As you WELL know, that is affectionately, whether you served on 2 ships or 20.
When I went from an APA to an LST, you ‘vow’ to keep in touch forever, well at least till the next time you are in the same port but even that sort of passes as you no longer live ‘in the old neighborhood’- new school, new friends, new bars to hang out in.
Must really be ‘hard’ going from a Gator to a Bird Farm as you have to find a whole new area of ‘town’ to hang out.
In 1961 Yokosuka I took to hanging around ‘Submarine Town’ as I had orders to New London for school. Kind of strange with a ‘USS Terrell County’ rocker on right shoulder while hanging around a bunch of ‘fish’.
Ran into the ‘Archer-Fish’ during that period - they were on the ‘round the world’ cruise with a Single, all volunteer crew. That week in DEC 1961 convinced me I had made the right career move....
BUT some 40 or 50 years later after 10 or so minutes it is more than likely that it seems you have ‘known’ each other forever....
Hmmm...wasn’t the Archerfish the one that sank the IJN Shinano?
I read an interesting story about the USS Archerfish being one of the first US Navy ships to go into the huge drydocks at Yokosuka, and the japanese shipworkers were all eyeing her with a palpable air of hostility...many of them had likely built the IJN Shinano in that very same drydock, and knew quite well it had been the Archerfish that sunk her.
The captain of the Archerfish decided to take the bull by the horns, and made it known that anyone who wanted a tour of the sub was welcome. That proved irresistible to the workers, and the ice was broken.
Those drydocks are huge.
Funny...isn't that the way it always is?