Posted on 12/25/2011 5:27:04 PM PST by decimon
Momentous ping.
I simply would not want to be in stormy winter arctic seas under any circumstances.
I hear you. Watching Victory at Sea as a kid was enough to convince me.
My father served in the North Atlantic during WWII. He suffered from frostbite secondary to that experience. He never accepted a dime from anyone. We must take care of our veterans and our military.
That was very tough duty. The weather may have been worse than the enemy.
One of the better novels set in WWII North Atlantic. IMO, MacLean’s best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ulysses_%28novel%29
I felt so bad for him when his car got stuck in the snow, and he walked the distance from work with his hands and feet whitish-blue. Some people just don’t understand how much our military gives up to take care of the country.
Thanks. I guess it was a good looking ship.
That was very tough duty. The weather may have been worse than the enemy. . . .
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As a cold war warrior I served in the North Atlantic for the first couple of years of my time aboard the USS Patrick Henry (SSBN 599) from 1968 to 1973.
Your first thought would likely be, “so what”, but the North Atlantic had to be transited on the surface in many places because of a lack of safe submerged operation depth, these places especially near land were shallow. The North Atlantic can be very cold and stormy. The storms in conjunction with the shallow water cause huge waves. Even in the age of radar we still had a lookout or topside watch. During storms while transiting, the waves could become enormous with the waves towering way over the top of the sail where we stood our watch. As the ship would head down into the troth of a large swell we would hold our breath as the wave would crash over us and we would be in white water for what seemed an eternity, in reality only a few tens of seconds. After a 20 minute watch when it was very cold (it would normally be much longer) and very stormy we would be allowed to take a real, hot shower, very much a luxury even on a nuke boat.
In my whole life I have never been so cold as I was in the North Sea soaking wet during those watches. Being tied down with a safety harness was not overkill. The hatch down to the control room was only opened to change the watch and that was done very quickly between swells. It was not fun.
Sailors who gave their lives at sea will always hold my deepest respect. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
Ummmmmmmmmmmm ... Bismarck?
About 25 years ago he received a package in the mail from the Russian Embassy in DC, with a military award (medal) for the relief of Murmansk.
With 2 letters, one in Cyrillic, one in English, signed by Boris Yeltsin.
He went on to become one of the Vice Presidents of the (now defunct) National Maritime Union.
Not bad for a kid of 13 year old who ran away from his home in Canada.
Twenty minutes is long enough in that weather. Much longer and they may have had to peel you off of station.
Ummmmmmmmmmmm ... Bismarck?
Not to the men of the Kriegsmarine.
Bismark was a one shot which never made it back to port. Tirpitz was a fjord queen.
Scharnhorst was the "lucky ship" with the respectable war record.
During WW11, we had heavy cruisers and battleships. I never could understand the difference; would you know....??
they are supposed to go fast so i’m thinking
less armor and lighter guns than battleships.
you can’t fire a 14 or 16 in. gun from a
lightweight hull.
some books call her a battleship but i prefer battlecruiser. lighter armor and guns than a battleship but heavier than a heavy cruiser.
we biult 2 of 6 ALASKA and GUAM and called them large crusiers.
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