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Southampton

I swear on Davy Jone's locker that most of the information that follows is absolutely true!!

On one of Dutton's many visits to Southampton our first priority was to go ashore and consume some alcohol. We were typically very successful at that endeavor. Southampton always closed up pretty early for us, the pubs closed around 11pm as I recall, and some of the private clubs would stay open until 1am. But, when you are in the mood for DRINKING, being told you had to stop at 1am was rather depressing.

One evening 3 or 4 of us were taking a rather circuitous route back to the ship, hoping to find something to do. We found a huge flagpole with the flag of Great Britain flying and underneath the flag of the City of Southampton. Now, this is where my memory gets a little fuzzy. I can't remember if I was an active participant in the nefarious deeds that followed, or if my knowledge of the event was reported to me later. Something tells me I decided that my friends were completely nuts and I headed back to the ship. At any rate what followed was very daring, and unusual to say the least. That British flag flying high and proud over the city of Southampton was to fly no more. It is now probably somewhere in someone's attic or garage, a long forgotten "war trophy". Well, these guys weren't happy with simply taking a souvenir, the British flag was replaced with a huge American Flag. The Stars and Stripes was flying high and proud over the city of Southampton. I have no idea where they got the U.S. flag.

A couple of days later some British subject noticed that his beloved city had been conquered by the Yanks and reported it to the authorities. Someone from the mayor's office came to the ship, and asked if they could have their flag back (we were the only American ship in port) and was very good natured about it. Later the CO informally asked most of us if we knew anything about it and said if the British flag simply showed up somewhere, all would be forgotten. Well, the flag never did show up and we went to sea. I didn't think about it again.

As fate would have it, we pulled into our favorite city again the following month. The first day in port I had duty so couldn't participate in any of the happy going's on ashore. Apparently, alcohol and boredom caused the same strange behavior as before. Yep, they took the British flag one more time. And again replaced it with the American flag. This time the shit really hit the fan. They Mayor of Southampton accompanied by two constables (that's police officers for you unedumicated swabies) came to the ship. Got the CO and the Captain involved. They threatened to ban the Dutton from Southampton forever!!

I had never seen the CO so angry! I thought the entire crew was going to go before Captain's mast!! I was really really nervous about this one!! They even did a search of our staterooms. But no one talked and eventually it all blew over. I avoided contact with the guys I thought were involved the second time, but I didn't have any actual knowledge as to the culprits this time. We didn't return to Southampton for 3 months! Ah, what the hell! Barcelona, Spain was a lot more fun anyway!!

If anyone knows more detail let us know!!