American Naval Supremacy

[Hymie]

This is an actual radio conversation between a United States Navy aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast off Newfoundland in October 1995. (The radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95 as authorized by the Freedom of Information Act.)

CANADIANS:
Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS:
Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

CANADIANS:
Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS:
This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

CANADIANS:
No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

AMERICANS:
This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln. The second largest ship in the United States Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north...
I say again...That's one-five degrees north.... or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship!

CANADIANS:
We are a lighthouse. Your call.

[Buenchico]

I've heard that one before Hymie but it's still good to be reminded of it.

Back in the 1960s, I was listening to the old 2182Khz marine emergency channel on a very stormy night. A vessel was in distress and a search aircraft was trying to guide two lifeboats to the correct location. After an hour or so, the lifeboats were closing in on the vessel which the aircraft was circling. At that point, one of the coxswains was heard to radio the aircraft to ask if they were certain that they'd identified the correct vessel. The reply was that the ship below them was regularly flashing lights, so that the aircraft would be able to keep track of the vessel in the darkness. A very irate coxswain radioed back that it might have helped if the aircraft crew had bothered to compare the location of the flashing lights with that of an unmanned lightship, which was clearly shown on everyone's charts!

Yes, the aircraft was circling the wrong ship and (surprise, surprise) it was a USAF plane!

Chris

[JonnyBoy12]

Yes, I sea you have given us some light relief here. Have you any more like this?

[DTCwordfan]

You are the one needing rescuing....

[Avatar]

http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp

[chakka35]

Yes, a good yarn but I'm sure I heard it before 1995. In any case, it makes no sense navigationally. But I'm just being boringly pedantic.

[heathfield]

I've heard this one before, (or a similar one). What has always made me doubt its veracity is that in such a situation, the vessel's radar would show the lighthouse to be stationary, so what would be the point in asking it to divert its course?