While operating off the Aleutian islands in 1971 or 73, can't remember exactly which yr. we encountered the worst storm of my 3yrs on board. I remember being told we took some 50 degree rolls, while encountering 90 knot winds and 50 ft. swells. If you were in it ,it's easy to recall but that 50 degree roll thing is hard to phanthom.
The 50 seas I witnessed from the bridge although a hard thing to gauge, they looked mighty large while we were in the bottom of the trough and lookig up at all that power.
I also recall no one was allowed on deck for obvious reasons. The ship suffered damage to the port side ladder going from the main deck to the 0/1 level (twisted
not unlike a pretzel),and one of the radars suffered some extensive damage. Does anyone recall any of this?
We were up their to monitor an underground nuclear detonation (on Amchitka island) and did a visit to Adak Island.
Pat O'Brien TM3
(smiley)

Sure do! Was a wild ride that night. Believe it was 1973. We all got a certificate (I still have it) - like a shell back poster of the event. There was a Coast Guard ship with us as well. Don't recall its name. That storm was the night before the blast. Which was the last one for that string of testing before the US stopped all underground testing.
Do you remember the day before we left Adak one of our Shipmates commandeering the base bus and driving it around base drunk?
I remember watching the movie that night on the mess decks and the screen doing 90 degrees to the deck! And rolling out of my rack at least once unto the deck.
I thought the biggest roll was 32 degrees. I remember the GM's saying about at 36(?) degrees the gun mounts would drop off to right us.

I also remember the rail road track feeling after the blast went off as we manned our GQ stations. 

The nuclear test was named Cannikin.  The following information was gathered from Wikapedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amchitka).  There is a You Tube video for this test .

"Cannikin was detonated on November 6, 1971, as the thirteenth test of the Operation Grommet (1971–1972) underground nuclear test series. The announced yield was 5 megatons - the largest underground nuclear test in US history. (Estimates for the precise yield range from 4.4 to 5.2 megatons). The ground lifted 20 feet, caused by an explosive force almost 400 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Subsidence and faulting at the site created a new lake, over a mile wide. The explosion caused a seismic shock of 7.0 on the Richter scale, causing rock falls and turf slides of a total of 35,000 square feet. Though earthquakes and tsunamis predicted by environmentalists did not occur, a number of small tectonic events did occur in the following weeks, (some registering as high as 4.0 on the Richter scale) thought to be due to the interaction of the explosion with local tectonic stresses.

According to wildlife surveys following the Cannikin event by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, 700-2,000 sea otters were killed by over pressures in the Bering Sea as a direct result of the explosion. This survey showed that number of sea otters endangered by the blast was far greater than the Atomic Energy Commission had predicted."

COCHRANE was accompanied by USS CARPENTER DD-825 (she was often referred to as the surface submarine as she appeared to spend more time underwater than on top).  During the underway periods the weather decks were secured to prevent a man overboard situation, seas were estimated to be in excess of 50 feet with winds greater than 100 knots but this could not be documented since the anemometers were both rendered useless.  There were reports of "green water" crashing on the top of the ASROC launcher and going over director one.  One fond memory I have is the short lines on the mess deck and learning how to eat with one hand while attempting to keep my tray level with the other.  Those were the days!!!

Yes, we were part of our country's atomic history!

Smiley, I was with you. That's when we had our apartment on Liliuokalani St. in Waikiki and we had to go to the Aleutians for a month. I remember the morning of the test and we braced for the base surge and when it came it was so rough out that we hardly felt it. Worst storm I remember.

Yeah Frank, I beleive we also went to San Diego, San Francisco and Portland during that same expedition to the Aleutians. Who could forget the Apt. in Waikiki.
Good  times!!!  Road Man