260920 The Last Day

This picture marked the end of an era.

From left to right, me, Ken, Doug's Guamanain girl friend, Doug, and Roy. On Guam, the greeting is Hafa Adiay for morning and evening. One of our group stayed on Guam. He is Dave and he is still alive and still one year older than me. And he sends some funny cartoons. 2 of us, me and Roy ended up on the USS Kitty Hawk and worked on the flight deck there. Ken stayed in the navy for 30 years. Doug was sent to a communication station in the Phillipines. Doug passed away several years ago. Dave is still alive and kicking. I don't know about Roy or Ken.

It all began when electronics training in Millington, Tennessee Naval Air station graduated several classes and sailors received their orders. 12 of us had orders to go to Brunswick,Georgia for further training as airborne radar operators. We all graduated and 2 were sent to a naval station in Rhode Island. The other 10 had orders to Guam and VW-1 airborne early warning squadron at Naval Air station on Guam. We followed typhoons (hurricanes) and reported to Naval Weather service in the far east.

Things were calm and laid back until 1964 when The destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by 3 north Vietnamese torpedo boats; there was little damage to the destroyer. President Lindon Johnson took offence at the incident. Johnson grabbed that as an excuse to ramp up what started as a small Marine detachment going inland and ended up with 2.7 million troops serving and 2,414 killed. That didn't begin to note the US Navy always had at least 3 aircraft carriers with hundreds of pilots and planes from the begining to the end.

Our Squadron VW 1 provided overnight radar coverage for the seventh fleet off the coast of Vietnam. That's when things picked up for us. We only had 6 planes and they got a lot of use. 2 alternated radar coverage so there was always coverage. We had to travel 1600 miles from Guam to the Phillipines and that was where we operated from. We had to fly 910 miles to get on station coverage for the 7th fleet.

This post covers one of the best times in my life and I think back about it frequently.
In San Diego, working at Burroughs Computer company put me in touch with Kevin. We worked hard, had fun and we are great friends today and for the last 40 some years.
Another great friend from the Burroughs years was Ted Morange. He passed away a short time ago.
My working years were good times. My 19 years and 6 months at Litton in Springfield, Missouri were always good. Great people to work with. Several of us still correspond through posts.