EARLY DEPARTURE From Amsterdam 1969
"A Great Adventure"

 by Public Information Officer Dale Potts Lt. jg USS Yorktown

We were in port in for liberty in another exotic North Atlantic port.  As Public Affairs Officer I did most of my work when we were in port, rather than at sea so liberty to visit foreign ports was very valuable.

On the second day in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, a Russian submarine was reported coming over the North Pole. We were in the middle of an Open House when orders came to immediately return to the Atlantic. We left many of our crew in Amsterdam. I was a little upset because it ruined my liberty plans. My public affairs duties had me busier in port than at sea. I even had considered to step ashore just before the ship departed but decided that was not wise. It took weeks before all our crewmembers caught up with the ship as we visited Denmark.

We were into the first hour of an Open House, with hundreds of visitors all over the ship when we received word that a Russian submarine was crossing the North pole and we were ordered to do our ASW (anti-submariner warfare) role of hunting and finding it. We stopped admitting guests and the ship’s IMC asked everyone to leave, closing down the Open House. I considered being accidentally ashore when the ship left but instead went to my office and wrote a diplomatically worded press release for the embarked flag officer (our Task Force Commander) to send to the American Embassy. It expressed regret for our early departure and how much we had enjoyed our short visit to The Netherlands. It explained that we had been unexpectedly called away on an operational assignment related to the purpose of our mission.

We left a lot of crew ashore.  We were at 3 shift liberty.  That meant one third of the ship was always on the ship and ready to take her out to sea at a moments notice while up to two thirds of the crew and aviators could be in the port city or anywhere in Europe.

For example, a journalist in my PAO shop and a buddy (JO3 Steve Bornet and GM3 Gary Langham) had taken a week's leave in Rotterdam. Camera "nuts," they rode a train into West Germany to buy Leica camera gear and tour the Leitz factory in a tiny town called Wezlar.

They reported having a grand time for themselves until back in Rotterdam. They hopped a cab and said: "Take us to the American Navy ship." The cabbie responded in broken English: "Where? No ship. No ship. Radio say you be on board." The young men insisted: "Big ship. Can't miss it." He kept insisting the boys were wrong. "Take us to the pier."

At the empty pier, stunned, they yelped: "No ship. No ship - - what'd you do with our ship," throats dry, stomachs sickened. No ship; no Navy career. AWOL at only 19! Would they be arrested and sent home in disgrace?

A few other civilian-clothed sailors began arriving at about the same time. Some reported hearing on local radio about the ship's early departure in an emergency exercise. (JO1 Bornet's father, himself a retired Naval Reserve commander living in Oregon, had heard about the YORKTOWN's abrupt departure on his short-wave radio via Voice of America.) The cabbie told everyone to go to the American Embassy to sort it all out.

From here, the young sailors transited to England (they remember sampling warm beer for the first time), then to the northernmost tip of Scotland (sleepy Mildenhall), where they boarded a Navy tanker to find the Fighting Lady.

 
The tanker located the ship somewhere near Iceland. Crews fired lines across crashing bow waves, churning against each other between the two ships, and pulled each sailor across the chasm by Boatswain's chair. As the ships rose smoothly fore and aft, the lines and chair rose gracefully up and down. As the ships swayed abeam, ship railings swung great arcs, closer and further apart, causing the chair to bob wildly, alternately rocketing up or dousing the hapless occupants into the icy 10-foot walls of whitewater.

Bornet tightened white straps on his Mae West (a life vest that bloats so large in the front that it mimics the large breasts of actress Mae West). By chance he was the last sailor to be pulled across. Wind and waves kept building. This was going to be wild!  He fidgeted in the chair, tightened the harness and the boatswain mate chief screamed, "That's it." The journalist shot back, "That's what?" The experienced sailor said, "That's it for the day," (they'd safely transported about 25 sailors between these gyrating warships). "It's not safe anymore. Tomorrow we try again." And that's what they did. Another night on a US Navy oiler.
 

Borney and Langham crossed into the Artic Circle along with the rest of the crew of the USS Yorktown and became "Bluenoses."   A ceremony was held as we all became "Bluenoses".  See the large Certificate click here

We had earlier become "Mossbacks" by crossing the Antarctic Circle on our trip around South America.  Read more about Yorktown crew becoming "Mossbacks" click here

By the way, the Leica camera system Bornet bought back for hundreds of dollars in the late sixties is now worth nearly $10,000 in 2002. Langham reported that one of his lenses, however, never worked quite right. Could it have been all that dip in the North Atlantic?

Dale Potts  Captain USNR (Ret.)

Says Mike Rogers DT3 R752@aol.com

 The ship had a emergency recall when we were in Copenhagen. I recall spending a nite at the Dutch Marine Barracks and than being flown to Mildenhall, England, where we stayed in some old WWII American Air Force barracks. Windows were smashed out - needless to say it was a bit cold. I think it was around October in 1969.

 After staying a week or so in England they flew a bunch of us out to Glasgow, Scotland where we stayed for a week or so than we got on an oiler called the Wacamar (check spelling) and after a couple nites at sea we were high lined back on the Yorktown once again. It was a great adventure.

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