Posted on 07/22/2016 12:29:41 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Place had a hot tub on the deck facing the sound.
Got a beer an cigar, turned on my playlist of all of Bill Frisell’s stuff, put the speaker a few feet away so I didn’t have to turn it up. Lowered myself in, popped the top off of that ice cold Yuengling, lit up the cigar, and sat in that damned tub until I nearly melted and went right down the drain!
Everyone had gone out to some beach, and it was just me at the house, nobody around...now, THAT is relaxing!
They put JFK as a reserve ship during the 1990's into the 2000's best I remember. She got canalized during that stint and when the SHTF on 9/11 Pentagon acted stupid and sacrificed a Captain to appease the call for heads to roll. The JFK received a botched S.L.E.P. Ship Life Extension Program in Philly which started just as they were closing the old yards and moving best I recall. AMERICA the carrier her junior was denied SLEP and ran into the ground and retired. They made damn sure she'd never be fit for sea again before mothball. I don't mean the crew I mean Pentagon and Congress. Early to mid 1990's on the America were far worse than even that of Carter years as far as allowed funded maintenance and yard periods. She had the distinction of a boiler room explosion at pier 12 in 1994.
We had to go ashore in uniform (that ugly ass salt and pepper) and I scratched up my brand new corframs playing basketball with a bunch of Yugoslavian guys...
Found a teeny French restaurant with six tables and letcherous European postcards on the walls...:)
November 22-26 1977 according to my cruise book was our time there. Nice place to visit at that time but it was under Tito's fist and I sure wouldn't have wanted to had to live there under his terms.
Yeah we had to wear our dress blues on liberty also. Next cruise in 78 we pulled into Split. I was lucky I was off duty when the storm hit is. In port in the MED I was T.A.D. as a boat crew snipe. The boats at the ship had to untie and head for the beach. Guys later said it was a ride they'll never forget to get make it there when we picked them up next day. We were dragging anchor. Our Captain was old school Navy an Hanoi Hilton survivor with Stockdale. He came over the 1MC and in no uncertain terms yelled "Get this ship underway and get it underway now". Some words left out LOL. We were pulling up anchor and deckhouse while the screws began turning and that mountain was getting closer and closer. She finally began backing out and away.
BTW I also remember you guys drew short straw when the Iranian Hostage Crisis happened. I won't forget that day day. We went to close ship and nobody was talking as to why. We were due to go in to drydock and I had less than a year left to go.
The USS Forrestal had nine 500 pound bombs detonate on her deck, not to mention the missiles and planes. Some of those 500 lb bombs had their explosive force dramatically enhanced because they were old WWII era bombs, and the explosives had decomposed creating a more volatile and unpredictable explosive.
A large carrier like that can be sunk. Any ship can. But those ships are huge, have a lot of compartments, and (at least used to) have some tenacious damage control parties with well designed tools and techniques.
The America was intentionally sank to gain technology and data for the Gerald R Ford. It took days of hits and even then she finally went down only after pre-positioned explosives had been purposely set at key places to end water tight integrity & deliberately make certain she sank. It would take an awful lot to any class of the super carriers. Enterprise burned as did Oriskany and Independence I think. None have sank since WW2.
I’m here near Surf City, NC it’s a normal sight today.
My son fly’s in them and copters all the time as they run exercises everyday.
If it gets to the point when nations are shooting tac nukes at each other warships then there is a bigger issue to worry about.....
Agree...I was always appreciative of you snipes while sat up in the hanger deck and fresh air.
I agree with you-I wouldn’t have wanted to live there under Tito...
I got out just before the Iranian Hostage crisis. I was in college at the time with a bunch of Iranians...but a lot of them left to go back home, and most weren’t happy about it, though there were some who were glad to go, and I was glad to see them go.
Man,having a ship like that go aground...there would be Hell to pay, indeed. I can easily imagine the omitted words! We lost our anchor at Sigonella, and there was hell to pay for that!
A couple months later heading back to NORVA we saw the Old Man get his well earned Rear Admiral Star pinned on. Rear Admiral Robert B Fuller.
I was in A-Gang AC&R so we had gear all the way up to the mast at the Raydome cooling system. My shop got a lot more sunshine than many in Engineering.
He'll get it fixed, under budget/ahead of schedule.
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