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Last Updated: Aug 14, 2008 - 2:00:11 PM |
Only after the book
"Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage"
was published in 2000 were the details revealed. Written by Sherry
Sontag and Christopher Drew, after six years of research, it "tells the
stories of hundreds of submariners, heroes one and all, had been whose
service had been shrouded in the secrecy born of the Cold War. Many men
aged and died without ever telling their wives and children what they
did during their tours of duty; many family members never knew exactly
how or why their loved ones never came home: many survivors have only
now learned, thanks to this book, the exact nature of the missions they
too part in, having never been privy to that information during their
service." One reviewer wrote, "It reads like a spy thriller except
everything in it is true."
John Tumilty, Greensburg, entered the U.S. Navy in 1954. While in boot
camp at Great Lakes Training Center he chose submarine school in New
London, CT. "I think I watched too many submarine movies," he said. "I
was assigned to the USS Sirago SS485, A World War II boat that had been
converted to a class called Guppy II in 1949. They changed the hull
configuration, but mostly the topside deck area, and they doubled the
size of the battery capacity."
The Sirago's primary mission was antisubmarine warfare and secondary
missions included anti shipping warfare and intelligence gathering. The
boat operated in the western Atlantic as she participated in exercises
with others in her group; in fleet exercises, in joint Canadian-U.S.
Exercises and NATO exercises which took her into the eastern Atlantic
Ocean and North Sea.
John reported aboard the Sirago in June 1955. "It was hot," he said,
"and I was introduced to a chipping hammer and wire brush very
quickly."The Sirago was my qualifying boat and I made it through. One
pal I always talked about starting a snake ranch. I was a quartermaster
on the boat after a short time. We were in the navigation department
and assisted the officers in the ship movement, charts logs, and non
radio type visual messaging. We spent our at-sea watch time in the
conning tower or on the bridge.
John said he spent all of his time in the Atlantic Ocean areas. "We
stopped at several ports on the USA east coast, some in Canada and made
a trip to Cuba before Castro took over. We were to hit Bermuda on the
way to England but that was canceled because of a hurricane. We had
several of those in my four years in Norfolk. We always had to go to
sea if a `cane' was approaching Norfolk and we had to ride them out on
the surface. The pre NUKE boats were not designed to dive and surface
in that kind of weather. The diesel boats did most of their cruising on
the surface. So we spent a lot of time going over some waves and under
some just like the surface ships did. Because we were built so low in
the water, even when it surfaced it seemed we went through a lot of
those waves. We stopped in England on a different cruise. The North
Atlantic was always very rough and very cold and nasty in the winter."
John said the `canes' were the thing he found the most memorable
because they finally cured his seasickness. "The young sub sailors
won't remember that we would be ordered to sea when a `cane' was
approaching the Norfolk area. We would be on the surface for the
duration of the storm. The NUKES could dive and ride it out under the
waves. We would go over one wave and under two, or so it seemed. After
three, four, or five `canes' in one year, I no longer was bothered by
that chief who would smoke cigars and puff a little smoke out of the
corner of his mouth at you as he walked by you in the spacious confines
of our boat. It would bring out an immediate reaction from your stomach
– my stomach. The North Atlantic was like a millpond as far as my
seasickness was concerned after that summer of canes. That was, I
think, 1957.
The USS Sirago had been "laid down" (Navy Talk), launched and
commissioned in 1945. It was decommissioned and struck from the Naval
Register in 1972. It was sold for scrap for $84,880.
After his experiences on (or in) a sub you'd expect John to return home
and find a nice safe job wouldn't you? He didn't. What he did do next
week.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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