Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine
It was in the spring of 1974. Vietnam was winding down and the cold war was raging hot. 
We had just arrived in Rota Spain the Ft. Lauderdale of Europe, for refit and deployment. 
We were tied up along side the pier with the only Spanish Aircraft carrier tied up in front of us. On the other side of the pier was another one of the "Fighting Forty-One". 
Crew turnover had occurred three days or so ago and as a member of the seaman gang I was plenty busy with the dirty work associated with that crappy job. 
We had been chipping paint preparing for an all above the surface paint job. At 18:00 liberty went down for the off going duty section. That was me and most of the seasoned seaman gang. We headed into Cadiz where we proceeded to do the traditional image of American sailors proud. After consuming an adequate quantity of sangria and calamari we returned to the base. 
The pier at the Rota installation is a rather wide girl and is supported by creosote soaked pilings. The tide was out and the boat sat low along side the monstrous pier. 
We had been using a small dingy to chip paint on the sides of the superstructure and the rudder and it was tied off near the turtleback. On the deck was a pallet with many of the five gallon cans of the flat black, non-skid black paint and intensely yellow zinc chromate primer we would be using to paint the beast. As drunk as we were I was surprised to hear QM3(ss) Jon Honnaker wonder out loud "I wonder what a Yellow Submarine really looks like". 
Looking at each other the idea seemed to take off. It was late around mid-night. We loaded up the dingy with three cans of the beautifully yellow zinc chromate paint, several rollers and long poles.
Before we got started we discussed the consequences of such a gesture and figured the worst that could happen is that they'd make us paint the boat. Since that was our job any way we figured 'what the hell'. Then it occurred to us that it might be perceived as though we were sucking up, you know, working through the night on our liberty and all. 
So the only thing left to do was to paint the 'Lost and Confused' (Lewis and Clark) on the opposite side of the pier.
A stroke of pure genius.
As we congratulated ourselves on this breakthrough development we maneuvered the dingy under the pier by grabbing the pilings and pulling ourselves closer to the West side of the pier. As we got closer we paid attention to where the Topside Watch and the Topside Sentry were... no where in site. The brow was in front of the sail.
We began at the rudder and when we had completed it without being discovered we quickly moved to the turtleback. We worked furiously and before long we had painted our way all the way up to the AMR1 hatch. 
About that time the Topside Sentry was making his rounds and saw us painting. We were all in civvies and he asked in a concerned voice "what the heck we were doing". We told him the COB caught us goofing off this afternoon and assigned us to 'paint detail tonight'. Even though it was our liberty night. So, we told him, we went to town and had few and then came back to take our punishment. He laughed and went back forward. 
What a mullet.
Now we were really pressing our luck. We painted as fast as we could and got some where in the middle of the missile deck when we heard some loud talking and the name of the XO of the L&C being called out. Like mad men we headed back to the stern and loaded up all of our gear and shoved off. Somewhere under the pier we heard an awful yell, we knew we had hit the big time. We arrived back at the Simon B. in short order and tied off the dingy. Hauled ourselves down to bed.
Unknown to us the Lewis & Clark was expected to deploy for patrol the next day. We had started a chain of events that we could not have predicted if we had tried.
The XO of the L&C immediately mustered a counter offensive force. They did something I never would have believed next. The four of them crossed our brow and over powered our armed Topside watch standers and taped them up with EB green. Three proceeded down the control room hatch one watched for the below decks watch while the other two went forward to the CO/XO staterooms. (The fourth stood topside and made 1MC announcements.)
Where they proceeded to take just one of the wheels off of the XO's chair and pulled the wash basin out of the wall in the CO's stateroom. And boogied out with the booty in the CO's pillow case.
Once the topside watches were freed by returning crew members a 'security violation' ensued. Of course we found no ship board intruders and we went back to the rack.
In the morning the L & C was gone and our CO was beside himself with anger. After all, this was a MAJOR breach of national security with the over powering of the Topside watch standers where nuc's were in custody. But with no one to be held accountable he was forced to live with the consequences and we went on patrol with a piece of wood screwed to the leg of the XO's chair and he was forced to give the CO his wash basin and he had to use the one in the CO/XO head. 
We never talked about the events of that day again unless we were somewhere where we were certain no officers could over hear. But we did hear the CO laughing about it some weeks later saying he wished he could have seen the Yellow Submarine...
and that's a no shitter...