By George F. McClure, LT(jg) (’55-‘57)
Winter Park, Fla.
While we didn’t know it at the time, the location for our amphibious assault landing exercises near Puerto Rico, Vieques Island, would later become the scene for a battle to kick the Navy out.
While I was aboard, the USS Terrebonne Parish each winter left Little Creek, VA for Morehead City, NC, where we picked up Marine battalions and their equipment from Camp Lejeune to sail to the Caribbean for training exercises.
The equipment included LVTs, bulldozers, tanks, etc., in the tank deck and on the main deck and steel causeways carried on the sides of the ship.
This was not bad duty – we had occasional liberty weekends in San Juan, where it was possible to have a drink at the Caribe Hilton Hotel and rub shoulders with New Yorkers who were paying big bucks for the privilege of being in the sun in January.
Anchored offshore, the T-Bone picked up television stations broadcasting “I Love Lucy,” dubbed in Spanish. There were other times when the T-Bone visited the port of Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas, where the sport was picking out the various millionaires’ yachts in the harbor. This was before the large cruise ships ruined the ambiance.
The Beginning: Vieques & Culebra
The Navy, starting in 1938, had acquired rights on Vieques Island and Culebra Island for the conduct of military exercises. Both islands are off the east coast of Puerto Rico, about 50 miles apart.
Vieques has an area of 52 square miles, by 1941 two-thirds of it owned by the Navy. Culebra, named for the last virgin, is so small that a reporter walked around it in less than an hour.
It has one town, Dewey, named for the admiral who commanded the U.S. fleet in the Spanish-American war of 1898 that resulted in Puerto Rico and outlying islands becoming U.S. territory.
Support Exercises
Culebra, with 1000 inhabitants, was used for naval gunfire support exercises, including nighttime shelling. I recall one time when the T-Bone was anchored offshore we watched the destroyers firing their 5 inch/38 deck guns in the dark, with their little parachutes slowing the descent. In 1975, President Ford signed an executive order ending the use of Culebra as a Navy weapons range, although the western tip is still marked for the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Did You Know?
The signal flags flying when the USS Terrebonne Parish left or entered port displayed her call sign: NLOU (November Lima Oscar Uniform). Blinking signal light and radio traffic for her was also addressed to NLOU. Her voice call sign, used in operations with other ships and in communicating with the Harbormaster Little Creek, when getting underway or reentering port, was Trimness Bravo.