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I received the following two communications
from the a Captain in the US Navy Reserves who was the XO on Illusive
during this period:
I may be misreading your site, but I don't remember engine problems on
Illusive in September. We didn't get into serious engine problems until
we got to Germany in late November 1978.
We got underway in early December (Leader was in Borkum) after discovering
we had a bad engine. Prior to our departure, the German shipyard inadvertently
ruined one of our aluminum main propulsion diesel engine blocks trying
an unauthorized repair. I talked over our situation with CDR. Chuck Tuck,
our C.O. I told him, "Captain, if we don't get underway (for Portsmouth),
they'll decommission us right here." We both agreed to make a run
for Portsmouth, where there were 4 engines waiting for us if we needed
them.
Instead of the intermittent snow squalls that were forecast, we ran into
a storm that was one of the worst I had ever seen. We lost all communications
with the outside world for about 8 hours and the Navy reportedly thought
we might have gone down. To top things off, we didn't know that when we
had changed our engine oil, we and filled the crankcases of all our engines
with a batch of bad lube oil that we had picked up in Flushing, Holland.
Having left port on 3 engines, we lost a 2nd and started losing oil pressure
on another before we figured out what was going on.
We limped into Portsmouth, England on December 8th (?) and subsequently
had to change out 3 engines.
I still have nightmares about the 5 - 8 December 1978 transit. There's
nothing like getting a few hours of sleep only to find 3 inches of water
sloshing around on your stateroom floor. A sweep deck drain had a tendency
to "drain" into my stateroom whenever we had seas break over
the stern.
I was hospitalized just after we got to Portsmouth and I was pulled off
the ship in early January.
In a separate communication he states:
FYI, in late November 1978 we were left behind in Wilhelmshaven, Germany
while the rest of the STANAVFORCHAN ships departed for Borkum, an island
off of Germany. We knew we had a bad camshaft on one of our engines and
MINERON 12 wanted us to replace it before we left. We had wiped the camshaft
because of the bad lube oil we picked up earlier. Unfortunately, as I
stated, we didn't know it was bad oil until some time later on. While
inspecting a main bearing, the stud for one of the bearing caps stripped
out. MINERON 12 agreed to send us the special fixture to help drill out
the old stud hole for an oversize stud, but the Germany shipyard got involved
and inadvertently destroyed the engine block by not waiting for the fixture.
Meanwhile, my new bride, who had been visiting relatives in Norway for
over a month, went to Borkum, trying to find the ship. The Leader's XO
and the XO from a German sweep took her under wing and got her headed
back to Wilhelmshaven the next day.
As I mentioned, Illusive had a tough time getting underway from Wilhelmshaven.
We'd made the decision to head for Portsmouth England on 3 out of 4 engines,
but we had a steering gear failure immediately after we got underway.
My Senior Chief said the steering gear pump looked like the power steering
pump on his 1953 Packard. I told him to get to work and see if he could
do anything with it. Luckily, it came apart easily and was easily repaired
with new "O" rings. (You can see why I ended up as a Weekend
Repair Officer at the Shore Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Newport,
RI.) As far as I know, the steering gear problems that had plagued Illusive
for years never recurred.
Bruce R. Goulding
Captain, USNR
(X.O., USS Illusive 9/78 - 1/79)
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