Some time in '58 or '59 it was decided that the USS Etlah, AN-79, would return to the 32nd Street docks to be unfitted for storage, her pennet retired. Her departure date was to be spring of '60. This ship had been cruising the waters of the West Pacific for many years but had not done a crossing in a LONG time. So the crew was tasked to put the Etai (Japanese for "ouch") in "shipshape". So in between cruises to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and one adventure to Okinawa, there was furious activity to check and recheck all the ship's systems and functions. The Chief was the senior repair guy on the Etai, chief Shipfitter, and it fell to him to evaluate most of the mechanical and structural systems. She was an old ship but the Chief had been hard at work keeping her sound even before the announced retirement. He pronounced her "READY". A brave pronouncement in the military.
In the service, "Ready" has a special connotation. In the Army we never say we are ready for inspection...we say prepared. Because we have done our best to look good, be correct, lined up, clean, pressed, polished and all that. But the word "ready" relates to the combat worthiness of a unit. Saying you are ready says you are IT...and a bag of doughnuts. Okay, you ask, "Huh? I don't see the difference". You would if you were ever in an inspection where you leader announced you were ready...the inspector goes wild and tears the place apart to prove to you the difference. It's nuts, I know. But that is how it was. And the Chief reported the Etai was "Ready".
After the turn of the decade and the spring looked ever so near, the sailors on the Etai were franticly buying china, stereos, motocycles, laquer-wear, clothing, shoes, everything that Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea were famous for. Around the end of January the Etai was taken out of the cruise rotation to prepare for her crossing. Knobby, the skipper was clueless but harmless and at least smart enough to let the chiefs get things ready. He also gave permission for the sailors to store personal items above decks on the trip back to the States. On the day they sailed, the topsides of the Etai looked like a container ship...crates, boxes, luggage, and about a dozen motorcycles adorned her decks in every imaginable nook and crany. In them days you could buy a Honda or Yamaha motorcycle for about a tenth of what it cost in the States, if you could find one in the States. Just about every sailor on the Etai had a large portion of their goods lashed down topside. The Boatsun checked all the lashing and rigging to insure things wouldn't shift in rough weather. Most everything was covered in canvas to keep the ocean out .
So on that final day in Japan, the Etai pulled out of Yokosuka heading for the land of the big PX...The families of the married sailors were already flying back home and expected to see their men in about 4 weeks. It was a fine day, wispy clouds, blue skies, calm seas....do you hear the glob slurping?
The Etai was a small ship, barely a boat really. She only drew 10 to 12 feet of draft...about 170 feet long with a 33 foot beam. In her youth she could cut a stately 12 knots ( about 13.5 mph). Her normal compliment was 46 men but there had been some departures without replacement in the final few weeks in Japan so she was a little light on crew. Designed basically as a harbor craft, her main function was to tender (take care of) the submarine netting around a protected harbor. Her last ride was to be one of legend...at least among those who rode her home.
Things were going good for the first few hours, the ship was sound and making good time...good as she could. The first night out the sea started to come up. By morning they were facing stiff winds and choppy seas. As the day developed, so did the weather. The wind started tearing the tops off of the white caps and sending blinding spray across the bridge. The little ship was getting a pretty good tossing...but she was still sound. By afternoon they began to find wet spots where some of the seals weren't as tight as they could be but it was no big deal...then late afternoon brought the fierce stuff. Stacking seas that broke over the bows and washed down the decks like a flash flood....winds that blasted the water against the bridge glass...torrential rain that blew horizontally. It got a lot worse before it got better. It went on for the whole night and more than half of the next day before it started to let off...it took more than another day for it to settle down enough for men to go out on deck. What they found when they went out for damage assessment was unbelievable. The Etai had two life boats and three or four rafts...all gone...she had two kinds of radar and an array of antenae for various functions...The storm left them with the short range radar which needed to be repaired before it would spin around again. The radio masts were all gone, in fact, the decks were totally cleaned off. Not only were all the carefully crated goods and motorcycles gone, so were all the above decks stores the ship normally sailed with. The Etai was stripped down to her shorts. And the sailors were stripped of all their far east treasure.
It took a couple of days to rig a new radio mast so they could even report their situation to WESTPAC. With everything wiped out, they still had almost 30 some days of sailing to get to San Diego. Fortunately, they didn't have much trouble after the first few days and they didn't need those lifeboats and rafts, anyway, because she was sound...and ready. Good Thing.