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Bio Vice Adm Paul D Butcher


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Mary Korbe 23-Oct-2025 21:56
I worked with Admiral Butcher on the women about ships program and again at Opnav. Several years later I worked with him again at CINCLANFLT. I went for a visit with him once with a Seaman that worked for me. She was upset because her husband had just come back from a six month deployment and their CO wouldn'=t authorize liberty leaving family and friends on the deck. Admiral Butcher heard her out, picked up his phone and got the CO on the line. He asked no questions just said Commence Liberty - Now.
Guest 22-Jan-2025 19:49
Hi Simeon,
I was FG Div O (5&6 inch guns)on OKC in April 75.
agree with your feelings for PB.
on that fateful day, the guns worked, we just didn't get to fire them.
I wasn't the ensign you were referring to as radar for the Missile house.
you forgot to mention the new Navy Distillate fuel in the water we drank.
ens Horton
Guest 07-Aug-2022 21:46
He was a turd to the JO’s
David Ponseigo 29-Sep-2021 01:00
My father in law Petty Officer 1st class served under Butcher and never had a bad word about him and received many awards and letters of commendations from Butcher while manning the Talos missile system.
David Ponseigo 29-Sep-2021 00:57
My father in law served under Captain Butcher for a number of years and he never had a negative word about the man. My father in law ( Petty Officer William Coon ) he manned the TALOS missile system for years and received many awards and letters of commendations from Butcher.
Guest 15-May-2018 02:52
This is a boat load of bullish I had a blast for 2 years. I could not do regular Navy after the best 2 years from 76-78
Guest 15-May-2018 02:49
I served 9n the Oky Boat from 1976 to 78.I respected Capt Butcher the most when he said that if anyone had a problem with him sign up for smokers and put his name to be challenged. Nobody. Said shit then. We had Navy boxers on board. Where was,this guy during this time? I had the best time/misspent youth going all over the Pacific, party on Shellbacks wherever you are. Philippines basically every month for 2 years.k
Simeon Hovey 10-Oct-2016 06:35
I suppose the worst possible thing Captain Butcher could do when he came to the Pacific from the Atlantic Fleet was that he took a perfectly good [war] ship-of-the-line [the Flag Ship for the 7th fleet.] and we soon learned that his main [only?] priorities were: haircuts, fresh paint, clean compartments and heads [showers and toilets], polished brass, shined shoes, shaves and so forth; also the XO [2nd in command] spent his entire mornings doing daily inspections of all the berthing compartments [where we sea dogs slept] and the heads. One of the requirements for these daily inspections was that all of the rack [bunk] cooling fans had to be turned off so the XO could see that they were clean too. Every damn day! And those of us who worked nights and slept days did not like having to turn off all of those circular fans for the XO's viewing pleasure while we literally sweated it out for hours until the fans could be turned back on. And it got ever hotter the closer we got to the Equator. [If a rolling stone gathers no moss then how does a spinning fan gather dust?”]

Then in April of 1975, North Viet Nam's army launched their final attack towards the capital city of Saigon so the 7th Fleet set sail for the war zone and other than the ship's propulsion system working -- it would have been really nice if the ship's weapons worked but they didn't. Suddenly all of the falsified reports of weapon's operability came to light and the navy had to do priority air lifts for all of the parts we needed to fix the weapons systems. Out of all the weapons on the ship only one missile battery worked and the parts we needed finally arrived shortly before crossing the war zone line into Yankee Station.

Also the officers suddenly stopped being such dic..s and for once they finally cared if the weapons systems worked and the XO wasn’t looking for dusty fans either. I can still remember my Division Officer who’d been so callously obnoxious about his place in the navy’s caste system. As if we were all his brides who’d have to commit the suttee in the event of his departure. Now he just came down to the radar control room every hour or so to stick his head threw the hatch [door] into the radar control space [room] and he’d anxiously ask, “Does it work?” And now that Butcher had at last given the weapons systems technicians the necessary time to maintain our systems we could always say, “Yes.” And then the officer would turn suddenly and walk away so fast we could almost hear the Road Runner’s “Beep Beep” I still don’t know why the ensign [officer] didn’t use the phone to call us, or actually walk through the hatch to come inside to ask the same question. Maybe he wasn’t sure the control space would still be there?

At last we had the time to do what the navy had spent so much money training us to do and the power was in our hands to make officers go away. That part was wonderful while it lasted as was the tax free pay we collected and instead of putting stamps on out letters home we could write “Free” in place of the stamp.
Simeon Hovey 10-Oct-2016 06:34
There was another illuminating incident while Captain Butcher was attending a formal dress dinner party ashore when a messenger came in and walked to "GQ" Butcher to hand him a slip of paper stating that a sailor had just died aboard the OK Boat from a heroin overdose. I like to think there is only one thing a sentient being could do which would be to politely excuse them-self and say, "Something came up and I have to go back to the ship. I'm sorry, I hope you all enjoy the dinner and good night." Or words to that affect but then he wouldn't be Butcher would he? NO instead he had to make self-aggrandizing statements, and then told everyone eating about the fatal heroin overdose. He was the kind of man who could drop his trousers at the cusp of a wedding's vows and then take a dump. As you the reader can imagine everyone lost their appetite.

And then when the dead sailors locker was opened in order to return the personal effects to the family there wasn't a set of dress blues in the locker. They couldn't be found -- so the crew was told so Butcher naturally had to hold a full ship's company inspection of our lockers so he would be sure everyone had their [Cracker Jack] dress blues. Whether or not the man had an apartment out "in the economy" [Japan] or if his uniform was just slow in being returned by one of the laundry trucks that serviced the ships was never mentioned.

Another interesting thing that happened was the names of the senior leaders:

Captain Butcher
Commander Skinner
CMAA Slaughter
Chief Raper was one of my chiefs.
Simeon Hovey 10-Oct-2016 06:33
After being in the navy for three years I loved it so much I didn't think anyone could beat me out of it using sticks. Then I served under Captain Butcher from Aug 1974 -- Dec 1978 and he changed my mind. The first time he took the OK City out to sea [a large cruiser] the seas got a little rough so he "secured all weather decks" meaning only those with direct orders could go outside. Two such sailors would have been the watch [guard] on the bow of the ship and the watch on the fantail [end of the ship]. And he stuck to his lubber [a person whose never been to sea.] policy until the radars began breaking. Which all of the radar sailors knew would happen -- salt water very quickly takes its toll even on top of the highest masts on the ship. Only then would he let "Salts" [real sailors] go topside to do far more work than would have been necessary had he not waited until we got to the South China Seas where the weather is always, more or less, at gale forces.

Furthermore he treated the crew he depended on like dogs; once when the ship was pulling into Manila Bay [I’d been working the night shift.] so I slept days when something woke me up and the putrid smell of human waste would have made any lubber barf. When I looked around I saw that the berthing compartment’s deck [the floor where we sea dogs slept] was covered with about 3 – 4 inches of sewage water that had flooded into out compartment from the head [showers and toilets] on the deck above us. At the same time the exterior ventilation fan for the compartment had broken too so I laid in my rack [bunk] for hours before the problems were fixed and I could finally get out of my rack. I will say one thing for the flood waters that rolled about the compartment as the rolling seas moved a 10,000 ton ship, is that when nature called it didn’t seem to matter if I just rolled over in my rack towards the decks and answered natures call from my rack. And the thing of it is that the ship had the equipment necessary to ventilate the compartment; but after Butcher took command even the ships different departments stopped working together. Also basic items like toilet paper weren’t getting put out so each sailor had to buy their own; maybe he was trying to bring the ship in under budget?

It wasn’t until a later time when we were supposed to leave our homeport [Yokosuka Japan] for a sea deployment and the tugboats didn’t get there in time so “GQ” Butcher decided he could maneuver the ship away from the dock. As he futilely tried to do this he only succeeded in was crashing the ship into the pier and doing an unknown amount of damage to the pier and his career. At least it was the last ship he ever commanded — and when he crashed his ship we sailors could have warned him but out of 1400 men not one of us felt the slightest impulse to tell him. [Anyone who’s seen The Cain Mutiny will get a very good idea of what happened.]

So when he was transferred off the ship the only thing he ever had direct command of was his desk. Yeah he got promoted to Vice Admiral but that was only because the military really hates to admit its mistakes.
Simeon Hovey 10-Oct-2016 06:30
As to your (the son's) remarks about karma, I figure he's right -- and that the world now knows what an incompetent Butcher was and something about the many lives he destroyed. So maybe what goes around does come around.
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