Lt. James D. Barton, USN
Orential, NC - E:mail
bartonj1@comcast.net
..
Chief Engineer 1975-1977
aboard USS Kawishiwi
AO-146
See: 1976 Photos
My career in
the navy spanned seven ships over 30 years (I retired in 1994).
Reunions are a big deal these days. I have attended reunions for my
first and second ships and helped organize call lists and those sorts
of things for them. Kawishiwi was my third ship. My sixth and seventh
ships are setting up reunions as we speak. I note that the next one for
Kawishiwi is in Mobile which is
not too long a drive from here in Jacksonville. I have it
on my calendar and we hope to be able to attend. At present, however, I
have a serious conflict which we will try to work out. Read my Kawishiwi
and Vietnam War Memories, Kawishiwi
Oil
Tank Memories and a Swift
Boat Hero
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On the web
site, under the Crossing the Line section in 1976, the picture of the shellback
tucking away his list is of me. I was Davey
Jones for that crossing, my third. The list I tucked away was the
official list of pollywogs and the official proclamation. By the way,
two years later I crossed the line at 0 degrees Latitude and O degrees
Longitude on board USS Inchon, becoming a
Golden Shellback. I was an admiral’s aide at the time and the admiral
was a pollywog and my special case. I paid for it later!
Prior to
Kawishiwi, in my destroyer tours of duty, I spent a lot of time in
close doing shore bombardment and interdiction fire. I was also
in-country as well operating at fire bases.
When I was on my second destroyer, doing a fire mission in the extreme
south, we had to get in real close to do gunfire support; and, like the
Kawishiwi in Saigon, we churned
up a lot of mud in getting there. We had to because otherwise we would
have been outside the range of our guns. We went out the same way we
entered through the soft mud. It was really no big deal. We also were
in and out of Dan Nang a lot as well as Cam Ranh Bay and other places.
Once while in Da Nang we were fired upon by mortars and actually
responded with our guns. We spent a lot of time along the coast doing
H&I fire. But a lot of the time was excitement interspersed with
long periods of boredom.
In 1972 things really got exciting because for the first time the
regular army troops of North Vietnam invaded the south in a large
scale. Attacking targets by US seaborne units in the north had been
suspended in late 1967. These hit and run destroyer raids were called Sea Dragon. In 1972 the north
was opened up again and we conducted destroyer hit and run raids
shooting at a mix of targets and getting shelled by coastal artillery
sites in the process. The operation was first named Freedom Train. Then
after mines were laid along the coast, it was called Linebacker. It was
exciting to say the least. Everyone took fire from the shore and
practically all of our units were hit, most taking only minor damage. A
few took some serious hits and some lives were lost. I was OOD at GQ
during these raids and had a bird's eye view of it all. I guess you
could say it was scary but when you're young you think you're
invulnerable. I still have some flak from one of those raids as my own
personal souvenir. The threat wasn't just from shore artillery (which
by the way out-ranged us by 6 miles). One day we were attacked by MIG's
and one actually hit USS Higbee and destroyed its after gun mount. USS Sterrett DLG-31 shot down
both MIG's in the action.
On one occasion while attacking a town called Vinh, we were attacked by
two Soviet-style PT boats. We sunk them both at a range of 9500-11,000
yards.
While all of this was very exciting, the moment of my greatest fear
came on Kawishiwi alongside Hancock, which I related in my Oil Tank
memories, and we lived to pump another day. Had the AVGAS we were
transferring gone off, I don't think I would be sending you this e-mail.
Jim Barton July 19 2004
I’ve been in
contact with Ed Stevens. He lived across the passageway from me for
about a year in Kawishiwi. He was a good Supply Officer and made the
1975 deployment. He had a long navy career as well. There are a couple
of other officers with whom I remained in contact and can probably
find: Ron Keiser, Dave Brown and Art Tuttle.
Answers
about Outriggers. Feb. 19, 2004
Sold house
in Florida, moved to NC in June 2006
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