| In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Is there interest in my creating a table of NAVY Veterans in honor of the Navy's specially anniversary today? TO ALL NAVY VETERANS, THANK YOU!, central_va wrote: |
When I say underway I mean at sea with no land in sight. That was a tough year. 8 months out of 12 months of nothing but the Atlantic Ocean to look at. |
I spoke, or tried to speak with, Russian sailors on leave in Vancouver, Canada. They wanted to know where 'Bar 5' was. I didn't know where the bar was but I had already been told the roaring sound bouncing off the cloud cover above that city that night was US Navy having fun in 'Bar 5'.
To the best extent we could communicate, the men said they were crazed by working 8 months in a row at that point. While at sea, those working in the factories (fishing) worked 8 hours on, followed by 8 hours of. WATER WATER WATER. They were sick of looking at water.
Later, he was XO on an LST, heading toward the Pacific, to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
They were somewhere around the Panama Canal when the war ended.
I chose a different path. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.
I met, ate, and drank with some Russian sailors in Mauritius in 1968, when we were spying on their Zond 5 splashdown (now unclassified). Not much English, but they were just folks, like us. They all wanted to trade for ballpoint pens, Zippo lighters, American cigarettes, etc., because theirs was junk.