Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
MJD -
Those turbines sure caused some consternation as they made their way into the fleet. When we went on our Med Cruise from Sept, '67 to Dec, '67 we had one of the new DLG's with us - USS MacDonough. All the way across the Atlantic our aircraft kept a moving screen looking for Subs. Before we crossed into the Med, we turned over the screen to Patrol Squadrons out of the Azores. Less than 12 hours later we go word that our Fleet was being shadowed by a Soviet Nuclear Sub. We turned around and took over the screen and - Nothing. So after a few more days, we turned it back over to the Patrol guys, and whammo, once again they said we were being shadowed by that Soviet Sub. We sent our Aircrews to the Azores with our sound recordings to meet with their guys. They laid down their strips on the table, point to a line and said that's the Sub. Our guys said. No, that's the MacDonough with her turbine. Since she had been with us since Norfork, we knew her sound.
Coastie -
I have always liked the white paint job with the orange slash. It also helps set them off from those dull gray things.
All these new vessels sure do look different. There's even a stealth aspect to them. While it is impossible to make them disappear, the shape makes them look smaller and a little harder to find. Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
Prowling through the photos on the NavSource website, I came across this one. It is interesting because the caption credits Rear Admiral Russell Wilson relieving Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz as he was being transferred to Washington in May, 1938. The Flag Ship? The USS Arizona (BB39). I am glad that those silly hats and coats were long gone by the time I got into the Navy.
Not a ship story, but I thought it was an interesting historical confluence.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Not a ship story, but I thought it was an interesting historical confluence.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
Of course, they are squids 
{*ABSOLUTELY NO DISRESPECT INTENDED OR IMPLIED*}. Merely an inter-branch term used. We were flyrods, flyboys, skyrods, etc., and some others that I can't mention, of the USAF.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tam >aka Attack Pig<~~~~~~~ 2400 Celeron 2.4 OC'ed to 3.1, FX 5500 O/C'ed to 568 Mhz, PSU to 500W, 1024 RAM DDR O/C'ed to 428 Mhz I don't like no's from Dell. However I enjoy making them say yes
{*ABSOLUTELY NO DISRESPECT INTENDED OR IMPLIED*}. Merely an inter-branch term used. We were flyrods, flyboys, skyrods, etc., and some others that I can't mention, of the USAF.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tam >aka Attack Pig<~~~~~~~ 2400 Celeron 2.4 OC'ed to 3.1, FX 5500 O/C'ed to 568 Mhz, PSU to 500W, 1024 RAM DDR O/C'ed to 428 Mhz I don't like no's from Dell. However I enjoy making them say yes
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
Try being a Coastie on a Navy base. It never lets up. The "BIG" one was the shallow water sailor thing and all that went with that. I'm 5'7" and have been asked many times how I got in as they thought you had to be 6' in order to wade ashore when the ship sank. I always said I was a good swimmer. I remember being on one of "Cattle Cars" at the Philly Navy Yard. Those guys started in on us in a big way. They started talking about Blue water and being out of sight of land and something to the effect we never lost sight of land. One of my shipmates piped up and said that someone had to take care of the ladies while they were gone. We reached a stop about that time and this coastie bailed as all heck was about to break loose and did. The upside is, we got support from the Marines in those situations. 
Never had any problems from the Army or Air Force. My Dad was a Navy Airdale but did get some unerway time when he sailed from San Fransisco to New Caledonia in 1943 to his new assignment. My brother who was two years younger than me, was also a Navy Airdale and the only Haze Gray ship he saw, was in Pensacola Fla. when he was TDY for test cell school. My baby brother had the same rate as other brother and Dad an was a reserve and never got afloat either. Here I am and have rolled up a ton of sea miles to say the least. Nothing like going for 35-40 days and see nothing but sea and sky. An occassional storm was good to break the monotony.
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Never had any problems from the Army or Air Force. My Dad was a Navy Airdale but did get some unerway time when he sailed from San Fransisco to New Caledonia in 1943 to his new assignment. My brother who was two years younger than me, was also a Navy Airdale and the only Haze Gray ship he saw, was in Pensacola Fla. when he was TDY for test cell school. My baby brother had the same rate as other brother and Dad an was a reserve and never got afloat either. Here I am and have rolled up a ton of sea miles to say the least. Nothing like going for 35-40 days and see nothing but sea and sky. An occassional storm was good to break the monotony.
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Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
"Cattle Cars" - I had forgotten all about them. I never encountered on on the East Coast where I was, but then I never resorted to Base Transporation except on the West Coast (Cross Country to NAS North Island) and Rosy Roads in Puerto Rico. The squadron had deployed down there for several weeks between the loss of the Randolph to the scrap heap and the arrival of the Yorktown. For those who are not familiar with them, starting during WWII with the shortage of transportation, the Navy took trailers and modified them to haul passengers, they had bus seats and two sets of bus type doors on the side. They were pulled by the typical truck that pulls highway trailers, and a pull cord in the trailer dinged a bell in the truck. The driver of course could not see the passengers and the passengers could not see out the front. They were banned in the '70's.
I had a flight coming up patrolling shipping lanes, but as Power Plants Officer, we also had a bird undergoing an engine change. I left early to check on it before the briefing and rode the Cattle Car down to the line. The front door was broken and was stuck open. I stepped into the well and reached up to pull the cord when it took a sudden left turn. I was not aware of it as I was looking toward the back to pull the cord. As the vehicle made the sharp left turn, I went out sideways, facing back, but with forward momentum. The line crew saw it happen and from their sheepish admissions thought it was funny, until they realized I was not moving.
I woke up sometime later, face down on the emergency room table feeling pulling at my scalp. Of course I started to reach up, but my hand was grabbed and and a voice said "Relax, your OK." I was apparently "out" for about 30 minutes, so was grounded until future notice and spent the night under observation. Periodically a Corpsman would come in and just talk to me. Of course he was interested in my responses. I don't think I was restored to flying status until we got back home to NAS Norfolk. To this day, I can find the scar on the back of my head right on the upper back part.
It does pay to have a hard head.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
Those things were the primary mode of transportation around the Base in Philly as well as Gitmo as I remember. Another thing I didn't care for in Philly was that the Mess Hall was in the brig. We only ate the noon meal there. I ate there twice, and then started paying for lunch at the Geedunk. They check your ID three times going in and five coming out. Course the Officers had the prisoners waiting on them and it was a do it yourself thing for us enlisted types. Being a Naval aviator, you of all people should know you need to be aware of your surroundings and prevailing conditions. . Yeah,one of the other favorites of the Navy was refering to us as Houligan's Navy. It really didn't bother most of us, but we had this big Apache Indian that when he got to drinking, all bets were off and usually mean't a donnybrook was coming and it was time to vamoose. He would come back to the ship mad ( if he managed to avoid the SP's) and wonder why he was abandoned. Two shipmates and I did get thrown off of Bainbridge Navy Base in Maryland. We were drinking and having a good time and then some Wave CPO who was the MAA cmae and told us we had to leave and escorted us to the door. When we walked out the SP's were there and told us to get in our vehicle and follow them and proceeded to escort us to the Gate and we were told not to come back. To this day I don't know what happened to bring that on. We had left New York on the way home to Richmond with a case of Beer we had gotten at the club on the base. We ran out in Southern New Jersey. I told the guys there was a Navy Base in Maryland that we could stop at ( my uncle had been stationed there years earlier). I think it may have been a wave boot camp at that time and may have played a part in our departure. This was after our return from Vietnam and we were pretty well decorated at that time. My guess is that the EN3 that was in our group of 3 had something to do with it. Anyway, we ended up back on I-95 heading South to Richmond after having been declared Personna Non Grata at the Navy Base.
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. Yeah,one of the other favorites of the Navy was refering to us as Houligan's Navy. It really didn't bother most of us, but we had this big Apache Indian that when he got to drinking, all bets were off and usually mean't a donnybrook was coming and it was time to vamoose. He would come back to the ship mad ( if he managed to avoid the SP's) and wonder why he was abandoned. Two shipmates and I did get thrown off of Bainbridge Navy Base in Maryland. We were drinking and having a good time and then some Wave CPO who was the MAA cmae and told us we had to leave and escorted us to the door. When we walked out the SP's were there and told us to get in our vehicle and follow them and proceeded to escort us to the Gate and we were told not to come back. To this day I don't know what happened to bring that on. We had left New York on the way home to Richmond with a case of Beer we had gotten at the club on the base. We ran out in Southern New Jersey. I told the guys there was a Navy Base in Maryland that we could stop at ( my uncle had been stationed there years earlier). I think it may have been a wave boot camp at that time and may have played a part in our departure. This was after our return from Vietnam and we were pretty well decorated at that time. My guess is that the EN3 that was in our group of 3 had something to do with it. Anyway, we ended up back on I-95 heading South to Richmond after having been declared Personna Non Grata at the Navy Base.
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Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
To add insult to injury, when I arrived at NAS Cubi Point in 1969, one of the HU-16's had a gray prop on the starboard engine and a black prop on the port engine. The prop on the starboard engine had incurred a problem and in order to get the aircraft back up, they borrowed one from the Coast Guard station at NS Sangley Point, which also flew HU-16's. Theirs were used for SAR of course and ours were use as back-up, but primarily for local transport and station aircraft. To fit in with their lighter paint scheme the USCG had gray props.
There were comments about the "shallow water prop", but the truth is that the Coasties flew over deeper water than we did. We rarely flew over water that was not in either Subic or Manila Bays. They made water landings all the time, and I only got to do it once. Hopefully, with the various services combining on a consistent basis, these jibes have gone into the dustbin of history.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
There were comments about the "shallow water prop", but the truth is that the Coasties flew over deeper water than we did. We rarely flew over water that was not in either Subic or Manila Bays. They made water landings all the time, and I only got to do it once. Hopefully, with the various services combining on a consistent basis, these jibes have gone into the dustbin of history.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
We we deperted New York for our WesPac deployment, our evap broke down somewhere around Cuba. We transited the Canal and layed over at Balboa in the CZ. We went to the club as we couldn't leave the base at that time due to some unrest of some sort. Anyway, there was a French Navy vessel in at the time and a bunch of those guys were in the club. They had just started issueing the "Flat Hats" anfd theu were optional and most wore the Dixie Cups as we didn't like the "Donald Duck" hats. When we saw those French sailors with their White flat hats with the Red Pom Pom on top, those flat hats suddenly didn't look so bad. I ran into some Aussie tropps in either Cat Lo or Vung Tau, I don't remember which. Anyway I tried like crazy to snag one of those "Bush Hats" they wore. I think the best time I had was with a group of Canadian Sailors in Halifax Nova Scotia. We were at the Seaman's Club, and like the UK at the time, at Precisely 11:30 PM they called time and that was it. Those guys had few things up their sleeves. They said to come on and we did. We got into a cab and went to a cab stand where we bought some rum. We then went to an all night movie a kicked back and continued to party. All of this was illegal, but their way of doing an end around on the system. The UK has since dropped the 11:30 closing time, and I can only assume Canada has as well. Incidently, I do have a hat from the Royal Thai Navy. Hong Kong was nice but as I said, Macau and Kowloon were out of bounds. I did go up to the top of Victoria peak which was a heck of a view both in day light and night time. As far as Hong Kong goes, the first thing that comes to mind is "Paradise Alley". . I wasn't expecting all the Neon, but then again it was prevalent all over the Far East.
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. I wasn't expecting all the Neon, but then again it was prevalent all over the Far East.
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Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
mjd420nova's post about the Bermuda Triangle remined me of an Aviation Sea Story. What doesn't?
While I was in the Navy, the Patrol Squadrons were flying two aircraft, the P3 (still in service almost 40 years later) and the P2. The later variants of the P2 were unique aircraft, the only I know of that had two large reciprocating propeller engines and two small turbo jet engines. The reason for the latter, was that the aircraft was so heavy that it could not fly on one prop engine, so the jets were added so they could be fired up to get the aircraft home.
Most twin engine aircraft while under Air Traffic Control, have to notify ATC of a decrease in true airspeed (TAS) when they lost an engine. P2's would call up and INCREASE their TAS because with one prop and two jets, the aircraft was faster.
This involves a P2 out of Jacksonville, in the Bermuda Triange one night on a routine patrol. They spied a boat, most likely in the 20-30' class or so out in the middle of no where, with no running lights, but not moving. It was a favorite location for partying, so they decided to play games. Since they were fairly high and in cruise mode, they weren't making much noise. They turned around, got a two mile run on them, dropped down to about 50', increased to full power on both recips and fired off the jets (two turning, two burning was the phrase they used), and about a quarter of a mile out fired off the 100 million candlepower searchlight (used to illuminate subs) and "lit off" the boat. After passing over the boat, they shut down the searchlight and jets, climbed up to several thousand feet and turned around.
The cruiser had all the lights on and was moving at full throttle. They didn't know where they were going, they were just getting the heck out of there! We always wondered at the story of what the people aboard said, and if they included what they were doing at the time in their story.
Thanks to Solar Wings for the special siggy.
Re: Sea Stories, War Stories and Lies
Okay Guys, we're going to take a walk down memory lane once again. For those who have been to the Philippines, this should be a familiar sight.
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