moving Things right along

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Somehow from the topic of moving, were decided it was more about relocating. If you're new here, you may want to go back and read from the start about what it is we're doing. It began here,
continued here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
and
here.

68 – The longest airplane ride was a MATS (Military Air Transport Service) flight from Travis AFB to Hickam AFB. I've flown longer distances, but this flight was in a C-121 with seven across seating and all of the seats facing backward. But it sure is a pretty plane.

The flight was something like 11 hours with an inflight meal, a bag lunch. The real shock was stepping from the plane at Honolulu. It was like stepping into a sauna.
The plane arrived so late that there was no transport to the ship over at Pearl Harbor, so I was put up in a transit barracks. The next morning I received another small shock. Sometime during the night some Marines arrived in transit to SE Asia. I was in a bottom bunk. The Marine in the top bunk has place his rifle under his mattress and it was staring me in the face. I believe that is when I first became aware of a place called South Viet Nam. Before that I'd heard of it referred to as Indochina. The Marines were on their was as “Military Advisors.”

69 – I received one more minor shock that morning. The ship wasn't at the Naval Station. It was at the Shipyard undergoing a major overhaul. I mean they were basically rebuilding it from the main deck up. It turned out that the crew was living in barracks, eating at the Naval Station Mess Hall and working out of warehouse spaces. My department, operations, had an office on the second floor in just one of the warehouses stuff was being stored. The upside of this was a number of us were sent for further training at the Fleet Training Group. I learned how to fix and operate equipment I would never see again.

70 – I was sent to observe how radarmen on other ships performed their duties. Someone thought it would be a good idea to know how a fleet tug boat operates during an atmospheric test shot of an atomic weapon. Mostly the ships just putt-putted around Johnston Island until just before the rocket was launched. Then they motored away in different directions to be in place if some mishap occurred. All of the electronic gear was shut down so it would be damaged... so much for observation. Oh yeah, and we all went below decks.

71 – Despite the doubts of numerous crew members the ship's overhaul was completed... or at least finished. Some expenses were saved by leaving the crew spaces without air conditioning and retaining the original equipment in the ship's galley and some other spaces. The first cruise the ship made, other than for shakedown and training was to Hilo for the county fair. Hilo was still recovering from a tsunami created by an earthquake in Chile. There was an open house for the public on the ship.



72 – Next port of call was Seattle. It is always fun to steam in a destroyer across the North Pacific in February. We were there to calibrate sonar and do some noise testing. We actually spent very little time in Seattle, but saw lots of the Puget Sound. Part of the time it was even clear enough to see Mt Rainier and the Olympic Range. After about two weeks we steamed south to the home port, San Diego, and a serious training regimen. We were preparing for deployment to WestPac (the Western Pacific). This was proving to be quite interesting. Until we returned to San Diego most of us had never operated in partnership with any other ships. Heck most of us had only worked together for a few months and were still in the familiarization stage. In fact we were still adding new personnel and having to bring them up to speed. In some instances it was like the blind leading the blind. We were strong on theory, light on practice.

yes, that's the ship
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