I was an officer in the engineering department. Damage control officer on the second cruise. Lots of time at sea but visited some interesting places. Not enough time in Hong Kong, great place though. Couple of months in Japan, never did catch on to the language. Otherwise in & out of Subic. Flew into Danang just to take a look see. Watched a U2 land, crazy. Went through nuclear, biological and chemical warfare training/school. Good thing most people don't know about that stuff. 

Edited September 26, 20178 yr by Larry Schweitzer
left something out.

Thanks for your service Larry.

I was on the USS Constellation off of Vietnam in the summer of 1966. Our squadron was VA-65 and we flew A-6s. I was an AQF-3. Worked on the A-6 radars and computer.

Thanks for your service Larry....

Lew,

I was on the Ranger CVA61 same location, same time. That was my 2nd cruise there.

There were always two carriers there. 12 hours of flight ops for each, everyday. 

5 hours ago, Larry Schweitzer said:

12 hours of flight ops for each, everyday.

I always worked the non-flying hours. As soon as the trappings started, I went to work. A-6s almost always flew at night, so my day started around 3am. I remember taking the "shortcut" to the AQ shop- right by the bakery. A couple of warm loaves never made it to the chow line!

Officers were supposed to eat in the general mess periodically to insure things were going well. I would take a detour through the prep areas to check them also. We only had two mess lines for the entire crew, open 23 hours a day. Food was better there than n the wardroom. 

When we were in Subic, I would volunteer for shore patrol duty. Better than spending the duty night on the ship. Entertaining sometimes.

Same on the Connie 23 hour a day food available. 

 

Don't remember too much about Subic (wonder why!). Did spend a day on Grande Island- don't remember how I got back to the ship.

 

Enjoyed Yokosuka, beautiful landscape outside the city. 

 

I was really lucky, after I got out, VA-65 transferred to the Forrestal. I lost some buddies in the fire. They wanted me to re-up but I wanted out. Smart move on my part. I think there is a "master plan".

Yes, carriers are a hazard. Ranger had an engine room fire while I was onboard. burned for 6 hours. The guys were trapped in the control council with the big glass window looking out into the fire, hoping it wouldn't break. It didn't only one man was lost but were had to go to Yokosuka for repairs. 

They flew me off the Ranger into Subic, then to Clark. From there I took a Taiwanese DC6 old prop plane to Taipei. As we gained altitude the stew came around with a dish of hard candies. I didn't care for any but she said I needed to chew them to make my ears pop because the plane leaked too much to maintain cabin pressure! Bad sign I thought. A little later there was a lot of vibration and black smoke streamed from an engine. The prop quit turning, then white smoke, the fire suppression system kicked in. I figured it was a bad sign, again! Then the pilot came on and told us we were returning to Clark due to "technical problems."  The ground crew took the shrouds off the engine and oil poured out onto the tarmac. They brought out another engine on a test stand and tried to start it but after many attempts they decided to just take a cylinder assembly off of it and put it on our plane. Quite a lot of cranking and it fired up, lots of blue smoke. , Managed to get to Taiwan, then to Japan. I was sent as the engineering departments representative for the repairs.  

When I was sent back to the states, they bussed us from Subic to Clark. Waited there for almost a day for a military flight to Tachikawa. This was during the airline strike of 1966 so Uncle Sam leased a commercial flight from Japan to San Francisco. Entire plane filled with service men going home- nonstop flight. Left Japan at 7am landed in SF at 8am the same day (International Date Line).