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USS BARBEL with Vietnamese
refugees on deck |
USS BARBEL with Vietnamese
refugees on deck |
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HASSAYAMPA motor whaleboat
enroute to BARBEL. Motor whaleboat interior has been painted orange to
comply with the American Bureau of Shipping/USCG regulations that the
Hassayampa now comes under. |
Motor whaleboat coming alongside with
the first load of refugees from BARBEL.
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Got to do a little grandstanding
here: Cargo Mate Moloney checking the boarding ladder prior to embarking
refugees.
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The guy in the red hat is Rig
Bos'n Chester Blue. The khaki clad individual is me. I was Cargo Mate at
that time.
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It's not obvious, but this is Operation
Baby-Lift. The orange US Mail bag has a baby in it. Some of the mothers
were trying to climb the ladder with baby in hand. That wasn't working
very well, so I had a mail bag and a heaving line brought in. Our guys would
relieve mom of baby, pop it, screaming, into the mail bag, and haul it
up to the tank deck. Mom would go up the ladder at flank speed and be
reunited with a safe baby on the tank deck. Check out the thickness of
the hull there. The sheer strake was 1 1/8" plate, doubled and
riveted. That would be 2 1/4 inch of flexible mild steel to fend off
pesky customers. |
More Operation Baby-Lift. I'm actually
quite proud of that little gig. It was improvised on the spot and
between the two rescues that day and the other one, when I was Master, we
hauled up over a dozen babies. |
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More offloading of BARBEL's visitors. The gent in the green boiler suit is the ship's
Bos'n,
Bob Pearson. We had two bos'ns: Ship's Bos'n to run the routine ship chores and
Rig Bos'n to take focused care of unrep gear.
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After we pulled the refugees off
the boat, we couldn't leave it derelict. Rig Captain Sam and I went down to
the boat where he sloshed diesel fuel from the boat's extra fuel tanks
into the boat and I
used a fire ax to start a few planks. We scrambled back aboard
Hassayampa and then I used expired lifeboat flares fired into the boat to
get it burning. You would be surprised how much effort it takes to
properly fire a boat! Anyway, it worked.
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As I recall, when this photo was taken, we were still a day out of
Singapore, maybe two. We rigged tarps to give shade, then beat feet to
get them off the ship. It was a diplomatic goat rodeo.
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This is what it's all about. This lad
is 28-30 years old today. He got cleaned up and had clothing given to
him by crew members. The first thing the refugees wanted to do was to
wash their clothes. We showed them the power of washing machines!!!
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~ Later that day ~
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Later that day: Another larger
boat loaded with refugees with Hassayampa making approach. Gent in
foreground is a Rig Captain by the name of Sam
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"The
Hassayampa relieved the BARBEL of her charges and went on to rescue
another boat, net total for that day was 191 refugees. Several years
later, when I was Captain, we snagged another 20, total score for the
Hassayampa, 211 refugees. I think we did good."
~Pat Maloney, former Master, USNS Hassayampa |
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Two Year Later |
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May 8,
1984
25 foot teak fishing boat
located 65 miles from nearest island and 130 miles south of Saigon. |
Hassayampa baby-lift in action. Any kids
that were too young to climb the ladder were lifted aboard in a coaling
bag -- the gray sack in the picture. The babies didn't like it
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This time, efforts to take refugees
aboard Hassayampa were less orderly. The boat
was overcrowded and night was fast approaching. This photo is not a good one,
but shows the urgency that we had getting these folks aboard. I'm the
khaki in the center, to my left is Bos'n Bob Pearson, to my right is
Bos'n Chester Blue
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Women and children rescued by USNS
HASSAYAMPA. Better fed
and clothed than when we found them |
All 20 refugees aboard
Hassayampa. The
other officer is the ship's nurse, Doc Hatfield. We berthed the refugees
in the ship's hospital |
