CHAPTER 6. VIGNETTES (CONT'D)

Well, that's enough of my feeble attempts to impress girls.  In today's post, I relate a couple of harrowing experiences I had during my professional career.  They don't fall into the Near Death Experiences I posted earlier, but they were scare nonetheless.  The first story tells of when I was reporting to the spy ship the USS BANNER.  I gave a near death story earlier when I was on the BANNER.  This story is entitled "Reporting to the BANNER".  The second story is about when 3 of us strayed into a highly classified area in Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska.  It is entitled "Eielson Air Force Base.  Try tp [it yourselves in my shoes as you read these stories.

​REPORTING TO THE USS BANNER (1967).  I gave my near-death experience in Chapter 3 when the Banner was rammed by a Soviet ship.  But I did have a couple of interesting things happen to me during that particular trip.  The first happened when I initially reported to the Banner to begin the mission.
As I said earlier, the Banner, originally a light cargo ship, had been converted to a state-of-the-art surveillance or spy ship.  NAVOCEANO was providing the cover story for its presence as an oceanographic research vessel.  I was reporting on board for its third mission in the Sea of Japan.  Because of its nefarious mission, the ship was berthed at the remotest pier of the US Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan.  I flew to Tokyo and took a taxi for the fairly long ride to Yokosuka.  Once in Yokosuka, I had to switch taxis to one that was allowed on the naval base. Once on the base, we drove for quite a while to get to the pier where the Banner was berthed. Then the taxi driver stopped his vehicle suddenly and told me that he was not allowed to go any farther.  I saw the Banner at the far end of the pier, and I began the long trek to it with a suitcase and a briefcase in hand.  It was evening, and it was dark.  When I was about a 100 yards from the ship, 3 or 4 marines came out of nowhere, pushed me against a fence, put a gun to my head, and asked me my business.  I told them that I was an oceanographer for the navy and had orders to report onboard.  Despite the rifle they had pointed at me, the marines were very courteous in the way they talked to me.  They asked to see my orders.  When satisfied, they escorted me to the Banner and introduced me to the Quartermaster of the deck.  When the quartermaster acknowledged that they were expecting me, the marines apologized for the “inconvenience” and left.
I always thought that this experience was amusing, but I must say, it was a little disconcerting to have a marine pointing his gun at me.
EIELSON AIRFORCE BASE.  I am not sure when the Eielson Airforce base incident occurred, but it happened a few years after the Banner incident given above.  I was now involved in Arctic Ocean research, probably around 1961 or 1962.  As you will see, what happened is remarkably similar to the Banner story above.  At the time of year that we were at the Eielson base in Fairbanks, AK, it was dark and very cold.  We were experiencing maintenance problems with our aircraft because of the cold weather conditions, and it had been moved to a hanger for repairs.  We, Dick Ketchum, Dr. David Amstutz, and I, were wandering around the base trying to locate the hanger where our aircraft was being housed.  We were lost, and suddenly, we were challenged by several marines.  They pushed us to the ground on our faces and aimed guns to the back of our heads.  We were asked why we were wandering around a restricted area at night.  We explained who we were and told them that we did not know we were in a restricted area.  They let us up and escorted us away.
We never found out why a restricted area was not fenced off and how we could accidentally wander into it.  We did find out why the area was restricted and why we were treated so harshly.  It housed the high-altitude U-2 spy planes that were operating over the Soviet Union.  In 1960, Francis Gary Powers, working for the CIA, was shot down by the Soviet Union a year or two before we were accosted by the marines that night.