USN59-79

Jack - In June and July 1972 the Vietnamese Navy received three Coast Guard Cutters; the Absecon, Chincoteague, and McCulloch. The Absecon was captured by North Vietnam; the Chincoteague and McCulloch escaped to the Philippines and may still be there. Ray

Might have been the same guy. He was calling from Skykomish, here in Washington State. Ray

Received a scam phone call this morning and thought I would mention it in case it happens to one of us here on the Daily. The caller says "Hello Grandfather" and identifies themself as your granddaughter or grandson. They say that something terrible has happened and they need a certain amount of money immediately to rescue their car, get out of jail, etc. If you hadn't heard of the scam you might fall for it. This guy says "Hello Grandfather, this is your grandson". I asked him a couple of times what his name was and he would only reply "This is your oldest grandson". Probably hoping I would say "Is this Billy" and of course he would say yes. Unfortunately for the scammer, I don't have any grandsons, so I hung up on him. Ray

A beautiful, sunny day here. Just got back from a dental appointment. I spent nine months at Danang in 1972 as the Vietnam war was winding down. I was the Electronics Repair Officer on the USS Hector (AR-7), a repair ship that was docked there repairing U.S. Navy ships. Thought you all might like a war story from that time. My next door neighbor was a chief electronics technician on a Navy destroyer in the area, the USS Higbee. I noticed in the morning message traffic that his ship had been bombed by North Vietnamese Migs and would be coming alongside for emergency repair. I noticed that one of the twin 5" gun mounts was completely opened up by bomb damage, like a blooming tulip. I met him when he came aboard our ship and mentioned that the message didn't say anything about casualties and I couldn't imaging how anyone could survive in that gun mount. He said that it was actually a kind of miracle. That gun had been firing at the Migs and had a hang fire. Standard procedure is to evacuate the gun mount when that happens. The bomb hit when when everyone was out. It started a fire, but also cut a salt water main that put out the fire. So no serious injuries. Incidentally, if you google USS Higbee you can see pictures of the battle damage. One thing we worried about at Danang was swimmers attaching an explosive to our ship at night. So we would get under way at night and steam up and down the coast of Vietnam at five knots and come back in the morning. I had qualified as Officer of the Deck for underway steaming, so I stood a lot of night watches driving the ship at that time. I learned how to handle the ship by training on a tug boat. Both our ship and tug boats have twin screws, so you learn what happens with something like "port engine ahead one third, starboard engine back two thirds, right standard rudder" when you are docking the ship without thrusters or other assistance. Sorry for the sea stories, but Danang brings back a lot of memories. Ray

I actually thought that BFF was Best Female Friend, but then thought why no Best Male Friend? Ray

It is a good day here in the Pacific NW and getting better each day this week. I drove to the Navy base this morning and found that Catch 22 is still alive and well. We checked out the base swimming pool on Saturday and were told that it costs $2.50 to swim there, but if you are a 100% disabled veteran, the charge is waived. The DoD has a special ID card that I would need to show. Went to the ID card office this morning to obtain one. Was told that even though I can be a retired Navy person and a 100% disabled Navy person, I cannot have both ID cards at the same time. I asked the clerk to show me that in writing. He spent 45 minutes going through a bunch of instructions and couldn't find it. Made a phone call and was told that one would cancel the other one. Went back to the pool and the desk person said I would have to pay without the ID card. That is how the Government works. I have a question about the acronyms we use here on CC. Is there a listing of them somewhere and are they specific to CC or are they in general use? For example, what exactly is BFF? Is DS Dear Sister or Dear Son or do you have to guess? Ray

Looks like three days of damp and rainy weather here in the Pacific NW, then Spring will have sprung with temperatures in the 70s. My father was in the race horse business most of his life. During WW2 the tracks shut down and he worked for Boeing, then we moved to a ranch where he started again. I remember "walking hots" at the race track near Seattle as a teenager as we had to walk the horse to let it cool down after exercising it on the track. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack while walking one of his horses at a track near San Francisco while I was in the Navy. I was surprised it took so long to round up the local missing zebra. The back story is that there were two competing groups working to corral her. They were not cooperating, and one was organized by a local home building company that was interesting the positive advertising feedback if they were successful. Anyway, all is well that ends well. Ray

What I thought was amazing was how organized the Japanese are. Could you imagine stepping off a ship in any American city and asking a stranger to tell you where your grandfather's grave is located? The story we were told was that after WW2 and Kobe expanded, they removed all the graves from the city foreign cemetery and moved them to a park on the mountain. There were sections for the different nationalities; British, Russian, etc. I just found a picture of it. He died 22 June, 1914. The family immigrated from Siberia to Maui in the early 1900s and then to Honolulu. His doctor told him that his heart couldn't stand the heat of Hawaii and that they should go back to Siberia. He agreed, but died of a heart attack on the way back. After going back to Siberia, the family then returned to Honolulu, where my mother lived until she finished high school. Ray

Thought I would mention something about Kobe and the helpful people there. About fifteen years ago our cruise ship stopped at Kobe and there was a shuttle to downtown. There were some local citizens who had volunteered to show the tourists around. Sara and I met a lady there who asked "What would you like to see?" I mentioned that about 100 years ago my grandfather had died on a ship coming from Hawaii and was buried in Kobe. I wondered if we could find his grave. I gave her his name and approximate death date in 1912 or 1913. She made a few calls and said that he was buried in the foreign cemetery in a park on a mountain outside of Kobe. We hired a cab and she took us there and found his gravestone in the Russian section of the cemetery. We took some pictures and came back to Kobe and took her to lunch. Sometimes it is surprising what you can do on a cruise. Ray

Lenda, that was a very interesting cruise on the Coral Princess. We stopped in Korea and the Executive Officer of the USS Pueblo, Ed Murphy was aboard to host a tour of the border area between North and South Korea. That was the first time he had been back to Korea since released from confinement by the North Koreans. Another great thing was that it was a 60 day Asia cruise without flying across the Pacific; Los Angeles to Los Angeles. Ray

I suspect that I have unknowingly sailed with quite a few of the Dailyites on HAL and Princess. Our last Amsterdam sailing was in 2017, the first 56 days of the WC. We did the second half in 2014, plus a Grand Asia in 2010 and 2011. Our last four HAL cruises were on the Westerdam, 2 in 2019, one in 2020 (stranded in Cambodia) and 42 days in 2023. We typically take longer cruises, the longest was 89 days on the Ocean Princess around Africa in 2015. Ray

@bennybear Those are really special pictures of Kona. I wonder why they have such beautiful sunsets compared to other places in the world. Normally I hate spiders, but that one was really different. Ray

Greetings from the Pacific NW. Beautiful day, but the wind is coming up and expecting rain soon. In 1961, when stationed in Taipei by the Navy, I wanted to learn to speak Chinese. I met a Chinese girl who was employed at the National Taiwan Art Center who wanted to learn more English. March 8 was Woman's Day and she had a day off, so her Uncle brought her to my house to meet me. We exchanged language lessons twice a week. At the time she was 19 and I was 21. Two years later we were married. I learned some Chinese, but not a lot, and never did concentrate on learning to read it. I had never heard of the term cli fi. However, every day I hear a lot of fiction about climate change that is presented as fact. We went to Red Lobster for lunch today as we had a gift card that needed to be used. We had crab legs which were OK. But I wonder how many dungeness crabs I could have bought to eat at home for $71? Ray

We did 42 days on the Westerdam Yokohama to Seattle last Spring and noticed some cutbacks, particularly the service in the Pinnacle Grill. We decided to try something different, and recently completed 33 days on Seabourn Sojourn, part of the Carnival group, from Sydney to Taipei. If you are willing to go upscale, there is a definite, positive difference. Within three days crew members knew our name and the type of wine we enjoyed. I asked our excellent room stewardess how many rooms she was responsible for and she said 17. Drinks were free, and when I asked the room person for a bottle of American whiskey, she promptly delivered a liter of Jack Daniels. When we left the ship there were only two charges; both for visas. Although there are no mandatory gratuities, the crew seemed happier and less stressed than on a HAL ship. Ray