Luckiest Afloat

Scarcely a month had gone by since 17-year-old William Buie, fireman third class, was transferred from a harbor-bound oiler to a rolling, seagoing Navy destroyer, and ex-Farm Boy (Mulberry, Fla.) Buie was one seasick bluejacket. One night last week, when his ship, U.S.S. Arnold J. Isbell, was rocking along 60 miles southwest of San Diego, Buie went topside to watch a movie. He was still pretty green around the gills, so he wobbled aft to smoke a cigarette. On the port quarter, he leaned over the side. As he leaned, the ship rolled--and over, into the sea, rolled William Buie.

Thrashing in the water, Buie was too shocked with the cold to shout to the stern watch, tried swimming after his ship, then gave up. Nobody knew he was gone. Remembering his survival training, he quickly kicked off his shoes, stripped off his blue denim dungarees and knotted the pants legs. By popping the pants sharply onto the water, waistband first, he trapped an air bubble in each leg--and there, with his improvised float, he bobbed in the black sea. Isbell's lights faded in the distance ("I guess that was about the alonest I ever felt"). For a while, he tried swimming, but every time he moved he would churn up the phosphorescence and worry about sharks.

To keep up his courage. Buie began singing the only song whose words he knew--Tennessee Waltz. After about the sixth chorus, his voice had splintered to a teeth-chattering accompaniment, and Buie began to lose hope. He dozed a while. Then, two hours after he went overboard, he saw lights. It was the escort vessel Leslie L. B. Knox, sailing a random course between exercises. Buie yelled. A sharp-eared sailor on watch heard him, sounded the emergency rescue alarm. Searchlights blazed. Knox's helm swung hard over to circle, and Rescue Swimmer Harold Martin, 19, dived over the side, swam 30 yds. to Buie and hauled him aboard.

Seizing on Buie as a good omen, Knox's crew last week invited him to join their ship. He was, after all, the luckiest swab-by in Uncle Sam's Navy.

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