BTDT. When were you on the Sara? I was aboard her in a Marine fighter squadron for a couple of months in the fall of 1956 when the Sara herself was still in her shakedown period.
The scaredest I've been was probably the time I came within inches of going overboard off the flight deck of the USS Lake Champlain (CVA 39) while the ship was underway at 10 pm.
One of the aircraft refueling crews had simply coiled a refueling hose up in the catwalk beside the flight deck instead of rolling it up on the reel under the edge of the deck like they were supposed to. I'd been on the flight deck working on an airplane and was headed back to the Avionics shop.
Walking down the catwalk with just a flashlight, I tripped over the hose. The hose fell over the edge of the catwalk and somehow wrapped around my leg. So there I was, kicking to try to get loose of the hose, 80 feet above the Mediterranean Sea, with only three wire ropes holding me. I finally kicked free of the hose and it went the rest of the way overboard, and broke off at the reel.
I was scared as hell and mad as hell. I went into Flight Deck Control and got hold of the Officer of the Deck, a LCdr. I took him out and showed him what happened, and he got kinda white around the gills. He went back to Flight Deck Control and got on the telephone with the Officer in Charge of the refueling crew, some Ensign.
I don't think that Ensign knew what an a$$ chewing was until that LCdr got done with him. The Ensign was also assured the incident WOULD be reported to the Captain and also included in his next fitness report.
Needless to say, from that moment forth, when refueling ops were done, the hoses were rolled up on the reels like they were supposed to be.
The thing is, working by myself on an airplane on the flight deck at that time of night, it could have been a half hour before I was even missed.
BTW, the "Champ" no longer exists. It's been recycled through a steel mill. I understand the Sara is mothballed.
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