Here is my ship, USS Dewey (DLG-14), in the foreground and the carrier John F Kennedy (CVA-67) taking on bunker fuel from the fleet oiler Pawcatuck (AO-108) in the Mediterranean on 13 July, 1969. I was mustered out about 8 months earlier, so I wasn't aboard when this picture was taken, but UNREP was a familiar procedure for me, I must have been in dozens of UNREP OPS in the year I was aboard. Ships are topped off with fuel every few days when operating in a war zone because in the event of enemy action supply lines may be disrupted.

My job during UNREP was to write down on a plastic board with grease pencil our course and engine RPMs so that the Captain could issue orders to the helm and engine room to keep us on station with the supply ship. He would make minute changes to our course and speed over a microphone and I would write them down where he could see them. ("Steer 105 point 5, turn count 128!". )The supply ship selected the course and speed which was easiest for her to maintain, and it was the job of the receiving ship to maintain station with her as the lines and cables that carried the big fuel hoses were winched across and the oil pumped aboard. Needless to say, it was an all-hands, all-weather, white-knuckle operation, and quite dangerous. The skipper and I were on the bridge wing, and we could look down on the decks of both ships at hundreds of men running around, all assholes and elbows, everyone doing his job like parts in well oiled machine with a bundle of snakes of wire rope, telephone lines, steel derrick cables and 6" hose strung all over the place.. And between the two ships flowed a cauldron of white water, as the two wakes collided and interfered with each other as the ships rolled and pitched. It involved specialized equipment, communications and training. It is one of the most spectacular things I have ever witnessed, and most of the work was done by teenagers.

We could do this in any weather short of a full gale. The Russian destroyers used to follow us and take pictures because they didn't know how!