USS WAHOO

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

His posted signs throughout Wahoo, "Sink the Sunza B!tches" would pretty much wrap up how Morton felt about the Japanese and how he was going to handle it.

"The Mare Island waterfront was packed with well-wishers and a band played 'California, Here I Come.' As Wahoo prepared to tie up, Captain Morton nodded to Signalman Simonetti who broke the pennant free from the scope, the breeze snapping the same message it delivered in Pearl Harbor.

On the crowded dock, the wife of Rear Admiral W.L. Friedell, the Navy Yard Commandant and chief greeter, peered through her glasses and asked her husband what the pennant said.

'Madame," the Admiral replied, 'that reads 'Shoot the Sons of Bitches!''"

Here you can see the pennant, a broom attached to the periscope (indicating a "clean sweep" patrol), Captain Morton on the bridge, and then-XO Dick O'Kane on the cigarette deck.