Crab Story
By William Perry, Navy
Writing Type: Prose
By William Perry
One December in the late 1960’s, my Navy P-3 squadron deployed to Adak, Alaska,
a naval air station on a small island about half way out the Aleutian chain
between Anchorage and the Soviet Union. For the next six months we would
fly out of there in some of the most hazardous flying conditions imaginable:
icy runways, 70-knot crosswinds, minimal visibility and no nearby alternate
airfield.
We had been there less than a week when our duty officer received a mysterious
phone call seeking a favor.
“Would you ask your doctor to come down to our boat in the harbor and look at
two of our men?” the voice asked. “Oh, and please don’t tell the Navy
brass.”
We did indeed deploy with our own doctor, in this case a burly young physician
just out of med school. He agreed to go down to Adak’s harbor to see what
was up.
Besides being a base for reconnaissance flights along the Soviet coast, Adak
also had a dock area that allowed a small civilian factory vessel from San
Diego to tie up there. Its workers caught and processed the delicious and
highly valued Alaska king crab. The crew seemed made up of about 10 young
American couples. The men were involved in catching the crustaceans, and the
women then processed them into long, frozen blocks of pure sweet crab meat.
As can be imagined with 20 young women and men living in very close quarters in
terrible weather and with few leisure activities, there was some hanky-panky
going on. As a result, there had evidently been a knife fight between two husbands. The
reason for the mysterious phone call was that they badly needed a doctor to
come down and sew up the resulting wounds. Fortunately, our doc was
willing to stitch them up without telling the base commander, who probably
would have thrown the boat out of the harbor.
As a result of this secret good deed, for the next six months of our
deployment, all we had to do was call a certain phone number, and within a
short time a 30-pound block of choice frozen crab meat would magically appear
at the designated door in our quarters.
Much of the sweet, tasty meat went to our galley, but a surprising amount was
consumed by individuals at late night, post-flight poker games. Delicious!
The only problem was that the melted butter for dipping made its way onto our
fingers and then the cards, making them difficult to shuffle and deal. We
had to replace the decks frequently, but as with the dangerous flying, we were
able to endure that challenge with quiet bravery.

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