Three Years & Two Days by Morgan Evans [USCG LSA]

Three Years & Two Days

by Morgan Evans

HAVE YOU WASHED YOUR RADIO TODAY?

On this summer day I had been to Gay Head LB Station on the 63 ft crash boat to work on their picket boat radio. I couldn't find the radio trouble so I brought it back the radio shop to work on.

After we had tied up at Woods Hole. I started to pick up the radio to take ashore when my friend "Crusher" a BM!C grabbed it and said he would take it for me. I told him to please be careful. You had to know my reason for saying this. "Crusher" was a great fellow but he tended to be clumsy and didn't swim too well. As he went to step on the pier the boat swung away and he went in the "drink". I jumped down on the "camel" because I knew he would be in trouble and needed help. About that time the radio came out of the water with a hand attached. I grabbed his wrist and helped pull him up. He was sputtering and said "I didn't drop it" I said " No but you almost drowned"

After we got on the pier I was trying to think what to do with the wet radio, I saw the garden hose at the back of the radio shop. While I was washing the radio down I heard someone say "Evans, is that the way you repair radio equipment ?" It was Lt. Cmdr. Jordan, skipper of the base. I answered with "Sir, when its been swimming in salt water I thought a fresh water bath might help."

I took the radio into the shop and let it dry out for a month. I powered it back up and it went to work OK. Whatever the trouble was must have been washed out.

SWIVEL CHAIR

When I first started working at the radio shop at Woods Hole I found out that the station personnel at the lighthouses and light ships were used to helping repair radio equipment by telephone or radio communications. Most of the repair was replacing fuses or tubes under the direction of the ET.

I was on liberty this weekend in 1947 when LS 114 (I think that's the right number) on Pollock Rip station was going through a severe northeaster storm and both radio beacon transmitters failed. During this time period I was the only ET at Woods Hole so the Boston radio shop was called. The Lieutenant in charge proceeded to help the BM on Pollock Rip. He had him replace fuses a few times but each time they would blow. The last time he tried it fire shot out of the transmitter. The BM was pretty shook by now and he told the Lieutenant that nobody could sit in a swivel chair in Boston and tell him how to get killed.

It was then that the BM told him the roof was leaking and water was running right down in the transmitters. The lieutenant said he wished he had told him at the start.

When I got back from liberty I had a message to call the radio shop in Boston. The lieutenant told me that he didn't blame the BM for telling him that. I was told to go check the equipment on Pollock. I went to Chatham LB Station and rode their 36 ft motor lifeboat to Pollock Rip. It was probably the CG 36500 that Bernie made famous a few years later with their fabulous rescue of 32 men. The equipment was too badly damaged by water to be repaired on station. The relief ship was sent out. I am not sure but I think the relief stayed on station until the new LS 196 was sent out. I remember that LS 196 went on station while I was stationed in Woods Hole.

I have rode on and drove a 36 ft motor lifeboat many times. It is hard to imagine where 32 men and a crew of 4 could fit on this boat. To me this is one of the greatest rescues that the Coast Guard has ever made. This certainly puts in practice the old saying "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back".

SAVE ME NOW

I was working in the radio room "NMF 34" at Woods Hole when a distress call came over the radio. This fisherman said "Hellpa Coasta Guard I'mma sink, Comma sava me now" The operator answered with "Give me the name of your vessel, a description, etc" The fisherman answered with "It maka no difference about all that, I'mma sink, comma sava me right now".

EARLY TELEVISION

Television was just getting started after the war. One day when I was at Block Island LB Station they asked me if they bought a TV, could I get it hooked up for them. The station was about 75 miles from Boston which had 2 stations on the air. I knew I would need a good antenna and some height to even pick up any signal. Since the Coast Guard wouldn't allow any antenna on the building, I told them they would have to get a pole at least 60 ft tall and set it. I figured that was the end of that problem since I hadn't seen any poles on Block Island. About two weeks later they called me to tell me they had a pole already set, I bought the antennas, mast and lead in and brought them on my next trip to Block Island. They had the pole set with 2 pulleys rigged, one with a bosun's chair and the other to haul material up with. When they hauled me to the top I started to drill for through bolts and realized the wood was rotten. I said "Where did you get this pole?" They said "If you remember the old two masted schooner wreck on the beach, well it only has one mast now." I am wondering why I am hanging from that rotten mast on a single bolt. I told them to find some hose clamps or straps big enough to go around the TV mast and the pole and hurry up. I mounted the mast and connected the twin lead and had them hook it to the TV set so I could swing the antenna for the best signal. When I got down I told them it was all theirs now, don't call me if you have a problem.

DUMPLING ROCK FOG HORN

Dumpling Rock was an abandoned lighthouse about 10 miles south of Butlers Flat Light House at New Bedford, MA. It had a new beacon light that worked by a photoelectric cell and a fog horn remotely controlled from Butlers Flat 5 watt radio transmitter operating around 21 MHZ frequency. The fog horn started blowing continuously and the people on the near shore were complaining loudly. The fog horn was turned on from Butlers Flat by turning the transmitter off. With no signal being received at Dumpling Rock the equipment would start the fog horn. We still could not find out the trouble. Larry Connell ET1 came in one morning and said he knew what the trouble was. He was a ham operator and had been talking to a ham in Germany that told him about picking up a signal around 28 MHZ (One of the ham bands) with tone on 15 seconds and off for fifteen seconds. The transmitter had drifted frequency that far and was being picked in Germany. This was rare for a transmitter to drift that far and still have power to reach that far.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

On the way to a lightship on the 63 ft crash boat one day we found a 12 ft wooden skiff half sunk. We picked it up and nobody wanted it so I took it and left it on the pier for a month to dry out. I caulked and painted it and bought a new set of oars and oar locks for only $10. A fisherman I had met in town gave me a couple of old lobster pots that needed repair and told me what to use for bait. A week after I set the pots with fish heads in Little Harbor I still hadn't caught any. I saw the fisherman one day and told him I wasn't having any luck. He wanted to know if I was using ripe fish heads. I said I was using fish heads. He told me that I had to leave them on the pier in the sun until they got ripe.

After that I was catching 2 or 3 lobsters every day. The cook and I had lobster every night except when I was gone, then it was the cook and "Crusher".

1931 WOODY

I had seen an old Ford in a farmer's barn near Woods Hole so I stopped one day to ask about it. It turned out to be a 1931 Model A Ford Wood Station Wagon. Some of the wood body was rotten but the rest looked good. He said he bought it new in 1931 and had driven it until six months ago when he bought a new pickup. I offered $50 but he finally settled for $75. I spent $75 with Sears Roebuck for 2 tires, battery, and other parts. It would always start in minus 15 degree weather when my 46 Ford wouldn't. I drove it for two years until I was ready for discharge and decided to sell it rather than tow bar it 600 miles to home. I sold it for $300 and realized I had done a dumb thing. I went back the next day and offered the guy $500 but he wouldn't even consider it. There was a woodworker in Elizabeth City that could have built a new body for it. Sometime ago I was checking the internet and found a similar car that had been completely restored for sale for $30,000. Mine would not have been that good but I sure wish I still had it.

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