Her hull was haze gray, aluminum and the superstructure was green zinc chromate. There were no barrels in the 5" guns and the was a thousand electrical cables and hoses laying everywhere. She looked a mess much like a woman two hours before going out for the evening. I was part of the precom, precommissioning, crew. The precom guys job was to learn every square inch of the ship from the bilges to the missile radar room. It was very interesting being most sailors rarely get beyond the spaces where they work, eat and sleep. I arrived in Seattle in February of 1964 and until I got out in 1968, every time that ship moved, I was aboard her. We went out on several yard trials with the yard birds, shipyard personell, manning the engines and steering etc. This was a bit unnerving for the few sailors actually aboard as we all felt that only real Navy people could man a war ship. The future captain was particularly nervous as was his nature. He was only a speedbump up on the bridge. I suppose that he could see his beautiful new ship meeting every maritime disaster known in the Western World. But, in fact, the yardbirds did a reasonably good job and we made it back in one piece every time. The USS Stoddard DDG-22 was being built next door at the Puget Sound Bridge and Drydock Corp. DDG-22 was not only behind DDG-24. But had to be towed in most every time she went on her yard trials much to our collective amusement. The last trial was the most fun. We blasted through the Strait of Juan De Fuca at full flank speed for several hours. The actual speed was classified information and maybe still is, but it was way faster than I though was possible for a 4,500 ton ship. I was told by a yardbird that they had a monitor on the shafts for the RPM. It supposedly could tell at what point the screw would twist itself off of the shaft. Then a throttle stop was brazed on as the wartime emergency stop. Then they would back off a few turns and attach a plastic stop that could be torn off in an emergency.
In August, the ship was towed, cold iron, to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. There were only five, or so, people on board for this evolution. This is before the Navy had crowes on the blue work jackets. I was all by my lonesome up on the forward line and we had no power for the winch. I was sweating like hell and some brand new Ensign was screaming at me to heave around or some such bullshit. I, at that time, was the youngest E-6 in the Navy and a young looking 21 year old at that. As I ripped off my jacket and flung it to the deck I and turned to him and hollered back that "You could give me a fucking hand". He was about to practice ass chewing but then noticed all of my stripes and sheepishly said "What can I do to help?" We finally got the mother tied up and I lit up a smoke and he bummed one off of me. We stayed chummy after that.
On 28 August we commissioned the old girl and she became officially United States Ship Waddell DDG-24. DD for destroyer and the G denotes guided missile armed. Eighty per cent of the crew was straight out of NTC, boot camp and had never seen a real ship. Now that I was an "old salt" we screwed with the boots a lot which is part of naval tradition. I was assigned to helm/leehelm train the helmsmen how to steer a ship. I had steered a ship, a small ship but a warship, on Lake Erie when I was in the reserves. Me and this other first class a GMG, Gunners Mate Guns as opposed to a GMM Gunners Mate Missile would come up to the bridge eating porkchops and the boots would end up barfing into a shitcan, a trash can. It was good clean fun but like most really good things, it didn't last long enough. The boys turned into men way too fast.
Next Long Beach California.
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