Liberty Call, Liberty Call in Valencia Spain!

Liberty Call, Liberty Call!!

“Liberty Call, Liberty Call!!”  That is a sound every sailor loves to hear, and there is no better place to hear that than a Spanish port.  My two favorite places to have liberty are Greece and Spain.  They are wonderful places to visit and have friendly people plus great food!  During the 1989-1990 Med cruise on the USS Forrestal, we pulled into Valencia Spain. 

Two things made this a great visit, beyond the above-mentioned qualities.  First was that we pulled pier side.  It is a very rare event for an aircraft carrier to pull pier side.  In all my time aboard carriers, I can count on one hand the number of times we pulled pier side in a liberty port.  Most times the carrier had to anchor out away from the harbor because of the sheer size of the ship.  We could only tie up to the pier in a big industrial port like Marseille France, or Valencia Spain. 

The second reason is the crux of this story.  Greenpeace was in town and they knew we would be making a port visit.  They staged a “protest” against the ship.  I guess they were demonstrating against nuclear weapons and not an environmental issue, like they normally would do.  The Forrestal was not a nuclear powered ship, but we may or may not have had nuclear weapons onboard.

I think it was a Saturday when the protest was scheduled to happen, although we pulled in about four days prior.  Everyone knew about it, including the Skipper and the local police (Guardia Civil).  Before I go further, I need to explain one of the basic defensive postures that we would practice at sea. 

Killer Tomato

There was a drill that we did to fight off any small boats that would approach the ship.  The drill was called “Audie Murphy”.  When the Audie Murphy drill was called, the assigned team members would go to their stations and mount, load, and fire .50 caliber machine guns.  Most of the stations were in the catwalks surrounding the flight deck, but some were on sponson’s that stuck out from the ship at lower levels.  A humorous side note is that this drill was often in conjunction with a “Killer Tomato”. 

The ship, or one of the other ships in the battle group, would drop a great big red “target” in the water.  It was like a HUGE red beach ball, and it was self sealing…to a point.  It was designed to be shot at and keep floating, at least for a while.  After the killer tomato was launched, the ship would move a few hundred yards away, and the they would call the Audie Murphy drill.  The teams would shoot the tomato and eventually kill it.  Pretty fun to watch as it’s not as easy to hit a “small” target with a .50 cal  as you would think.  Maybe one out of a hundred shots would hit it.  That is why they would often practice this drill to become more proficient.

Audie Murphy WET

So just before we pulled into port the Skipper announced on the 1MC (ship’s intercom) that Green Peace was staging a protest on a certain day, and that liberty may be curtailed.  If we were already on liberty, we had to stay far away from the port and after a certain time no one could leave the ship until after the protest.  The other item he told us was that the Audie Murphy drill was going to be modified, and that it would be called “Audie Murphy WET”.  Instead of manning machine guns, the crews would man two-inch fire hoses to repel anyone approaching too close to the ship.  Think of those police trucks with water cannons on top, but on steroids!  The protesters were going to get a shocking surprise if they tried to board the ship!

Protesters Arrive

On the day of the protest, I decided to stay on the ship because that was where all the action was going to happen.  The ship was tied to the pier on the starboard side with the bow facing out to sea, and the fantail (back of the ship) towards the city.  I was up on the flight deck, back by the fantail to watch the procession of protesters.  I will say that they were pretty much right on schedule.  Liberty had been secured and the ships boarding area was secured and roped off out to about 30 yards away from the ship.  The ropes went the entire length of the ship to keep people at least 30 yards away from any point of the ship.

The protesters made their way from the port entry to the pier where the ship was docked.  They were chanting stuff and waving rainbow flags and all kinds of commotion was going on.  The Guardia Civil were also there and parked about 75 yards from the ship in five white vans.  There were a few uniformed police to try to keep the protesters in the designated area. 

Two or three of the protest leaders had bullhorns, and were leading the chants and such.  As they got closer to the fantail (this being the first part of the ship they encountered) some of them started throwing paint balloons at the ship.  Most of them fell short, but a few hit the ship.  No damage, and after the protest was over, a quick hit with the fire hose washed it all off.  Others were trying to throw rocks and hit the aircraft on the flight deck. 

“You Throw Like A Girl!”

Those of us standing up on the flight deck turned this into a spectator sport.  Most of the throwers had weak arms and never even came close to hitting anything but water.  We were egging those guys on and calling them wimps (we used much more colorful terms though).  This made them mad and they would double their effort.  A few got close enough to hit the ship, but nowhere near the flight deck level.  For those we actually gave them a golf clap. 

There was one guy who actually did eventually hit the round down of the flight deck.  Not near any aircraft but it did technically reach the flight deck.  We gave that guy a big cheer.  It actually took the wind out of their sails when we did that since they were trying to anger us and still us up.  We just laughed and cheered.

By this time the main body of protesters, probably at least a few hundred people, were all gathered amid ship where the gangplank was.  At first they stayed out in the designated area, but soon they got themselves all worked up and started to ease towards the ship.  Audie Murphy Wet was called out over the loudspeakers and the teams manned the hoses and charged them with salt water.  They could not actually engage unless the Skipper ordered them to repel borders.  Turns out we never had to use the hoses. 

Protesters Depart…

About this time the Guardia Civil determined that the crowd was out of control so they took charge.  Man oh man was it a sight to see!  I actually felt somewhat bad for the protesters, especially the leaders. Each van had about six guys hiding in it so when they got the word to deploy, they did it with a vengeance!  They had three foot long rubber batons and they went straight for the people with bullhorns.  They beat the living daylights out of those leaders, even when they were tossed to the ground.  After they beat the tar out of them they dragged them to the vans and tossed them in.  The crowd dispersed rather quickly, like a swarm of roaches when the light gets turned on.  They were gone and it was over in less than five minutes.

Less than an hour after it was over we heard those sweet words, “Liberty Call, Liberty Call!!”  Valencia is the birthplace of paella, so what is better than to go have a feast after an entertaining day on the ship?