Crossing the Line. The boisterous ceremonies of “crossing the line” are ancient and their derivation is lost. It is well known that ceremonies took place long ago when the ship crossed the thirtieth parallel, and also when going through the Straits of Gibraltar. Early ceremonies were rough and to a great extent supposed to try…
Our deployed correspondent, AT1 Charles Berleman, checks in from the latest liberty port: SJS, Okay to start with I am currently in Malaysia, but last week I had a chance to visit the island of Phuket (pronounced Foo-Ket) in the Indian Ocean side of Thailand. An interesting place historically. It is one of the few…
Readers here will recall the petition we launched last July when it came to light that there was a “sense” of Congress motion passed that the next ship following the Gerald Ford (CVN-78) should be named after Barry Goldwater. You will recall we were, well, less than enthusiastic (to put it charitably) that yet another…
From the Midway Roundtable comes word that another veteran of that battle has folded his wings. CAPT Roy Gee, USN-Ret. who flew from USS Hornet (CV 8 ) with Bombing EIGHT quietly passed on 28 Dec 2009. Details of his life may be found at the Roundtable’s site. Also there is a first person account…
Congrats and well done to the Mids for their demolition of the Missouri Tigers this afternoon. 10-4 for only the third time in Navy football history too. Have to say as someone who grew up inthe Big 8 and is a lifelong Husker fan I was pulling for Navy all the way. Guess Mizzou just…
In this age of (near) instantaneous contact via email or, where accessible, the various pieces of social media our deployed Sailors, Marines, Soldiers and Airmen can access, there is still nothing, and I do mean nothing, quite as satisfying as a letter or package that arrives in the mail. The whiff of perfume still tenuously…
Overnight: 25-26 October During the night, crews on the Hornet positioned aircraft on the flightdeck if the prospects of a night strike by moonlight made themselves present. In the meantime, PBY Catalina’s, using the first crude airborne radar sets, continued to try to locate the Japanese fleet in the darkness. Shortly after midnight, one PBY…
OK — entering the homestretch of the Solomons Campaign. Before we get to the final sea battles of that campaign, we need to go back and capture the Battle of Santa Cruz for the pivotal impact it had on the campaign. Part I is presented here with II and III to follow in the coming…
Milestones. We live our lives and measure our time while deployed by milestones. Workups, CQ, “safe-to-deploy,” night qual’d – those are all milestones. First day underway, first trap of deployment, last night the lights of home are visible on the far horizon. . . We chop from one fleet to another in our transit; turnover…
So the MV-22 has run through some rough patches in its long development and fielding and now that it is on its first operational deployment, a little good news has come across the (email) wires and is worth sharing: On NOV 6, BATAAN made history on their deployment. In addition to the maiden deployment of…
