[CW] Navy Radioman

[K0HB]

If there are any old sewer-pipe Radiomen (capitol "R") among you (if you
have to ask, then you ain't one), here's something I had to share with you.
Tribute to an old shipmate by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong

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Vic Casciola, Radioman, Shipmate.

Late one evening, before our last reunion, I got a phone call. When I heard
the voice, years melted away. 

"Dex... Vic Casciola... You remember me?" 

Did I remember Vic? Does a hobby horse have a hickory dick? You bet I
remember Vic!! 

Vic had a medical condition that erased a lot of his memory and was phoning
to see if I thought the lads would recall who he was. He didn't want to
show up at the reunion if nobody would remember him. He also wanted his son
to know that long ago, his dad rode the boats.

So, this is for his son. It's not much... Others could do better. I'm not
articulate enough to capture on paper the unique, one-of-a-kind shipmate
that was Vic. All I want to do is validate Vic's credentials.

Vic arrived on Requin wearing paratrooper wings over his ribbons.
Paratrooper wings and Silver Dolphins... Talk about double-dipping lunatics.

Vic was a radioman... Make that triple-dipping lunacy. He was the absolute
master of the "speed key." A contraption radio guys used to tap out flips
and blips that to fellow practitioners of flip and blip transmission, could
be translated into communication understood by normal members of the human
race. Vic could pound out stuff at a rate that constantly frustrated his
recipients. Many nights, radiomen receiving Vic's "heat" would have to tell
him to hold up until they could hunt up some poor devil who could read at
his rate... Like going to find a catcher for Nolan Ryan's fast ball. Vic
could bang out code faster than Gypsy Rose could pop a garter snap.

He was amazing. He was also a master at sneaking stuff into official
traffic. In the old days, boat sailors didn't get fifty word
'poopy-grams'... We got 'Little Orphan Annie drops' and anything you could
con a radioman to sneak into a message after he caught up on ALLNAV
transmissions.

A 'Little Orphan Annie drop' came from naval aviators. The good ones, God
bless 'em, would go to the tender, collect your mail, put it into a cleaned
up paint can along with a couple of recent newspapers, a dog-eared Playboy,
and two or three sports magazines. They would tape the contraption up and
drop it to you when you were surfaced.

They would fly over and yell stuff over the radio,

"Mark center... Mark ringer..."

And out of the bottom of a P2V would come a tumbling can. Lookouts would
cheer and the can would slam into the swells. 

If you were lucky, someone on deck would fish out the can with a boathook,
mail would be distributed in the control room and we would spike the
morale-meter. 

If you were unlucky, the sunovabitch would sink... And set up housekeeping
with crabs and a lot of German U-Boat crews. One Christmas, we lost a can
on a three contraption drop. I later learned that a port wine soaked, pecan
loaded fruitcake my aunt sent me, had been misdirected to the deck force of
the Titanic.

That brings us back to method two of clandestine shore communication... Vic
Casciola and his magical speed key. The poor bastards in the Orion radio
shack would get stuff like this... 

"REQUIN ETA 1600Z... REQUIRE WELDER FOR DECK DAMAGE ON STAND BY... PHONE
319-6247 FOR RESULTS OF LITTLE LEAGUE SERIES... REQUIN TO DEPART NORFOLK
0800Z 031561... WILL REQUIRE STORES, TWO WEEKS... FUEL... CHARTS ACCORDING
TO OP ORDERS... PHONE 319-4670 TELL MARY DAD WILL FUND PROM DRESS... WILL
LOAD 2 MK37 TORPEDOES... HAVE INJURED MAN TO TRANSFER NORFOLK NAVAL
HOSPITAL REQUIRE TRANSPORT... PATIENT AMBULATORY... PHONE 319-4026 OBTAIN
RESULTS PREGNANCY TEST... WILL NEED NEST ASSIGNMENT AND LINE HANDLERS...
(pause)... WILL EXPECT ANSWERS NEXT TRANSMISSION"

Magic Man could get everything from clothing measurements to racing results
and the wardroom never knew. 

Vic could fall asleep in the middle of a bar brawl. We didn't know that it
was probably an early indication of his later medical problem. 

Once, the diving officer was told that Vic was asleep on watch in the radio
shack. Major no-no. When the diving officer went to the shack, there was
Cassiola wearing headphones with his eyes closed. 

"Casciola... You asleep?" 

"No sir."

Never opened his eyes. 

"Well, what in the hell are you doing with your eyes closed?" 

"Checking my eyelids for holes."

The worst duty on Requin was having the below deck watch and having to wake
Vic up. The sonuvabitch could sleep through the last five minutes of a
hocky game, a five hundred pound bomb drop and the second coming of Christ.
The COB once said if Vic had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he
would have slept through it. I would rather have taken raw meat from a
half-starved Bengal tiger than have been sent to separate Vic from his
rack. It ranked up there with the most delicate surgical procedures... You
had to remove the flashcover from Vic's back without getting your lights
punched out. We toyed with the idea of doing it electrically, but how could
you wire up a guy who could have the tender phone your mom to wish her a
happy birthday?

Vic Casciola... Did we remember you?

Hell no. 

Everyone wore Dolphins, paratrooper wings, sent code at the speed of light
and slept like a bank vault. 


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