Collision

"Collision"

Btw.

USS Norris DD859 / USS Lloyd Thomas DD764

Thursday, March 3, 1960

At sea in the Caribbean; I had just finish my watch in the IC room. It was a clear, claim, beautiful morning. Heading to the repair department sleeping quarters, I could see the deck hands were preparing to high line to another ship. l continued to go below to my rack located just forward of the port side shaft alley hatch opening. My rack was second row out from the port side bulkhead of the ship. Suddenly there was a loud thud. You could hear scraping steel and loud boom.

The ship shuddered. i knew that we hit something. I made my way up to the fantail and there was the Lloyd Thomas right on top of us. Water was actually squirting up between the two ships washing both decks and if you wanted to you could have jumped over to the Thomas. I could see some of the crew on the Thomas scrambling for cover clearing their starboard side. Heading below decks again I could see out the port side of the ship. The screw guard from the Thomas came right though creating about a eight foot gash in the port side above the water line. I immediately headed to the IC room to see if everything was in order. I could hear them on the bridge barking out orders. At the same time, I was getting a call to “combat” the force of the collision put the "DRT" (Dead Recognizing Tracer) out of sync .

Meanwhile Ronald Cavileer BMSN was on ” watch” on the bridge of the Norris; said that a young JG was in command of the high lining. Ronald knew they were coming in to fast; thinking to himself that this JG. thought he was parking a car. The Captain was in his sea cabin at the time and was on the bridge real fast. John Harwood "QM3" was at the wheel of the Lloyd Thomas with Capt. Byers in command of the high line. The Thomas was to receive personal from the Norris who was to grade them on an ORI sonar exercise. Quote: John Harwood; we were the receiving ship, so we were to maintain course and speed during the high line transfer and the Norris was to come along side of us; and adjust her course and speed . We had established base course and base speed for the transfer and the Norris was making her approach on us. Comments from around the bridge were, "he’s coming along side to fast and that he is getting too close". l was told by the Conning Officer, to hold her steady.

I can’t actually say how close she was to us, but some of the crew on deck like Andy Vargo MM3, Tom Whittingham, and Leo Colliffower at the time said; you could almost walk from one ship to the other. Andy, Tom and Leo was standing by the after engine room outside deck hatch, starboard side when the Norris came up at a fast rate of speed. As water started to awash the main deck, the three took off in different directions. Leo climbed a ladder to the 01 level, Tom quickly went down the deck hatch to the engine room and Andy ran to the port side. It took quite some time for the command of the Norris to get his screws to maneuver to the point, where he must have felt he was clear enough to use his rudder and steer clear of us. He must have missed judged the distance between ships, because when he started to swing to make a new approach, the stern of the Norris started to swing hard. The stem of the Norris, about the area of the screw guard; collided with us hitting us just forward of the starboard break. I think that l was the only person on the bridge standing after the collision. The Thomas , had a gash above the waterline on the starboard side in the forward Div. 1 berthing space. We finished the exercise and transferred personal back to the Norris that day. We also finished the remainder of the cruise. After the cruise we off loaded ammunition in Yorktown, Va. on March 22, and proceeded to Brooklyn Navy Yard for dry dock repairs on March 23. We spent three weeks in Brooklyn. March 8,9,10; The Norris participated in gunnery exercise off of Culebra and Friday , March 10 moored at the US Army Pier in San Juan, Puerto, Rico.

Recalled by: Girard Kelly lC3, USS Norris D0859