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My Testimony



Most veterans of Korea, Vietnam, or the Cold War, had at least one narrow escape. I had one on the USS Brush three months after being commissioned as an officer. The gunnery officer told me to leave my battle station in gunnery plot and come up to the main battery director. Our ship was off the east coast of Korea, closing range to destroy some railroad cars. I left the chief fire controlman in charge of plot and proceeded to the main battery director. When I got up to the director, he did not know why he had called me there.

While I was there, we hit a mine on the port side. The explosion obliterated gunnery plot and flooded the forward fire room. We lost sixteen men: six in the fire room, five in plot, four overboard, and one died from burns in the hospital. That evening I conducted the funeral when we buried the chief at sea. He had died in place of me.

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