Rammed in Naples

On 10 February 1970 at Naples, the Greek registry freighter Mautric collided with Yellowstone and the tender's nest of destroyers. Semmes (DDG-18), Samuel B. Roberts (DD-823), and Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) all suffered extensive hull and structural damage, but Yellowstone worked nearly 24-hour shifts from 13 to 22 February and effected the necessary repairs.

Hi Jim,

I was on the Semmes from late 1968 until Feb of 1972.
I remember some of those guys, but not very well. Ferg (Ferguson) was the mailman.
I was on board when we were rammed in Naples harbor and also when we were in Scaramangus, Greece, dry dock, when the ship's back was broken and being repaired. I was a RM 2& 3. Like others, I can remember faces, but not a lot of names except some of the radiomen, signalmen and radar techs since we bunked in the same area. My last name is Eichman and was known as Ike.

Eichman

Can't quite place you Ike, but I can very clearly remember that night in Naples Harbour when we got rammed by the Greek freighter.
Semmes was Med-moored in a nest of ships, including a couple of the older DDs (probably the Joseph P Kennedy (DD850) and the destroyer tender. It was around 7:30 at night, I was sitting on my rack in NX Div, deciding if I should go up to the mess decks to watch the movie, when we took a heavy jolt. The ship heaved to one side and then the other. No one knew what happened. GQ sounded, and I headed for the bridge. When I got up the the pilot house I saw what happened. A freighter was being manuevered in the harbour by a couple of tugs, when a tow line got loose sending the Moutrie crashing into our bow. It made a 8'w x 10' tall triangular gash right into our b'suns locker, but luckily all damage was well above the waterline. For a while we were preparing to get underway, because, the crash damaged the structure of the ASROC mag when we banged into the adjacent ship. I guess we were to pull out of the harbour in case we blew up. Anyway, everything turned out OK, and we got to spend a couple xtra weeks in Naples (Like we really needed more liberty in Naples)

QM3 Jim Sac