by stephan » Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:50 pm
Back in the early 70's, I was on a joint operation exercise in the Med.I was serving with the Marines,and aboard the USS Shreveport LPD12. The operation was similar to a NATO op.A huge operation. As we stood in our gear on the main deck,watching the aircraft from several countries blast away at one side of an island,we cheered at the sight. Intense,massive explosions,smoke,fire,booming blasts of sound rolling across the water to our ears. In the span of maybe 5 minutes,hundreds of bombs and missiles were delivered to the side of the island.There must have been 60 ships from various countries sitting with us waiting to deploy the ground troops after the bombing of the coast. BUT...after 5 minutes of bombing,the aircraft deserted the area,...the ships all fired their engines up and we were all called to general quarters. While sitting in our cubicles waiting word,...the word DID arrive. Seems the main flag ship got the wrong coordinates and bearings and we were tearing one side of Santorini to pieces. I KNOW heads rolled on that major fiasco,...but we never heard another thing about that abortion of military intelligence and operations management.Luckily,that side of the island was uninhabited.Seems there is a major infestation of snails on that island that causes outbreaks of salmonella so the inhabitants live on the center and opposite side of the island.At least that is what we troops were told.
