A Ghost Story

You know, every ship in the Navy has a ghost, or at least that’s what they say. I was in the Navy for 13 years; I didn't notice a ghost on all of them, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.

I did notice one though, a few times. The ship was USS Frederick (LST 1184) it’s decommissioned now, but when I was there, I met the ship’s ghost before anyone even told me there was one.

But for the sake of the reader, I’m going to tell the story about how the ghost came to be first, and then I’ll tell you how I met him.

All Navy ships have a compartment called a Sea Chest. This is a void on the bottom deck of the ship that is used for quick ballast. It can suck in water, or force water out by creating either a positive or a negative vacuum in the space. Needless to say, you don’t want to be in one when it’s operating.

Well, this poor soul on the ship went down into one of the sea chests one day during his watch. He didn’t have to be in there, but he wanted to take a nap and not get caught. Well, nobody knew he was in there, and nobody bothered to check, and the engineer lit off the sea chest pumps creating a vacuum in the space. Within seconds, the poor kids head imploded as the air got sucked out of his body.

Now his ghost haunts the ship. It travels from space to space (mainly in engineering) looking for people that are sleeping on watch. If he finds you sleeping, and you’re on watch, he will violently wake you up. This could be anything from making a loud noise to what he did to me.

I was sitting in my shop; it was around 2300 (that’s 11:00 pm for those that don’t know 24 hour time). I was technically on watch, but my watch was an “on call” watch where they just needed to know where I was in case I was needed. I didn’t have to stay up, or even stay in my shop, but I was up and in my shop and I got tired, so I leaned back in my chair facing the door and closed my eyes for a quick power nap.

My desk was against the bulkhead (wall) to the left, and was facing the door. The only way in and out of my shop was through a large metal-gated door that squeaked and rattled when it moved. Along with that, the only way to get to me was to walk around the right hand side of the desk, which was at that time a maze of broken equipment that I was working on.

I was sleeping for maybe five minutes, and I was by no means, sound asleep. But out of nowhere I felt someone punch me on the left hand side of my chest, really hard. I had a bruise there the next day. No, I didn’t see him, but I know it was the ghost for a few reasons:
1. There was no way for anyone to get in my shop without me knowing it.
2. No one could have hit me as hard, or where I was hit without first coming around my desk.
3. I kept a pen in my pocket, right where I was struck, the pen was unbroken and there was no mark on my body from the pen.
The final reason I know it was the ghost was because I immediately opened my eyes and saw no one there.

The next night was the kicker about that ghost. He never went into the berthings (that’s where everyone sleeps). Some say it was because not enough people on the ship believed in him, but I think it was simply because people are allowed to sleep in there. But that night, he went into my berthing. I was in my rack (bed) and I had that feeling that I was being watched. So I woke up, opened the curtain on my rack and looked out to see who was there and what they wanted. There stood the ghost, I knew it was the ghost because he had no head. He was standing there facing my rack, when he noticed me looking at him he gave a small bow, which I took as he was sorry about the night before, he hadn’t realized that I wasn’t sleeping on watch.