Newport News Ship Building and Dry Dock Company

Ahhh, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. What a place. 
In about 1980, or so, my Naval assignment was to the command of USS Von Steuben SSBN632.
We were to have the reactor refueled and a general refit of the sub to extend it's functional life another 15 years or so. Most of the crew had been reassigned to other commands so as to better serve the US Navy. Those such as myself, who had less than a full patrol left after the yard work were sent to the yards to complete their tours as systems experts liaisons with the various shipyard trades who would be doing the work. 
As an E6 with 16 patrols and an A Ganger, I was designated a Section leader and given half of the crew (non-nuke, about 70) to fill the needs of the yard, ship and barge. 
As the section leader I was tasked with visiting all of the watch stations during the day and at night every two hours to initial logs and relieve the watch for head calls. 
Cold Virginia nights made the walks over to the dry dock, where the sub was nothing more than a giant sieve with more than 20 holes big enough to walk through, to relieve the watches Topside and Below Decks. As I approached the gangway from the wall of the dry dock I could see the watch was on the Sub side of the Brow. 
I told him the watch was to be stood over by the land side of the brow, informed him I'd relieve the BDW (below decks watch) first. When I came back up about 30 minutes later he was white as a sheet and shaking badly, as he sucked hard on his cigarette and looked out of the corner of his eye toward the large dumpster near the brow. 
I asked him what was wrong and he told me there was a rat in that dumpster that came to the top every once in a while and gave him the evil eye, then he would drop back down in the dumpster and root around some more. "He keeps looking at me like he's going to come over and get me.." "..I hate rats, and that one is huge!.." just then the rat came to the top of the dumpster and paused briefly before it leapt from the top and hit the ground, running right at him. We were standing on an aluminum brow just wide enough for two people to turn sideways and pass each other on and about a 50 foot drop to the bottom of the dry dock on either side. The rat came running like he was on a mission and jumped on the leg the Topside watch stander. 
Now, while we stood these watches armed with a Colt 1911 .45 cal pistol, actually using it was against regulations unless some one was looking to take a submarine or a missile. Neither was the case in this situation and the feeling of protection vanished as he began to understand that I wasn't likely to jump in front of him to save him from attack and that I was blocking his retreat to the missile deck of the sub from the rear. Like the quick thinking farm boy from Kansas that he was he grabbed his night stick and as the rat landed on his leg about mid shin after a leap of what looked like Olympic proportions, he quickly began to beat his lower leg to a bloody pulp, letting out muffled cries of pain from the blows as the rat seemed to duck and bob and weave out of the way of the deadly wooden bat. 
When it was all over, the rat walked away, looking back over his shoulder as if to say, don't make me come back over there again.
Richard was shaking and had a hard time standing and although this only took about three minutes he had begun to sweat. I didn't even offer to relieve him, he just handed me his gun and stick and left. I have to admit, that was the toughest rat I ever came across in all of my time in the Navy.