Hal Taylor, former XO of RATON, had command of RONQUIL. That boat had just returned from a successful WestPac deployment. One treasure they brought back with them was a brass tiger. To show their pride in having won the Squadron V "E" award, they had mounted the tiger just forward of the windshield on the bridge. Each day in port, they made a big display of polishing the tiger.

Hal had dropped by for lunch one day to visit with his old shipmates in RATON. The course of the conversation veered 'round to kidding him about the show his crew was making of the tiger. We warned him that continued rubbing our noses in silver polish could have regrettable circumstances. He left us, mumbling that anyone who messed with his tiger would stumble away, singing soprano.

Not much later, the inevitable happened. The nests alongside NEREUS and SPERRY were full, and some boats were directed to moorings at other buoys in San Diego. RATON and RONQUIL ended up side-by-side at one mooring. That night, several RATON guys crossed over unobserved to RONQUIL (across mooring lines) and subdued her lone topside watchstander. Others then came across, lashed down RONQUIL's topside hatches, and leisurely removed the tiger.

That was the start of a minor war. Several attempts were made by RONQUIL to retrieve the tiger but all failed. Once they even got away with one of our cooks, who spent a day in captivity with them, but was returned after our captain allowed that the tiger was more valuable. Meanwhile, rumors had it that various bars in San Diego frequented by submarine CPO's were entertained by some of RATON's Chiefs, showing off their new pet tiger.

One night, right about then, we were having a RATON wardroom party at my home in Coronado, celebrating the promotions (to LT) of myself and a shipmate/classmate, Phil Duckett. Late in the evening, our skipper, LCDR Jack Riley, received a phone call from our OOD. A major RONQUIL raiding party, led by Hal Taylor himself, had stormed aboard RATON. They didn't get the tiger but did make off with our prized aluminum brow. We were very proud of that item. It had been designed and made for us in Yokosuka by two Japanese naval architects whose previous masterwork had been the YAMATO, the world's largest battleship. The brow was a marvelously unique design, strong as the conventional steel brow, yet foldable into a package about the size of a large suitcase.

Okay, there was now a new challenge to be met. The brow must be recovered. Our forward torpedo room became the site of some planning sessions on how to go about the recovery, and a masterfully detailed plan was developed and put into action. (One contributor was LTJG Art Moreau, later a 4-star Admiral of some note). We then had to wait for the right conditions.

The magical night finally arrived. RATON was moored third boat outboard in the NEREUS nest facing the SPERRY nest, where RONQUIL was third of fourth outboard. RONQUIL was very much alert as we knew, and had several crew members standing watch topside, guarding the brow.

A motor launch was borrowed from NEREUS and several of our crew took it over to the mooring buoy between the two tenders, seemingly to work on telephone lines. Meanwhile, one of our crew, rigged out as a Guard Mail PO, went over to SPERRY and proceeded across RONQUIL to the outboard boat in the nest. Then the rest of RATON's raiders went in ones and twos to the boat just inboard of RONQUIL and hid behind her sail.

All of this was being observed and directed by us on RATON's bridge in the NEREUS nest. When all the pieces were in place, a light signal started the wheels turning. The "Mail PO" headed back towards SPERRY, carrying a couple of envelopes as well as an opened knife up his sleeve. At the same time, the motor launch left the mooring buoy and headed for RONQUIL's bow.

Then the fake mailman started across RONQUIL under the watchful eyes of their brow guards. Just as he reached the brow, he stumbled, and dropped an envelope. Bending to retrieve it, he slipped his knife out, slashed the line holding the brow, and dashed across to the next boat. Meanwhile, the other RATON men who had been in hiding, dashed out and yanked the brow clear of RONQUIL right under the eyes of her guards. They then inflated a series of lifejackets they had been carrying, lashed them to the brow, and ran forward to throw the whole package into the water for recovery by the motor launch. Up to that point, the master plan was running like a finely tuned watch.

Then things came apart. The brow, inflated lifejackets and all, hit the water's surface and continued right on through to the bottom of San Diego Bay…..and one of its rescuers slipped while throwing it, and fell into the water.

He was quickly recovered by the launch, but not before the watch on board the tender sounded the alarm "Man overboard in the nest!!" That resulted in a general alarm aboard SPERRY which was quickly picked up by NEREUS and then just every other ship moored in San Diego. The night lit up with searchlights, signal lights bosn's calls and other frantic activity. It took a while to have order restored that night in San Diego.

The next morning Jack Riley and Hal Taylor were invited to meet with our Flotilla Commodore. It was unanimously agreed there (only one voice spoke) that the tiger was to be returned to RONQUIL and the war was to cease. On the following day, RATON's ship's company turned out for a formal presentation of the tiger.

Years before, while on a carrier in the Med, I had acquired a little souvenir from Pompeii. I was a small replica of a decoration from one of that ruined city's brothels. It was a very impressive set of male equipment, embellished by a pair of wings.

The final resting place of this device (minus the wings and a bit more), through some artful braising by RATON's auxiliarymen, was appropriately on the underside of RONQUIL's tiger.

The brow was recovered by SPERRY's divers and returned to the Raidin' RATON. We also realized that while six inflated lifejackets will keep six men (= ca. 900 lb) afloat, those same men would float WITHOUT lifejackets. Not such great planning, after all.

Where JIM comes up with these great stories about ordinary life on board American submarines is a mystery, but we love them. Anyone else with these stories – let’s have them for our KTB.