DDG-21 was at life guard station during an IO cruise in 1984 when an E2 missed it's landing on USS Midway. I was on the bridge standing watch for 12-hours as we SAR'ed the IO for the missing crew members. We rescued one, helo resucued some, one perished.

Mike Spiers

Midway E2 mishap was actually the summer of 85 North Arabian sea. It was between 7-8pm. We were in heavy seas and it was dark as hell. I was a boatswain seaman working the wardroom dinner, a while later I hit the showers,thats when the alarms went off, "plane in the water" We all had to get top side for the search. BM2 Bates had to get the boats in the water. But the ship was rockin badly, We managed to get the motor whaleboat out .If I remember correctly LT Velez was on board that boat. I remember seeing the plane semi-submerged. I remember seeing the pilot the next morning having breakfast in the wardroom. He was pale as death. they had lost 2 crew members out of 5. Helos picked up the remaining ones. Deck dept stayed up all night trying to recover and destroy the floating radar dome. I will never forget that night. That morning I spilled breakfast on Cpt Blairs lap. (heavy seas)

I was a GMG3 during the time of the aforementioned incident. I do remeber the seas being extremely rough and and standing with the Old Man (Capt Blair)outside the bridge as he commanded where to shoot the Mk 79 illumination rounds

Yeah, it seems that when we were finally ordered to sink that antenna (dome) we had a devil of a time hitting it with the 5/54 's. If I remember correctly they finally had to use 50 cals. to put it down.

ST2 Green....most likely because US Navy 5" 54 (if you multiply the aforementioned numbers, the product will give you the length of its enormous barrel in iches)gun mounts are designed for extended maximum effective ranges, and for surface to air and surface to land type bombardment. It becomes increasingly difficult to hit a close in target by radar, however, our chances would have definitely been inhanced had this incident occured in day light, because then we could have shot at the dome in OMC mode (One Man Control), where you shoot using a telescope mounted in the bubble on the gun mount. The OMC station was my GQ station, and I would have put that sucker down in under a minute, had it been daylight and if I were directed to do so. Thus endeth the gun lessons, hope to see you at the reunion...Sal





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Yeah, it seems that when we were finally ordered to sink that antenna (dome) we had a devil of a time hitting it with the 5/54 's. If I remember correctly they finally had to use 50 cals. to put it down.


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Thanks for the refresher Sal. Sorry to say I can't make it to the reunion. God willing I just might make it to the next though!! Take care.. Steve