War Games

Give a boy a toy and he will play with it
Give a man a ship and tell him to go, he will have fun

Case in point, my first CO
Heck of a man
Heck of a captain
And boy oh boy could he drive his ship

Every two years all of the Pacific Rim nations get together and wander over to Hawaii to play together - mostly an excuse to have a multinational piss up but thats sailors for you.

One year my CO was given orders to "go harass the aircraft carrier"
For those who do not know such, the aircraft carrier is the high value unit of  the fleet. That means it is surrounded by all of the other ships to protect it. All of the other high tech ships of the US navy were around this carrier, protecting it from us - a 1960's vintage escort destroyer.

Late one night the CO watched the pattern of landing aircraft flying over his ship and decided that the carrier was "that way Officer of the Watch". The OOW pointed the ship "that way" and away we went. It being night the CO decided save a bit of electricity and ordered the lights put out - all of them, and the radar, and everything. We went dark. Totally not legal but all is fair in love and war.

Forward we steamed until we saw the first bump on the horizon, one their brand new cruisers. We kept going, right by him, 2 miles off his port beam. We were now inside the circle of protection and there she was.
Big, bold and right in our gun sites (not that we had much of a gun but that is another story). The CO told direct control of the helm and brought his ship right alongside the carrier, we were so close we could see their sailors walking on the upper decks. He then had all every bit of electronic noise turned on, as well as every light he could  muster.

Holy #$%^. You never saw a larger bunch of people absolutly panic and freak out all over the place. There were about 5000 men on that ship, and I bet most of them needed clean knickers right then. The CO counted to 30, shut everything down, turned the ship around and left the same way he came in.

We were ordered into Pearl Harbour the next day. When we got alongside the CO went ashore and was immediatly picked up by a black staff car. He was taken before the US Admiral and our Admiral where he was promptly "chewed out" by our Admiral.
"That was bad! Bad boy! Don't do it again! BAD BOY!"
"yes sir, I was bad, I won't do it again. I'm sorry"

The CO and The Admiral spent a couple of hours after that "discussing" the event - apparently there were a few empty beer bottles after that discussion