear blast on the local wildlife.  Here they've penned some sea otters so they can conduct tests after the explosion.  The Otters were everywhere in the Aleutians.  They'd dive to the ocean floor and grab a rock and a shellfish and return to the surface and float on their back and use the rock like a hammer to open their catch.  You'd hear them day and night, "clack, clack, clack, clack" as they hammered away.  They'd eat their prey, discard the empty shell, and dive down and grab another morsel until their bellies were full.  Circa 1969.
An otter in the harbor at Adak.  He's just lazily laying on his back and banging away at a shellfish.  What a country.  Circa 1969.
Ben Siebels EM1 feeds the entire crew with his fishing skills.  Ben caught two huge halibut and the embarked Fish & Game guys were excited when he hauled them aboard.   They carved into the fish heads and removed a disc-shaped bone that had rings on it, like a slab of a tree trunk and calculated that one fish was over forty years old, which means it was born in the 1920's.  They didn't taste that old.
Spring was springing and the temps were getting milder and it was good to take a break.  I was the only Boatswainmate on Lipan and I was running flat-out.  When I boarded Lipan in 1966 as an E2, I was one of fifteen deck hands and there were four Boatswainmates (Williams BM3, Keyes BM2, Jones BM1, and Franklin BMC).   Now I had just a half dozen deck hands and me, a BM2 with less than 4 years in.  I had to run the Deck Division, the boom, the anchor windlass, the LCVP . . . everything.  It was frantic at times but I was a "short'timer" and my 4 years were up at year's end and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I think this photo belongs to Doug Hadland FN, who is seated on the engine cover of the LCVP on the right.   That's Paul Silman SM2 on the left and that's me with my back to the camera driving the LCVP.  Looks like Trepanier SF3 up at the bow, facing aft, between Silman and me.  It was a big boat.  The snow cat and the sled are aboard as well, along with a dozen or more line handlers and AEC guys.  We'd make the landing, drop the bow door, and a bunch of sailors would hop out with anti-broaching lines to try to stop the surf from knocking us sideways.
Always foggy, we got some aluminum foil from the cook and rigged a big ball antenna on the LCVP so that Lipan's radar could see us and direct us via walkie-talkie's.  I drove the 50' LCVP and made a half dozen or more landings on scattered islands.  We'd wait on the beach, or linger offshore, while the AEC guys drove a snowcat up the mountain and setup their equipment and then returned and we'd pick them up and take them back to Lipan to unload the cat and its sled.  Sometimes I'd drive the LCVP to the next island if it was nearby, sometimes we'd tow the LCVP.  It got to be routine after a while but then we came to the Island of Semisopochnoi and a series of events would change things dramatically.
That's Bob Stradford SN with our Russian friend.  The island in the background is Semisopochnoi and it came to a beautiful symmetrical volcanic peak, like Mount Fuji in Japan.  It also had some fierce surf and our landing zone was treacherous.   After consultation with the skipper, it was decided that Bosun Ray will attempt the landing himself, rather than shoulder me with the burden.  The waves proved to be too much for us and we broached, turning sideways, and then tipped on edge and all 18 of us got tossed into the drink.  It was a mess.  Everybody was shooken up pretty badly and one SN (Danny Weymouth I think?) broke his arm.  But things would go from bad to worse.
We're stuck on Semisopochnoi.  We're soaked.  We're cold.  I had a laced-up boondocker boot ripped off my foot somehow.  Others lost similar items.  The LCVP has righted itself but it is filled with sand and the surf keeps dumping more water and sand into it.  The AEC guys tried to use the snowcat to save the LCVP but it got swamped eventually too.  Amazingly our two-way radio still worked and more amazingly through it we were told of a possible approaching tsunami, generated by an Earthquake in Japan.  We were told to climb the mountain quickly as Lipan somehow got its anchor hauled in by the messcooks and got underway, leaving us.   We climbed through the thick Tundra and sat for hours.
Lipan returned after a few hours and they arranged for a civilian helicopter to rescue us from the island.  A ship's diver had attempted to reach us with a line from the ship, and did, but nearly drowned in the surf.  They tried to pull us off in a rubber raft and repeated attempts just ended up tossing us back in the water.  The helo took us to a civilian ship where we got fresh clothing and Lipan picked us up.  It was an adventure for sure.  This photo, showing my head in the LCVP, belongs to Ben Siebels, fisherman extraordinaire.   Circa 1969.
Somehow Ben Siebels also got this photo of the LCVP when we returned to try to salvage it.  That's  Bosun Ray looking over his shoulder and re-assessing things.  I'm sure he's thought about it a thousand times since then.  The surf had subsided.  The boat was hopelessly filled with tons of sand and water.  The snowcat was underwater.   We had completed much of the mission and the remaining monitoring stations would not get setup.  The LCVP may very well still be there, in part . . . along with the snowcat  . . . and my boondocker.
The AEC threw a party for us.  L to R is one of the AEC guys, Denver Gates, I think Chuck Mayne?, me showing my affection for the Bosun , and good ole Bosun Marcus Ray.  That looks like "Bean" Fuentes GM3 with his back to the camera.   We returned to Pearl.  The AEC detonated the nuclear device and I was discharged shortly thereafter.  It wasn't until years later and the development of the Internet that I found out the truth about why this entire nuclear project was setup, why the Soviets were so curious, and an interesting side story about Greenpeace.
One supposed actual reason that the tests were conducted on Amchitka was because it was so close to the Soviet Union and its undergound nuclear test site.   The U.S. needed to calibrate our listening devices and therefore exploded three increasingly larger nuclear devices on Amchitka and monitored the response that the devices received and that allowed us to better listen to the Soviets and see if they violated treaties.  We now knew what certain explosions sounded and looked like.  Our test was the 2nd of the three and was codenamed Milrow.  A bunch of folks protested near the island on the 3rd test (Cannikan) and tried to stop the tests and they banded together to become  . . . Greenpeace.      That's me in the photo on the left.
If you want to poke around the web, go to Google and type "Milrow" and you'll get hundreds of articles about the situation.  Type "Amchitka" and you get other perspectives.  Our test was 1.2 megatons and it "turned the surrounding sea to froth" and "forced geysers of mud and water from local streams and lakes 50 feet in the air".  The 3rd test was even larger and blew a hole in the bottom of the island, where radiation will leak for quite some time.  Greenpeace's website has some extensive information about tests of Amchitka.   That's me in the photo to the left, looking for land.
Degunia SA sweeping on the port side.  We had a springlay wire at the ready whenever we'd tie up at a place with high winds and rough waters.  This climate called for a lot of special considerations and everybody, from engineering to ops, had their problems.
Rust was the color of the day.  In a land filled with hues of black and white it was prominent.  And it was too cold to do anything about it even we had the time.  Lipan took a pounding after six months of Alaska.
A beautiful "honey" seal swims in the harbor.
Chief Ventenilla our Interior Communications head.  I forget his first name but he was an E6  when he boarded Lipan and then made E7 and shifted his gear to the Chief's Quarters.  Circa 1969
SN Tim Warden (or was it Worden?).  A big strong kid who came aboard during my last six months.  Everybody posed with the Soviet Inteeligence ship.  Circa 1969
May it forever wave.  Adak Harbor circa 1969.

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