Sailor recalls wartime service

RITZVILLE - Benge native Don Saunders served with the Navy during the Vietnam War.

He was 21 when he enlisted in 1966.

"I got a notice from the Army, and I didn't want to jump from foxhole to foxhole, so I joined the Navy," Saunders recalled. "When I signed up, the Navy recruiter put me ahead of some other guys. My dad asked him why, and he said, 'Because he is a farm boy. He knows how to work and follow instructions.'"

After a 120-day delay, Saunders went to boot camp in San Diego in 1967.

"I qualified as damage control. If a ship got a hole, I was the one who went down and plugged it up," Saunders said.

His first assignment was to Kodiak Island, Alaska, for two years.

"I was assigned to the fire department on base. I would ride the tail board of the fire engine," Saunders said. "The second year I made 3rd class, and became a building inspector. I had to make sure there were no fire hazards, and check fire extinguishers. I had keys to everywhere on base but the communications department, including the command post. That key ring was full, I tell you."

Shortly after making 3rd class, Saunders married Lavonne David of Davenport, who he met while she was attending Eastern Washington College.

After a wedding in Spokane, the couple went up to Kodiak.

"Going to Kodiak was the honeymoon," Lavonne said. "I figured we had a year-long honeymoon."

"We got a rental in town. I didn't want to stay on base, that way they couldn't call me in for duty," Saunders said. "We didn't have a phone. They were pretty costly at the time."

"He had a pretty easy life in the beginning of his career," Lavonne said.

"If I really hurried, I could get all the buildings inspected the first half of the month, and have the rest of the month on my own," Saunders said. "I was assigned a pickup, and I went everywhere on that base with it. During World War II, Kodiak was a very important island. The Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force were all there, and we could go out and see the metal strips where the planes would land in the ocean and come up on shore."

The couple later purchased a station wagon and had it shipped up.

"We put 10,000 miles on it, and there were only 25 miles of paved roads. We took that car where only 4-wheel drives should have gone," Saunders said.

"Weekends we went camping, fishing and swimming," Lavonne said. "In the summer, the water wasn't bad."

"Up in Kodiak, on the longest day of the year, you could sit and read a newspaper outside all night," Saunders said. "Then my time was up there; they were getting ready to close down the base, so they had to transfer us out."

Saunders was next assigned to a ship, the Ashtabula AO51.

"It was a super-oilier, meaning they took out the back section and the front and built a new, bigger mid-section," Saunders said. "When I reported for duty the ship was in San Pedro, and our crew was the first to take it out after the re-do, for the shake-down cruise. It was kind of fun."

Lavonne said they thought the ship would be staying in dry dock, so she planned to stay in Los Angeles to be close to her husband.

"I showed up with all our apartment stuff, but the ship was going out, and there was no way I was staying in LA by myself," Lavonne said. "My family came down and helped me drive everything back up."

Lavonne stayed with her parents for the duration of Don's time on the ship.

"When we were out at sea, we would refill ships with oil, JP 5 aviation fuel, ammo, torpedoes and bombs. We had a lot of frozen food on board and canned goods, but no fresh food. We were a floating grocery store," Saunders said. "When we were in San Pedro, fully loaded, if we got hit by a torpedo, we could flatten a 14-mile radius, 28-mile diameter. We could have done some damage to LA, just our ship alone. But we weren't hit."

When the ship left San Pedro, it headed straight for Vietnam.

"It took us two weeks to get there. We were fully loaded, so we went pretty slow," Saunders said. "Being damage control 3rd class, our unit had complete control of all the oil liquid and fuel. When a ship came alongside and wanted fuel, we would take over on that."

Saunders said the first night they were online off the coast of Vietnam, navigation got them a little too close to the coast.

"We could hear the bullets going off, which I thought was kind of cool. It looked like fireworks going off. We were supposed to be further out than we were the first night. If we got hit, we could have had some fun," Saunders said. "On the way over, I'm sure we had one or two subs following us. We couldn't see them, but I'm sure they were there. And when we got to Vietnam, we definitely had them following us."

Saunders said the ship's boundaries were the full coast of Vietnam, with the ship turning around at Da Nang and Saigon.

"We would be out online for two weeks, then pull into bay for a week or two, then go right back out online," Saunders said. "We had anything coming alongside wanting supplies. Flat tops (Navy aircraft carriers), Navy destroyers called tin cans, and we had Australian ships come alongside. If they needed supplies, we were happy to help out."

Saunders said during rough seas, a ship that came alongside bumped into the Ashtabula, and he was sent below to check it out.

"There was no damage. There's an inch thick of steel on those walls," Saunders said. "But the sea was really rough, with waves coming up over the bow of the ship. And it didn't sit very low in the water."

Saunders said during the summer, when it was hot, the ship would drop anchor and the sailors would hear "swim call" over the loudspeaker.

Most of the time, the ship remained in motion.

"We were always moving out at sea. When we refilled ships, we were moving. When we're out online, we don't stop. They pull up alongside, and we are both underway the whole time," Saunders said. "If we stop out there in the ocean, we are sitting ducks. Being damage control, I knew what the ship was carrying."

Saunders said when a new recruit straight out of boot camp came onboard, he asked Saunders, "Aren't you worried about this ship blowing up?"

"I said, 'Boy, if this ship gets hit, you better hope your life insurance is paid up. You won't know what hit you,'" Saunders said. "I didn't worry about it, because if you worry about what you're carrying, you're going to make a big mistake and possibly hurt other people."

Saunders said he was onboard nine months, then the ship headed back to the States.

"We went right by Hawaii, and the captain came over the loudspeaker and said, 'Let's take a vote, who wants to stop in Hawaii?'" said Saunders. "None of us did. We said 'We want to go home.'"

"When I got out, we settled in Benge and I took over my Dad's farm," Saunders said. "We grew wheat and had cattle."