Beginning in the fall of 1949, the United States began to evacuate American civilians and military dependents from China. The Communists were pushing the Nationalists out slowly but surely and between them was not a good place to be. It was a tense time, the Chinese (in spite of the fact that they had already begun moving their government and families to Taiwan) looked upon the US evacuations as a bad omen of things to come. They were right, of course.
It was in this climate that troop ships of the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS) were tying up along side piers in various Chinese ports to begin boarding the evacuees. The Chief was was among the hundreds of sailors involved in the operation...the reason the ship remains nameless will become apparent later.
They were sitting dockside for a few days. Newly arrived dependents and civilians would come on board as they showed up and wait for the ship to fill so it could sail. The Marines on board were edgy because there were always armed Chinese soldiers on the docks and it was feared that at any minute they might change their mind about letting folks leave. So...we have a boat load of nervous evacuees...a security contingent of Marines that were nervous...some because they were too young to have been in the war and weren't sure what to expect, some because they were veterans of the war and did know what to expect. There were nervous and sometimes beligerant Chinese soldiers on the docks and who knows what else was adding to the mix...maybe the sound of Mao's artillery in the distance?
At night the crew set up chairs and a movie screen on the fantail, that rearmost portion of the deck of the ship, and show movies. Kinda like a drive-in you walk-in to. In a rare exhibition of brainlessness, the Chief and some of his metalshop buddies decided that everyone was way too serious...they needed something to relieve some tension and get a laugh. One of the "tension relievers" that had always worked on the Landsdowne, the destroyer the Chief spent WWII on, was to blow up a weather balloon with acetylene gas from the welding torch...stealthily place it in a group without their knowledge, then flip a burning cigarette at it...that was enough to set it off. Bright flash, loud boom, little, if any, damage. Good for a big laugh. No...not all the way full...that would be crazy! Not even half way.
The plan was to set up a similar event on the fantail during the movie...plan went well until a breeze caught the bouncy balloon and it started for the midst ot the crowd. Not wanting to give up a great gag, one of the smiths flipped his cigarette and the balloon went off...a little closer to the crowd than desired, but it got a huge reaction! In our political atmosphere, you no doubt have heard of "unintended consequences"...things happen as a result of an action that were not the intended things. In this case, the jittery Marines thought the Chinese had attacked the dependents. The Chinese thought the ship had fired on them. Fortunately, there were no reported fatalities from the insuing firefight, but needless to say, they sailed right away and the remaining evacuees were redirected to another port.
Fifteen years after the event, the Chief still instinctively looked over his shoulder whenever he told the story. From the way he told it, I was never sure if he felt guitly or just worried about the statute of limitations. Not all of the tales of the Chief are humorous. He was a fun loving guy who could never resist a country band or a cold beer. But some of his stories don't have happy endings...he carried some of them too long...some he never told. But they all contributed to the whole...who was my Dad.