Biddle - The Early Years, by DS2 James Treadway
Ships go to sea and warships go to war. The USS Biddle (DLG-34) performed both duties in outstanding fashion during a career of nearly twenty-seven years. It was my honor and privilege to serve aboard Biddle from December 1965 until April 1970.
I received orders to report to Biddle after completing boot camp at USNTC San Diego, Radarman 'A' and Electronics Technician 'A' schools at Treasure Island, and "Data Systems 'A' and 'C' schools at Mare Island, California. Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Bath, Maine was building Biddle, so I reported to the nearest naval facility, NAS Brunswick in December of 1965. I was a 20-year-old Data Systems Technician 3rd Class, anxious to apply the excellent training I had received courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
The only person attached to Biddle at that time was Lt. Robert S. Gerity who became Biddle 's first NTDS officer. I remember Lt. Gerity saying, "Congratulations, Petty Officer Treadway, you are the first enlisted man to report aboard Biddle. You are now petty officer in charge of making coffee every morning." Okay. My brother Ray (BT3) received orders to report to Biddle soon after I did. Ray had been stationed on a rusted out W.W.II oilier in San Diego and was very happy to get orders to a brand new cruiser. The congressman from our district pulled some strings to get him assigned to Biddle.
Biddle had not been delivered to the Navy so I didn't have much to do except watch BIW finish building Biddle, enjoy seeing Maine, and making coffee every morning. Lighting was supplied by shore-powered droplights that were strung between the spaces since Biddle could not generate her own electrical power. Most of the deck plates in CIC and many electronics spaces were not installed because not all-electronic equipment had been delivered and installed. It was an excellent opportunity to see how the multitudes of components are installed, connected, and tested. I had unlimited access to the entire ship – including the missile areas and secure radio rooms. I don’t think there was any space aboard Biddle I didn’t visit.
A shipyard is an interesting place to visit - especially a shipyard with the reputation for quality that Bath Iron Works has. Numerous ships were in various stages of construction ranging from almost completed such as Biddle to skeletons with little more than a keel.
I wandered in several buildings just to see what they were doing. In one building I watched machinists turn stainless steel propeller shafts on giant lathes. It takes many months to turn a stainless steel propeller shaft from stock material. A machinist told me that if a man dies who is turning a propeller shaft, they scrap the shaft and start a new one because only the machinist knows all the peculiarities and imperfections of a particular shaft and they must be perfectly balanced.
Two unexpected events while stationed at NAS Brunswick were watching the Blue Angels (they were flying the F11F-1 Tiger) and hearing Duke Ellington and his band at the base mess hall. Actually, there were three unexpected events at NAS Brunswick. The third was the excellent chow at the mess hall.
I eventually moved off base to a rented room in Bath that was one block from BIW. One night we were playing poker with an old Indian by the name of Paul. Paul also rented a room in the house. A hand was dealt; Paul picked up his cards, looked at them, let a loud fart, had a heart attack, and died on the spot. We never did go back and look at his hand – must have been a good one – or maybe a really bad one. Even though this happened late at night, there was a bill for the ambulance in his mail box the next morning.
Builder's trials were in November of 1966 and were closely followed by preliminary acceptance trials in December. Biddle was delivered to the Navy in Boston on January 10, 1967, and CNO Admiral Thomas H. Moorer commissioned Biddle on 21 January 1967 - a bitterly cold but clear day. Biddle’s first Captain, Maylon T. Scott, christened her crew as "Hardchargers" – a description that applied to Biddlemen throughout her career. I had the honor of cutting the commissioning cake since I was the first enlisted man to report aboard.
We were very busy for the next year - loading missiles and ammunition, pre-shakedown operations, missile qualifications, ASW training, shakedown training, final acceptance, even more training cruises and even more training after that. We spent a lot of time in the Roosevelt Roads area of Puerto Rico testing our missiles, guns, radar, fire control systems, and the Naval Tactical Data System. Shooting a Terrier or ASROC missile was loud and fun but I think I enjoyed shooting the 5" and 3" guns more. Shooting the 5" 54 in fully automatic mode was very impressive. Training wasn't the only thing on Biddle’s schedule. We had some pretty good liberty in San Juan, Montego Bay, and St. Thomas.
Every once in a while, something would happen to remind us that even training could be very serious business. One day we fired an ASROC at a friendly submarine and we had programmed a miss by 'X' number of yards so it wouldn't actually hit the sub. Well, everything was okay until the torpedo locked on Biddle. The torpedo hit us on the port side (best I remember) at the aft boiler room. It put a huge dent in the side of the ship and scared the hell out of everybody in the boiler room. I sure am glad it didn't have a warhead.
One morning off Gitmo, when the seas were as smooth as glass, we tried to see how fast Biddle would go. When we reached maximum speed, I couldn’t even stand on the fantail without holding on to the railing because the vibrations were so severe. I was looking UP at the rooster tail Biddle was kicking up - we were haulin' ass. Maybe it was BS, but someone told me later that we were going over 40 knots on peacetime screws. I'll bet Biddle never went that fast again.
We finished the required training and got underway for the Tonkin Gulf on 22 January 1968, just one year and one day after commissioning. Our first stop was the Panama Canal. Unbelievably, we almost didn't make it through the canal because someone (not me) misjudged the approach to one of the locks. We had to make an EMERGENCY FULL REVERSE or slam 8,800 tons of brand new cruiser into a concrete pier. Biddle was shaking violently and spewing columns of black smoke out of both macks as we slowed to a stop just before hitting the pier. That was close! Our first liberty was the city of Balboa on the Pacific side of the canal and it was pretty wild. I was surprised to learn that when we exited the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, we were further east than when we entered from the Gulf of Mexico.
Honolulu was Biddle’s next port of call. As we entered Pearl Harbor, there was a moment of silence as we passed the sunken USS Arizona. I tried to imagine what it must have been like at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Biddle stopped at Guam for fuel then at Subic Bay before arriving on station in the Tonkin Gulf on March 3, 1968. Biddle spent much of her time in the Tonkin Gulf at PIRAZ station - Positive Identification and Radar Advisory Zone. PIRAZ, an actual buoy located a couple of hundred miles north of Yankee Station, was the northernmost point of naval activity in the gulf. From that point we could see most of the northern part of the war with our two air search radars, the SPS-40 and SPS-48. With a radar range of about 240 miles we could pick up planes as far south as the DMZ, west into the interior of North Vietnam, north almost to China, and east to Hainan Island.
Biddle’s primary responsibilities at PIRAZ were to guide air strikes from Yankee Station to North Vietnam and to check that traffic coming out of North Vietnam was friendly. When we weren’t at PIRAZ, we were on S&R (search and rescue), at Red Crown, or trying to shoot down Migs while steaming up and down the coast of North Vietnam. We were not actually shot at but we went to general quarters numerous times. I’ll never forget the first time we went to GQ and it wasn’t a drill. "General Quarters! Man your battle stations! This is NOT a drill!" Those words get your attention every time.
I think those goofy North Vietnamese and Russian Mig pilots liked to play games with us. Generally they would take off from airfields near Hanoi or Haiphong in small formations of two to four planes. We could pick them up on radar soon after they took off, then track them as they flew nonchalantly over North Vietnam. Suddenly, they would turn directly toward Biddle at mach 1 plus and we would go to GQ. Birds were on the rail and all guns were manned – fire control radar was locked on – we were ready. Then, when they were forty miles out - the range of our Terrier missiles - they would turn back. We sure wanted to blow one of those Migs out of the sky but they wouldn’t get close enough.
There were two incidents involving Biddle and North Vietnamese Migs that were interesting and might give you an idea what it was like in CIC when the pucker factor started to rise. The first story involves Biddle, Jouett, and the Long Beach trying to "sucker punch" hapless Mig pilots with a Talos missile. The second rather sad tale describes how two Migs successfully splashed an Air Force Phantom over North Vietnam. My Chief way back then, DSC Johnson, describes the action:
"According to my recollection, the Talos action took place in the vicinity of Vinh during Biddle’s 1968 tour. The situation was that Migs had begun a series of intrusions into the south of North Vietnam, leading to the conclusion that they were preparing some sort of attacks. Vinh was an NVA staging area, and got a lot of attention from strike packages. It was also a hot recovery area for downed aircraft, and so CTF 77 decided to take action to interdict Mig flights and send a message: stay home."
"The plan has USS Jouett, then DLG 29, sit off the coast about 12-15 miles and do lots of tracking and in general make her presence known. Long Beach snuck in position a couple of miles to seaward from Jouett in total electronic silence, but with Link 11 in Receive and Talos track transmitters in Standby (or whatever the stage next to actual radiate was for Talos). Her presence was masked by Jouett’s activity."
"Biddle was positioned off Haiphong as North SAR, and radars could see up the Red River valley to Hanoi. Using our search radars and some magic devices, (ed. Note – I was responsible for one of these devices) we were to detect Mig activity at the various airfields around Hanoi and create firm tracks as they flew south. As Migs got into Jouett’s SPS-48 radar detection range she took tracking and Link 11 reporting responsibility. Long Beach was monitoring the Link picture in receive only, and would designate the remotely-reported Migs to Talos tracking channels, with track transmitters still in Standby."
"The Op Order said that when a suitable Mig target was in the area (enageable by Talos but generally outside of Terrier range), CTF 77 would pass the weapons-free command to Long Beach as the plain-language phrase "Blaze Away." At that command, track transmitters were activated and the Talos engagement process commenced. The result was that birds were away very quickly, and even with the Migs probably detecting track and illuminate RF activity and were heading for the hills, engagements were successful at about maximum Talos range."
"My recollection is that this was done a couple of times before the NVA figured out that Long Beach was present. The result was that few Migs ventured into that area for a long time."
"Long Beach steamed around for a couple of weeks with her missile houses black from the booster blast, probably as a badge of honor. Bravo Zulu, I say."
"There was another, but unfortunate, event in the same area in which Biddle played a part, and may have been part of the reason for the Long Beach operation. I don’t remember the timing, but I think that it occurred a couple of days before."
"During our N. SAR duty, and while refining the Mig detection process with various resources, two Migs took off and headed south toward Vinh. They quickly merged, and appeared as a single radar return as seen by the manual trackers, and thus were reported over Link 11 as size One. Tracking and all other functions such as raid size assessment (One, Few, Many in the old NTDS world) and ID were still manual on Terrier ships. ID of Hostile had been made, and the proper symbol displayed on all consoles. Only size was missing."
"We had two functioning Height/Size consoles on Biddle, which was rare. They didn’t work on most ships. (Biddle had a couple of ace Display techs, of course.) The SOP had become to not use the NTDS Height/Size consoles to save manpower, given the SPS-48’s capability to provide Height at the Radar console. Size didn’t matter, since we had become accustomed to Migs in our area that were trackable as singles. However, this merge was not observed by our on-watch CIC team, but I thought I had seen it early on. After a period of time, just before the track reached the limit of our 48 radar’s range, I decided to check out my suspicion on a H/S console. Sure enough, two tracks could be seen with a fair degree of certainty. This was reported to Track Sup, but no action was taken to entry a size evaluation and I had no authority to push buttons."
"It was only a few minutes before these two Migs (still reported as a single) entered Jouett’s radar range and she began to track and make Link 11 reports. However, Biddle had yet to accept display of the Jouett version, and thus maintained display of the Mig track basically in a dead-reckoning mode but without transmitting it on Link ll. The NVA had a plan of their own, and as the Migs flew down a valley one broke off and apparently loitered just out of radar sight. As the other Mig entered the area, in which friendly activity was underway, and was detected and tracked by Jouett, it apparently did a 180-degree turn. Within a few seconds, it appears that a Biddle operator may have inadvertently position-corrected the by-now invalid Mig track, which had DR’d feet wet in the vicinity of friendly ships. This created a Link report of that old track as a new hostile, due to NTDS track processing logic, and resulted in CTF 77 ordering a Phantom to check it out. The assigned F4 was vectored to the new hostile, saw nothing and continued feet dry to turn around. At that moment, the loitering Mig popped up and attacked the Phantom without warning. Unfortunately, it was successful and the crew was not recovered. The other Mig put on some knots and went home."
"The whole scenario took about 5 minutes, and we never determined exactly what happened. Lots of message traffic ensued, and the result was that lots more understanding was gained by the ships at sea about some critical NTDS computer program and operator interactions. It was not a good day for Biddle, and after gaining more operational experience I often regret that we didn’t realize the implication of available radar data. However, a lot of guys were lost during that because of the fog of war and situations that evolved very quickly."
I don’t remember if the following incident occurred during Biddle’s first or second ‘Nam cruise but it is a reminder how far north in the Gulf Biddle once was. On a quiet, calm morning, I stepped outside for some fresh air and noticed we were surrounded by hundreds of North Vietnamese fishing boats. Generally we were far enough from shore that spotting a fishing boat was a rare event. So, why was Biddle dead in the water and surrounded by so many fishing boats and where were we? I never did get an explanation – I can only assume we snuck up there under the cover of darkness and were gathering intelligence about North Vietnamese activities. Most electronic equipment was turned of so as not to divulge our position. Eventually, Biddle slowly turned to the south and started to pick up speed. One by one, Biddle started to turn on electronic equipment. When our SPS-10 surface search radar came up, it painted a picture of the coast of North Vietnam near Haiphong. I believe the only other U.S. forces that got that far north were pilots, POWs, and maybe a few submarines.
One day (or was it night?) I was checking out one of the displays in CIC when I happened to notice a single radar return just north of the DMZ. On the next sweep (about 10 seconds later) I noticed the blip had moved several miles. At first, I thought it was false echoes, or more than one target popping up in different places. It became evident that this was not a normal target when it covered the distance from the DMZ to Hanoi at a speed I calculated to be nearly 3,000 miles an hour. We had heard there was a top secret plane operating in the area but we didn't know what it was called. Later we learned it was the SR-71. I believe I can recall that when it reached the border with China, it just kept on going, knowing they couldn’t touch it at 80,000 feet.
After a month on station, we enjoyed some well-deserved liberty in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was truly one of the highlights of the entire cruise. There just wasn’t enough time to see and do everything – Kowloon, the New Territories, the Star Ferry, Tiger Balm Gardens, Aberdeen fishing village, Wan Chai, Victoria Peak, and junk city were just the beginning. The food was the best I have had in my entire life. The sights, sounds, and smells were strong enough to bring my wife and me back for vacation more than twenty years later.
It is impossible to discuss the Navy’s activities in Vietnam without mentioning the navy base at Subic Bay, Philippines. Virtually all our ships coming from or going to Vietnam tied up at a pier or dropped anchor at Subic Bay for the purposes of replenishing supplies and enjoying some well deserved R & R. Alongapo City, just across the appropriately named Shit River, was the only place a sailor or marine could go to have a drink and some fun. There weren’t many rules in Alongapo – you could get just about anything you wanted – including dead. More than one sailor or jarhead was found floating face down in Shit River the next morning. The drinking was heavy, fights were common, the music was loud, and women were available. At least that is what I’ve been told.
Biddle returned to the Tonkin Gulf for another month on station. Our next liberty ports were in Japan - Yokosuka for work to be done at the shipyard and Shimoda where Biddle represented the United States at the annual Black Ship Festival.
My interest in visiting Japan was heightened by my life long curiosity about foreign countries and my interest in the Pacific during World War II. I think what surprised me most about the Japanese was their hard working enthusiasm. This was particularly evident from the Japanese shipyard workers who came aboard. No doubt some of the workers fought against us during WW II but I could see no evidence that they resented us.
I did not pass up an opportunity to visit Tokyo since it was so close. As the tour bus headed north along Tokyo Bay, I remembered that Japan surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay just a few weeks before I was born.
Biddle returned to the Gulf of Tonkin for three more weeks of duty after which we headed home via Singapore. After liberty in Singapore, we sailed through the Straits of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. Due to our westerly track to the port of Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, Biddle crossed the equator at latitude 0000 and longitude 87° East on July 27. When we crossed the equator, I, as thousands of sailors across the centuries had done before me, entered the Domain of Imperial Neptune, and transformed from a lowly Pollywog into a mighty Shellback. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m not going to explain – it’s pretty gross.
The seas were very rough all the way across the Indian Ocean until we passed south of the Island of Madagascar. From there to Lourenco Marques the seas were smooth once again.
I didn’t know what to expect in Africa so I was pleased to find that Lourenco Marques was in many respects, a fairly sophisticated medium sized city not unlike most American or European cities. The local police were not particularly sophisticated, however – they had virtually unlimited authority over the citizens and did not hesitate using violent force at a moments notice. For example, I had shore patrol duty one night with a Portuguese policeman. We entered a bar and a black woman made a remark to the policeman in Portuguese. Suddenly, he hit her as hard as he could with his nightstick and she dropped to the floor. A few minutes later we were enjoying a fine meal with wine in a nice restaurant as if nothing had happened. Later, we returned to the heavily guarded police station where snarling police dogs kept a man prisoner in the main room.
Biddle rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Atlantic Ocean. After refueling at the Cape Verde Islands, we docked at Lisbon, Portugal, then sailed through the English Channel en route to our last port, Copenhagen, Denmark. As Biddle transited the English Channel, we crossed the path the Allied forces took on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The outline of the French coastline at Normandy barely showed on our surface radar. I wondered what it was like to be part of the Allied forces on that day.
Copenhagen, like Hong Kong, is a world class city. It boasts outstanding food and drink, a liberal atmosphere, Tivoli Gardens, and very friendly people. I probably had more fun in Copenhagen than anywhere else. Two incidents in Copenhagen were indicative of the times, however. First, when we pulled up to the dock, anti-war protesters reminded us that the war Biddle had just left was not popular with everyone. Second, in a similar incident, a local citizen spit on me as I walked in uniform through a crowded market.
Our five-day stay in Copenhagen ended all to soon and Biddle began the last leg of her around the world cruise. We entered the North Sea then turned north and entered the Atlantic north of the British Isles. As Biddle steamed toward Norfolk, we encountered a nor’easterner and the worst seas of the cruise. The seas were so rough that all activities ceased except critical functions on the bridge, engine rooms, and boiler spaces. I took a peek outside from the 03 level (which is about 60 or 70 feet above the water line) and was looking UP at the waves. One second we would lean twenty or thirty degrees to port and a few seconds later we would pitch forward and lean twenty or thirty degrees to starboard. But Bath Iron Works builds great ships and Biddle just kept on steaming for Norfolk.
Shortly after returning to Norfolk, a cruise book was published that contained an error that should be mentioned. Somehow, someone decided to erroneously report that someone else was the first enlisted man to report aboard Biddle. Hell, I remember watching this guy report aboard. I saw him struggling up the stairs with his sea bag over his shoulder when he reported to the nucleus crew at BIW. Admittedly, he was the first to make chief and the first to ship over but he was definitely not the first enlisted to report aboard the Biddle.
Biddle departed Norfolk on 26 May, 1969 on her second WestPac tour. Once again we transited the Panama Canal – this time without incident. We arrived at Danang on 30 June then relieved the USS Chicago as SSAR on 1 August. From August through November Biddle served as SSAR, at PIRAZ station, at Yankee Station as AAWC, and finally as plane guards for the USS Coral Sea. The multitudes of days on station in the Tonkin Gulf were punctuated by outstanding liberty in Yokosuka, Hong Kong, and Manila.
During one of Biddle’s many calls to Subic Bay I witnessed a sight that is still hard to believe – one half of a destroyer sitting in dry-dock. The W.W.II destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was cut in half while operating with an Australian aircraft carrier - the name of the carrier escapes me at the moment. The front section of the Evans sank almost immediately with some loss of life. Miraculously, the aft half stayed afloat because she was sliced in half just forward of the aft boiler room. If she were cut in half just a few more feet aft, the aft half would have sunk too. The aft half of the Evans was towed to Subic and placed in dry dock. I’ll never forget it.
There was another incident that I think occurred on the second cruise that should be recounted. It involved the USS Boston, Biddle, the Australian DDG Hobart, and one other US Navy ship. When I recently attempted to recall some of the hazy details of the incident to my old chief, DSC Johnson, he corrected my account with the following sea story :
"In the interest of accuracy in media, I feel obligated to update your recollection of the Boston incident with a few additional facts. It was a 4-plane section of Phantoms that independently diverted from an in-country mission to a feet-wet operation to which they had not been invited. This all started when a Marine forward observer near the N. Vietnam border saw near dusk what he reported as 4 helos headed south. There was a ground operation in progress just south of the border (it was a big deal at the time, but I can't recall the details) that made such an incursion sound reasonable. In fact, Biddle was just off the beach to block any Migs that might try to provide air support to the NVA. We did figure-8's for hours on end to make it difficult for known FROG batteries on the beach to track us. We even loaded our EW program with limited air tracking capability to maintain surveillance of the truck-mounted radars. (FROG means Free Rocket Over Ground), used two radar trucks for triangulation and a launcher truck. Bad business, even though it was primarily ballistic in flight. Still don't know why a strike on the FROG units was not conducted.) After a couple of days, we were relieved by the Australian DDG Hobart and were a couple of hours up the coast back to N. SAR, I believe. It was just after dark
when the Phantoms heard reports about the 4 helos, and decided to come out to the op area and check them out. I was monitoring voice comms just to make sure your console equipment worked, and heard these guys get busy. They came up the coast from the south, and each one reported contacts on their radars, and they apparently concluded that they had jumped 4 low-flying helos. It all seemed to make sense to the Air Force. Without checking in to Red Crown, they started an attack, each Phantom taking one of the four bogies with missiles. The truth is, they had run across 4 ships in the area Biddle had recently left: the Hobart, a 75-foot Swift boat in the surf on a clandestine mission, the Boston, and Boston's shotgun (a gun-type DD whose name I forget; years later I had an employee who was a junior officer on the DD and gave me his perspective.)"
"One F-4 reported tracking a helo at 1,500 feet, fired (Sparrow, I think), and reported that the helo had crashed on the beach and was burning. That was the Swift boat, with several casualties and a couple of fatalities."
"Another F-4 attacked Hobart and sent a Sparrow through the superstructure from aft to the pilot house, with 7 or 9 dead Aussies and a bunch of injured. We tied up next to Hobart in Subic after she was repaired, and I talked to a chief who said he was on the way to his GQ station and saw the sailor in front of him get almost decapitated when the missile exploded."
"Another F-4 attacked Boston and did some damage. Pieces of the missile were found on deck, including the serial number."
"The last F-4 made two runs on the DD, but missed. Before it could try another run, the ship was at GQ and was starting to shoot, as I recall. By then, Maydays and other traffic in English was filling the circuits, and the brave Air Force dudes broke off and went home. There was a big investigation, and the Air Force finally agreed to play on a more integrated basis with the Navy."
"The next night there was another interesting development with Boston.
She transmitted a Mayday, said she was under air attack again, and asked for air support. Turns out that she saw some AA tracers from an island nearby that the NVA controlled, and some lookout took no chances. I remember Maylon T. Scott's words in CIC when the truth was reported - referring to Boston's C.O., he said "There goes old -----------'s next promotion."
"Yes, James, those were exciting times. I've always been glad that Hobart was on station and on time in relieving Biddle. Hope these few details help if you have occasion to retell this tale."
I remember tying up next to the Boston a few weeks after this incident took place and concur that the Boston was hit and damaged. She had wooden planks covering the main deck that had been reduced to splinters and some holes in the superstructure from 2.75 inch rockets.
Biddle steamed 55,300 miles on the second WestPac cruise, landed 439 helicopters while on station, refueled and replenished at sea 37 times, and spent 167 days at sea and 42 days in port. Biddle was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation.
I was glad to get back home – even if it was Norfolk – because I knew my last cruise courtesy of the United States Navy was behind me and I would be civilian in a few short months. Biddle arrived in Norfolk on 21 December 1969 where I served on shore patrol until honorably discharged on 9 April, 1970.
Before departing Biddle, Captain Alfred Olsen, Commanding Officer, signed a picture of Biddle that said, "To DS2 James A. Treadway, USN – First plank owner of the USS Biddle, highly skilled technician, Hardcharger, by your competence and professional performance you helped make Biddle a great ship! Good luck and Godspeed."
Even though I wasn’t assigned to Biddle any more, I did not forget her. Anyone who served aboard a warship and went to war doesn't forget that ship.
Ships go to sea and warships go to war. Bravo Zulu, USS Biddle!
Respectfully submitted to the crew of the USS Biddle (DLG-34)
by DS2 Jim Treadway (1966 - 1970)
