Good job Butch, I hope your fellow sailors follow you over to this topic. In the event they don't notice, feel free to PM them.
It's great to see this forum being used for everything it can be.
Though my job didn't require rides on the boats, we had many former crew members hired as consultants. A strange, & interesting breed of men! Ha Ha Ha
For me, the most memorable story comes from my (deceased) uncle who served in the pacific during WWII. He wouldn't talk about his experience to anyone, but I was so fascinated that he finally decided to give just me (a young teenager at the time) some insight. He told me what it was like to lie on the bottom while being depth charged. They stayed there, dead in the water till the air became virtually unbreathable, the battries nearly dead. He told of the stench, the fear, the darkness, the unrelenting bombardment - there wasn't any glory in his tales. I felt so fortunate that he agreed to share to me. WOW. I have tried unsuccesfully to find what his boat number was. I don't recall what his duty was, but he was a typical submariner - short, thin, & tough as nails.
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