Comments and loose ends about our time in Africa.
The Navy provides food to us sailors. When we go somewhere it's usually to another U.S. military base where they provide the food. Going to Africa is another situation. Not many U.S military bases there. We pre-planned for this by collecting money from the crew members and purchased food from the commissary at NAS Rota, Spain. In addition we obtained cases of World War II C rations. To store all this we built a sturdy rack with a plywood floor and and sides and hung it in the aircraft bomb bay. At commercial airports we were sometimes able to eat in their cafeterias and the meals were paid with a government credit card. Before the four months or so were over, we ran out of sugar and condensed milk and had to drink our coffee black. I was never able to go back to coffee with cream and sugar in it. Yuck! We also ran out of peanut butter, jam, canned chili, canned beef stew, hash etc. Eventually we even ate the C rations but they were sure the last to go! Thankfully the French fed us all the time we were in Point Noire while all the diplomatic wrangling was going on and that never got resolved.
This is in 1960. The Mau Mau uprising is essentially over but there is still some occasional violence. One afternoon two of us were sitting on the front porch of a house that had a bar in the front room. We were drinking Tom Collins and suddenly we heard gunshots off to the right. I stood up, leaned over the porch railing, and five or six Africans were firing assault rifles at people. The woman proprietor of the bar stepped outside, waved us into the house and stashed us upstairs in a back room. An hour or more later she came and got us and indicated it was safe for us to leave. I've always wondered if that incident was part of the Mau Mau uprising.
All the street kids in Africa spoke English, French, and a native tongue. Not so much the adults unless they work in a cafe, restaurant, or hotel. The kids seemed to know English was the language of the future.
The whites, whether they were English, French, or Dutch had all the power. They had the money, the courts, and the guns. All three nations colonized Africa to obtain the natural resources. An obvious imbalance between the races and you could sense the injustice and hostility.
To this day there are no records of us being there. At least I and my congressman have not been able to attain them.
What where we there for? Remember that we are looking for "something unusual in the sky or ocean." What could be in the sky or in the sea? In 1958 Sputnik 3 was launched. The Russians were ahead of the U.S in the space race. That was a concern to the S.S. goverment. Sputnik 3 was supposed to come down in a year. It stayed in orbit. After 600 plus days there was information that it was losing altitude but no one knew where or when it would come down and land. Most likely it would land in the ocean. Six hundred days would put the landing in 1960. The time period we were patrolling off the west coast of Africa. My guess is that's what we were looking for. Were we going to help the Soviet Union recover the sattelite? Or were we going to attempt to have it recovered by U.S.?
For months after we returned from Africa, being tired became the norm. Constantly fighting my lack of energy despite numerous visits to Sick Bay and seeing various doctors. Eventually a doctor said there was a suspicion of me lingering. That was motivation to stop going to sick call. On a visit to home, after cancelling a Friday night date and a Sat afternoon and evening date, Mom called our family doctor who came to the house. An hour later an ambulance delivered me to Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston, Massachuetts. And yes ,the dates were with three different girls.
Six weeks later they released me for light duty back to VP-26 with a diagnois of Infectious Mononucleosis and "unspecified inconsistancies" in my blood. Those records of the sick call visits and from Chelsea Naval Hospital have also proved to be unobtainable.
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