May 31 - June 2-- The USS Slater DE 766 and Crew Replacement

Following a period of mourning after the loss of our beloved Witty, we have adopted a young cat to keep Alphie company and restore ILENE's crew to its full complement. He is an orange tabby like Witty, but without the white spots, and his tabby pattern is more subdued; so he is more just a plain tan cat. And he's not a wee kitty like Witty was when we got him, but an estimated five years old. He apparently had a home in his youth but ran away, got lost or was put out and lived on the streets for a while before being trapped and rescued from a garbage can in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and placed for adoption. He was quite fearful, terribly shaggy, did not groom himself (which I think is contra-instinctual in cats) and did not play or permit himself to be petted. And it does not help that Alphie hissed at him for invading her home; she is just not a very friendly cat. But the new boy has made great progress on all of these fronts during his first two weeks with us, especially because of Lene's expert use of food as a motivator. He loves to eat, but does not wolf his food down like a dog as Witty did. His name is copied from the name of  Frank and Jules' Grenadian cat: Cruiser -- though Lene has an affection for Buster instead. So as Cruiser he is a copy cat. I think the name Cruiser is aspirational because he has not been on the boat yet. We want him to feel more at home in our apartment and with us before that test.

The three day weekend was spent at the Berkshire International Film Festival. My first such festival and I'm not favorably inclined to the format. It is binge watching of movies, without time to absorb them. And we were turned into poor guests toward our hosts, Stan and Susan; due to the frenetic scheduling required by the festival, we never got a chance to dine with them. Lene saw nine movies in 48 hours; too much!
I saw two less films but drove the hour from Great Barrington MA to Albany NY to visit the USS Slater DE 766, now a history museum. Hugh, my shipmate and replacement as Anti Submarine Warfare Officer on the USS Hammerberg DE 1015, back in 1967 had told me about the Slater and the visit was a treat. I got there shortly before the 10 A.M. opening and had the benefit of sharing our tour guide, Paul, with only one other tourist, Charlie. Paul was an excellent docent His day job is at a local university and he has been doing this volunteer job for about nine years. He knew the answers to all of our questions and would have extended our tour beyond the 90 minutes he spent with us if we had had more. Charlie was wearing an Oriental NC tee shirt and that tow gets few visitors other than by water. So I asked and yes, he is a fellow cruiser, returning his sloop, White Seal, to her hailing port in Lake Champlain from the winter in the Bahamas. His dad had served on a DE in WWII. Here they are with Slater's forward 3" gun.

Slater was built in Tampa Florida, commissioned in May 1944 and saw only seven years of service, starting in WWII, before being transferred to the Greek navy in 1951. She served there, named the Aetos, for 40 years, until 1991, when they were about to scrap her and she was acquired by the museum as its home. Hammerberg, by way of contrast was built in Bath, Maine, commissioned only eleven years later, in March 1955 but served our nation for eighteen years until decommissioned in December 1973 and scrapped several years later.
Other interesting differences between the two ships: Slater is 306 feet long compared to Hammerberg's 314, and only draws nine feet, half of Hammerberg's eighteen. The draft difference, I believe, was due to Hammerberg having been refitted with a huge sonar dome under her bow during my two years aboard her. Both ships had a beam of about 36.75 feet, though in my memory Hammerberg seemed wider at the stern. My perception of this more spacious stern may have been due to Slater's two depth charge racks compared to Hammerberg's one, and the crowding with many guns aft. Got me thinking of length to beam ratios. ILENE, like  the clipper ships of old, is fast because she is narrow, about 3.5 times as long as she is wide. Modern sailboat designs are wider. Hammerberg was 8.5 times as long as she was wide!
The most interesting difference between the ships was in their propulsion. Hammerberg was powered with steam boilers, had only one propeller (like ILENE) and could achieve 27 knots. Slater had two props each powered by a diesel-electric engine but could achieve only 21 knots. So Slater was more maneuverable but slower. Why? Slater's mission was to protect convoys against German U-boats. And convoys, by definition, had to stick together and could go only as fast as the slowest boat, perhaps less than ten knots. Hammerberg's mission was to screen aircraft carrier task groups against submarines and carriers could go much faster, indeed faster than Hammerberg! Only once during my time with her did Hammerberg make her 27 knots, in a sea trial after refit in the shipyard, and only for the required two minutes. And EVERYTHING was shaking during those two minutes! I had known that diesel turbines were used in DEs built after hammerberg, and was surprised to learn that they were used before her as well. Hammerberg was built very much on the cheap, with 1/4 inch plateng compared to Stater's 5/8 inch. We truly were expendable.
Though slightly smaller, Slater had a larger complement of men and officers: 201 and 15, compared to Hammerberg's 157 and 13.

The depth charges and their racks had a special interest for me because I may have rolled the last depth charge the Navy ever dropped, after getting permission months in advance from everyone. Slater did not have homing torpedoes like we had. Hammerberg did not have the short guns that powered the charges off the sides, but our cans were the tear drop shaped ones rather than the cylindrical ones shown on Slater's aft racks.

Slater launches her wooden motor whale boat off the starboard side annually but Don told us that this takes a lot of men about three hours -- to swing the davit arms out and then lower her away. This reminded me of the saddest moment of the service that Hugh and I had on Hammerberg. Due to several mistakes, including not having swung the davits out in advance, the resultant delays cost the life of a helicopter pilot that we should have been able to rescue. I had always expected a Board in Inquiry into this death but was never called to testify.

Looking forward, if things go as planned, this may be my final posting in June. I'm flying to Bermuda on June 5 to sail Yves' French-built boat with Yves, who we met in Quebec City in 2018 and Greg, who we met in Halifax in 2017. Our destination is Canada, with plans to sail her first to Halifax, and, if I have not worn out my welcome by then, with a few intermediate stops, to Prince Edward Island.  Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it.