This the diary John Moynihan kept and turned into his senior thesis when he finally returned to Wesleyan college.It is an account of life on a supertanker en route from Camden, New Jersey to the Mediterranean when a change of orders sends it to Japan via the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean.
Frustrated with college, John Moynihan, with help from his influential father, Senator Patrick Moynihan, goes to sea. Sworn into the Coast Guard as a Merchant Marine, he’s handed a job ticket.
“Ordinary Seaman on the Rose City . . . early tomorrow for forty-five days in the Mediterranean . . . and so far as anybody’s concerned your father is a bartender on the West Side.”
But somehow the truth leaks out and John is hazed mercilessly by the crew. He survives. How did anyone survive the constant drinking and hangovers ? He flounders through his watches, finally learning to steer well enough to be at the helm of the 894 foot long ship as they made their way up Puget Sound with a radar that didn’t work. Home at last.
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