A 19 year old smart-ass kid. Assigned
to a radiation decon team. Operation Redwing in the Marshall Island nuclear
weapons tests. I was ships company in ESTES and assigned with the decon
team to KNUDSON and CURTISS at various times during Redwing. USS
Estes AGC-12 || USS
Knudson APD-101 || USS
Curtiss AV-4
For some unknown Navy reason I was
transferred from San Diego and assigned to two years at the US Naval War
College in Newport,
RI .
A dream of a duty station where I ran
the audio/visual support for the Command and Staff Department. I was as
an IC3 (Interior Communication Electrician 3rd Class petty Officer).
All SEVEN ORIGINAL ASTRONAUTS were there at the same time but I didn't know who they were until
later when I saw them featured on the cover of LIFE
MAGAZINE.
1959-1962 Click Image
Plank owner: USS Little Rock CLG-4
As one of the first crew members to
be assigned to her I was part of the nucleus crew at Philadelphia
Naval Shipyard. Little Rock was a converted Cleveland class light cruiser
(formerly CL-92 ). Modified to a guided missile
cruiser (Talos) at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey.
She had the tightest crew, other than
submarines, that I ever served with. I attribute that to an extensive pre-com
period when all 1300 of us lived and trained together. That carried forward
to her operational life and continued to her final decommisssioning in
1976. During her first 13 months after re-commisioning, Little Rock's can-do
spirit contributed to her winning all Atlantic fleet competitive awards
except for the Engineering Red-E ; she was edged out by the USS Canberra
by only 0.46 of a point.
She was a flag ship throughout much
of her second life, spending much time with the US
Sixth Fleet in the Med. She not only met every mission but had that
spit and polish appearance that was in keeping with the "old surface Navy"
men-o-war.
Today she has a close knit roster of
over 2000 association members that include many WWII shipmates from her
CL-92 days. I am as proud of my duty in Little Rock as anything I ever
did in the Navy. A fine, beautiful old warship that is now thankfully a
part of the Buffalo NY, Naval Musuem. Thank God she missed the scrapman.
