Station HYPO

By Mr. Ronald Kukal

The aftermath of the attack, the Naval Board of Inquiry resulting in a decision that this attack was accidental, my own government ignoring what we had to say, has been devastating for me. 

I was a mess when I got home in August of 1967.   My mother and my wife said they hardly knew me.  My mother didn’t even recognize me, as I got off the plane in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and she said I had lost so much weight, my face had a look like she had never seen before.  That is what she said anyway.

By Mr. Ronald Kukal

So moving forward to the trip to Malta, and on that trip, so many things went on.   We had to turn the rudder manually as we had lost our after steering.  I was a part of the team, and it amounted to turning the capstan that was connected to the rudder with nothing but brute strength.  That rudder didn’t want to go, and we were working against a lot of opposition, but we got it done.  We tuned the rudder, when we were told, by orders from the bridge. 

By Mr. Ronald Kukal

As I stood there waiting, a voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and it said simply, “Get down, and get down now”!!   I know I didn’t move fast enough, but somehow I found myself flat on the steel deck, nose to the steel, and then the explosion occurred.  My best guess as to my proximity to the torpedo, is somewhere around forty feet.   I could hear the shrapnel flying over my head, and little did I know it was killing almost every one of my shipmates, all around me.