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Everyone achieved all of their qualifications. Several warfare pins, 5 advancements in paygrade. Only lasted one deployment, got disbanded to start a troubleshooter shack, one guy to QA, one guy to the Line Shack, one guy selected for OCS, became a pilot, another one is a JAG.
What makes this all worthwhile is the people, invest in them.
When the new insignia was unveiled in the 1950s? 1960s?, one of the squadron wives said "That doesn't look like a griffon; it looks like a puking dog!" The squadron loved it and immediately adopted the nickname the Pukin' Dogs. Over the years, the higher-ups frowned a bit and even made the squadron change the name to the Dogs for a while but relented and today they proudly wear the name the Pukin' Dogs.
It wouldn't be long before they joined the mothball fleet, but they all came back in the 1980s.
In those pre-snorkel days, submarines spent most of their time on the surface and the hull form was optimized for surfaced speed using the Diesels. With a modern submarine, the boat spends much more time submerged and the hull form is optimized for underwater speed.
We were the first nuke carrier in the harbor in a long time.
We had no air wing on board, no ammo (I think someone said 2 sea sparrows and 500rd of CWIS ammo) The planes on the deck were all broken, some of them even shells, but we brought them up to the flight deck to make it look like something.
We ended up being out for over two weeks. I didn't even bring a change of clothes and didn't leave my wife the ATM card. We didn't know if we were going straight to the gulf or what. It was quite stressful not knowing anything.
It was surreal standing on the smoke deck looking at the city. If you took away the smoke, it suddenly looked like every port we'd visited, with the towers gone it just didn't stand out at all.
I feel old. On the other hand, the Nimitz is old -- in the fleet since 1975, and the Ike has been in the fleet since 1977, so it's time. Both will go to Newport News for the beginning of dismantling, joining the Enterprise. Between dismantling old carriers and building new ones, Newport News is going to get crowded!
Loving the personal history and stories. I was AF, so no ship and or boat stories and don't want to dilute the thread.
My personal Navy story was a tour of a ballistic missile submarine during a change of command ceremony. Quite the impressive boat, it was in dry dock at the time and quite the impressive machine so much below the waterline that you don't see. The crew was amazing as well. Glad for what you and they all do for all of us, heck the military overall.
Bruuuce wroteThey had us (Reactor dept) man the rails once leaving Norfolk, we weren't invited backGreat stuff, the scale of the carriers is amazing to me. How many sailors does it take to man the rail.
So...if it took everyone that was permanently attached to a ship, minus those on watch and minus reactor (350 people) I'd bet a thousand or so.
catskillclimber wroteAlameda, right? A friend of my father's was CO of the Coral Sea out of Alameda in 1963 or so and they ran aground a half mile from the pier just like your ship. The CO lost his job and his career was ruined. I think it happened a bunch of times at Alameda.Actually, the question shouldn't be how many it takes to man the rails, its' how many does it take to tip an aircraft carrier to port when it has run aground in the muck in bay. To top it off, coming off a WESPAC and within sight of the pier. HINT: It takes more than we put up on the flight deck. Took a rising tide to get us out.
Llarry wroteincredible photoAn interesting day at the beach, looking at the largest submarine in the world — the Russian Typhoon class ballistic missile submarine.
catskillclimber wroteThat isn't the first time the Big "E" ran aground. I was a Squadron member when she ran aground in Pearl Harbor in April of 1969. We had to wait for high tide that time too. To make matters worse we had just spent 3 months in Pearl having the ship rebuilt after suffering a devastating fire in January. This was our departure. The skipper stayed with us though.Actually, the question shouldn't be how many it takes to man the rails, its' how many does it take to tip an aircraft carrier to port when it has run aground in the muck in bay. To top it off, coming off a WESPAC and within sight of the pier. HINT: It takes more than we put up on the flight deck. Took a rising tide to get us out.
Llarry wroteYes, it was Alameda. Sounds like the same spot. Our Capt was up for Admiral and I remember talk that was in jeopardy. I looked him up and not only didn't it hurt him, he made 4 star Admiral and was Commander of the Pacific Fleet.Alameda, right? A friend of my father's was CO of the Coral Sea out of Alameda in 1963 or so and they ran aground a half mile from the pier just like your ship. The CO lost his job and his career was ruined. I think it happened a bunch of times at Alameda.
I was on Enterprise from 82-86. Unfortunately we weren't done running into the earth. In the 85 final workup to another WESPAC we were off the coast of S. Cal. We smashed into the rocks around the well documented Bishop Rock area. Tore a huge hole in the hull and damaged props. Once we figured out we weren't under attack or something hadn't blown up internally everybody was convinced we ran over one of our subs. We took on so much water you could feel her list. We crawled around for a couple of days as experts were flown out to access the damage. I still remember the Capt over the 1MC explaining that Enterprise was a war vessel and what we had was acceptable battle damage. Our training would continue as plan. We had to take on more water on the opposite side to rebalance. We added something like 10ft more to our draft. Upon return to Alameda the ship was supposed to transit across the bay during high tide to Hunters Point for repair. The tides didn't work out as planned and there she was sitting in the middle of the bay in the morning. Finally made it to Hunters Point on the next high tide.
