Still looking for anyone that was in Iwakuni Japan Christmas 1962

[scotty]

Would like to finish my stories shipmates but need some help in compiling bits and pieces of story data. Scotty

[scotty]

The Small was tied up to a destroyer tender with about four other cans anchored in the bay. You had to cross all four quarterdecks in order to get on the liberty launch to be taken to the base landing. This wasn't a problem going on liberty, but coming back it was dark and cold. If you were loaded with Sun Tory whiskey, Asahi beer, and saki the crossing was a challenge. The first part of this story is about Gunners Mate 3rd Class Smoky Miller. Smokey was one of those sailors that Navy stories were all about. He loved to drink, cuss, and most of all fight. He would fight over a trivial thing when sober, but add a lot of alcohol, his fuse was cut very short. Well, the waiting on the cold landing struck matches without lighting the fuse. The crowded liberty launch with all its drunken sailors pushing, throwing up, and giving verbal cussing kept striking the match but the fuse didn't get lit. Well, low and behold, on the crossing of the four quarterdecks a dry match lit Smokey's fuse. It appeared now that a sailor with the return group was attemping to light that match. This unknown sailor, who would wear a deformed re-stitched bitten off ear for the rest of his life, would wished he had never "Smokey-ed". I was either in the liberty party returning or on the quarterdeck as petty officer of the watch. Which ever it was, the action is as vivid in my mind as if it were yesterday. Smokey and this sailor were going at each other down on the deck when all of a sudden the sailor let out a scream you could hear over the entire fleet. The sailor rolled around on the deck holding one ear with blood running out of his hands. Standing over the sailor, mouth all bloody, stood Smokey with the portion of the sailor's bitten off ear between his teeth. It took at least four of us to hold Smokey down forcing him to release his prize. The sailor was rushed over to the Task Force Carrier we were in port with to have the retrieved bitten off portion of ear reattached. Since witness spoke up and vouched that the sailor had started the harassment beginning at the landing Smokey was given only a fine and restriction. The second part of of Iwakuni Japan 1962 cruise story later.