Sea stories are flowing as old sailors visit 'Mama Wisky'

Hundreds of old salts - and some not so old - have been spending quality time with their "Mama Wisky" this week.

Nearly 600 Navy veterans of the decommissioned battleship Wisconsin are here for their biennial reunion, and the sea stories are flowing.

This year some of the tales are being captured for posterity by two film crews from WHRO, the local public television station. The sailors' memories will be collected for an oral history project at Nauticus, the maritime museum where the Wisconsin is berthed.

Three generations of sailors walked the gigantic ship's teak deck over its half-century history. It saw action in the Pacific during the last year of World War II in 1945 and in Korea in 1951-52. Mothballed in 1958, it sat inactive for 30 years before a final tour of duty during the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Dick Hamann was a 21-year-old seaman apprentice from Brooklyn, N.Y., fresh out of boot camp, when he got his first glimpse of the Wisconsin in

October 1950 as the Korean War was heating up.

"My first recollection," he said, "is riding that bus, coming around the building and seeing that huge monster sitting there. And the guy next to me made the exclamation, 'There's enough paint on that for everybody to chip.' "

Hamann is now 78 and lives in Sutherland, Va.

"I was what they called a Harry Truman volunteer," he said. "I got my draft notice two days after I signed up for the Navy."

Hamann spent his 10-month tour of duty aboard the Wisconsin five decks down in Turret 3, helping load powder bags into the massive 16-inch guns. That deep in the ship, the men couldn't even hear the gun blasts.

After the Wisconsin was decommissioned for the last time, Hamann stood on a pier with several of his comrades as the ship was towed into the Norfolk harbor from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1996.

"The tears just came down from the eyes," he said. "There's no holding it back. You see that beautiful lady and you can't help yourself."

Nostalgic as they are for the "Wisky," Hamann said he and his fellow vets know the days of battleships are over. Navy ships are smaller now, with smaller crews and more firepower.

But the memories remain, and the Wisconsin reunions keep them alive, Hamann said: "It's a chance to talk about the old days without the wives stopping you and saying, 'I've heard that story so many times.' "

Dom Menta, 74, of Tannersville, Pa., was on the Wisconsin for a six-month tour patrolling the Korean coast after the 1953 armistice and stayed aboard for nearly four years as a ship's photographer - including one of the ship's more infamous moments.

Menta was lying in his rack on a foggy Sunday afternoon in May 1956 when the Wisconsin plowed into the destroyer Eaton off the Virginia coast, cutting a big gash in the Eaton's side. The smaller vessel had to be towed, stern-first, into port.

"We almost destroyed a destroyer," Menta said. "It was lucky nobody got killed."

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com