Battling Hurricane Able

By Dick Barber

For ten days in May 1951 Hurricane Able, a category 3 hurricane with over 100 m.p.h. winds churned up the Atlantic Seaboard from Florida to Virginia.

The Noxubee was at Craney Island taking on a load of 145 octane to be taken to Casablanca, Morocco. The ship was Scheduled to depart on Monday morning. There were reports of a tropical disturbance in the area and our time of departure was changed to Sunday morning to get us out of port before the storm hit Norfolk. It was an early departure time and I was the duty cook so breakfast went down about the time the ship was preparing to get underway.

The menu for the noon meal that Sunday was roast chicken. I had the chickens dressed and in roasting pans and in the oven. Departure was uneventful but by ten a.m. we were in some heavy seas. Coffee was splashing out of the large ten gallon urn and had to be partially drained, water on the steam table was drained and the table was secured. The ship pitching and rolling so much that gallons of water were splashing out of the 50-galton steam kettles and I even had to drain the stock out of the chicken in the roasting pans as it was spilling in the oven. By 1100 hours waves were breaking over the tank deck with such force the captain secured the area and did not permit the crew to traverse from the forward section of the ship aft and vice versa.

The noon meal was scheduled to go down at 1130 a.m. and other than the chicken and a small amount of vegetables, it was going to be a rather simple meal. The mess cook and I set up as best we could but no one was showing up to eat. Eventually a half dozen or so out of a crew of 60 men and officers that came up to eat. I ended up tying the roasting pan with the chicken to a mess table and we sat up there eating and waiting for others to show up. Some one suggested we play cards and four of us started playing pinochle.

There was little activity around the galley for the next eighteen to twenty four hours as the storm continued to get worse. The ship's course took us deeper into the storm and we had no place to go to find calmer seas. Swells were running twenty feet to about forty feet and the helmsman had all he could do to prevent the ship from laying in a trough which would have been disastrous. Headway into the swells was like a roller coaster as the ship pitched and rolled. The vibration aft was the jarring as the screws came out of the water as the ship pitched forward running down the next swell of the seas.

Finally after 30 hours since getting underway the weather started breaking and we finally got some relief from the storm. But the ship had taken some heavy hits. The boom on the port side of the fo'cs'le was damaged, the covers on the cargo hatch were damaged and the ship had taken water forward partially flooding a dry stores provisions storeroom. The captain's gig was damaged. There were two 20mm AA mounts on the aft tank deck and the gun tubs were rolled back like sardine can tops over and onto the guns. A garbage chute had been installed on the port side main deck during the last yard period at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and it was twisted aft about 45 degrees (see picture). The crews berthing compartment forward of the tank deck had taken some water also. The gauge (can't recall the technical name) on the bridge that measures the ships roll had been marked at 54 degrees. The captain broke into the forward storeroom to get canned goods to feed anyone in the forward part of the ship that wanted to eat. There were canned meats, vegetables and fruit so food was available to those few in the forward section of the ship that wanted it.

The ship proceeded to Casablanca, off loaded our fuel and ServLant sent us up to Naples Italy for a short R&R before returning to the states. Once back home a quick yard period repaired the damage. It was at that time the two 20 mm AA gun tubs off the tank deck were removed leaving only two twin mounts aft on the fantail.

The pictures I took were mostly aft from the port side were I came on deck from the galley hatch. Needless to say the sight was breathtaking when I took the pictures but my time out on deck was brief as well as stupid, we were younger and more daring in those days. I had other pictures of the damage the ship sustained but alas they are some of the many that are stilt missing.