This is the second of the miracle stories that I am posting.  This miracle in my life greatly affected the direction of my professional career as an oceanographer for the navy.  As you read this account, watch for things 'that just so happened', people acting different than most people would act, etc.  To me, the odds of things happening as they did in this event in my life are astronomical.  I think you will agree with me.

DAVIS STRAIT MIRACLE (1976).  I have had several miracles occur in my life which changed the direction of my career and enhanced it in unbelievable ways.  This event is probably the one that changed my career and my life the most.  Again, this miracle is filled with sub-miracles.  By this I mean that people acted in ways that are contrary to what is normally done, that amazing “coincidences” occurred, and that several situations fell into place at exactly the right time.  Look for these things as you read my narrative.
The year was 1976, I was still working in arctic research, and we had just moved from the Washington, D.C. area down to the Louisiana/Mississippi gulf coast near New Orleans.  I remember sitting at my desk working on a paper of the northern Davis Strait (Figure 15 below).  The issue of this particular research was a unique phenomenon which exists in the narrow strait area separating the Lincoln Sea to the north and Baffin Bay to the south.   This small area had what we call a recurring polynya.  Polynya is a Russian term for open water.  The open water/free of ice area that I was studying exists all year round, even in the dead of winter.  As I said, I was sitting at my desk studying the data when the phone rang.  I received a call that changed my professional career and my life.
The caller was Claude Coffey.  Claude was my first supervisor when I began working for the Naval Oceanographic Office in 1963.
. 
FIGURE 15.  LANDSAT Satellite Image of Open Water Area.  Water is Dark; Ice is Light. 
             (SEE FIGURE 15 BELOW)

I had not heard from Claude for several years, and I was surprised to hear his voice.  Claude told me that he had just returned from Charleston, S.C. where he had met with staff members of the Commander of Mine Warfare Command (COMINEWARCOM).  The admiral of COMINEWARCOM is the head of all navy mine operations, including mine countermeasures (MCM) and the development and utilization of offensive mine systems.  Claude told me that the staff there had asked him several questions about the arctic ice conditions in Baffin Bay, including ice bergs, ice pack movement, and seasonal variations of these parameters.
Knowing Claude’s experience and knowledge of these things, I knew he could have given them answers that would have satisfied them, thereby making himself look good.  Instead, he told them that he knew someone who could answer their questions better than he could.  He told them that he would contact that person and have him call them as soon as he returned home.  Hence, the call to me.  I often considered how many people would have done such a thing?  Professional jealousy normally motivates people to try to take the glory and make themselves look good.  Claude did not do that on this occasion.
I told Claude that I would certainly contact COMINEWARCOM and see if I could help them in any way.  He gave me the number of the operations officer, Commander Powell, of COMINEWARCOM, and I called him.  CDR Powell seemed very pleased that I had contacted him so quickly.  He immediately asked that I call him back on a secure phone so we could talk about classified issues, which I did.  CDR Powell explained that COMINEWARCOM was in the process of developing plans for possible deployment of minefields in Baffin Bay in order to counter Soviet submarines entering the North Atlantic from that area.  The big concerns were environmental.  Would the sea ice prevent deployment of the minefield; would ice bergs sweep away the mines which were moored from the bottom; would ambient conditions interfere with the detection capabilities of the mine’s sensors; etc.  I told him that I “just so happened” to be doing research in that area, and that I may be able to help them.  CDR Powell asked me how soon could I come to Charleston and work with them.  I said that I could be there the following week.  CDR Powell seemed pleased, even relieved.
I went to the naval base in Charleston where COMINEWARCOM was based.  I met with the minefield planners and assessed the situation.  One of the major issues was cost.  The mines the US Navy uses are not like the round, floating mines we see in WWII movies with John Wayne pushing them away with long boat hooks.  They are very sophisticated devices that are anchored to the sea floor and moored to the appropriate water depth via a cable.  Each mine system contains an encapsulated torpedo and has multiple sensors to detect a submarine.  They can differentiate between a submarine, a surface ship, and a whale.  Each mine costs about a million dollars (a guess here).  So, the minefield planners want to minimize the number of mines needed to get the job done at the lowest cost.  Another issue is deployment of the mines.  Mines can be deployed in 3 ways: by surface ship (slow and not covert); by aircraft (fastest and done by assets that are more readily available); and by submarine (slow and difficult to commit for mine warfare). Obviously, the arctic environment complicates the deployment issue considerably.
After a day of evaluating the situation and providing a general description of the environmental conditions in Baffin Bay, a potential solution to their problems popped into my mind.
You may have been wondering why I included a discussion of the recurring polynya at the beginning of this story.  Here’s why I did this.  In a nutshell, I asked them if they would consider developing a minefield plan farther north (See Figure 16 for a LANDSAT image of Baffin Bay area in winter).  They asked, “Wouldn’t environmental conditions be worse?”  I gave them a quick briefing on the constricted area farther north where the water was ice free all year round, even in winter.  I showed them satellite infrared images taken in the dead of winter which showed that this area was indeed ice free even when farther south Baffin Bay was covered with ice.  In this open water area, mines could be deployed by aircraft and just as importantly, significantly fewer mines would be needed.  In addition, the area was a natural “choke point” and submarines would be forced into the lethal area of a minefield.  The staff became extremely excited.  CDR Powell said that the admiral was in Washington, D.C. at that time, and he said that I had to
 
FIGURE 16.  LANDSAT Infrared Image of Ice Dam In Winter.
    
              (SEE FIGURE 16 BELOW)
 
come back and brief him.  He told me when the admiral would be back in Charleston, and he asked if I could come back then.
When I returned to my office in Mississippi, I briefed my supervisor, Dr. Huon Li, on what had taken place in Charleston.  Soon thereafter, I was called to a meeting with Dr. Li and the technical director of my lab (the Naval Ocean Research and Development Activity ((NORDA)), Dr. Ralph Goodman.  I was told that there was no way that a low-level GS 12 (me) was going to brief an admiral alone.  Soon, a team was formed to develop the briefing for the admiral. The team consisted of myself, Dr. Li, Dr. Goodman, Dr. Al Pressman, and the Commanding Officer of NORDA, CDR Lovnichek (sic).  Dr. Pressman was the top remote sensing expert at NORDA.  We developed a plan to put the briefing together and have several “dry runs” of the brief to be sure it was airtight and that I could do the job.  This all had to be done in a few days because the time had already been set to visit the admiral the following week.
I quickly put the briefing together, and the first dry run was set up 2 days after our initial meeting.  I gave the dry run talk, and they fired many questions at me to see how I would handle a tough, perhaps hostile group of people.  I felt that this first dry run went very well.  As I was gathering my slide materials at one end of the conference table, I overheard Dr. Goodman say to Dr. Pressman “Al, you have done a good job putting this all together in such a short time”. I was shocked by what Al said to Ralph.  He said, ”I didn’t do anything.  Sam did it all”. As with Claude Coffey, once again, someone did not take credit for something when they could have.  In truth, Al Pressman did help me considerably in how I should discuss the various satellite images that I would be showing.  Yet, he gave all the credit to me.
When we went to Charleston a few days later, I felt like a gofer.  I was with my boss, my boss’s boss (Dr. Pressman), and the technical director (Dr. Goodman) and the commanding officer of NORDA.  I was carrying their briefcases.
Well, the briefing to the admiral and his staff went extremely well.  When I completed my talk, the admiral (ADM Roy Hoffman) said things such as: "this is exactly what we need; we can use fewer mines; we can save money; we can deploy a minefield at any time of the year; we can use aircraft operating out of Thule air base”; etc.  As I said, our visit to COMINEWARCOM was a resounding success.  Also, of significant importance, we had established a working relationship with a major warfare area of the navy, Mine Warfare.
In summary, my mind is boggled by how this whole episode turned out and came together.  Two gentlemen, Mr. Coffey and Dr. Pressman refused to take credit for things that they had every right to do.  Instead, they passed the credit to me.  I just so happened to be studying an extremely small area of the world that would come into play and solve a sticky problem the navy was trying to solve.  What are the odds of this?  Even the fact that the admiral just so happened to be out-of-town when I was there is an extremely important “coincidence” that impacted how all this turned out.  If I had seen the admiral during my initial visit to COMINEWARCOM, the whole re-visit to Charleston with all my superiors would have not occurred.
A very important part of this event is what happened soon after we went to Charleston to brief ADM Hoffman.  The paragraphs that follow attempt to describe what happened and how my career suddenly began to take off.

AFTERMATH OF THE COMINEWARCOM VISIT (1976-1978).  About a week after we returned to our lab in Mississippi, I was sitting in my office and Ralph Goodman walked in.  Remember, Ralph was the technical director of NORDA, and here he was walking into my humble office.  He said that he was really impressed with what happened at COMINEWARCOM.  I thanked him.  Then he told me that he had just been tasked by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to evaluate the exploratory development research program of the navy.  This was a huge undertaking that had been put on Ralph.  I was wondering why he came into my office to tell me this.  He then dropped the bomb on me.  He wanted me to help him with this daunting task.  I had no earthly idea of how I could possibly help him with this.  I asked him how could I help?  He told me that he was going to the various research labs of the navy and be briefed on their exploratory development research programs.  He would then make his evaluation and provide the assistant secretary a written report.  He said that he wanted my opinions because my inexperience in these areas of research could provide valuable insights to him that he might miss. He also liked the writing of the technical papers I had written.   I said that I was interested, but I had to ask my supervisor, Dr. Li, for permission.  Ralph told me not to worry about that because he had already talked to Dr. Li.  I guess Ralph had made up his mind.
Over the next year or so, Ralph and I travelled all over the country on this project.  Soon after we began, he told me that I shouldn’t be a GS 12 anymore.  Soon thereafter, I was promoted to a GS 13.  After this mission was completed, Ralph initiated the process to promote me again, and soon, I was a GM 14.  (GS stands for General (or Government) Servant, and GM for general manager; See Appendix C for equivalent civilian and US Navy ranks.  I present Appendix C later in my memoirs).  Talk about miracles!  When I reflect on how my career changed from the phone call from Claude Coffey to when Dr. Goodman walked into my office (all in about 5 weeks of my life), I am awestruck.  God can do amazing things.

     FIGURE 15.  LANDSAT SATELLITE IMAGE OF OPEN WATER.  WATER IS DARK; ICE IS LIGHT.

     FIGURE 16.  LANDSAT INFRARED IMAGE OF ICE DAM IN WINTER.

This story is the first of the miracles I have included in my memoirs.  The others will follow in the next several weeks.  Below, I define what I consider to be a miracle.  This first story is very hard to believe, but I assure you, the event happened as I present it here.  I still shake my head when I relive the event in my mind.  I have included detailed events which lead up to the miracle.  I feel this is necessary because other things happen along the way which I also consider to be miracles.  Look for them as you read the story.

Before I get into the actual stories of where miracles have taken place in my life, I feel that it is necessary to define what I call a miracle.  In general, a miracle is usually defined as something that takes place that could only happen through divine intervention.  Examples in the Bible would be when Jesus fed over 5,000 people with a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish, when He walked on water, and when He was resurrected from the dead, just to name a few.  We don’t see these types of miracles anymore, but miracles still do occur, nonetheless.  As a believing Christian, as I stated early on in these memoirs, I do not believe in coincidences, luck, or “it just so happened.”  God is in control of all things.  In the stories I present in this chapter, they all have so many rare or unusual things to happen and that these things had to happen for the event to turn out as it did, defies all odds.  As you read them, look for instances where people do things that people do not normally do, where the odds of something happening as it did are greatly against it, where timing of related events are unbelievingly “lucky”, and where there just does not seem to be any rational explanation to explain what has happened.
In the end, I am almost sure that you will agree with me that miracles really have happened in my life.
I would also like to mention that in the Near Death experiences related in earlier posts, I feel that God was certainly watching over me in each one of those cases
THE LOST 45 MINUTES OF MY LIFE (1967).  Of all the stories included in this chapter, this one is by far the most bizarre and difficult to explain.  The narrative given is on the long side because so many miraculous things happened along the way.  As you read this event, keep in mind that it is absolutely true.  This event did occur in my life as I have presented it here.
The year is 1967, and I am assigned to the Sea Ice Branch of the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO).  At this time, I was a very junior scientist in the field of arctic oceanography.  My area of specialty was using remote sensors to determine various physical properties of the sea ice.  In other words, we were trying to measure such properties as height of the ice, its age, and its thickness, to name a few, without actually coming in contact with the ice; hence, the term remote sensors.  The sensors we were interested in were always mounted in aircraft or on satellites.  My supervisor, Robert Ketchum, and I had just completed an involved test over the arctic ice pack using high resolution photographic cameras, a laser profiling system, a forward-looking infrared scanner, and a K-band side-looking radar system.  This was an exciting data set, because nothing like it had ever been collected before.  In other words, it represented what scientists call a seminal data set.  To help us with our analysis, two scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Dr. Robert Mennella and Dr. Richard Hollinger joined our team.
As mentioned above, I was by far the junior member of this team.  Mr. Ketchum had vast experience in remote sensing of sea ice, and Dr. Mennella and Dr. Hollinger were internationally recognized remote sensing experts.  Because they were so busy with other projects, it fell on me to do most of the analysis.  I also did the majority of the technical report writing.  I have to say here that I did not do it all.  These 3 men provided much advice and editorial review of the manuscript.  It was truly a team effort.
When the paper was completed, we had already selected the international Journal of Glaciology as the peer-reviewed journal that we would submit the paper to for consideration.  Now, it was necessary to define the authorship of the paper.  I naturally assumed that I would be listed as the fourth author since I was junior to them.  As I mentioned above, this was seminal research.   Nothing like it had been done before.  Senior authorship is very important in the scientific community, especially for new research.  Much to my surprise, they all felt that I should be the senior, or first-listed author.  I was dumbfounded.  Each of them had a viable argument to be listed first.  But they did not put forth their arguments, and they insisted that it should be me.
After quite a bit of internal review of the paper at NRL, we were allowed to submit it to the Journal of Glaciology.  What normally happens during this process is that the journal’s primary editors review the paper and determine if it is worthy of possible publication.  This process can take months.  To our surprise, we received a letter within a week or two that the paper might be accepted for publication pending review by selected peers in the field.  Then, lo and behold, about a month after submission, we received a letter accepting the paper for publication.  As I read the letter, I was extremely excited.  I was going to get on my resume my first published peer-reviewed paper.  Then I read on to paragraph 2.  They wanted to include the paper for presentation at the upcoming international symposium in July at Cambridge University in the U.K.  That was only about 2 months away!  And it was at Cambridge University!  And it was at an international meeting of scientists from around the world!  As many people are, I was petrified to speak in public.  I had little or no experience doing this.  I was panicking.  I called a meeting of the three others and gave them the good news.  I then expressed my inexperience and fears to them.  I asked if any of them would be willing to give the paper at this prestigious symposium.  They all had conflicts with the dates of the symposium and could not.  It was on me.  I wondered how “unlucky” I was that all 3 of my buddies had other important meetings to attend during that week in July.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was.
I knew the work that I had to present.  After all, I had analyzed the data and had defined the results into the paper.  I got busy practicing my talk.  At the time, I had a high-quality Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder on which I recorded my talk and played it back.  I could not believe how bad I was.  I sounded nervous, I would forget important points, I could not seem to get it into the required 20 minutes, and I just seemed unsure of myself.  I was convinced that I was going to embarrass myself, my co-authors, and both the Naval Oceanographic Office and the Naval Research Lab.
Well, as time has a habit of doing, it quickly passed, and July was soon upon me.  I believe that I lost about 10 pounds during this time.  But I made it to Cambridge and to the symposium.  It was a 5-day event with Monday being mostly administrative and Friday being summary and wrap up.  I was scheduled to present our paper on Wednesday morning.  Honestly, I do not remember too much of Cambridge, England.  I guess I was too busy practicing my talk.
This is where my story gets bizarre.  On Wednesday, I remember sitting in my chair on the right side of the auditorium.  The gentleman before me on the agenda was on the stage giving his talk.  The next thing I remember was that I was in the same seat, and the guy after me was on-stage giving his talk.  That I was dumbfounded is an understatement.  What had just happened here?  I could not remember giving my talk.  Had I even given it?  I did have small snippets of memory, however.  I remember being in bright lights looking out at the audience and seeing silhouettes of hundreds of people; and I sort of remember looking at a brightly lit screen.  But that is all I remember.  I still was not sure if I gave my talk or not.  But that uncertainty was shortly answered when just before lunch a secretary for the symposium came to me and said “Dr.” Tooma, would you please review the transcript of the question and answer period following your talk?  We want to be sure that we don’t misquote you”.  Q and A?  I didn’t remember any questions put to me, much less my answers.  I nervously read the transcript, and the questions put to me were good ones.  Happily, my answers were what I would have wanted to give.  I had given the talk.
In the next day or so, I was approached by several researchers from different countries.  All told me how much they enjoyed my talk, and a few said that they were doing related work, and would I consider writing a joint paper with them.  I was still in a state of shock over what had happened.  I gave these gentlemen the stock answer that I would have to get approval from NRL before I could work on a joint paper with a foreign national.
This event had a profound effect on my professional career.  Initially, following the symposium, I was still nervous about public speaking.  But shortly thereafter, I became more sure of myself and my confidence grew.  The fact that I was the senior author of an oft-cited paper did not hurt either.  For years, I pondered what happened during that lost 45 minutes of my life.  I now know with all certainty that God was watching over me, and through the Holy Spirit He had got me through a terrible ordeal.

This is the last of my near death experiences.  Of the 6, this one seems to be the favorite of them all.  Maybe it is because we are fascinated by polar bears.  I don't know.  This post also includes a happening during the same time period.  I have called this episode "Polar Bear Food and Falling Through the Ice.  I hope you enjoy.

POLAR BEAR FOOD.  In 1977, we had a joint project with the Naval Surface  Warfare Center (NSWC) to collect environmental ambient measurements in the northern part of Baffin Bay (See Figure 3 posted earlier).  NSWC had developed a system to simultaneously measure naturally occurring acoustic, magnetic, pressure, and seismic signals.  These were all important parameters for detecting submarines and for use in anti-submarine sea mines.  Our mission was to test this system in an area of strategic importance.  It was important for this test to be conducted in a sea ice covered area because the movement of sea ice can wreak havoc with the ambient acoustic and pressure conditions of the area, thereby making the detection of a submarine more difficult.  Because of this requirement, it was necessary to establish a manned camp on the ice where we could deploy the NSWC system for several days. 
We used a Coast Guard icebreaker to take us to the edge of the ice pack in Baffin Bay and to provide helicopter support for the mission.  Once at the ice pack’s edge, my co-worker Jim Skeen and I packed our scientific and ice camp equipment aboard the Coast Guard helicopter.  We were also issued a 30.06 high powered rifle with 200-grain ammunition for protection against polar bears.  Prior to departure, we were given a 20-minute lesson on how to use the rifle and how to deal with polar bears.  From what we were told, killing a polar bear bent on eating you is a difficult thing to do.
       
        Figure 12.  Polar Bear Running On the Ice As We Searched For A Camp Site
                                     
                        Figure 13.  Another Polar Bear Running On the Ice       
 
Head shots were discouraged because the shot had to be very accurate.  The head is a small target, and the skull is so thick that a glancing blow of the bullet will be more likely than a skull penetration, thereby angering the bear even more.  In any event, an encounter with a polar bear by a couple of greenhorns (Jim and me) was not a good thing.
On the helicopter flight to the ice pack, I noticed a horrible, horrible sight.  Polar bears were everywhere (See Figures 12 and 13).  On the 10- to 15-mile flight over the pack, I must have seen 10 bears or so.  This was very disconcerting to us.
After searching for 10 or 15 minutes, we selected a desirable area for our camp and unloaded the helicopter.  It is hard to say how we felt as the helicopter lifted off and flew away leaving us totally alone in a very hostile environment.  However, we had a lot of work to do, so we got busy, but we were still very scared.
At first, we were very busy.  We had to set up 2 tents; one for us to sleep in and one to house our test equipment.  We then drilled a hole through the ice canopy, deployed our gear through the hole, calibrated it, and began collecting the data.
At this point, we had little to do except monitor our equipment’s performance.  We could now consider the perilous situation we were in.  This was the middle of summer in the high latitudes, so it was daylight 24 hours a day.  At this time on our mission, the weather was beautiful.  We were scheduled to collect data for 3 days.  Periodically, we would hear a blood curdling scream; or so it seemed to us.  We felt that it was probably a scream from an unfortunate seal that had been found by a bear.  But the screams were unsettling and seemed very close to us.  At “night”, I had trouble sleeping because of the constant daylight and these screams.  Also, our tents were made of nylon which allowed the sun’s light to illuminate the inside of our tent.  I had horrible visions of the silhouette of a polar bear looming against our tent wall as it approached us for the kill.  I gripped the rifle with white knuckles at night.
On the second day, we had little to do but monitor our data collection efforts and keep a watch for polar bears.  The weather remained beautiful.  We actually got a little bored.  Our camp was set up about a mile from northern Greenland.  The coastline looked very close to us.  In our reverie, we determined that if we went there that we would probably be walking on ground that no other human being had been on.  We then made a very dumb decision to walk the mile to Greenland.  We, along with our trusty rifle, set off for Greenland.  Well, our mile was much longer than we had estimated.  Also, the arctic sea ice canopy is not flat like an ice -covered pond.  It is a very difficult terrain to deal with.  But we kept going because the coastline looked so close.  Periodically, we would stand on a large piece of ice to see if we could still see the tents of our camp.  We could.  When we got near the land, we found that there was water between us and the land.  However, there were large ice floes that we could jump onto to continue our journey.  We finally reached the solid ground of the north Greenland coast.  We could still see our tents.
After about an hour of exploring this virgin territory for valuable gemstones, we noticed that a thick fog was beginning to wash over us.  We looked to see if we could see our tents, and of course, we could not.  The fog was getting thicker and thicker by the minute.  We immediately began our return trip to our camp.  But we did not know where the camp was.  We made our best guess as to the direction we should head.  When we encountered the open water between the land and the ice pack, we noticed that there were not nearly as many ice floes to use to hop/jump to the solid ice pack.  We did the best we could, and when we were just about 20 or 30 yards from the solid ice, I jumped onto a floe, and it broke into a large piece and a small piece.  I was standing on the small piece.  Down I went into the 32-degree water.  I was wearing my full arctic gear of a heavy-duty parka and thick, insulated pants.  Also, of course, I had on heavy boots.  Fortunately, I have always had quick reflexes, and I immediately grabbed ahold of the surface of the broken floe.  I went down into the water up to my neck, but my head never entered the water.  I was able to pull myself back onto the floe despite the fact that my arctic gear was full of water.  I made my way back to the solid ice, but I was badly shaken and freezing to death.
Well, I survived that ordeal, but we still had the problem of finding our camp in the fog.  The fact that I was shaking from the cold did not help.  We set off, but we did not know if we were heading toward our camp or away from it.  We could not see more than a few feet in front of us because of the fog.  We knew that we could walk by our camp and not even see it.  And, and course, our fear of a polar bear encounter was always on our minds.  Our biggest hope was that we would be able to hear the generator supplying power to our equipment.  Then, by the grace of God (I can

Figure 14.  Photo Shows How Rough the Arctic Pack Ice Can Be.  See Footprints For Reference

think of no other reason), I had to walk around a large chunk of ice, and I saw our footprints that we had made going to land (See Figure 14 to see ice similar to what I encountered).  We were not heading in the right direction. We were able to follow our footprints back to our camp.  I immediately went into the equipment tent which housed the generator and was warmer.  I stripped down to my skin to remove all my wet clothing.  I was freezing to death, but I knew that I was not going to die from that.  We still had the polar bears to worry about.
We were scheduled to return to the ship the next afternoon.  At that time, we would have our necessary 3 days of data.  However, the fog was not going away.  In communication with the icebreaker, we were told that the fog was just as bad for them; even worse because they were stationed at the water/ice edge.  The third day came, and the fog conditions did not improve.  This meant that the helicopter could not be deployed for two reasons; they may not be able to find us in the fog, and flying conditions were below minimums for them to deploy the helicopter.
We were now stranded on the ice until the fog lifted.  In packing for the experiment, we packed ham sandwiches for 3 days.  Also, we had a large box of Frito Lay corn chips.  It turned out that the fog did not lift for 2 more days. And we were finally “rescued”.  In the 5 days on the ice, we had eaten all our sandwiches and were living on the awful tasting corn chips.  To this day, I can not put a Frito Lay corn chip into my mouth. 
The fear of a polar bear encounter did not go away.  In fact, it got worse because we felt that the longer we stayed out there, the greater the chance that a bear would wander by and find us.
I have included this adventure in my Near Death chapter.  Perhaps Jim and I were never really in an imminent death situation.  However, we were in a very hostile environment for 5 days.  In fact, we were probably closer to death because of our silly decision to walk to Greenland.  My falling through the ice and our close scrape of getting lost on the ice probably had us closer to death than that posed by the polar bears.  It is a 5-day period in my life that I will never forget.

This is the next to last of my 6 near death experience.  What makes this one unique is that it involves my family.  We almost all lost our lives on this day.  It still makes me shudder when I think of what almost happened.  I've also included in this story a description of a feature which exists near where we almost got killed; 'The Toilet Bowl'.  In fact, the Toilet Bowl is where we were headed when the near death incident occurred. 

HAUNAUMA BAY. HAWAII AND THE TOILET BOWL (1982).  This event occurred when we first moved to Hawaii in 1982.  In some respects, as you will see, it is similar to the earlier story of my near-drowning at sea.
Hanauma Bay is an extremely popular beach and snorkeling site located on Oahu Island, Hawaii.  It appears to be an old volcanic caldera where the seaward side had either blown off when the volcano was active, or it had merely opened up to the sea by natural erosion due to waves.  In any event, it is a great place to snorkel (if you can find a place to put your beach blanket between.

Figure 8.  Hanauma Bay, HI.  We Were Swept by the Wave at Upper Left Point of Land
        
          SEE FIGURE 8 BELOW

all the tourists lying there).  One day, Sylvia and my 2 daughters, Monica and Stephanie, decided that we wanted to go to the Toilet Bowl.  For a discussion on what the Toilet Bowl is, see the write up below.  There are two ways to get to the toilet bowl; one is to park on Kalanianaole highway and walk over the rugged terrain to the bowl; the other is to walk the ledge on the left side of Hanauma Bay as you look to the sea.  We took the latter.  We were nearing the seaward turn of the ledge that would take us to the Toilet Bowl.  Stephanie and I were ahead of Monica and

Figure 9.    The Toilet Bowl is Located At the End of a Small Bay.  We Were Hit By the Wave Just Before the Small Bay Begins

          SEE FIGURE 9 BELOW

Sylvia by about 30 yards or so.  Waves were hitting the ledge, and water spray was shooting majestically into the air.  It was unbelievably beautiful.  Beautiful, that is until a following wave rode on top of another wave and slammed into us throwing us against the vertical wall to our left.  I actually looked up to see the wave coming down on us.  I found myself floating free in green water.  I knew that if the water carried me out to sea, I could drown or be crushed against rocks around the ledge.  However, my most pressing thought was trying to save Stephanie who was only 10 years old at the time.  I feared being carried out to sea, but I also feared being slammed down by the violent water and knocked unconscious.  To my great joy, I was gently lowered onto the ledge on my back.  I immediately sprang up looking for Stephanie.  I did not see her anywhere around me, and I started to panic.  I thought she had been carried out to sea.  In looking around, I saw Sylvia around 30 yards away with Monica and Stephanie wrapped around her legs.  Stephanie had been carried by the water those 30 yards and had miraculously gotten tangled in Sylvia’s legs and not carried out to sea as I had feared.  Monica told me later that Stephanie had come down on top of her head knocking them both to the ground.  Sylvia, Stephanie, and I suffered minor bruises, but Monica had a leg injury and needed crutches for several weeks.  I had also lost my prescription sunglasses, and one of my shoes had been ripped from my foot and was found close to where Sylvia, Monica, and Stephanie had wound up.  Needless to say, we were all very shaken up.
Soon thereafter, we learned that people walking or fishing in that area are lost to the waves just about every year.  We never tried that walk again.

THE TOILET BOWL.  I mentioned the toilet bowl at the top of the story (See Figures 10, 11, and 12).  The toilet bowl is a phenomenon that many young people frequent in order to risk their lives.  Waves from the sea funnel down as they enter a small, V-shaped bay.  The water then enters an underground “passageway” which has been created by the surf over the years.  The water roars through this opening and fills a toilet-bowl-shaped hole from the bottom up with a great deal of energy and noise.  The bowl, which measures about 15 feet in diameter and about 8 feet deep in the center, fills up extremely quickly and carries almost everyone who is in the bowl into the air on a blast of

Figure 10.  Toilet Bowl Is Located At End of Small Bay.  We Were Hit By the Wave Just Before the Bay Begins.

Figure 11.  Toilet Bowl Just After It Has Filled With Water.

          SEE FIGURES 10 AND 11 BELOW
 
water which mushrooms because of the surrounding lip of the bowl (i.e., like the lip of a toilet).  In fact, this is how you get out of the bowl.  The mushrooming water deposits you on the rocks outside of the bowl.  I have tried this a couple of times.  It is quite a ride.  When the water subsides, the bowl quickly empties getting ready for the next gush.  Those that do not get carried out of the bowl, nervously await the next ride.  Usually the girls with bikinis are frantically searching for their bikini tops which have been ripped off by the violent surge.  Early on in our time in Hawaii, we noticed that ambulances often were on the side of Kalanianaole highway ministering to fools who had wanted a thrill.  I didn’t do it anymore.
       
        Figure 12.  Victims Waiting For the Next Blast Of Water.

           SEE FIGURE 12 BELOW
 

Today, I am continuing in the  telling of my near death experiences; Drowning At Sea and Ramming of the Banner.  This Banner story is the first of 3 experiences I had on that ship that I have included in my memoirs.  Look for them in the future.

DROWNING AT SEA (1965).  I am not sure when this next event occurred.  But I do know that it was early in my career, perhaps around 1965.  I also now know that I was incredibly stupid.  I was on a navy oceanographic ship working in the so-called Tongue Of The Ocean (TOTO).  TOTO is a deep water area near the Bahamas that is located between Andros and New Providence islands.  It is of interest to the navy because of its depth, accessibility, and clarity of the water.  We had to suspend our data collection operations because a tropical storm sprang up out of nowhere and surprised us.  We were trying to reach a port of safety, perhaps Nassau.  The swells were incredibly high between trough and crest (perhaps 30-40 feet), and the ship was going up and down like a rollercoaster ride.  I love rollercoasters, and I was sitting on a ladderway on deck just thoroughly enjoying the up and down ride.  When suddenly out of nowhere, a wave crest broke, and a wall of green water engulfed me.  I was totally at the mercy of this wave, and I found myself floating free headed for the side of the ship.  I was helpless and knew that in a second or two, I was going to be carried over the side and into a hurricane-like sea.  I grasped for anything I could get ahold of, and fortunately, as “luck” would have it, I hit a bollard (See Figure 5) and grabbed frantically.  I held on for dear life until the water on the deck returned to the sea where it belonged.
I was considerably shaken up by this event.  I realized that I should have been in my rack (bed) where everyone else was, trying to avoid sea sickness.  I also realized that no one knew where I was, and it could have been hours before anyone realized that I was missing.  The other act of incredible stupidity was that I was not attached to a lifeline.
            
Figure 5.  A Bollard Similar to the One that Saved My Life
                           SEE FIGURE 5 BELOW

I was considerably shaken up by this event.  I realized that I should have been in my rack (bed) where everyone else was, trying to avoid sea sickness.  I also realized that no one knew where I was, and it could have been hours before anyone realized that I was missing.  The other act of incredible stupidity was that I was not attached to a lifeline.

RAMMING OF THE BANNER (1967).  In 1967, the US Navy began surveillance, spying missions of the Soviet Union’s naval base at Vladivostok located in the northern Sea of Japan.  For this program, the navy converted small, light cargo resupply ships into state-of-the-art intelligence gathering platforms.  The first ship of this class was the USS Banner (AGER 1) (See Figure 6).  The cover story for the Banner to be operating in the Sea of Japan was that it was an oceanographic research vessel.  The real reason, of course, was to collect acoustic, signal, and photographic intelligence information of the Soviet naval base and of the submarines operating from that base.
To do the oceanographic work, we had outfitted the Banner with a small oceanographic winch, an A-frame with a meter wheel,

Figure 6.  The USS Banner (AGER 1)
                        SEE FIGURE 6 BELOW

and a small analysis laboratory to determine physical properties of the water column.  A bathythermograph (BT)  (See Figure 7) capability was also installed to provide a temperature profile of the water vs depth to determine the thermocline.  The thermocline is the depth of the water where the temperature drops sharply with depth (important information for determining acoustic properties).  So, yes, we were actually collecting oceanographic information important to the navy.

Figure 7.  A Bathythermograph Temperature Profiling System
                     SEE FIGURE 7 BELOW

        The first 2 missions of the Banner went without any significant events taking place.  I was the assigned oceanographer on the third mission, and as you will see, things were not so uneventful for me.
The typical Banner mission went like this: (1) Meet the ship at the US Naval Base located at Yokosuka, Japan; (2) Sail to the operating area in the Sea of Japan and operate for 3 weeks; (3) Return to Yokosuka for 4 or 5 days of rest and relaxation (R & R); (4) Return to the operating area for 3 more weeks; and (5) Return to Yokosuka completing the mission.
A day or so after we arrived on station for the first 3 week deployment, we were welcomed by a Soviet ship that followed us or shadowed us the entire 3 weeks that we were on station.  This ship that shadowed us was called a “tattletale”.  Often, the tattletale would harass me when I was taking a BT.  It would closely pass our stern trying to sever the wire attached to the BT.  They were never successful.
Several times, beautiful but ominous, Soviet warships would confront us and notify us that we were in the middle of a naval exercise and had to leave the area.  Well this was why we were there; to be in the middle of an exercise.  But I must say that it was very disconcerting to me when these warships would circle us at point-blank range with their rather large guns aimed right at us.
However, we survived these incidents, completed our first 3 weeks of deployment, and returned to Yokosuka for some R & R.
We arrived on station for our second 3-week deployment as planned.  As before, a tattletale arrived on the scene on about day 2.  However, this time, the ship that arrived was an older, less impressive ship.  We thought that they were losing interest in us and had sent out the “B” team.
During the second week of our deployment, an exciting event took place.  I was suddenly told to suspend all oceanographic operations immediately.  The Banner then sprang into action at full speed ahead.  Apparently, we had caught the tattletale napping and had left it in the dust.  It seems that we had detected a Soviet submarine leaving Vladivostok or that it was involved in a Soviet naval exercise.  The latter was the most likely because there were several Soviet warships in the area.  When I looked back at the tattletale, black puffs of smoke were now billowing from its stack, and it was beginning to gain on us.  Meanwhile, the warships saw us coming and were picking up speed.  It was not too long before they were disappearing over the horizon.  They were much faster than us.  The tattletale had now overtaken us.  When it finally was slightly ahead of us, it cut sharply in front of us trying to “cut us off”.  Our captain, CDR Robert Bishop, simply steered a course slightly to port leaving the tattletale going in the wrong direction.  To us on the bridge, this was hilarious.  The tattletale was making a desperate U-turn, and she was leaning over at what looked like a 45 degree angle.  By the time she righted her course and caught us again, the Soviet ships were long gone, and the excitement was over.
I was on the bridge during this whole event, and it was quite exciting.  Little did I know that this excitement would pale in comparison to what would happen several days later.
With less than a week to go before we had completed our mission and headed back to Yokosuka, I walked out on deck one morning and saw the “B” team tattletale had been replaced by the “C” team.  An old, rust-covered ship was now following us.  We laughed at what we saw.
However, later that day, I was on the bridge talking with captain Bishop.  During this time, someone noticed that the “C” team rust bucket was heading for us on a possible collision course.  Immediately, the captain radioed the tattletale demanding that it change course because we had oceanographic equipment in the water and had little maneuverability.  “C” team did not change course.  The captain repeated his plea for the ship to change course.  Meanwhile, the bow of “C” team loomed larger and larger.  In fact, it was coming right at us to midships.  Once again in my life, I sensed sure death.  There was nothing I could do but watch the imminent collision of the huge bow into our ship.  At the last possible second, the captain yelled out “Right Full Rudder”, and he himself grabbed the wheel helping to turn the ship.  We began to turn slightly to starboard, and “C” team slammed into our port bow and bashed it in.  The Banner shuddered violently.  At that time, I did not know how badly we were damaged.  Needlessly to say, we immediately headed back to port and began assessing our damage.
We made it back to port safely.  As far as I knew, we had no major damage except a smashed-in bow on the portside.  When we were tied up at the pier, I noticed that there were several naval officers and civilians waiting to board us.  Soon afterwards, a civilian took me aside and instructed me to forget that this deliberate ramming had ever taken place.  I was to talk to no one about this, even my fellow oceanographers back home, and especially to the press.
One thing to note about this event.  It took place in February, off the Siberian coast in the northern Sea of Japan.  If the collision itself did not kill me, it is likely that I would not have survived more than a few minutes in the frigid sea water.

  FIGURE 5.  A BOLLARD SIMILAR TO THE ONE THAT SAVED MY LIFE

 
   FIGURE 6.  THE USS BANNER (AGER 1)

       FIGURE 7.  A BATHYTHERMOGRAPH TEMPERATURE PROFILING SYSTEM

CHAPTER 3, CONTINUED

THE FLYING BOMB (1970).  During my arctic research days, we often operated from Thule Air Base located in Thule, Greenland.  It provided us a close proximity to the sea ice cap in the Arctic Ocean.  This was necessary because our research flights usually lasted between 12 and 15 hours.  Believe me, these were long, tiring days.  To get to Thule, we usually left from Patuxent River Naval Air Station located in Patuxent River, Maryland.  This also was a long flight with nothing for the scientific civilians to do.  As I normally did during these transits to Greenland, I found a “comfortable” seat and read a book.  About 2 hours from landing, I noticed a strange, sweet-smelling odor.  Then I heard the following announcement from the cockpit, “The smoking lamp is out and secure all unnecessary electronic equipment.”  Although this was an unusual announcement to hear, what really caught my attention was that crew members were scurrying around, lifting up floor boards, and descending into the bowels of the aircraft.  They seemed greatly concerned.  There was not much I could do at this time, and I did not want to get in their way.  So, I continued to read my book.
                                                                       
       Figure 3.  Location of Thule Airbase.
        SEE FIGURE 3 BELOW

About 2 hours later, we landed in Thule.  As I sat in my seat awaiting the announcement that we could deplane, I saw 2 members of the crew get off the plane, get on their knees, and kiss the ground.  I thought this highly unusual, and I began wondering what had just happened?  I also noticed a team of aircraft mechanics waiting to board the plane.
In Thule, we always stayed in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters (BOQ).  The rooms were spartan to say the least.  They offered a single bed (read that a cot with a mattress), a desk with a chair, and an easy chair.  There was no phone in the room.  The only phone in this one-story BOQ building was located in the central hallway to which our individual rooms entered.  This phone just so happened to be outside my room door.
I heard the plane captain call the commanding officer of his squadron in Patuxent River.  The words that really caught my attention were, “I can’t understand why we didn’t explode into a million pieces.”  It turned out that a hydraulic line had ruptured, and the hydraulic fluid had somehow gotten into the cabin’s air circulation system (hence, the sweet small I had detected).  The fluid had been atomized into a highly volatile gas that was circulating throughout the plane’s cabin.  And as the captain had said, the smallest spark could have ignited the gas blowing the plane to bits.  If this had occurred where we were, somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean, it is not likely that any of the wreckage or bodies would have been recovered.
In the shark story above, I actually thought that I was about to die.  During the time that we were a flying bomb, the thought of imminent death did not occur to me.  But in reality, I now realize how close to death I was during that flight to Thule.  However, my next story, “Falling Out of the Sky” has them both beat as far as personal terror is concerned.

FALLING OUT OF THE SKY (1971).  This event also occurred during my arctic research days.  On this particular mission, we were operating out of Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Again, the reason for using these far north staging areas was to maximize our “on station” time of the aircraft.  Still, Eielson AFB was about 2 hours of flying time from the ice pack, and we had to fly over the rugged, but beautiful Brooks Range, the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains.  As you fly over this mountain range, you look down and you can say with almost certainty that no human being has ever set foot on what you are looking at.
In 1972, Hale Boggs, the House of Representative majority leader from Louisiana was flying with Alaskan congressman Nick Begich in a twin-engine aircraft from Anchorage to Juneau.  The plane went down somewhere in the Brooks Range.  To my knowledge, the wreckage of the airplane was never found.  This is how foreboding this part of the world is.  You will see below why I am including this information in my narrative.
On this particular mission, we were flying somewhere over the Arctic Ocean collecting sea ice property data (See our aircraft in Figure 4).  We were flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the ice.  This was the altitude that usually optimized the performance of our sensors.  About midway through our mission, I heard a loud bang, and the aircraft shook rather violently.  In panic, looked out the window, and I saw our outboard starboard engine’s propeller slowly coming to a halt.  We were told that we had lost this engine but not to worry because the aircraft flew very well on three engines.  In fact, we often “feathered” an engine (shut it down) to conserve fuel.  Not too long afterwards, I heard another sound like a gunshot.  I looked out the port-side window, and I saw black smoke billowing out a hole from the cowling of a port-side engine.  Its propeller was also coming to a stop.  Things were now getting serious.  Although our aircraft could still fly on two engines, we knew it would not fly on one.  We had to abort our scientific mission and fly back to Eielson.  Once we had secured our scientific equipment, I sat down for the ride back.  We soon learned that on two engines we were not able to attain an altitude sufficient to climb over the Brooks Range which has mountain elevations approaching 9,000 feet.  Options were being considered to lighten the aircraft.   One option was for us to be prepared to jettison our expensive scientific equipment and all our personal belongings.  The second option was to dump fuel.  The crew had called Eielson and were told that the weather was clear.  Several times in the past, we had to fly to our alternate base of Anchorage, Alaska because the weather had gone below minimum requirements for us to land at Eielson.  Because of the good weather report, the decision was made to dump fuel and leave enough to get to Anchorage if we absolutely needed to.  This approach still depended on whether we could lighten the aircraft enough so that it could attain an altitude high enough to fly over the mountains in front of us.  We began to jettison fuel.
 
                        Figure 4.  The Arctic Fox Oceanographic Research Aircraft

           SEE FIGURE 4 BELOW

I was scared then, but my fear paled to what it would become.  When it came time to secure the valves allowing the fuel to be dumped, something terrible happened.  The valves would not close, and our precious fuel continued to leave the aircraft.  Crew members were running to and fro like ants looking out the windows at the wingtips as a black, smoke-like column of fuel escaped from them.  This was probably the most scared I have ever been in my life.
Anchorage, our alternate, was out.  The closest airfield to us was Eielson Air Force Base.  We had no choice but to head straight there.  At this point, we still did not know if we could achieve the necessary altitude.  The turboprop engines on these aircraft fly better at the lower altitudes where the air is denser.  With increasing altitudes, the air is thinner, and the engines have to work harder to perform.
My thoughts were that we were gaining altitude, but was it enough?  When the fuel leaving the aircraft finally stopped, how much did we have left?  And was it enough to get us to Eielson?  Was I going to die as Hale Boggs had?  If we did go down in the Brooks Range, would they find my body?  Would we lose another engine leaving us only with one?  I thought of never seeing my wife, Sylvia, again.  Yes, I was scared; very scared.
Fortunately, we did reach an altitude of near 10,000 feet.  But as we flew over the mountain range, their tops looked perilously close to us.   In fact, we were actually flying between some of the peaks.  I know the plane’s captain was trying to stay as low as possible to conserve whatever fuel we had left.  When we left the mountains, we began descending as we got closer to Eielson.  I prayed that the 2 engines would not stop.  Finally, from my window seat, I could see the landing strip in the distance.  As we got closer, I saw that the runway was flanked by rescue vehicles and that the runway had been sprayed with foam in case we had to crash land.  I could not believe that the 2 engines continued to function.  I fully expected them to stop.  I prayed that they would continue to run for 2 more minutes.  When the wheels finally touched the ground on the runway, an overwhelming feeling of relief swept over me.   I wasn’t going to die on this day.
Later that day, I was told that after measuring the fuel left in the tanks, they were essentially dry and we had, at most, 15 minutes of flying time left.

LATER THIS WEEK, I WILL POST 2 MORE DEATH EXPERIENCES.  I CALL THEM DROWNING AT SEA AND RAMMING OF THE USS BANNER

CHAPTER 3

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

Before I begin here, I feel that it is necessary to define what I mean by a near death experience.  It is an experience in which I had the distinct feeling that I was about to die.  In one experience presented below, the flying bomb, I did not know how close to death I really was until after the event.  This event will be posted next week.

SHARK FOOD (OCT. 1963).  This event took place on the second cruise of my career.  It was in the Caribbean Sea.  I mentioned this cruise in the previous chapter.  The navy had been practicing nuclear bomb runs in a test range on an island in the Caribbean.  Somehow, the test bomb (almost certainly a dummy and not carrying a nuclear payload) had been accidently released over water and simply disappeared beneath the waves.  The navy wanted the bomb back but could not locate it.  We were called in to measure water currents for determining possible drift of the bomb and seafloor properties to determine possible burial of the bomb.  The latter was what I was involved in.
To measure the bottom properties, we used a device called a Kullenberg corer.  It is, essentially, a long, 10- to 20-foot stainless steel tube with a plastic liner inserted in the tube.  A core of the bottom sediment is collected in the plastic liner when the corer penetrates the bottom.
To deploy this device and collect a bottom core was fairly involved.  We were operating from a navy auxiliary ship that had a power winch (to lower and recover the device) and an A-frame with a meter wheel (to smoothly allow the wire cable to be let out and recovered).  Also, it was necessary to have a platform rigged on the

Figure 2.  Kullenberg Corer.
  Notice the Lead Weights Above the Corer Tube.

                                 SEE FIGURE 2 BELOW

side of the ship on which the oceanographer (me) could stand on and attach the corer device to the wire.   This platform was attached to the side of the ship with hinges so that it could be raised and secured in the vertical position to the side of the ship when we were underway.  To keep the platform in the horizontal position so that I could stand on it, 2 chains were attached from the ship to the top outboard side of the platform. To do my job of attaching the corer to the wire rope, I had to climb down from the ship’s deck about 3 feet onto the platform.  What made all this scary was that the platform I was standing on was not a solid metal plate.  Rather, it was a gridded, corrugated platform that I could see through.  Throughout this cruise, 3 or 4 large great white sharks were staying in the shade provided by the hull of our ship.  Whenever I descended onto the platform, the great whites would come out from under the ship and swim in circles right under me. To say that this was disconcerting is an understatement.  I was constantly being referred to by the crew as shark food.
To deploy the Kullenberg corer was a 2-man operation; me and the winch operator.  He was a seaman boatswain’s mate in training.  Once on the platform, I would attach the corer to the end of the wire cable with a heavy-duty shackle.  I would give a hand signal for the winch operator to lift the corer close to the meter wheel so I could swing the device outboard so that it was hanging free.  I would
then signal him to lower the device to the proper level so that I could place six, 50-pound lead weights on the top of the corer (See Figure 2).  The 300 pounds were necessary to drive the corer into the bottom when it hit.  Once the weights were in place, I would signal the winch operator to slowly lower the corer until the lead weights were below the platform that I was standing on.  Once this was done, we were ready to deploy the corer.  This is when it got exciting.
I gave the winch operator a counter-clockwise hand signal to let the device free-fall to the bottom; however, he turned the wheel clockwise, and the corer came up and not down.  The lead weights caught underneath the platform I was standing on, and it began raising up to the vertical on its hinges pinning me between it and the side of the ship.  I immediately thought that I was going to be crushed to death (or badly injured, at best).  However, incredibly the wire cable broke, and the platform fell forward.  At this point, I now felt that I was going to be thrown into the water where the sharks were eagerly awaiting me.  Fortunately, the chains held, and the platform stayed stable.  I somehow caught hold of the chains which kept me from falling into the water.  We lost the Kullenberg corer, but I didn’t become shark food. I scrambled back onto the deck greatly shaken.  We never let that boatswain’s mate in training near that winch again.
In retrospect, as I think about this experience, the miracle that I see is that the wire cable snapped.  This stainless steel cable is extremely strong and will break only under extreme workloads.  But it did break, probably saving my life.  It was far more likely that the chains supporting the platform would break.  But they, somehow, held, and I did not become shark food to several great white sharks in a feeding frenzy.

​​CHAPTER 2
 
MAJOR EVENTS WHICH INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT
OF MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER
 
HOW I BECAME AN OCEANOGRAPHER.  How did I ever become an oceanographer when my intension and desire was to be a research chemist?  During my senior year at URI, I felt that I was burned out.  So, I had decided to take a year off from school and travel a bit.  Does this sound familiar?  Well during my senior year, many companies and organizations sent personnel to interview graduating seniors for possible employment.  As a lark, I would periodically look at the schedule of organizations holding interviews during the upcoming week. Also, at the time, I had no idea as to how I was going to fulfill my desire to travel.  I did not know where I would go or how I would pay for it if I did go.  One day I scanned the scheduled interviews and saw that the Naval Oceanographic Office in the Washington, D.C. area was interviewing people for potential employment as Physical Oceanographers.  I loved the oceanographic course I took, and at that time in the early 60’s, Jacque Cousteau, the famous French oceanographer, was hugely popular.  I thought that maybe I should schedule myself for an interview.  However, the University of Rhode Island was one of the best oceanographic graduate schools in the country, and I thought why would they ever hire me, a future chemist?  Well I decided to go through with an interview anyway.  Besides, in the write up of the job description, much world travel was promised as part of the job.  Since I hardly had ever ventured outside of the state of Rhode Island in my 22 years of life, I was nonetheless intrigued, and I scheduled an interview. 
        When I nervously walked into the interview room, I was courteously welcomed by a man and a woman.  They quickly put me at ease with some small talk about how beautiful the URI campus was and how friendly the people were.  They then asked me why I had an interest in oceanography.  I do not remember my answer, but I do remember what they said next.  They were not looking for an oceanographic specialist, like a biological or chemical oceanographer.  Rather they were looking for someone who had a broad interest in the sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, and geology; hence the title physical oceanographer.  They were impressed with my BSc degree in chemistry but especially so in my elective selections of the earth sciences.  They were also pleased that I was willing to travel extensively.  I was dumbstruck.  I was exactly what they were looking for!  They practically assured me that I would be offered a job.  Could all of this have been a coincidence? Hmmm.  They did explain to me that my starting job level would be probationary with a low starting salary of $100 per week (GS 5).  If after 6 months my job performance was satisfactory, I would be promoted to a higher salary level (GS 7).   They also told me that my performance would be reviewed every 12 months in the next 2 years for possible promotion to the GS 9 and GS 11 levels.  I did not pay too much attention to all this because I only intended to stay with this job for a year before I sought entry into grad school to pursue my dream of a PhD in chemistry.  One thing that did catch my attention was that I would have the opportunity to earn a great deal of additional salary in overtime hours while at sea.
        To say that I found this interview exciting is an understatement.  I had a job, I was going to travel, and I had an opportunity to earn some real money.  Do not forget, I had been poor my whole life.
In summary, I felt that it was a miracle that I got this job.  As I said, I seemed to be exactly what they were looking for.  I thought what are the odds?  I accepted their job offer, and I now had the title of physical oceanographer.  However, my life did not go as I had planned.  Thirty-seven years later, I retired from this job and the dream of being a research chemist is now a distant memory; so is my dream of attaining a PhD in research chemistry.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS WHICH FURTHERED MY CAREER.  MY EARLY YEARS.  I was now working in a scientific world in which a career is established by your level of education, your class standing, and the number of scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.  Initially, this did not concern me because I was going back to grad school.  However, as you will see, I got sucked into the job.  I was travelling to places I never dreamed of, I got promoted as promised, my income was increasing steadily, and most important of all, I was challenged with more and more responsibility.  To a 22- or 23 year-old Rhode Island boy with no worldly experience, this was pretty heavy stuff.  And in addition, I started to love my job.
In September 1963, only three months after starting the job in June, I was on a Coast Guard Icebreaker in the Norwegian Sea.  I had taken my first ever airplane ride from Washington, D.C. to
 
  ​SEE FIGURE 1 BELOW
Figure 1.  US Coast Guard Ice Breaker
 
Reykjavik, Iceland to board the icebreaker. Six weeks later, I was in Oslo, Norway and Copenhagen, Denmark.  This was my first oceanographic cruise, and I was given the responsibility of using a new scientific technology of gas chromatography to determine key ocean properties. This was right up my alley as a future chemist.  A coincidence?  Hmm.  I think not.  Two weeks after returning to my lab in Washington, I was sent to Trinidad and Barbados in the Caribbean Sea to look for an atomic bomb that was lost from a navy aircraft in a nearby missile test range.  Wow!  This was exciting. 
Things just kept getting better and better.  Soon I was in Hawaii boarding a Coast Guard weather ship that would occupy Ocean Station Victor located midway between Hawaii and Japan.  Of course, we debarked the Coast Guard ship in Yokosuka, Japan.  I was actually seeing the world. 
Soon, the thought of returning to graduate school did not seem so important.
In 1968, I was given the awesome responsibility of being the Chief Scientist of an extensive oceanographic survey of the Pacific Missile Range in the Channel Islands area off the coast of southern California.  I cannot remember how many individuals were part of the scientific survey team, but it was about 8 men all working under my direction.  Here I was, only 24 years old with barely 2 years of experience in charge of 8 oceanographers, almost all of whom were older than me.  The Pacific Missile range people needed to know the oceanography of the test range; especially water currents, bottom properties, and the water column properties of temperature, salinity, and acoustic propagation. I was responsible for planning the survey, carrying it out, analyzing the resultant data, and preparing the final technical report.  The important point here is that this mission gave me the opportunity to write my first significant scientific paper, which I did with my good friend, Harry Iredale.  Harry is mentioned several times in the chapters that follow.  By this time, there was no turning back for me.  I was hooked.
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A SIGNIFICAN CAREER CHANGE.  Up until 1970, my job was primarily going out to sea and collecting oceanographic data for the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO).  I had some opportunities to write technical papers (see above), but I needed more.  My desire now was to do more basic research and write more papers.  I had been at the GS 11 level for several years now, and to reach the next level of GS 12, I had to get into the Research and Development (R & D) side of the Naval Oceanographic Office.  This was not an easy thing to do because a PhD degree was almost always required for these positions.  But I kept my eyes open, and I kept reading the vacancy announcements.  Well, lo and behold a vacancy in the Sea Ice Branch in the R & D side opened up.  I quickly put my resume together, and I applied for the job.  In reality, I knew that my chances of getting selected for the job were small.  I did not have the normally-required PhD, I had no experience in sea ice research, and besides, most of these vacancy announcements were prewritten for someone within the group that they wanted to promote.  Well, to my surprise, I received a phone call from the personnel department telling me that I had been selected by Dr. Walt Wittmann, head of the Sea Ice Branch.  I was now a GS 12 doing research in a scientific area that I knew nothing about.
How did I get selected for this position?  Well one day, I asked Dr. Wittmann this very question.  Here is what he told me. He really liked the paper I wrote with Harry on the Channel Islands area mentioned above, he liked the fact that I was young and trainable, and he just had a “feeling” that I was the right guy for the job.   Coincidence? Again, I don’t think so.  In my mind, it was another God-incidence.
There are several more events which occurred to me that I could include in this chapter.  However, I felt that they better fit into the miracles chapter in Chapter 4.

            MEMOIRS OF AN ORDINARY MAN LIVING AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE 
 
                                                         FOREWORD
 
        I have always thought of myself as just an ordinary guy who has lived an average, ordinary life.  I was born into a poor family in the city of Central Falls, RI on 28 April 1941.  My mother (Annette St. Pierre Tooma), a French Canadian, was raised in New Bedford, MA, and my dad (Samuel George Tooma), a Syrian was born in Central Falls.  Both my dad’s parents were living in Syria, and he and his brother, Effie, were raised by their uncle, Sam Tooma.  Central Falls had the distinction of being identified in the 1940’s census as being the most densely populated square mile in the United States.  It had 24,610 souls packed into that one square mile.  Central Falls was made up of numerous, small ethnic communities.  We had Polish, Italian, Syrian, French, Lithuanians, and German neighborhoods, just to name a few.  Each one had its own church, grocery stores, bars, and meeting places in order to desperately maintain its own traditions, language, and ways of life.  Central Falls, along with its sister city, Pawtucket, was one of the last of a dying breed of towns in the north that was losing its main means of employment, factories, to the warmer climate of the south.  My Father worked for Fram Corporation, and my Mother, worked for a textile manufacturer.  Each earned slightly more than minimum wage.  As I said, we were poor.  We lived on the top floor of a 3-family tenement house, and our rent was $3.50 a week.  Yes, the decimal place is correct.  I’m not sure, but I estimate that our living area was about 1,200 square feet, which was not bad, I guess, for a family of 3.
        As I said, I was just an ordinary boy leading an ordinary life, and my childhood and school years were uneventful.  In high school, when they were passing out the superlatives for the graduating seniors, I did not get “most popular”, “best looking”, “most likely to succeed”, or “best dancer”.  No, I was voted as “most versatile”.  How boring.  But, yet, it described me perfectly.  I always described myself as a jack of all trades and master of none.  I was on the basketball and baseball teams but not the star; I was on most of the high school committees but never the chairman; I was in the school plays but never the lead.  You get what I mean, just an ordinary guy.
        Upon completion of high school, I was accepted to the University of Rhode Island (URI), and I had high hopes of attaining a degree in chemical engineering.  However, like most college kids, I soon realized that engineering was not for me.  I now wanted to be a research chemist.  Yes, that is right, I was (and still am) a nerd.  And as a nerd, when selecting my curriculum electives, I shunned the easy A’s of basket weaving and art appreciation for the much more challenging scientific courses of biology, geology, and oceanography.  No one took these kinds of courses as electives.  But I did.  This is probably the first time in my life that I was not ordinary.  Little did I know that this path of events would become extremely important and would change my life forever.  I will discuss this in more detail later in my memoirs.  Suffice it to say, I did graduate with a BSc in chemistry with a plan to pursue a PhD in research chemistry.
        After graduating from URI, I moved to Washington, D.C.  It is there where my life changed.  I was still unexceptionable in every way, but, somehow I met, courted, and married an unbelievably beautiful, intelligent woman, Sylvia Stone.  Sylvia provided me with 2 wonderful daughters who, in turn, provided me with 6 amazing grandchildren.  We are still clicking along after 54 years of marriage.
        Over the years as my daughters and grandchildren were growing up, they would ask me what I did for a living.  I would discuss my career and many instances or events in my career.  I was amazed at how they would crawl up onto my lap and beg me to tell them my “stories”.  They would ask me to tell one I had already told them numerous times.  I would say, “But I’ve already told you that one.”  And they would ask me to tell them the story again.  So, I would.
        My daughters and grandkids have asked me for years to write down my experiences and put them into a book.  I always would tell them that nobody would be interested to read about what went on in my life.  But just recently, Sylvia convinced me that a written record of my stories would be very important to them in remembering me after I had passed on.  In fact, my granddaughter, Natalie, told me that she would read them to her children.  That pushed me over the edge.
        In thinking about how I should undertake such a mission, the nerd in me took hold, and I decided to write an outline before I began.  In preparing this outline, it became clear to me that I truly have not led a boring, ordinary life.  In fact, as I look at my life, it has been truly exciting and far from ordinary.  My life has been filled with near death experiences, miracles, near miracles, and many interesting instances that would not happen to an ordinary and boring guy.
        The stories and events which follow are all true.  To make this point absolutely clear, I want to repeat it; the stories I present in this chronicle are absolutely true.  I have tried to recollect the details such as names, dates, etc. as best I can.  In Chapter 1, I will provide a basic overview of the various categories of my life stories.  Also, I felt that it was necessary to give as much detail as I could because, if neglected, many of the stories lose their impact.  So, sit back, relax, and, hopefully, enjoy the ride.

CHAPTER 1
 
INTRODUCTION
 
MY CHRISTIAN WALK.  First and foremost, it is important to know that I am a believing Christian.  And, as such, I believe that God is in control of all things, and there are no such things as coincidences or luck.  In fact, I like to think of these sort of things as “God-incidences.”  Therefore, in my mind, all the stories which follow have God actively working in my life.  This is an extremely important point to remember as you read my stories. So, I would like to provide a brief history of my Christian walk.
        The major faith denomination in Central Falls was Catholic.  The major large churches were Catholic, and most of the ethnic churches were orthodox Christian denominations.  I was born into the Catholic denomination.  My Father was an altar boy at the Syrian Orthodox church, but it was my Mother, a French Canadian Catholic who controlled my religious upbringing.  For example, even though I attended the public school system, she enrolled me in St. Edwards Catholic school in the 2nd grade so I could fulfill the Catholic sacrament of First Communion.  The amazing thing here is that about this time, my Mother had lost her faith, but I, as a young boy, continued to follow the requirements of my faith.  I walked alone to church every Sunday, went to confession, attended worship services on holy days of obligation, etc.  What was really strange was that I attended a church where the liturgy was in Latin and the sermon was in French.  I did not understand a word that was said.  Yet, I firmly believed that Jesus was the son of God, that He died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins, and that He was resurrected from the dead.
        At the age of 11, I had a strong desire to move on with my Catholic walk.  I wanted to be confirmed in my faith and become a “soldier of Christ.”  I had no idea of how to do this, since I was enrolled in the public school system.  I asked my Mother to help me.  She supported me in this and called the Catholic school and asked what she could do.  It just so happened that the school was going to start an after-school course to prepare the students for confirmation by the Bishop in a month or so.   My Mother was told that I could enroll in the class and be confirmed by the bishop.  I was very excited.  However, things got very tough for me.  I was in the 5th grade at the time, and I would run the quarter mile from my school to the Catholic school where the class was being held.  Once there, I was constantly tormented by the other boy students because I was an outsider and not one of them.  But because being confirmed was so important to me, I toughed it out, completed the class, and was confirmed.  I was now a soldier of Christ and proud of it. This event is important to me because I now firmly believe that my decision to be confirmed was mine and mine alone.  And it was not easy because of the way I was treated by the Catholic boys.  I am convinced that this act on my part was when I was accepted by my Lord as a child of God and given the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit.  If you believe as I do, you will clearly see the Holy Spirit taking care of me in most of the stories presented below.
        The amazing thing to me is that I continued to follow the obligations of my faith through junior high school, high school, and even through my 4 years of college.  However, when I moved to Washington, D.C. because of my job, my interests changed.  I was traveling all over the world and desperately trying to develop a professional career as an oceanographer for the navy.  And just as important was the fact that at this time I discovered girls.  I put my faith on the back burner, and it stayed there for 37 years.
MOVING TO HILTON HEAD (2000). In the late 1990’s, I began planning my retirement, and Sylvia and I began our plans to build our retirement home on Hilton Head Island.  During this time, she began taking Bible studies through the widespread Bible Study Fellowship program (BSF).  She would come home after class, and we would discuss the week’s lesson.  She was studying the book of John at the time.  I knew little of the Bible, and I was fascinated by it all, and I thirsted to learn more.  One evening, Sylvia plied me with a bottle of wine and asked me that if she found a nice church on Hilton Head would I go to church with her.  I promised her that I would.  Soon after we moved to Hilton Head and after we got settled into our new home, she came up with a list of churches nearby.  I kept my promise, and one Sunday we attended St. Luke’s Church about a half mile from our house.  We instantly fell in love with St. Luke’s, the head pastor, Greg Kronz, and the people of the congregation.  We never went to the other churches on Sylvia’s list, and we are still active members of this church 19 years later.
        My strong boyhood Christian faith that I had put on the back burner 37 years ago was rekindled at this time thanks to 3 important things: (1) St. Luke’s was a strong Christ-based church that strictly followed Scripture (the Bible); (2) We joined several church Bible study small groups; and (3), I began studying the Bible in a structured way through the international Community Bible Study program (CBS).  As I write these words, I am about to start my 18th year of Bible study through the CBS program.
        In the chapters that follow, I will describe numerous events that have taken place during my life.  Many of these events occurred during my professional career and many others within my personal life.  They are not presented in chronological order, but rather within a particular category.  The categories that I have selected are major events in the development of my professional career (Chapter 2), near death experiences (Chapter 3), miracles (Chapter 4), testimonial stories (Chapter 5), and interesting (read that humorous) stories that could only have happened to me (Chapter 6).  I have also included several appendixes at the end of the book which I feel are interesting because they help you to better understand who I am.  Appendix A has photos of me and my family; Appendix B provides a chronology of my life’s events; Appendix C compares civilian and military ranks; Appendix D has some of my early short stories that I wrote when I was 12 to 13 years old; and Appendix E has a bonus life story that I think you may enjoy.