Navy Tales: Running From an Alien Invasion?

During my time in the Navy, I made several "med cruises." The aviation squadron I was assigned to, that had ten or twelve A4C Skyhawk airplanes, was one of four or five squadrons assigned to the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier. Unlike the ship's company crew that stayed on the ship all the time, we moved all our stuff off to a Naval Air Station in between cruises where we did training, and maintenance.

When it was time to leave on another deployment (that we called a cruise) we moved all our stuff back aboard. Yes...it was a pain in the neck! We did these about once a year or more often, and they lasted about five or six months. Then we went back to Jacksonville, and moved off again! In between we did some short training cruises, sometimes with just part of the squadron, and didn't go very far.

In this case, we went to the Mediterranean, where the Navy then and still keeps two carriers there at all times covering different areas. While there, we visited a number of ports for, usually about a week, and then were out for several weeks. Some of the ports were: Istanbul, Athens, Naples, Cannes, Barcelona, Palermo, and Gibraltar. There were some other places that no one ever heard of also.

Now, you might say: WOW, playgrounds of the rich, and famous...how lucky can you get! WELL...sailors are neither rich, nor famous, so we were stuck with the seedier areas of town, sampling the local dives, and beer. Of course, there were touristy things you could go to and see, and there were other things you could do that I won't describe here, but if you have seen the movie Full Metal Jacket at the transition between boot camp and Viet Nam, with the two guys sitting outside the bar....well it is the same all over the world.

The things in the above paragraph were done on LIBERTY. There was no such thing as SHORE LEAVE like you see in the movies. "Leave" is vacation. "Liberty" is time off after work. Now in the Navy aboard ship there are many things that are manned 24/7/365. All the crew is divided into sections, and are scheduled to work, or watch something, or be off on a rotating basis. Usually a fourth, or half the crew can be on LIBERTY and go ashore at a time.

Now with an aircraft carrier, there can be up to several thousand people on liberty at a time, so there needs to be some kind of monitoring of them. That is people who volunteer, or are assigned to SHORE PATROL. They wear an armband, carry a billy club, and a whistle. At most of the ports we visited, I volunteered for it. (The alternative was to sit in an office for eight or more hours "in case" the phone rang.) Usually liberty started at noon or later, and ended about midnight. I requested the late shift, about 4 p.m. to midnight. (It was more interesting.)

One night, in Barcelona, about 7 p.m., we (there were always two or more on a shore patrol team) were strolling along on our beat, talking about some of the drunks we had seen earlier, when we heard running sounds, and turned to see a sailor with a look of terror on his face come running up and  ask for help. We asked what was wrong, and he said "they're chasing me". We looked around, and didn't see anyone, so we asked who was chasing him. He was still looking all around, terrified, and said "the little green men"! We looked at each other surprised, and looked around again, making sure he saw us looking all over, and told him we thought they were gone. This seemed to calm him a bit, so we told him we would protect him, and take him to a safe place where they couldn't get him. (We were taking him to the shore patrol office where he could be locked up for a while.)

We were walking along, about half way there, when he suddenly screamed in a voice of terror "LOOK OUT, here they come!" And he took off so fast we quit chasing after a few feet!

We went on to the SP office, and told them to look out for a sailor with little green men chasing him. Of course they looked at us like we were nuts!

PS: We never heard about anyone who disappeared, so I guess he recovered, and got back to the ship.......or is he looking down on us from "out there?''