Order of the Blue Nose

“Wish we would have had more global warming north of the Arctic Circle,” said Martin Phillips.

I asked him what he meant, and he was happy to explain. Phillips had served aboard the USS Mahoning County, or Landing Ship Tank 914 as it was known during WWII, one of over a thousand such ships built quickly to land troops, vehicles, and equipment on beaches. The ship had been engaged in both major theaters in the war and decommissioned in 1946, only to be recommissioned for the Korean War in 1950. It wasn’t until 1955 that LST 914 was named after Mahoning County in Ohio, and the next year when Martin Phillips would come aboard.

“I had two years of college when I was drafted. So I worked in the ship’s office. I was a yeoman, a captain’s talker. The captain would give an order on the bridge, and I would pass along the order. I had a ship’s telephone, a hip set and a headset with a microphone by my mouth.”

Working on the bridge and in the ship’s office gave Phillips knowledge of the wider ship actions that many lower enlisted men would not have.

“Once a young ensign, Herbokowitz, was ordered to command during a practice landing. We’d come in pretty fast for these landings and drop the stern anchor before we beached so we could reel in the anchor to pull the ship off the beach afterwards. The boys in the stern would call up to let us know how many feet of cable remained on the spool. I would relay that information to the commander. I thought Herbokowitz had ordered that anchor to be dropped mighty early, but mine was not to reason why. Mine was to do and die,” he said.

The Mahoning County was still far from the beach as the length of remaining anchor cable continued to drop. Martin called the numbers louder and louder, trying to signal Ensign Herbokowitz that they were too far out and needed to reverse engines. But the entire anchor cable played out, the ship lost her stern anchor, and she beached hard, her screws partway out of the water. It took two destroyers to pull the ship off the beach.

“Later I became a member of the Order of the Blue Nose,” he said. “A ritual the Navy has for sailors who cross the Arctic Circle.” The Mahoning County was running a resupply mission to a northern early warning system radar base in the summer when it was still possible to make it through the ice. But that summer was colder than usual and froze the sea ahead of the ship.

“We always kept a couple Navy SEALs aboard, and one of them was ordered to swim down under the ice to place explosives and blast open a passage. He must have been one heck of a guy, because his breathing apparatus froze when he was down there. He had to hold his breath while he swam all the way back to the clearing around the ship before the charge went off.”

If Martin Phillips hadn’t served so closely with the officers, he’d never have known what the SEAL said as soon as the ship’s chief medical officer welcomed him aboard. “Doc, I sure could use a brandy.”

“Now, I hear with the melting, ships can cross from one ocean to another by going around north,” said Phillips, “But back then it was cold.”