3" 50 Artillery Recoil
SMR incident of recoil injury. The (3" 50/105 howitzer) gun was angled at very high elevation with the breach down next to the deck when I homed the round, while the ship was in a heavy roll in that direction - I nearly fell into the recoil (The gun is not ‘lanyard activated’ - instead, it automatically fires as soon as the breach closes after each round is homed in the chamber by hand). The breach struck the heel of the loading right hand, spun me around and momentarily paralyzed my right shoulder; the arm was thrust behind my back and convulsing for several moments. I dropped to my knees, grabbed the sleeve of my right arm with my left hand and pulled the arm forward after placing the forearm between my knees. When medics arrived, Gun Captain Roger Branch and several of the gun crewman told them what had just happened and they said that this reaction had ‘reduced’ a dislocated shoulder. I was consequently allotted ‘light duty’ for several weeks. The incident is recorded as having occurred, 23 May '61, while the fleet was preparing to invade the Bay Of Pigs. I was first loader at my GQ station for 3 ½ years.

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Bay of Pigs. April - May, ‘61
Large portions of the entire 6th Fleet were in a ‘holding pattern’ around the island of Cuba, from April through May of 1961 (Not to be confused with the ‘Missile Crisis’ of 10/’62). To my knowledge, there was no major deployment of troops or cargo to the island in this period of standing off the island aboard ship(s).

On the other hand there were Americans deployed to the island - that I know of - prior to the invasion window, which, to the best of my knowledge, is from 6 May, ‘61 thru 26 May, ‘61.

There were Americans on the island as early as mid April, 61; I am sure of this because I coxswained a boat with 16 passengers - mostly Americans (one, known as ‘Irish’) - to various parts of the island, for 5 ½ days (after which time my LCVP boat was relieved by another of the same description). There were about three of the 16 (small arm equipped) passengers who spoke English with a Spanish accent. Including myself and an American Lt. jg, no one on board was in uniform, most of them wore civilian dungarees, I was assigned to coxswain an LCVP boat, with no markings and our Colors struck down.

I was briefed and told that our activities were routine exercises (characteristic of Fleet unit ‘shakedown cruise’ deployments around Cuba), and only through long term hindsight did I learn that we were apparently doing reconnaissance in preparation for the forthcoming (classified) invasion. I had access to charts which included an area called ‘Blue Beach’, which I later learned was the Bay of Pigs (proper).

To the best of my recollection we did not recon that area. We stationed ourselves in thick foliage-overgrown rivers and small inlets in the day time. A lightly armed six man team (without a radio) made sojourns inland, I don’t know how far, in daylight hours.

At night we ventured into open sea near shore, where divers from my boat brought up debris and recorded depths and sub-surface coral formations, drop offs and inclines.

After I returned to my ship from this duty, I was re-called and ordered to a designated location to rendezvous with and pick up ‘personnel’ (I would later learn that some of these men were among those who had been with me on my boat for the first described detail, ‘Irish’ was among them). The contacts were absent from their station of appointment. The crew (ship’s company from another unit - other than my regular crew from my ship) and I waited for three and a half hours. We were then told that there had been a change of schedule and ordered - and transported by another small craft - away from the designated coordinate and back to our ships. I don’t know why these men were absent from the assigned meeting place. About three months later I was told they were ‘transferred’; without further explanation.

When I was discharged (7/’62) from four years and three days of active service, my DD214 made no mention of the Bay of Pigs. On occasions when the subject was brought up and I said I was there - ashore - I was consistently reviled (in two cases I was physically attacked, on one of these occasions I was struck over the back with a heavy metal chair), on the popular but false premise that ‘no Americans were in the Bay of Pigs’ (An entire armada of ships was just off shore).

In 1980, under the sponsorship of then congressman Leon E. Panetta (a former navy member, who found my story credible - Mr. Panetta later went on to become Chief of Staff of the Clinton White House), I joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars (which requires membership to have served in a war zone). It was known to everyone in my post that I had no papers for the Bay of Pigs. In April, 1985, the acting Commander abrasively and publicly dismissed me from my post because I had no papers.

Six months later, in October, ‘85, congressman Panetta recovered and sent me my Navy Dept. papers (attached), with the Navy Expeditionary Medal. I returned to my VFW post (5888, which I co-founded in 1983, Santa Cruz, CA) with the described documents and proof.

I was immediately and physically attacked by three post officers (Vice Commander Steve Bare, Quartermaster Lee T. Bookout, and Adjutant Robert Hall). I prevailed in the fight. In February and March of ‘86, I was charged with battery and brought to stand jury trial, as a defendant in a court of law for the first (and only) time in my life. The opposition lost (again). I was found ‘Not guilty’ of battery. Whereas, I was disallowed, under consequence of being ‘rat-packed’, from ever attending post meetings again, or even entering the Veterans Memorial Building - which had previously been an important part of my life (as Officer of the Day/Security Officer), since 1980.
This rogue ‘policy’ was strictly maintained, to the time I moved from Santa Cruz, in 2002.

Since 1996, when I attempted to subject the above events and circumstances with V.A. counselors, they consistently prohibited and balked discussion about it (‘We don’t do politics’).

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Car & truck collision
As stated in the (attached) service medical report (SMR) on this incident, the injury was minor and the physical consequence was minimal.

The circumstance of the accident was that the truck made a left hand turn out of the right hand lane without signalling, resulting in Byer’s vehicle (in which I was the front seat passenger) braking while he (BM3 Napoleon Byers) steered to the left as it impacted and proceeded half way under the (left hand turning) cargo truck bed, shearing off about one third of the roof of the car.

Byers took the described action to minimize impact. I threw myself down on the seat with my left hand on the lower dashboard and my right hand raised in a defensive reaction. The shattered windshield and passenger side upright post passed over me because we could see the impending collision and took the described evasive actions. The truck lost several hundred pounds of live crabs, which were strewn over a wide area of the highway. The driver’s side of the car was undamaged. Part of the truck’s undercarriage was wiped out, along with my side of the car. Had I not reacted as described, I certainly would have been decapitated.
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