Well, Here
I go off into the land of the NEW WARRANT. This is the
USS Alamagordo
ARDM-2.
It's a
floating drydock for submarines. If you look you can see an FBM submarine
in the dock. This ship actually sinks (to a certain point) so that the
submarine can be pulled in and then comes up with the submarine sitting
on the blocks. There are 2 large cranes on rails on board that are used
to service the docked boat. I served as Chief Engineer on this ship.
Next came
a real challenge. I was sent to the construction and commissioning crew
of the
Dwight
D. Eisenhower CVN-69.
WOW, was
this submarine sailor lost !! This thing is a floating city! The crew size
came to somewhere in the vacinity of 5000. Once I got my feet on the ground
(or deck) and figured out what my job was, the tour went well. I served
as Main Propulsion Technical Assistant (MPTA). In other words, I ran the
engine rooms.
Sometime
during all this I was advanced several times.
Here is
my wife Karen making me a CWO-4. Now that really gave me the "C" in CWO.
After the
Eisenhower came a tour on a submarine tender (repair ship). The picture
above are of the
USS Canopus
AS-34.
The left
picture is at the pier in Charleston, S.C. and the other is in Rota, Spain.jpg
This was a very good repair ship. Anything that a boat needed we had or
could make. The technicians on board could repair anything. I served as
Electrical Repair Officer and then Nuclear Repair Officer on board Canopus.
For more information and pictures of Canopus (then and now)
please
go to this USS Canopus AS-34
website made by another
crew member
of the Best Tender in the Feet.
After Canopus
I went to the
Norfolk
Naval Shipyard
as a ship's
superintendent for nuclear ships. I didn't care for this tour of duty very
much, but I made tha best of it. LOL. I did the overhaul of the USS California
and an intermediate maintenance period for the USS Mississippi while there.
This job almost convinced me that it was time to retire. LOL
Next I
went to the
Emory S.
Land AS-39
You guessed
it, another submarine tender, Sorry, no picture of the Land. On here I
was the Assistant Radiation Control Officer. Not a pretty job, but a very
necessary one. Things went fairly well on this tour and as I neared the
end, I decided that it was time to wind-down my Naval Career. Especially
since my next tours didn't look very promising at all. LOL
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So, after 22 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 2 hours....I RETIRED!!!!!
SSBN Patrol
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