Bill Weinhardt - former LT(SS) Diodon 61-'65 has some memories of the 1962 Pier Fire at San Francisco Naval Ship Yard

Hi Jim, 

I see you have some stuff about the pier fire at SFNSY in late '62 that several people have submitted. I recall some about that episode. 

I got aboard Diodon just as the duty section had started chopping shore power cables, hoses, etc with fire axes having run down there after I saw some fire trucks racing past the SOQ toward the piers. Volador, on the other side of the pier was just backing out. I think that the yard barge was outboard Diodon and the tug was pulling on the barge, thus the whole assemblage was pretty unwieldy. 

I remember we had one or two people that got trapped out on the end of the pier by the fire and had to swim to safety (the name Winter or Winters sticks in my mind). Also I recall several Diodon off-duty personnel wound up on some of the tugs that night since they were being manned by anyone that could be found who had knowledge of diesels, etc. 

Later I believe we found that a group of sailors off of one of the carriers had picked up our 8B scope and moved it to safety off the pier. It also seems to me that the city of San Francisco lost one of their fire trucks on the pier as the fire got behind it. 

I don't remember who the Duty Chief was that night but Clark Sachse was Duty Officer. The entire duty section on board that night did a fantastic job getting Diodon clear with no damage other than some scorched paint and no one was seriously injured. One good thing that came out of it was that at the end of the overhaul, we had no missing tools or equipment that had been checked out from the yard central tool room. Anything we couldn't find, we told them had been lost in the pier fire and that was accepted.

By the way, John Clear has a nifty write-up about Diodon's visit to Avalon for the Buccaneer Days celebration in April of '61. It is entitled "What Duty Section ?" and is about midway in the group of sea stories on the following website:

http://home.att.net/~harrison.r/ntins_page.htm  Dead link noted 02-18-03

Note from Web Master:  I have put "What Duty Section ?" under Memories & Stories on this site as Diodon Crew during April of '61 had a long weekend in Avalon Bay, Catalina Island for Buccaneer Days

I also wrote a little story about that affair after I ran across John's. I'll send it to you when I can find it again on my hard drive.

You are doing a great job with the Diodon site and I am sure all Diodon crew members appreciate your efforts as I do.

Bill Weinhardt -former LT(SS) Diodon 61-'65

William J. Weinhardt, P.E.

Amateur Radio W9PPG, SVARA

http://our.tentativetimes.net/opine/whyusecw.html