Exactly. I’ve also been in a submarine on the surface in heavy seas going into a port in Norway, and we were easily doing 20-degree rolls. Probably half the crew was incapacitated with seasickness. (The diesel fumes from testing the emergency diesel generator didn’t help, either.)
How come? Was he the best planesman they had (or at least the best not seasick)? One would think they would have enough hands available to get some relief once in a while.
When I was in high school I went on a field trip intended to get people interested in oceanography. A 75-foot fishing boat had been outfitted with all kinds of gear and would take groups of twenty-five or so out for the day. The day we went was just after a storm, and there were still five foot swells from it. Little, dinky five-foot swells and that boat bobbed like a cork, and rolled like a barrel. I was one of a handful who didn’t get seasick, but there’s no way I’d voluntarily go in anything like ten-footers, never mind hurricaine-sized seas.
I guess he was their best planesman - and the CO wanted his best people on all the watch stations for that one.
I read the citation for his NAM - it looks like it really was pretty hairy for a stretch.