By Bob Smith with Barb Smith
In August 1960, The carrier USS Franklin D Roosevelt (CVA-42), pulled into Livorno (“Leghorn”), Italy, one of the largest and main seaports in the Mediterranean Sea. Three liberty launches left the ship for fleet landing. A storm was approaching. The ship began listing heavily. The winds were ferocious.
The “Rosie” pulled anchor, leaving about 300 sailors and marines stranded on the beach.
We started steaming south in the Med along the west coast of the “boot,” towards Africa. The storm was so strong that we were actually taking water over the bow, waves crashing 85 ft. above the waterline.
The storm literally wiped off the gyrocompass, many of the railings outside of the ship, and even took a jet engine and its container, off the ship as if they had been sliced off with a cutting torch.
Days later, we cruised back to Livorno in calm seas. The “stranded” smiling sailors boarded, telling tales of “woe” as they saw the Rosie steaming away rudderless.
We pulled anchor and headed west. Our destination was Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida. But first, an emergency stop was needed to repair storm damage. After going through the Strait of Gibraltar, we anchored below the Rock.
The next morning at 0800, we mustered to our respective places of work. In the shipfitters’ shop, I was given the job order to replace armor plating that had been sheared off from the port side of the ship during the storm. That armored plating was one inch thick and had been covering the fuel line, which funneled kerosene-based jet fuel, JP-5 (Jet Propellant-5), to the flight deck.
I walked to the hangar bay to the port side sponson deck which is 35’ from the water. I saw a cargo net that was strung beneath the sponson deck. I climbed carefully through the railing (terrifying to imagine today) and down into the net. I took measurements for the needed repairs.
I climbed out and headed to another sponson deck where pipe was stored. I hefted one piece of one-inch-thick steel pipe 24” in length by 18” in diameter back to the shop. A pipefitter took the pipe from me and placed it on the band saw. He cut the pipe in half, lengthwise.
I took one-inch-thick pieces of steel, used a cutting torch to cut 8 padeyes that I would be welding, four onto each half pipe. (Padeyes raise the pipe one inch from the ship.)
I carried the two, 24” halves of pipe, one at a time, to the welding booth. I welded four padeyes onto each piece of pipe.
I headed back to the job site with help from two bosuns, each carrying a half pipe, now weighing more than 100 lbs each, as I carried my stinger, welding cable, welding rods, helmet, welding jacket and gloves and chipping hammer.
I crawled back over the side and into the cargo net. I chipped the paint from the side of the ship so I could weld each 100-pound assembly into place.
I climbed back out, backwards. I put on my welding jacket. I crawled back into the net. I reached up for the rest of my equipment.
I pulled my stinger down into the net. I clamped a welding rod in the stinger, and put on my helmet. A bosun lowered one half pipe, by rope, and somehow, I held on to it. I struggled to position it. The floor of my work site was mere cargo net.
I used my body and all of my might to hold it into place with my left hand, flipped my helmet down, and put a weld across the first padeye. I welded across the top, along the second padeye. The bosun then lowered the second piece of pipe. I repeated the procedure, first tacking it, then welding it into position.
Now the REAL WORK began. I welded three root passes and three vertical up cover passes. I wove the weld back and forth vertical up to reinforce a final weave cover pass. I repeated this process seven more times.
I was still welding late into the day when I heard somebody holler down at me.
“SMITH! Are you done yet?”
“No!” I shouted with as much indignation as I could manage.
That person walked away. I continued welding. All of a sudden, I was zapped in my feet.
The Rosie had gotten underway.
“That’s it,” I said to myself. “I’m done.”
“Pull my stinger up!” I yelled to the bosun.
My rubbery legs made it topside.
As I exited the net, he asked me incredulously, “Do you know who that was who shouted at you?”
“No,”I answered
“That was the XO (Executive Officer)!”
