[0:00] When we first came over on our cruise, we had to go through the Mediterranean down through the Suez Canal and out in around the the area there and up to Vietnam.
[0:15] And we were the last ship to go through the Suez Canal before they closed it during the Arab Israeli war. So they were as we went through we were all told to stay below decks and you stay on the we went the gun pods and watched out and there was all these machine gun nests along the the canal and the everybody getting ready to start they hadn't started yet shoot at each other. So so we went over and did our spent our time doing our our uh runs our bombing and we never lost a sh a plane. I guess I mentioned that before we everybody came back and so we were going back to Norolk
[0:52] and it was Christmas Eve. We had to go around the Horn of Africa now and back up through the Atlantic.
[0:59] So this Captain Fair, he being the good guy he was, he wanted to figure, well maybe my my folks here, my men, they need a little Christmas, little liberty.
[1:09] So he back he uh radioed into um the authority there Cape Town, asked if we could come ashore and come in and tie up and our crew could have liberty there for a few days and they wouldn't let us in because we had black sailors on the ship and that was the terrible thing back then and we didn't feel that way. We were very there was no racialism racism on our ship that I can ever remember. So we said, "Okay, you won't let us in. It's your loss." So then I guess a couple of us got together and had an idea.
[1:49] And we used to make our own medicines, cough syrups and things like that on the ship.
[1:56] And every so often some of the alcohol that we had to add to the recipes would spill fortunately into a container that we were working with that would protect it from getting lost and we have couldn't use it in the medicine. So we'd have to put it in a separate container and by times we had up five six 700 cc's of it stashed away.
[2:21] So we decided, well, we'll have a little little time sick bay. So we went down to the the cooks and I said, "The cookie and you have a one of those thermoses they used to have the Red Cross had coffee in." And and he says, "Sure, doc.
[2:40] No problem." He said, "Uh" I said, "Can I have a case of grapefruit juice and a case of grape juice?" He says, "Okay, what's going on?" I said, "This is between you and I." and and whoever you want to tell. I said, "We're having a little time." Sigbay.
[2:56] So, we brought it all up there and we put the juice in there and we poured the alcohol down in through there and because it was a holiday and he named the drink the purple Jesus for Christmas. So, so we all had a little party and everybody got in pretty good shape. Christmas spirit was quite abundant there. And I didn't do it because I had the watch and I had to be in case anything happened, God forbid, we'd all be in jail still today for that, you know. And um so we had a good time. Good time was had by all. And uh kind of not in regulation, but then we were intrepid. We could do what we
[3:39] wanted. We were the A1 team.
