Military service, part 5

1967 to 68 (from ages 20 to 21)

The second episode, worthy of note, on the stretch from Salvador to Cape Verde, was when we crossed paths with the French squadron, which, apparently by chance, was also carrying out exercises there. When we detected the other squadron on the radars, the French, with much better radars, had already seen us and had already taken positions which, according to the training manuals (of “naval battle”), meant we would already have lost. It must have been a “little nasty trick” by the French, which the officers of our squadron did not like.

Here I will pause the narrative to explain that, at that time (I do not know now, in 2023), helicopters were crewed by Navy personnel, airplanes by Air Force personnel and there was, let us say, a rivalry (I do not say hostility, but rivalry) between the two military branches, ever since the purchase of the A11. A rivalry that even served as a theme for the lyrics of a little song (“Presidente Bossa Nova”, a reference to Juscelino), by the then famous singer and minstrel Juca Chaves: “... it is mine, says the Navy, it is mine, says the Air Force, ah, revolution...” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2m1zK114KA

Among the pranks of this rivalry, the Air Force would assign the “most senior” Major of the corps to head the A11 group, just so he would not be subordinate to the Executive Officer of the A11 (the executive officer of a ship is the officer immediately below the commander), a position that, by rule, belonged to a Frigate Captain. Recalling: Sea-and- War = Colonel, Frigate = Major and, the Navy, in turn, just so as not to have on board a more senior officer from “another force”, every now and then had to postpone the promotion of some Frigate Captain and place him as executive officer of the A11, just so as not to give the Air Force that satisfaction.

Returning to the meeting of the squadrons, French and Brazilians began exchanging messages of congratulations, pretending they had not seen one another on the radars, but the French were not satisfied with humiliating us; they lined up their aircraft carrier, much larger and brand-new, alongside ours, and put their airplanes to fly around the squadrons. The French planes were modern, supersonic jet fighters; ours were propeller-driven, actually for other functions, equipped to locate submarines. At that, so as not to fall too far behind, our airplanes also took off.

At a certain point, those of us who were on duty in the navigation room, but on the balcony from which the astronomical readings are taken with the astrolabe, so as not to miss the shows, had the impression that the airplane piloted by Lieutenant Caminha, of the Air Force, was going to land on the French aircraft carrier, and we became apprehensive about that. But would you believe that Caminha made another turn and went there to touch the wheels of the airplane he was piloting on the runway of the French aircraft carrier, to the despair of everyone, Brazilians and French alike. There were people who swore they had seen Frenchmen throwing themselves onto the deck of the French Aircraft Carrier. The feat ended the games. Brazilians and French collected their aircraft, each side “mad as hell” at the other, but without giving in, the French sending messages of “au revoir, it was very good to meet you” and some compliments through clenched teeth to the skill of the Brazilian pilot. On our side, likewise, “see you soon”, it was good to meet you, we see that the allies are well equipped, congratulations, and we apologize for the daring-exhibitionist-irresponsible and unauthorized act of our pilot, who will be warned, blah, blah, blah...”

It remained in the air that, prank for prank, Caminha’s was the winner, which created some immediate problems:

_ how to punish the hero?

_ the hero was an ally but at the same time a rival, or competitor, who knows.

As Caminha became even happier than he already was, I believe the matters were resolved discreetly, with Caminha receiving some other praise in his record book or some promise of compensation, since no one was going to praise in writing the recklessness he had committed. In the Navy, only Commander Tarcísio, helicopter pilot and great appreciator of gin, openly praised what Caminha had done.

In Cape Verde, I believe we stayed two days; the A11 and the C12 did not dock at the pier (Port of Praia), but all of us were allowed to go ashore for a few hours so we could say we had already set foot in Cape Verde. We went down in shifts. Unforgettable was the briefing given to the crews over the ships’ loudspeakers:

>>a_ not to be late under any circumstances and that, if it was not on the lighter (vessel designated to embark and disembark people and things between a ship offshore and land and vice-versa) and at the agreed time, we would be left there, probably forever.

>>b_ to avoid drinking local water (I only drank Coca-Cola and beer),

>>c_ to avoid sexual relations because the doctor warned that there were some venereal diseases there that he did not know how to cure (after this warning, some officers said that never had such a well-behaved disembarkation been seen).

From Cape Verde we went to Cádiz, in southern Spain, always doing firing exercises, landing and takeoff, and launching anti-submarine bombs and locating submarines with sonar, and sunbathing and hose baths.

I think the stop in Cádiz (5 days) was to have some time available in case of any unforeseen event or delay, so that the arrival in Lisbon would be on the agreed day. When we arrived there, my shift completed the watch on the day of arrival, that is, if we wanted, we would have the 4 consecutive days “on land”. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon and, as far as I remember, the A11 was supposed to dock in the morning, but there was transport to land and back for whoever wanted and was released.

The one telling you the story, Engel, Rainho and Tiago shared the rental of a SEAT 500. How we fit in the car, I do not know. The desire to know the Spain of my ancestors was so great that I refused to return to the ship, even if that was an expense, because we would lose a lot of time. I convinced the others to stay on land and we shared two rooms with two beds each.

Early in the morning, off to Seville, without looking back. The fact is that, that night, a violent swell came in and the A11 remained unable to dock for the following 4 days. Whoever was on land stayed on land and whoever was on board was trapped on board. We found it strange not to meet almost anyone from the A11 in Seville, only one or another from the other ships of the squadron, with a rumor that the swell had isolated the A11, which had to move away from the port. Great luck for us and great bad luck for the others.

In Seville, we decided to visit the university and ended up entering to attend a medicine class (Rainho and Engel were medical students). It was an amphitheater and everyone, some 75, students and professor, looked at the four of us, although we were not in uniform. During the break, they came to speak with us, they were very friendly, the girls more than the boys, as was to be expected, and we ended up circulating around Seville and surroundings for the 3 days we had available; we even went to Córdoba and Jerez, with 4 beautiful medical students, one more special, named Antónia. It was necessary to rent a second SEAT 500. No one complained about that extra expense.

When we returned to Cádiz, still on the road, descending the mountain range (between Jerez and Cádiz), from far away, we saw the A11 maneuvering to dock at the pier, which gave us a great fright because, at first, we had the impression that it was leaving. The ship docked practically to replenish something, pick us up and also half a dozen officers who had proceeded as the four of us had. Since it is known that envy is shit, we received a huge booing from the rest of EFORM. But that was that.

We were so lucky that, upon arriving in Lisbon, the first full day was a visit to the Portuguese Naval School (Sagres, in Almada?) where we took part in a cinematic lunch, in a cinematic place and an icon of Western civilization: that was NASA around the year 1500.

After that, our watch again got 4 straight days on land. We formed the same little group again and rented a car, this time a little bigger. We even went to see Coimbra, the recently discovered Conimbriga, the casino of Sintra, besides, on the last day in Lisbon, attending a fado performance in the best fado house in Lisbon at the time. About that last day, see the chronicle “Ethnic jealousies - Alfacinhas” in this set (blog-book) that the author calls “rearview mirror”.

When the moorings were released on the morning after the fado house, after leaving lined up on deck, we were so tired that we slept straight through and did not see the rest of the departure from the Tagus bar, where there was much wind and huge waves to be faced, some waves even sweeping the landing deck of the A11 and making the other ships disappear.

We heard, without confirmation, it became a naval legend, that some 10 km outside the Tagus bar we collided with a Portuguese fishing boat that was heading to the port of Lisbon or Almada and that it would have gone to the bottom with the crew, with no survivors, but that the matter had been hushed up. Two days later we were in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spanish province.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # R2026 Jan Ra, 8,796 characters.