The fictional story about an epidemic of rats in Long Beach was published on the front page of our ship’s newspaper on Feb. 25, 1962, the Sunday before the USS Los Angeles (CA-135) arrived back at her home port after a tour of duty in the Western Pacific.
It was the first day in more than six months that Capt. Hugh M. Robinson had allowed the crew to sleep in, but they didn’t get much sleep that morning. Sailors, coming off the morning watch, saw the headline and began waking up their shipmates.
My boss, JO3 Gary D. Greve, and I usually worked all night when we were at sea, ate breakfast and then hit the rack. So we were up when the news began to spread. We could near sailors running down the passageway outside the compartment where we worked and then practically falling down a nearby ladder to get to berthing compartments where their shipmates were sleeping, so they could spread the news: “Rats in Long Beach!”
When we went to breakfast the mess deck, which should have been almost empty, was packed. And there was only one topic of conversation — Rats!
I heard one sailor say to his friend, “Aw, that can’t be true.”
“If it weren’t true,” the friend replied, “they wouldn’t have put it in the paper.”
Ouch!
Another one said, “See right there where it says ‘AP?’ That means the Associated Press wrote this story. It’s true all right.”
Greve and I just sat there, concentrating on our ham and eggs. We didn’t say a word to anybody, or to each other.
Rat scuttlebutt was already out there, being passed around.
I heard one sailor theorized that those rats has already forced the Los Angeles to change course. The LA was a flagship —we had an admiral on board — and I heard a sailor say to an old second class boatswain mate, “Boats, I heard we weren’t even going to Long Beach, we’re going to San Diego first and let the admiral off for his personal safety.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” the old sailor replied.
Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry. Neither was Greve. We got up and went below. When we got to our berthing compartment I asked Greve, “Who is the editor of the paper?”
“I am,” he said.
“Don’t you forget it,” I told him.
* * *
I was laying there with my eyes closed but I wasn’t asleep when an orderly shook me.
“Is your name Greve?” he asked.
“No. Greve is right over there,” I said, pointing to my friend’s rack.
The orderly told Greve that Lt. Lemorande, the officer in charge of the Executive Division, wanted to see him. Now!
Greve rolled out and dressed, slowly, like a man going to his execution. But in just a few minutes he was back, taking off his uniform, getting ready to go right back to bed. He didn’t say a word, he made me ask what had happened.
“Lt. Lemorande asked me if the story was a hoax and I said ‘Yes, sir.'” Greve told me.
“He wanted to know if (our lieutenant) had anything to do with it, and I said ‘Yes, sir.’
“He asked me if (our lieutenant) had ordered me to put the rat story in the paper and I said, ‘Yes, sir.’
“And then Lt. Lemorande said, ‘That’s all. Orderly! Go get him and tell him to wear his rubber (bottom) because he’s gonna need it!'”
Continued tomorrow: Rat Remorse, Part 3 of 3