I met Mr. Peter Hyde at the Canton Library at 5:30 PM
on May 25th and the interview lasted for approximately an hour and a
half. Mr. Hyde served in the Navy
throughout the Vietnam era. He
volunteered in July 19th of 1969, and began the first of several naval
training schools at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. He then attended several other naval
training schools in San Diego.
Following his training, he reported to the one and only ship he served
on which was the USS John R Perry DE-1034. Mr. Hyde resigned from
his position in the Navy as a lieutenant.
The
interview transpired as follows:
PH: In April 1971, the John F. Perry was
awarded Meritorious Accommodation Award for outstanding operations in 1970, now
that was the ahh first deployment that I was on …the ship that went from
probably February 1970 ‘til June of 1970 and while we were on that
deployment, we went to Midway and we were in the area up here, northwest of
Midway and we got caught in uh a typhoon, a near typhoon, and we were in 80 ft
waves.
PH: And it was quite an experience. You chart up the surface of one wave and we’d reach the crest and then you pitch over and you go down into the trough.
PH: Uhh [pause] I think it started on a Sunday morning… I think about probably 8 a.m. or so it really started getting rough. It lasted about through the day Sunday and into Monday.
DE: Really? Wow.
PH: But uh, when we’d plunge into the trough, the bow would go into the wave and we were getting water up to about, here [motions to a picture of the ship and points out a spot just short of about halfway up] and the bow would disappear and then the bow would come up and it would throw the water back at the bridge [chuckling]. So uhh..
DE: Were
you navigating at that time?
PH: No that was, that was before I was a navigator. But uh, I was part of the Bridge Crew. I think I was uh, well the Navy has, has positions: Officer of the Deck, is responsible for the driving of the ship. He’s really the Captain’s representative under way for like a four-hour period of time so…
DE: Uh-huh-
PH: … he’s driving the ship telling the helmsman what course to steer, and uh, uh the person that controls the engine, orders telegraph what speed to ring up as well.
DE: Uh-huh
PH: And then there’s a Jr. Officer of the Deck who assists, at that time I think I was, yea, no yea I was a Jr. Officer of the Deck. And um,..
DE: What
were you doing for the typhoon?
PH: Well, uh [laughs]…
DE: [laughs]
PH: A lot of it was, we were uh just hanging on [laughs]…because we were um..we were, if we were broad side to a wave, we were rocking , maybe 40, maybe 40 or 45 degrees.
DE: Wow.
PH: To either side, and um, I know we had one fellow who was… who was quite an “Old Salt” for us, I mean we were all, many of us were pretty young kids at that point, I mean just out of college or high school.
DE: Uh-huh.
PH: But this fellow had been in the Navy for probably ten or twelve years, and so he was an “Old Salt” to us, and he [laughs] he lost his footing, he went from one side of the bridge to the other.
DE: Oh-no.
PH: So, it would be like from here to there [motioning from one side of the room to the opposite] you know he wiped out two guys over on this side [laugh] as he rolled across, so, [chuckle] so, we were really literally just holding on to whatever we could grab. As the ship rolled from one side to the other, or as it pitched up and down.
DE: And
you couldn’t do anything about it?
PH: The best that we could really do was try and keep the bow headed into the waves, but we were also trying to stay in one [pause] general area, so we would come about periodically. I think we were going ten miles in one direction.
DE: Uh-huh
PH: And then, we would have to turn around, so that was an adventure every time, you turn around, well when you turn around that’s when you got broadsided-
DE: Oh
yeah.
PH: That’s when we were going from side to side.
DE: Right.
PH: Going from side to side 45 degrees, and um..
DE: Did
the typhoon just come on, was it expected?
PH: No I don’t think, we had uh, a meteorologist’s mate on board, so I think they had an inkling that something was there , and uh [chuckle], uh they were trying to stay away from it, but uh, they didn’t uh succeed [laughs].
DE:
[laughs]
PH: We didn’t succeed, uh, I think they knew something was there, I don’t think they knew it was going to be quite as rough as it turned out to be. But, it was funny, the whole time I experienced it, it was, was exhilarating kinda, I mean it was a little, I don’t wanna say it was like a roller coaster ride, but it was uh, I never really felt that I was in danger.
DE: Uh-huh.
PH: But, clearly [chuckle] I think, you know we were. Yeah, the ship…
DE: What
would you hold onto though?
PH: Ahh, on the bridge we had, uh, we had like a counter, that was really designed to be used standing up.
DE: Uh-huh…
PH: But we had a chart, and then some other open space, and then our radarscope with some other [pause] work area.
DE: OK.
PH: So the radar scope had a couple of handles on it, or the counter you just grab the edges [grabs the edge of the table as an example of a similar action], in the center of these windows here [points to the windows in the picture], there was a compass, there was a gyroscopic compass, it was a repeater for a gyroscopic compass…