My mistake… She sounded like an all-around repair ship for everything. While it sounded like she wasn’t doing a lot of real steaming later in her career, there must’ve been some pretty interesting repair jobs that took place with her crew.
My dad was on one of the destroyers, down in the Cuban missile crisis (the USS, Bristol, DD 857) as well.
I would bet a sailor would learn a lot of things on a ship like that.
Vulcan was built in 1940, I think. She served in the Pacific and there were stories about her getting damaged carriers back into the fight after a couple of the battles.
We had it pretty nice in comparison with the WWII Tin Can sailors, and your dad and his shipmates as well. Tight quarters on those cans!