Subject: Female Stowaway
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:01:40 EDT
From: Dimsum60@aol.com
To: tcheatum@gte.net
When the Gurke took part in the Coral Sea Week commeration in 1962..one port was Sydney Australia…After a few days of total fun..we left for a one day cruise to the next port of call..Newcastle..On board were a large group of Media newspaper people because we were going to operate with a submarine for a few hours..good copy for the press etc.. No sooner had we cleared Sydney harbour when one of my men comes to me with ” Mr. Fox you promise you won’t tell ” OK I won’t tell….There is a girl in the motor whale boat.. Well I broke my promise..sure enough there was a girl hiding in the MWB..Thats all the reporters needed to have a field day with the USN..Quickly we took all the press bunch aft to watch some phoney drill while we whisked the girl to foreward officers quarters…the ships doc kept her there all day till we reached Newcastle…We kissed the press goodbye and finally spoke to the girl…she claimed some sailor had promised to marry her and she was stowing away to the States….We nicely read her a long list of crimes she had commited and the possible long time she would spend in prison…But if she wouldn’t say a word we wouldn’t press charges…she happily agreed so when the coast was clear we scotted her off the ship….Within hours high priority messages a flying fast and furious from Washington….She had gone to the authorities claiming she had been shangied from Sydney…raped by whoever etc. etc. A true public relations nightmare. Things were pretty hairy for awhile..I guess common sense ruled in the end a everything was forgotten… But another adventure in the long and great history of the GURKE..That story is all true to the best of my slightly failing memory….
Your shipmate, Jon Fox