Jim O’Neill – Cumshaw

Vietnam-Crew-Stories-James-O'Neill-1967

At the University of Virginia, from which I graduated in 1965, I was taught Mr. Jefferson’s principle that a gentleman does not lie, cheat or steal. This was a black and white definition. When I arrived on the USS Taylor (DD 468) in 1965, I discovered a lot of shades of gray with regard to the third one of these requirements.

As a newly-arrived Ensign on the Taylor in Pearl Harbor, I was informed that we had just installed a new scuttlebutt in the After Engine Room. The scuttlebutt was obtained by the Chief Machinist Mate when he dressed up as a Shop 99 yard bird, and removed the drinking fountain from the base theater DURING THE MOVIE. He had probably installed it on the Taylor before the movie had ended. Of such actions are legends made. After thinking about it, I reasoned that this was not theft, just misappropriation. After all, the U.S. Government owned both the base theater and the After Engine Room of the USS Taylor. The Chief was just redistributing assets, nothing more. Mr. Jefferson would understand, I’m sure.

A little harder on Mr. Jefferson, I think, is the following. Sailors who snuck into the galley and absconded with food and were caught were brought before the mast for theft. On the other hand, there were Chief Petty Officers who wandered the shipyard with full sized salamis and bolognas obtained from the crew’s mess. They would cut off large chunks and give them to shipyard workers for off-the-record services rendered (e.g., valves repaired, spare parts provided). This behavior was considered acceptable on its face. The ends justified the means, I guess — just redistribution of assets of different types.

And what about all the brass from the scrap yard that we loaded in the bilges. Then we traded it overseas for a paint job in Hong Kong, chrome plating in Kaohsiung, and even a division party. I guess this is just a case of recycling useless material while creating international goodwill at the same time. Nobody wanted that stuff anyway, right? Mr. Jefferson was a very practical man himself, schooled in the arts of international trade and diplomacy.

As an aside, I caught some serious grief when the USS Taylor was delayed in getting underway from Kaohsiung harbor while we all anxiously awaited the return of boiler burner leads, which were in the local Chinese shipyard being chrome plated. I’m sure that the look on CDR Matejceck’s face, as he watched a Chinese yard bird row a bum boat full of burner leads across the harbor, would have burned a hole through anyone who was unlucky enough to be in his field of vision.

Back to the story. The key enabler of this system of cumshaw was the concept of “need to know”. The only reason a more senior person needed to know about these activities was to insure that eye aversion occurred at a critical moment. Certainly, the Captain did not want to know, or even to be aware that he should know. The Captain wanted to be informed about these activities after he was transferred, during a quiet evening over drinks at the club when he could feel free to laugh and feign astonishment. If he had known about these activities at the time, he would have had to stop them, even if he didn’t really want to.

But what if management is in on it? LT Walter Henry Otto Kopp arrived as Chief Engineer on the Taylor in late 1966. Standing a full six and a half feet tall, he had a wonderful sense of humor and was one of the most intelligent people that I ever met. He took IQ tests as a hobby and was an active member of the American MENSA Society. One of the activities to which he applied his intelligence was improving the art of cumshaw on the USS Taylor, to a level well beyond anything Mr. Jefferson could have contemplated.

His first act was to license a sailor to be a thief, or, better yet, a re-appropriator, an Agent 007 if you will. LT Kopp provided a bicycle that our licensed Agent 007 could use to wander the piers and confiscate anything usable, unguarded and not nailed down, such as a stray water hose, a piece of cable, etc. The bicycle was stored on the ship – frequently in the Chief Engineer’s stateroom (also my stateroom).

On one occasion when we needed a new feed pump rotor, LT Kopp dispatched our Agent 007 to the USS Walker (DD 517), our sister ship, that we knew had a feed pump rotor squirreled away out of sight of the prying eyes of the Supply Department. “Go in the Walker’s Engine Room and tell the Chief over there that the Chief Engineer said you could have the feed pump rotor. Just don’t tell him which Chief Engineer”. A while later Agent 007 returned with the feed pump rotor. A misappropriated pump rotor being re-misappropriated! — hmmm.

One time while the Taylor was tied up alongside the tender, LT Kopp cut a set of orders transferring Agent 007 to the tender. While on the tender 007 would dangle a bucket over the side into which his shipmates on the Taylor put pieces of paper listing parts that they needed. Later that day the bucket would come down again, this time loaded with whatever parts he could find. After running this scam for a couple of weeks, LT Kopp visited the Ship’s Office on the tender and asked to see the orders, which, because they had not yet been processed, he tore up.

At yet another time, the squadron staff had organized a “strip ship” to get as much use as possible out of a ship that was being de-activated. LT Kopp found the squadron’s management controls to be too cumbersome so he dispatched the Chief Electricians Mate, EMC Hansen, to the de-activated ship with a case of beer. Hansen engaged the quarterdeck watch in a little discussion and some tippling – actually quite a bit of tippling. When the watch was safely sleeping, and night had fallen, Hansen pulled out his flashlight and signaled back to the Taylor. Now the real strip ship began as a flock of Taylor sailors descended and grabbed whatever they could use. LT Kopp was clearly an early practitioner of what is now known as “Acquisition Streamlining”, the elimination of cumbersome regulations and procedures.

All this happened over forty-six years ago, and time has a way of glamorizing, compressing, and polishing events. What is certain is that old Fletcher Class Destroyers, like the Taylor, were extremely maintenance intensive. Also, the Engineering Department, operating budget was paltry compared to the work that actually had to be accomplished and the repair parts required. Necessity breeds invention and people find ways to solve problems, even if those ways require a considerable amount of creativity. Mr. Jefferson would have been proud.