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Boarding
MARUCLA Most people are familiar
with the overall history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was created in 1962
when Premier Khrushchev installed nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. These missiles
were capable of reaching U.S. targets. To prevent additional offensive weapons
or support from entering Cuba, President Kennedy imposed a "quarantine"
on "Prohibited Materials." Units of the U.S. Second Fleet established
a perimeter, maintained primarily by a line of destroyers, to guard the approaches
to Cuba and enforce this quarantine. The USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, JR. (DD-850) was
one of those DDs and I was her executive officer. During
the morning of 25 October 1962 the merchant ship MARUCLA penetrated the quarantine
line near KENNEDY. A report was made to the task force commander giving particulars
of the contact. Orders were received to permit MARUCLA to proceed. Later that
day follow-up orders directed KENNEDY to re-intercept MARUCLA and board her to
search for prohibited materials. Through how many hands and how high up the chains
of command these orders originated I can only speculate. I suspect, however, that
their origin was quite lofty. By this time the
target was long over the horizon. Four boilers were placed on the line and the
DD built up a rooster tail in pursuit. I personally pondered why the decision
not to detain had been reversed and this particular ship now seemed to be of highest
interest. Several suspect Soviet ships had already reversed course before reaching
the quarantine line. This ship wasn't even Soviet. While it was under charter
to the U.S.S.R., the MARUCLA was of Lebanese registry, with what appeared to be
British ownership through possible Panamanian connections, and manned by a Greek
crew. The ship actually had been built in the U.S. "Would
you ship your nuclear warheads to Cuba in such a questionable bottom?" I
entertained the thought that perhaps this was like the children's game of double
bluff. "He expects that I would never do this so I should do just that, however,
while I think that he will think this then he will probably think that I will
do that so" . . . I didn't play with this very long as the decision was made
many pay grades above mine. My duty was not to question but to give a cheery "aye
aye" and do the most professional job that I was capable of doing since I
was going to be the officer designated to lead the boarding party. In
the meantime the USS JOHN R. PIERCE (DD-753) did make contact and followed her
until KENNEDY arrived on station around midnight. A signal was sent to MARUCLA
to prepare to be boarded at first light. The
hours spent charging westward were put to good use. KENNEDY was Flagship of Captain
Sam Moore, Commander Destroyer Division 102. He designated members of a Boarding
Party to consist of myself, Lieutenant (jg) Edward Maas, Ensign Paul Sanger, Signalman
2/c S.P. Rupenthal, maybe a radioman whose name escapes me, and Lieutenant Commander
Dwight G. Osbourne, Executive Officer of PIERCE. LCDR Osbourne was actually senior
to me but Commodore Moore designated me as leader of the party. In any event this
did not present any conflict of rank. Finally, late in the evening we
discussed uniforms. It was suggested that full dress white with swords and medals
would be appropriate. I nominated working khakis and side-arms. Service dress
white without arms was the selected choice. I would have to be content with the
firepower of two destroyers to back us up. I
was awakened at "zero dark early" and advised that now was the hour.
Before shoving off from the fantail I decided to give the party a personal brief.
I explained that this was not a courtesy call - as if that were needed - and that
while we should be respectful we should make it absolutely clear by our actions
and demeanor that we expected full cooperation and disclosure. In addition, we
should be careful not to create any incident beyond charter. After this pep talk
Ensign Sanger suggested that maybe someone might fetch blankets for us. I vetoed
this suggestion out of hand. I wasn't about to have us motor up to MARUCLA huddled
under blankets looking like a bunch of whipped wimps. About that time a wave broke
into the boat giving us a pretty good soaking. It was then I decided that maybe
blankets weren't such a bad idea after all. A runner on deck was dispatched immediately
for blankets. I rationalized that perhaps, wrapped in our blankets, we might appear
like Washington crossing the Delaware with boat cloak wrapped around him. A signal
was sent to MARUCLA by Commodore Moore to prepare to be boarded and off we went. PIERCE was stationed off one quarter of MARUCLA
and KENNEDY the other. The distance to go was not far but I soon realized that
the seas were greater than they appeared from the deck of KENNEDY. I can't recall
if a lee was made or a sea painter provided but I can still see those seas. The
swell seemed to be running in the 10-12 foot rang - Time builds swells as well
as sea stories. MARUCLA was rolling one way while we were rolling and bobbing
another. The Jacob's ladder lowered would be six to eight feet above our reach
at one instant and submerged several feet at another. The motor whaleboat coxswain
and boat engineer did a masterful job of seamanship holding the boat alongside
while we leapt for the elusive ladder. After
reaching the main deck - which seemed like climbing Mt. Everest - I was greeted
by the first mate. He was friendly and spoke very good English. I requested to
be taken to the ship's master and was escorted to his sea cabin or the chart house,
I can't remember which. I was introduced to the master - who was not as friendly.
He wasn't hostile but he wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy either. I attributed this
to the fact that he spoke no English and would naturally be a little put off by
some foreign warship stopping and boarding his ship in mid-ocean. An
amusing (to me) sidelight occurred at this point. My hands were filthy after climbing
the rope ladder (MARUCLA was no QE2) so I asked for a place to wash up. I was
shown to a head close at hand. One of our officers who had followed me aboard
and had seen me enter the cabin, found that I was nowhere in sight when he entered.
I could hear his plaintive cries of, "Oh, where is my commander" What
have they done with my commander?" I popped my head around the bulkhead to
assure him I was still among the living. After
a brief explanation of who we were, why we were there and what we intended to
do, I requested the ship's log, passenger list, and cargo manifest. The log confirmed
the ship's registry, its last port of call as Riga, Latvia, and its destination
as Havana, Cuba. Since there were no passengers the cargo manifest was examined
next. The manifest came in three separate lists, each in a different language:
Russian, French, and English. Lieutenant Ed Maas, one of KENNEDY's engineering
officers had studied Russian in college, Ensign Paul Sanger, KENNEDY's communications
officer was proficient in French, and I decided to give a try at the English version.
(Isn't it amazing the talent one can find in a destroyer?) We
commenced by cross checking item number 1 on each list to see if they agreed.
After comparing fifteen or twenty entries and finding all in perfect agreement
we now skipped to random entries for concurrence. Again, they all agreed so we
had sufficient confidence to use the English language manifest as our working
guide. This was a gamble but it would have taken us hours just to reconcile the
manifest. And would the Soviets really include
"nuclear warheads" in any of the lists? While we were examining these records
a steward arrived with a tray of small cups of Greek coffee. Thinking that our
anxious member might still need a little levity to relax the tension I reminded
him, sotto voce, of Virgil's admonition to "Beware of Greeks ever-bearing
gifts." That probably was too frivolous for the occasion and didn't appear
to achieve the intended purpose anyway. After
quizzing the first mate briefly, the next step was to begin the search and actually
examine those items to see if they in turn matched their nomenclature in the manifest.
This is where LCDR Osbourne became a key member of the party. My memory is that
he was a graduate of one the maritime academies and that he had sailed in merchantmen.
He was perfect to lead the cargo inspection. The crew was directed to unship the
hatch covers from the most likely hold and to provide a working party to sort
out and retrieve specified items. The ship was loaded to the brim. Because of
this there was little or no horizontal access. All searching would have to be
from the top down. Even before hatch covers
were removed the first several messages was received from KENNEDY requesting a
status report. As time passed the inquires became more frequent and more pointed.
"What is taking so long?" (It is said that when Admiral Nelson put to
seas and opened his secret sailing instructions they were on a small slip of paper
and stated simply, "Act in the best interests of the king.") Times had
changed by 1962. We were now blessed with single-side-band radio which enabled
senior leaders all the way up the chain of command to give the on-scene commander
instant rudder orders. This has its advantages, of course, but there are times
when it tends to stifle initiative by the sailor actually manning the helm. I
suspected that Commodore Moore was getting pressured from above - all the way
above. He was a cool professional not given to impetuous actions. My thoughts
at the time were that it would take three days alongside a pier, several large
gantry cranes, and a battalion of stevedores to completely, unload and search
this ship. I didn't feel it would be prudent to share these thoughts with anyone
- especially by semaphore. However, I did try to expedite the search. Another
interesting sidelight occurred while we were fishing out items for inspection.
The ship's mascot, a Jack Russell-type mutt, was busily supervising the deck work.
I was fascinated by the dog since I was owned at the time by a Schnauzer in Newport,
Rhode Island. A crewman sidled up to me and confided - in fair English - that
the mascot had been shanghaied in Jacksonville, Florida, during and earlier port
call. He said, "That dogs hate Blacks. All Americans train their dogs to
attack Blacks in the American south." I quickly disabused him of that belief
although I'm not so sure he believed me. Old stories die hard. We
were making progress in spite of prodding from above (or maybe because of it).
"Scientific Instruments" turned out to be rather shoddy devices that
one might find in an old high school physics lab. "Truck parts" were,
in fact parts for the numerous trucks lashed down on deck. "Chemicals"
were great quantities of simple sulfur. No prohibited materials were uncovered.
Surprise, surprise. Finally, after figuring
out the message that someone up the line was getting anxious, and being fairly
confident that further search would prove fruitless, I signaled that no prohibited
materials had been uncovered. I recommended that MARUCLA be cleared to proceed
to her destination. Even though I was sincere in my recommendation I couldn't
help but fantasize in my mind's eye newsreel footage of Fidel Castro walking down.
MARUCLA'S accommodation ladder in Havana with a large cigar in his mouth and a
nuclear warhead under each arm saying, "Gotcha!" A
message was received in turn ordering the party to return to our parent destroyers.
Before departing, I entered what I thought would be a formal and appropriate entry
into the ship's log to the effect that "MARUCLA had been stopped and boarded
at _________(Lat), ________(Long), at ________(Date/Time) in accordance with the
proclamation by the President of the United States. No prohibited materials having
been found the ship is hereby cleared to proceed via the Providence Channel to
her destination of Havana, Cuba." I signed the log entry and requested that
the first mate pass along to the master our appreciation of his cooperation. We
now followed a reverse procedure to disembark. It was much easier to jump into
the boat than it was to grab a swinging rope ladder for boarding. After approximately
three hours from start we headed back to where our adventure had begun. In
retrospect I am convinced that it was important to select a ship to board that
we were certain contained no prohibited materials just as it was equally important
to take some action to signify intent and resolve. Such niceties of diplomatic
sparring were beyond me at the time. I was instructed to search so by golly we
searched! We debriefed with Captain Moore upon our return and figured that was
the end of the event. Little did I realize that
my fifteen minutes of personal fame would stretch to fifteen days. When the mail
started it came in deluges. I received a couple of proposals for marriage. There
were many prayers on my behalf. Several thanked me for single-handedly saving
the world from nuclear holocaust. I suffered
under no illusions as to my very minor role in this historic event but it was
heady stuff nevertheless. I received many requests for autographed mail cachets.
KENNEDY did not have a special cancellation to commemorate the occasion but several
collectors sent their own. I autographed each envelope and ensured that cancellation
was sharp and clear. Many folks sent in newspaper headlines and clippings from
papers as widely separated as Manila and Moscow. A Soviet paper referred to me
as a "Pirate." I was especially proud of that one. Maybe we should have
worn swords and clambered aboard with them between our teeth. ( Just kidding.
I can just picture trying to climb the ladder with a sword between my teeth.) The personal adulation soon stopped and I was back
to writing Plans of the Day, inspecting haircuts, chasing dust bunnies behind
ladder screens, and sampling the crew's mess. The latter was one of my favorite
chores. KENNEDY was a real feeder. None of these routine chores was likely to
get my name in Time Magazine again! Oh fame it is such a fickle and fading thing. Shortly after the boarding of MARUCLA, KENNEDY was
detached from patrol duties on the quarantine line and was ordered to proceed
directly to the Panama Canal. A rendezvous was made with a Pacific Fleet Amphibious
Task Force as it excited the Canal. After the Task force re-formed in the Atlantic,
KENNEDY served as a screening escort enroute to Cuba. Probably we will never know
whether it was KENNEDY'S motor whaleboat and small boarding party or vast invasion
armada loaded with combat-ready troops that caused Khrushchev to blink. What we
do know is that the USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, JR. (DD-850) was right in the middle
of both actions. Capt.
K.C. Reynolds, USN (Ret.) |