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USS Diablo SS479 |
| The following story is about Jack Collins, perhaps the most famous and beloved of all Diablo sailors and no doubt the one who has, over the years, been most talked about in world
renowned sea stories. With Jack we had the most outrageous and
unbelievable things happen. All are true as I was there to confirm them all. TJC Jack Collins Falling Out of the Sheers Story During the Diablo's three-month trip to the Mediterranean Sea in the late summer of 1961, Jack Collins was standing lookout watch for other sailors, in addition to his own watches. This gave other guys more time to work on their submarine qualification and it gave Jack a few extra bucks to spend in the upcoming ports of call. The Diablo was plowing through the Tyrrhenian Sea west of Italy one evening toward midnight. I was in the forward torpedo room, when there was a banging and clattering that sounded like garbage being dumped over the side. Immediately the sound of "Man Overboard" came over the 1MC. Well, everyone who knew of Jack Collins' antics both on and off the ship was certain that it was Jack who had fallen over. I hurried aft and went topside, got down on the main deck where Mr. Gilchrist, the Executive Officer, was looking out to sea, searching for Jack. By this time the ship was stopped. The sea was calm, and the ship's searchlight spotted Jack something like 100 yards off the starboard side. Looking at me, Mr. Gilchrist said, "You're the swimmer aren't you? Go get him!" The swimmer was the person who, during torpedo recovery drills, swam out and snapped a line on to the buoyant head of the dummy torpedo so it could be brought back aboard and reused. Swimming was easy enough for me, but hauling a thrashing Jack Collins back to the ship seemed like a challenge. I said, "Can you put a line on me?", and that's what they did. I swam out to Jack and asked him a couple of questions to make sure he wasn't any wackier from the fall than he had been before. He said he had fallen asleep, hit his head on the way down out of the shears, was awakened by the cold water and was quite embarrassed. I got hold of him and waved to the people on the other end of the line. We were pulled back to the Diablo, no doubt to the relief of Mr. Gilchrist and Capt. Kearney. Jack maintained to all others that he had slipped and fallen. The next year, when Mr. Gilchrist was being transferred, he gave Jack one of those aw-shucks-its-just-between-us-you-really-did-fall-asleep-didn't-you questions. But Jack stuck to the story that he slipped, which by then even he probably had come to believe. In the end, it was merely a minor event that fortunately did not become a drowning. Heck, we were short enough on watches as it was! Don Miller, ET3 USS Diablo 1960-1962 Later Jack related to us the following. When he fell in he was wearing boondockers, foul weather jacket, and his big Navy binoculars. While swimming back to the ship he picked up the large floating light that is thrown over the side when a man goes overboard and used to find people in the dark. Swimming back to the ship with all this extremely heavy equipment, he said he got caught in the lifeline that was being used to try to save him and it damed near caused him to drown. Now imagine him falling from the lookout position, bouncing off the superstructure then the tanks into the sea in the dark and and swimming with all those anchors. That would have killed the average person. I asked him at the last reunion why he did not at least shed the jacket. He said he had borrowed it from a friend. Tim Calvert, EN3 SS 1960-1962 As an epilogue to the above story, at the 1999 reunion in St. Mary, Georgia, Scotty (who had Jack spotted on the periscope) was rehashing the story to a group of us. Capt. Kearney was there as was Jack. We heard bits and pieces of the story over the years and it seemed this was a good time to get the story right from all the guys that were there at the time. So when Scotty finished the story, he asked him if it was true that he had in fact fallen asleep. He said, "Yep, I fell asleep!" Well, you should have seen the look on Capt. Kearney's face when he found out the truth after all these years. Scotty went on further and asked him why he didn't ditch the foul weather coat and the binoculars. And Jack said, "I borrowed the foul weather gear and I would have had to fill out a whole lot of paperwork if I had lost the binoculars so I just held on to them. Capt. Kearney said, "OH YEAH.... YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PAPERWORK I HAD TO FILL OUT WHEN WE GOT BACK TO GROTEN. I WAS STILL FILLING IT OUT ON THE DAY I WAS TRANSFERRED!" He was quite angry, even after 37 years. Of course, everyone else who was there really got a big laugh out of it, though. The truth formally came out after all those years. Of course, we all knew what happened 37 years ago. And this is a no shi er. Contributed by Joe Impellizeri FT2(SS) 1961-1964 Joe also contributed this explanation of what the shears are: There's an enclosed shroud around the forward part of the bridge but the rest of the bridge is wide open with a railing. The lookout stand (called the "shears" for some reason) is just a flat platform to stand on that is welded on the side of the periscope housings. The shears are accessed via a short ladder above the bridge walking deck. Both lookouts just stand on the shears and, if needed, hold on to the rail to steady themselves. |
| Return to Home Page | Page 3 Sea Stories and Diablo History |
| Page 4 2003 Reunion pictures | Page 5 Pictures Crew & Ship |
| Page 6 Pictures of Captains & Plank Owners | Page 7 Pictures of Diablo over the Years |
| Page 8 What ever happened to: | Page 9 Pictures most at the Sub Base N L |
| Page 10 Crew Pictures and Ports | Page 11 The Loss of the Diablo/Ghazi |
| Page 12 Past Reunion Stuff & pictures | Page 13 2001 Reunion Pictures |
| Page 14 Diablo Pictures and Tench class specs | Page 15 Roster 1944 to 1964 by year served |
| Page 20 2004 Reunion | Links to other pages within the site click once on the page number Pictures may take extra time to load if you are using a regular modem |