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I don’t remember where I saw that the Minnetonka was mentioned in Flight 7, but that was my reason for getting my hands on the book. I’m not critical of the invented fictional thoughts and conversations from characters in the book, those are for the sake of the story. But I am critical of one whale of a blooper that would get past most readers, other than Coast Guardsmen. On page 281 you say your journalist training was to check everything out, then check it out again.
One detail you obviously didn’t check out is that no one in the navy identified the ships as the USS Minnetonka and the USS Pontchartrain, and you surely didn’t get that information from the Coast Guard. “USS” designates an American NAVY ship. Coast Guard Cutters are designated CGC [Whatever], and if you’re getting more specific you would have called them WPG 67 Minnetonka and WPG 70 Pontchartrain, sister ships stationed out of San Pedro. And I’ll write off the other mistake as maybe a typo, calling them 225 footers, you shortened them by 30 feet. I know the Coast Guard never told you 225′. WPG stands for Weather Patrol Gunboat.
I spent a year on the Minnie (and hated it, thank you seasickness). One funny detail, we were on an unusually brutal ocean station patrol and in a storm a communications antenna was knocked down, a life jacket locker fastened to the superstructure was ripped off, and how it was not lost at sea I don’t know, and lifeboats were nearly smashed in their cradles. We came home with the life jacket locker lashed on the stern.
After that cruise we were informed the ship had been redesignated WHEC Minnetonka. “What’s that stand for?” High Endurance Cutter!
My first transfer off of the Minnie, I took another guys orders to go sit on an isolated rock in Alaska for a year. Mary Island Lighthouse, south of Ketchikan. The 4 of us were the only inhabitants on the island, and I loved it, even though it meant no leave or liberty for a full year. It was solid ground under our feet.
A couple years later I volunteered for Squadron 1, Vietnam. But orders didn’t come in. And then I found out the Minnie was going on a very rare double Victor patrol. Ocean Station Victor was half way between Hawaii and Japan. There would be port calls in Hawaii, Midway, and a couple weeks in Japan, and I wanted to go, in spite of hating sea duty. It meant a month on OSV, go in to Yokosuka, and back on station for a month.
So that was my 2nd 6 months on the Minnie, and then I was transferred to LORAN Station Simeri Crichi in southern Italy. I remember my time in Italy as a 2 year vacation. And while I was at Simeri the Minnie was sent to Vietnam!
My 4 year enlistment in the Guard lasted for 6 years of active duty.
J.M. Bruce