USS BARBEL with Vietnamese refugees on deck

USS BARBEL with Vietnamese refugees on deck

HASSAYAMPA motor whaleboat enroute to BARBEL. Motor whaleboat interior has been painted orange to comply with the American Bureau of Shipping/USCG regulations that the Hassayampa now comes under.

Motor whaleboat coming alongside with the first load of refugees from BARBEL.

It's not obvious, but this is Operation Baby-Lift. The orange US Mail bag has a baby in it. Some of the mothers were trying to climb the ladder with baby in hand. That wasn't working very well, so I had a mail bag and a heaving line brought in. Our guys would relieve mom of baby, pop it, screaming, into the mail bag, and haul it up to the tank deck. Mom would go up the ladder at flank speed and be reunited with a safe baby on the tank deck. Check out the thickness of the hull there. The sheer strake was 1 1/8" plate, doubled and riveted. That would be 2 1/4 inch of flexible mild steel to fend off pesky customers.

More Operation Baby-Lift. I'm actually quite proud of that little gig. It was improvised on the spot and between the two rescues that day and the other one, when I was Master, we hauled up over a dozen babies.

More offloading of BARBEL's visitors. The gent in the green boiler suit is the ship's Bos'n, Bob Pearson. We had two bos'ns:  Ship's Bos'n to run the routine ship chores and Rig Bos'n to take focused care of unrep gear.

As I recall, when this photo was taken, we were still a day out of Singapore, maybe two. We rigged tarps to give shade, then beat feet to get them off the ship. It was a diplomatic goat rodeo.

This is what it's all about. This lad is 28-30 years old today. He got cleaned up and had clothing given to him by crew members. The first thing the refugees wanted to do was to wash their clothes. We showed them the power of washing machines!!! The Hassayampa relieved the BARBEL of her charges and went on to rescue another boat, net total for that day was 191 refugees. Several years later, when I was Captain, we snagged another 20, total score for the Hassayampa, 211 refugees. I think we did good.

The guy in the red hat is Rig Bos'n Chester Blue. The khaki clad individual is me. I was Cargo Mate at that time.

Got to do a little grandstanding here:  Cargo Mate Moloney checking the boarding ladder prior to embarking refugees.

Later that day:  Another larger boat loaded with refugees with Hassayampa making approach. Gent in foreground is a Rig Captain by the name of Sam.

May 8, 1984, 25 foot teak fishing boat located 65 miles from nearest island and 130 miles south of Saigon.

This time, efforts to take refugees aboard Hassayampa were less orderly. The boat was overcrowded and night was fast approaching. This photo is not a good one, but shows the urgency that we had getting these folks aboard. I'm the khaki in the center, to my left is Bos'n Bob Pearson, to my right is Bos'n Chester Blue.

Hassayampa baby-lift in action. Any kids that were too young to climb the ladder were lifted aboard in a coaling bag -- the gray sack in the picture. The babies didn't like it.

Women and children rescued by USNS HASSAYAMPA. Better fed and clothed than when we found them.

All 20 refugees aboard Hassayampa. The other officer is the ship's nurse, Doc Hatfield. We berthed the refugees in the ship's hospital.

After we pulled the refugees off the boat, we couldn't leave it derelict. Rig Captain Sam and I went down to the boat, where he sloshed diesel fuel from the boat's extra fuel tanks into the boat and I used a fire ax to start a few planks. We scrambled back aboard Hassayampa and then I used expired lifeboat flares fired into the boat to get it burning. You would be surprised how much effort it takes to properly fire a boat! Anyway, it worked.