Greek Fire - The Day Cincinnati was Nitro'd:

The date was Sunday, February 17, 1980. The place was Piraeus, the ancient port of Athens, Greece. My boat, the U.S.S. Cincinnati (SSN-693), a Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine, was pulling in for a few days of liberty during its maiden deployment. We were tired from playing continuous war games with a task force built around the U.S.S. Forrestal (CV-59). Since our deployment had begun in November, we had watched several culture-orientation films to prepare us for our liberty in Mallorca, Spain. On February 17, our latitude was about right for Mallorca but our longitude was about 21 degrees too far to the east.

Instead of tying up to a pier or anchoring, we were instructed to tie up alongside the U.S.S. Nitro, an ammunition ship. I don't think any of us thought badly of this arrangement at the time - the idea of liberty in Greece was too appealing! (Even if we weren't going to see the famous "running of the bulls"!) We tied up about 1100 hours, and began bringing on shore power. (In this case, "shore" meant "Nitro".) Unfortunately, the Nitro had not used her starboard shore power circuit breakers for quite some time. Immediately after closing her circuit breakers, her cables shorted out and produced a Class C fire.

I was standing watch at the Electric Plant Control Panel [I was then an EM2(SS)] when the word was passed over the 1MC, "Secure reactor shutdown. Class Charlie fire on the Nitro. Station the Maneuvering Watch. Prepare to get underway." We were tied up next to an ammunition ship that was on fire!

Needless to say, we were motivated to leave our cherished liberty port with alacrity. Visions of exploding 16" shell powder charges and launching surface-to-air missiles filled our heads. Fortunately, the Nitro's damage control was superb. The fire was put out immediately. We had our reactor shutdown about 1700 hours, so liberty for "nukes" did not begin until after that. It was a good day to have had the duty!

After our introduction to "greek fire", we really did have a great liberty in Athens!

Provided by Patrick St. Romain

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