Do you doubt the accuracy of my claim?
Wow, stowaway and guest are two different things. I don’t know why people are confusing the two. Look it up before you answer. Any ways…
I’m in the US Navy now and my wife, and other men’s wives, had been aboard my ship quite a few times. Especially on a duty day. And, this is totally legal. We even had “Tiger Cruises” where we could bring family on board for a day or two underway. Like, from New York to Norfolk, etc. This was all post 9/11, in fact, it was 2005 IIRC. And, it happened more than once and is entirely common.
However, we did have a case of an actual stowaway when we were in the Mediterranean at Cyprus. Someone had actually brought on a local girl and kept her on board for about three days. We, as in me and my friends, found this out talking to some girls at a bar and she totally identified the person and the ship in detail, where she was kept, etc. We were really surprised as the guy was not an officer so he did not have a stateroom or anything. We enlisted folk have what is called a berthing. My berthing accommodated 265 people in a space that was about 80’ by 40’, stacked three high, and only ill-fitting curtains at our racks (bed) for privacy. The most junior officers have a stateroom which sleeps four. So, that’s a lot easier to hide someone especially if all are in “agreement”.
So, yes, even in the US Navy today there are stowaways.
In case you were wondering it was reported and he got busted.
eb
It was (and maybe still is) a traditonal rite of passage for personnelmen & yeomen to bring women aboard after regular duty hours and boink them on the captain’s desk (it’s easy to tell if he’s aboard: the signalmen fly his pennant when he is). But all guests have to be signed in as they cross the quarterdeck. It would be pretty sloppy to get underway with anyone not signed out.
Women on board ship? Aye, thar be a grand idea cause when I set sail on me frigate and hoist the Jolly Roger, myself and me mates be always loaded to the gunwales with grog and fresh and lively wenches.
ARRRRG
If the pilot program is successful, the U.S. Navy will have women on submarines too! So there will be no reasons for stowaways!
I’m new to this site, I did a search on Google to find out if there were any sites that referenced the stowaway incident that happened while I was onboard ship in the U.S. Navy in 1981. This site came up and I read through all of your posts. I can SWEAR to you that this did, indeed, happen. My friend met her in Australia on a nude beach. They spent the week or so together and could not bear the thought of leaving each other, even though he assured her that he would send for her when we returned back stateside to San Diego in a few months. As the time to depart grew closer, the option of them going separate ways grew farther apart. I don’t know which one came up with the idea of stowing her away, but they did get her on board and he set her up in the paint locker where he was in charge of. It was located on the port side of the forecastle. And, in regards to meals & feeding her, we were never limited to how much we could eat. If there was food left, we were welcome to it. He took her mostly fruits & vegetables. She was able to use a bucket for a restroom and pitch it out a porthole. The ship stopped in a few ports, and, if I remember correctly, when we left Japan on the way to the Philipines, or Philipines to Japan, we hit some severe weather and she started to get sick. He turned himself & her into the Captain for fear of her life. I remember that we got the news of a helicopter coming in (we always looked forward to that, they ALWAYS brought mail) that none of us were expecting. The Captain & the Master-At-Arms escorted the young lady to the helicopter and it flew away. As soon as it was away, we found out from my friend about her. He kept her a secret for fear that men, if they found out that there was a beautiful woman on board, would do something awful. He was kicked out of the Navy soon after, and she went on to do a spread in the Australian version of Penthouse or Playboy. Almost 3 years ago, about 15 of us shipmates had a reunion in Las Vegas, NV, and he showed up with his wife (NOT the stowaway). We all looked at the magazine and relived the story again after almost 30 years. I’m still friends with him & several of my shipmates, INCLUDING the ship’s CAPTAIN! The captain didn’t make it to the reunion, but we did get a phonecall from him, and I saw him personally a couple months later at a function in San Diego. We laughed about the escapades of our crew and mutual friend who stowed away the Australian beauty. In regards to our friend, if you knew him, you’d love him. He makes EVERYONE love him because he brings a LOT to his relationships. No WONDER the woman stowed away! He was the life of the reunion, just as he was when we served together onboard for our country. He’s a helluva guy.
I’d heard the girl actually died on the boat off the coast of Haiti and that she was later seen running errands for a local witch doctor… 
After the French Achille burned and exploded at Trafalgar a young woman called Jeanette was picked up swimming (along with a black pig, swimming strongly, which was cooked and eaten that evening) by the British Euryalus. Her husband had been in the crew, she said, and she had stowed away in disguise. In the disaster she could not find him and she was left with the wounded on the orlop deck until the guns came crashing through the burning deck above. Molten lead from the rudder stock dripped onto her so she took off her clothes and jumped into the sea. She ended up clinging to a spar but another man drove her off it. Her husband was found a few days later among the prisoners.
He wants to ask for a transfer.
Now that was impressive :eek:
Well before the whole 9/11 thing tightened security it was fairly common for myself and a friend or two to head to the dock area in Norfolk when foreign ships were in to take tours of various ships. I was invited in to go drinking on various British ships, toured Norwegian, Swedish, German, Canadian and Soviet ships. Hell, at one point in time I spend a lovely afternoon hanging out on an American sub shepherding a bunch of French cadets around because the translator that was to work with them went missing and I was the closest thing that they could find to translate for them and I got a lovely dinner with them afterward. [I had an absolute blast. I love foreign military when they hit a US port if they are not really used to America]
[And you should have seen the Soviets when they got shipped to Lynnhaven Mall and turned loose … 
They were adorable, I would guess the closest thing to one of our malls would be the specialty political/foreigner shops they used to have. I would love to be there to compare this visit to last time.]
What, pray tell, is a “folcle”? (Neither I nor Google have any idea.)
Forecastle.
Thanks to dictionary.com
fore·cas·tle
[fohk-suhl, fawr-kas-uhl, -kah-suhl, fohr-] Show IPA
noun Nautical .
1.
a superstructure at or immediately aft of the bow of a vessel, used as a shelter for stores, machinery, etc., or as quarters for sailors.
any sailors’ quarters located in the forward part of a vessel, as a deckhouse.
the forward part of the weather deck of a vessel, especially that part forward of the foremast.
I think what Snnipe 70E was attempting to do was use the common abbreviated form of forecastle, namely fo’c’sle. If you had been able to google that you would have got to forecastle. IME, it is the first pronunciation given by dictionary.com that is in common usage (to my ears, “folk-suhl”).
Thanks. As I have stated earlier my spelling lacks, and I do this for fun not work.
In the days of sail the fo’c’sle (forecastle) was where the crew quarters were, and it was before the mast. With the begining of the age of steam where the crew lived was still called the fo’c’sle and all the unlicienced crew lived in one comparetment. As living conditions improved for the unlicienced crew they got the use of 2 to 4 man rooms, and still call the area where the crew’s rooms the fo’c’sle area. Now very few of the rooms are forward most are midships or aft.
Thanks. I think I was additionally confused by the plural (I’ve never heard of there being more than one forecastle per ship).
Some folk’ll never eat a skunk
But then again some folcle
Like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel!
(Apologies to The Simpsons)
wow, the things you find on the internet…
This particular woman you are speaking of, i’m pretty sure, is my mother Linda Drummond-Hay (she now goes by another name).
She always used to tell my two sisters and i about her adventures being a stowaway on a U.S Navy ship before i was born in the early 80’s, and until recently always thought she was jiving us.
But as i got older, curiosity got the beter of me and i starting looking it up on the internet and indeed found her story.
And it matches the above story pretty accurately.
After all the buzz from the media, she was offered to pose for a mens magazine but never persued it further than a couple of issues.
Instead she met my father, a Perth blues musician , married and had me and my sisters.
It’s kind of surreal finding this post above!
She still talks about her adventure to this day and all i can think is wow…to have that amount of courage at that age is pretty unreal.
Holy crap!
Stumbled upon this site and came across this post.
Yes indeed this happened and I remember the girl like it was yesterday. It was aboard the USS Barbour County LST 1195.
We were a company of infantry Marines serving with the 3rd Marine Regiment and assigned aboard the ship during the Iran hostage crisis. We left Fremantle Australia for Okinawa. Not far from Okinawa we are standing in formation on the tank deck and out from our left side a bunch of brass are escorting this girl. We were like “what the Fuk! is that a girl!!!” freaked us out for a bit and then we found out the story. They got her off the ship within hours by helicopter and flew her to Okinawa fleet command.