Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Gulf of Tonkin


This is a picture of the USS New Jersey, BB-62, taken January 28, 1998, at Bremerton, Washington. those ships next to her have all been scrapped by now.


My Jaw hurts. I hate dentists and I am not particularly pleased with my teeth, either. It feels like I got poked in the jaw with a sharp stick…and I have not been to the dentist for over a week. Weird.

We had Carnitas tonight. Carnitas is Spanish for “Obscene Yumminess.” Add some onion and cilantro, then a little bit of guacamole…and Wow! It goes past “Obscene Yumminess” straight to “pornographic goodness.” (Sorry about my descriptions, but I am short on good descriptors) The corn tortillas helped, too.

Today, I worked maintenance and whacked some more weeds. I even created a good line cutter for the darned whacker. The motor was lugging when the line got too long and the cutter is not on it anymore. I made one and it helped, though, it is still lugging or maybe the carburetor is running too rich…either way, I need to fix it tomorrow, because I have A LOT more whacking to do.

Deadliest Catch is on and the Cornelia Marie is in port fixing an engine and anchor line. Doesn’t look good for them! Time Bandit might have a better chance…

Today, I was talking with a coworker about the USS Turner Joy (DD-951). It is a Forest Sherman class destroyer. Long since retired, it is now a museum ship. Legend has it she fired the last shell of the Vietnam War. And possibly the first. She and the destroyer (DD) Maddox (DD-413) were present for the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which basically started the Vietnamese Conflict, though it had been gaining steam for some time. It was probably fitting that she fired the last shot. Anyway, he said there was another ship out in the bay and wanted to know if I could ID it…I haven’t been in that neck of the Sound for several years. A short search of the internet did not reveal my prey, I will have to do a little more work to find it. I told him about my experience of being amongst the last people to be on the USS Missouri before she was towed to Pearl Harbor. I have a few pictures to share concerning that. The carrier was probably the USS Lincoln (CVN-72), since I think she was in port at the time. Also present at the time were several Knox Class Frigates, all of which have either been sold or scrapped since then(ships with the 1053 numbers on their hull).



One of my professors showed a picture of the USS Maddox, it wore a dazzle camouflage in the picture. The camouflage told me it was a photo taken in 1944. I told the professor that, and she wondered how I knew…simply that that camouflage was only used during that year and possibly into the early stages of 1945. I have small models (1:2400 scale) and because I strive for accuracy, I researched the different patterns and found that they varied by date. One ship might have been painted grey in 1941, then dark blue in 1942, then it was painted grey and blue, with the blue on the bottom, then in 1944, it could have worn the dazzle camouflage pattern, then back to a different pattern in 1945.






Thanks to Snyder and Short Enterprises for the pictures. I met Randy Short wile I was in California. I gave him a few of my scratch built ships. He gave me some ship camouflage printouts...I think it worked out nicely.

1 comment:

frogglet said...

Please, when you describe things to Little Miss use words like extreamely and really really good. I know they were good but, really? Love ya.