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Shag Hamilton hadn't done much work in his life for a couple of reasons. It wasn't readily available before WW II. and he didn't unduly inconvenience himself looking for it. He grew up in a large family whose main activity was moonshining. He helped run the still
which was hidden in a copse of scrub pine up a hollow, and delivered mason jars of white lightening to preferred customers. He had a wanderlust, and to satisfy it left the moonshining to the family and took to the only form of travel available to pennyless travelers, the
rods. He wandered up and down and across the country in a leisurely aimless fashion only to be hurried when running to catch a moving freight or to avoid pursuing railroad dicks waving billy clubs. He became a member of the traveling subculture known as Knights of the
Road, tramps and hobos. Shag considered himself a tramp, because tramps first made a weak offer to work for a handout, while hobos just bummed. Better known Knights acquired names bestowed on them by their peers. Some were; Railspike Stratton, Oklahoma Joe, Rhubarb. Dirty
Harry, and Whiskey Will. Most travelers however, answered to "Tex." Jack Hamilton became Shag Hamilton.
Unknown to Shag, his meandering odyssey prevented draft board notices ordering him to report for duty in the Army from reaching him. On a stop in San Diego, he headed for a lower Broadway bar and proceeded to get smashed. A Navy recruiter looking to fill his daily quota
spotted his prospect, bought Shag a couple of beers, signed him up, and drove him three miles north of downtown to the Naval Training Center boot camp in a Navy sedan. Six weeks later he was driven back downtown in a good old Navy gray humped bus with a dozen other sailors to the
Navy Pier, where they boarded a destroyer for duty. Shag now had a bunk of his own with an 18 inch clearance to the overhead. No more sleeping in empty freight cars. That great Navy "mental attitude adjuster," boot camp, had many beneficial effects on Shag, but reducing his attraction
for the sauce was not one of them.
Assigned to the engineers , he was checked out to stand "evap" watches. The ships evaporators make fresh water out of sea water. Without fresh water the crew wouldn't survive more that four days and boilers four minutes. The evaporators can best be described like a
teakettle of boiling salt water where the escaping steam is changed back to liquid or fresh water. The ships evaporators are a complicated system of heaters to boil sea water, condensers to cool the steam, fresh and salt water pumps and piping systems, test tanks and a lot of
instruments. Shag studied all the instruction manuals on the rain makers, became a good watch stander and soon learned how to fine tune the system for maximum water output. It wasn't long before he was put in charge of the system and three watch standers. He was getting so much
water out of evaps that the crew was enjoying extended shower hours. Some wise guy cracked that the reason Shag was squeezing more water out of his teakettles was because operating them was like running a still and cooking mash in the piney woods of Georgia.
On one of my nightly routine inspections of the engine spaces, Shag asked me to have a look at a leak in the bottom of a test tank.
Armed with flashlights, we descended to the bilges and then laboriously climbed up through a maze of pipes, beams, and cable runs to tightly cramped positions below the tank. Shag extended is hand to point out the leak, but what we was an amber glow in the beams of the flashlights.
Stashed in an angle iron lay a bottle of whiskey. Both of us were shocked by this find. After a few moments of stunned silence, he denied the bottle was his. I didn't believe him. Then he said," Lieutenant we have been to sea for three weeks. If I had known the bottle was here I
wouldn't have led you to it, and I would have drunk the whiskey and dropped the bottle over the side 2 1/2 weeks ago. "You have a good point Shag, the bottle can't possibly be yours." By the time I extracted myself from the grasp of the jungle-jim and climbed back up to
the engine control platform, word of the find had been passed to all watch stations via the sound powered phones. Holding up the bottle and facing a dozen sailors, I then asked the dumbest question of my naval career," Au---rite---whose bottle is this?" The silence only emphasized
the machinery noises which I hadn't previously noticed. I climbed up the ladder to the maindeck
hatch and stepped out on deck to a warm fresh breeze. Looking
at the label for the first time, I saw that I was holding a bottle
of Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey. The name didn't mean
anything to me then, but the classical shape of the tall square
bottle with the rounded corners made was comfortable fit in my hand.
The crowd of curious sailors had grown to 25 or 30.
I figured there were three courses of action that could be taken to
get me out of the situation in which I now found myself. One,
report the find to XO. Knowing him, he would sound fire drill.
Immediately breakout the Master-at-Arms, the Chief Yeoman, and the
Legal Officer to prepare for Captain's mast, and draw up and type
summary court charges against Shag Hamilton. All before first
light. I would also come in for a force five blast telling me that
had I conducted my inspections in a proper manner I would have found
the bottle three weeks earlier.
My second thought was to stow the bottle in my desk
safe for future quaffing at a beach recreation party.
This of course was impractical, arouse suspicion, and require a lot
of explaining.
The third choice was easy, clean and fast. I leaned
over the side and very lightly tapped the bottle against the
so called "thin skin" of the destroyer. It's amazing how
easily that thin steel broke off the neck of the bottle.
Hamming it up a bit, I held the bottle out at arms length and slowly
pour out the whiskey then dropped the bottle into the sea. The
breeze splashed some of the liquid on my hand. Licking the
back of my hand, I had my first taste of scotch on a US Navy ship
underway at sea. Scotch has been my drink of choice since.
There are two things that still puzzle me after 60
years. Notwithstanding that there were many witnesses to the
ships second christening, I never heard a word of the incident
either in Officer's country or about the decks. Also the
identity of the sailor who did bring the bottle onboard
remains a mystery, But the big mystery is where in the heck did this
guy find a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label fine whiskey in the
South Pacific during wartime rationing!
George Silvani, Captain USS Hopewell 1959 - 1961
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