In the waning days of summer, I had a hankering to get back to my maritime roots and decided to make a quick trip to Bremerton to tour the historic Turner Joy (DD-951).
This 418-foot-long Forrest Sherman-class destroyer is famous for her involvement in the Gulf of Tonkin incident that precipitated the Vietnam War.
Turner Joy’s place in history came about in early August 1964 while it was patrolling about 30 miles off the coast of Vietnam.
The destroyer Maddox (DD-731) was on a similar patrol when she came under attack from three North Vietnamese torpedo boats.
Aircraft from the carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) destroyed two of the torpedo boats.
Although the third torpedo boat had left the area by the time Turner Joy arrived, she remained in the area with the Maddox to provide additional support.
Within 48 hours, Turner Joy’s radar screens detected what appeared to be a number of high-speed surface craft approaching their position.
By sundown the ship’s radar indicated that North Vietnamese small craft were converging upon the two destroyers from the west and south.
The Turner Joy reported seeing one or two torpedo wakes, then rang up full speed, maneuvered radically to evade expected torpedoes and began firing in the direction of the unidentified blips.
Over the next 2½ hours, Turner Joy and planes from the Ticonderoga fired at the perceived hostile craft.
Reports claimed that at least two of those were sunk by direct hits and another pair were severely damaged, and that the remaining attackers retreated to the north.
Whether or not the North Vietnamese attacked the two ships on Aug. 4, 1964, remains a mystery.
It could well have been that bad weather and the freakish radar conditions for which the Gulf of Tonkin is famous caused radar echoes to appear on Turner Joy’s screen and prompted her captain and crew to take defensive action in consideration of the events two days earlier.
In any event, “the Gulf of Tonkin incident” prompted American retaliation.
The carrier Constellation (CVA-64) joined Ticonderoga off North Vietnam the following day, and together they launched 64 sorties against the bases from which the attacks were believed to have been launched and against an oil storage depot known to have been used to support those bases.
Of more lasting significance both to the warship and the country, the incident prompted Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the legal foundation for the direct involvement of the United States in a bloody and costly war in Indochina for the ensuing 8½ years.
The Turner Joy was built by the Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co. in Seattle and commissioned in 1959.
She was the last ship in the Forrest Sherman class of destroyers and was decommissioned Nov. 22, 1982, after making seven cruises.
She was stricken from the Navy on Feb. 13, 1990, and donated to a private nonprofit organization, the Bremerton Historic Ships Association, on April 10, 1991.
The ship now serves as a museum and is permanently moored at the Bremerton Boardwalk.
Tours aboard the ship are of the self-guided variety, although guides are available for large groups and classroom field trips, and much of the ship is handicapped-accessible.
The ship is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week from March 1 until mid-October. From then until the end of February, visiting hours are
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
Turner Joy has three meeting venues for rent, and the ship is also available for retirement ceremonies, memorial services and enlistment and re-enlistment ceremonies.
The Vietnam-era destroyer also offers overnighter programs for young and old alike, which include the taking of meals in the crew’s mess.
As luck would have it, the ship’s curator, John Gerten, a retired Navy Reserve torpedoman’s chief, gave me a tour of the ship.
Not only did we have a good time touring the ship, we had time aplenty to swap sea stories because we were shipmates together on a Westpac cruise aboard the USS King (DLG-10) in 1967-1968.
And on that day, we weren’t the only ones waxing nostalgic.
Different groups and clusters of guests could be overheard sharing “remember when” moments from a troubled era.
Coho’s approach
Thanks and a tip of the bosun’s cap to Christopher and Suzanne McMahon of Port Angeles who wrote and asked why the ferry MV Coho, which travels daily to and from the Inner Harbour in Victoria, has different angles of approach when returning to Port Angeles.
I spoke with Elmer Grasser, one of the two captains for the Coho, who said that the angle of approach to the harbor is dictated by the direction of the wind and its speed, the tides and currents, as well as ship traffic and small-craft activity in the Strait and Port Angeles Harbor.
Captain Grasser added that the approach changes daily depending on the prevailing conditions — and that the ultimate goal for him and the crew is to provide the most pleasant experience for the passengers in the most timely fashion.
Routine inspection
Polar Adventure, the ConocoPhillips-owned crude oil tanker, has been moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal One North for the past 10 days.
The 895-foot double-hull tank ship has been pierside for a scheduled out-of-service period for a routine inspection of her rudders.
She was slated to leave Port Angeles by today and head for Valdez, Alaska.
How long it that?
On Friday, Tesoro Petroleum bunkered Alaskan Legend, a crude-oil tanker that is 941 feet long with a 164-foot beam.
For those of you trying to grasp the size of a ship that is nearly a fifth of a mile long, I suggest the following exercise:
When traveling west on Front Street, take note of the road sign on the south side of the street just past the intersection with Peabody Street that advises motorists that it is 950 feet to the stoplight at Lincoln Street.
This provides an excellent ground level perspective of the size of the larger ships that transit the Strait.
Today, Tesoro provided bunkers to Edfu, a 735-foot cargo ship that came up from the Columbia River.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats, ships and strolling the waterfront.
Items involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome. Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
