Loose hips, 1968

[HenryC]

We were only supposed to go through the Canal once, on the way to WestPac, on
the way home we were scheduled to keep going around, with a stop in Australia
and a passage through Suez, followed by a Med cruise and a liberty call in the
UK on the way back. But there was some kind of dust-up in the Middle East, and
when our tour on Yankee Station ended, we were ordered to retrace our route
instead, back to Norfolk the same way we came.

On the Pacific side, we topped up with bunker fuel and our guests came aboard.
As a special treat, the brass had decided to reward us for our exemplary duty in
the Tonkin Gulf with a little skin. There were about 20 of them, a USO dance
troupe: decked out in tight, lowcut red jumpers, very short blue miniskirts, and
dixie cup whitehats, just like ours, except they accessorized precisely their
spotless white panties and sneakers. At first we were truly grateful, the girls
were not just pretty, they were professional hoofers in their teens and early
twenties, delicious perfumed creatures with flawless bodies, faces, hair and
complexions. Every one of them was simply breathtaking, and none of us had seen
a round-eye in months. We suddenly became very conscious of our own adolescent
awkwardness, our shapeless blue dungarees, our zits, and our ridiculous
haircuts. They would remain with us until we reached the Caribbean side, after
which they would go ashore, no doubt to escort another ship transiting the Big
Ditch.

The Panama Canal is indeed a wonder of the world. It takes a ship a full day to
get through it, but the crew has little time or opportunity to appreciate its
natural and technological wonders. The waterway between the seas is crowded,
narrow, and difficult to navigate. Everyone aboard is busy, Engineering, Deck,
Navigation, all divisions get a workout. There are narrow locks that flood and
empty to raise and lower the ship over the spine of the continent, and a long
channel across the great artificial lake that covers most of the route. At
times the jungle is right alongside the ship, at others, the ship glides through
an inland sea dotted with emerald islands. At any moment a tropical squall can
obliterate visibility. For the mariner it's a white knuckle ride all the way, a
grounding or a collision is simply unthinkable, with potential international
consequences. Everyone is in a foul mood and on edge, from the skipper to the
lookouts.

During the passage, our guests had the run of the ship. Except for spaces closed
for security reasons, or compartments marked off limits as crew berthing, they
were everywhere, in groups of two or three, always accompanied by one of their
own chaperones or some grizzled petty officer pressed into tour guide duty.
They had obviously been instructed to be friendly, smiling continuously and
asking us the same questions, "what's your name, sailor?", (even though it was
stencilled on our chambray shirts), or "where are you from?", (as if it mattered
to a group of identical robots), or "what's that you're doing?" (could we
explain it to them in less than 20 minutes?). We knew, of course, that if we
had met any one of them on the beach, even in our best dress blues, they
wouldn't even have acknowledged our existence, much less any attempt to strike
up a conversation.

A destroyer is a maze of narrow passageways, steep ladders and crowded spaces;
it was impossible to get away from them. If you looked aloft you looked up a
skirt; below, you glimpsed down a blouse at a bit of cleavage; at deck level,
either a bobbing butt or a jiggling pair of breasts. If you got a break from your
duties, you barely had time for a quick smoke and a coffee or a trip to the head
and were in no mood to stop and talk to a woman that, no matter how desirable
she might be, was as inaccessible and distant and impossible as cheap
pornography or a starlet's pinup on a locker door. We smiled at them and winked
at each other, but we hated every minute of it. How could they do this to us?
How could they have such contempt for us that they would treat us like this?
This was no substitute for time with our sweethearts, or even the brief but
honest comfort of a waterfront whore. This was worse than nothing. It was
agony.

The lake that comprises the bulk of the Canal is fresh water, and when in
transit, ships take advantage of the limitless supply to clean out their
plumbing and to flush out the salt. The Deck Force holds a "Fresh Water
Washdown" using fire hoses to wash away the accumulated salt of months of sea
spray and fresh water rationing. When one group of USO lovelies and their Chief
Petty Officer bodyguard turned a corner on deck a Bosun's Mate manning a nozzle
could not resist "accidentally" drenching them with a full blast. It was one
minor victory in a long, humiliating day, a brief interruption of our emotional
rout.

They went ashore at the Caribbean side. It had been a long day and we were glad
to see them go. For a few days after, even after we were underway on the long
trip home, we were quiet and introspective. No one spoke much about the girls,
in fact, we spoke very little at all.

[twinswin]

Great story!  As an old Gunner's Mate who spent some time in Panama, I can sympathize.

Bruce