TBT…

Posted on by February 10, 2021

A long way from anywhere…

Turning final back in the day…

Many hours butt in these two seats…

And one of our old hangouts in Olongapo!

Hard to believe that was 45 years ago… sigh…

Comments

TBT… — 27 Comments

  1. Wow, I’ve been to VP Alley, even though I was a VAW guy at the time (1975]. That’s a photo I didn’t expect to see!

  2. Yeah, that VP Alley looks real inviting!
    A step up from a cargo container with doors and windows cut out of it like in Kingston.

  3. Ah Yes, the “Footprint of Freedom”, spent 2 weeks there after a chip light on 3 on T/O waiting on a replacement engine.

  4. Last time I was in Olongapo it was buried under eight feet of volcanic ash. Cleanup crews were shoveling and plowing and we were evacuating the families (including pets) of all military personnel in the area. Airwing flew to Japan (other than a minimal CAP) and sent us postcards to tell us how much fun they were having. Three trips down to Cebu.

    Also, years later at my sister’s, her kids are watching Veggietales, and “The Song of the Cebu” came on. They couldn’t figure out why I was laughing so hard.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBcnW–mbs8

    If you have small children or grandchildren, point them at Veggietales if they haven’t found it already. Totally wholesome and entertaining.

  6. Phil- That pic is FROM 75! 🙂 Who knows, we might have drank a San Magoo together there!

    Ed- It was clean inside… 😉

    Steve- There were worse places to be. Just sayin’! 🙂

    Hereso- Thanks for getting the folks out! And that is a cute one…

    WSF- Yeah, long range airplane and long flights… to new and strange places…

  8. It’s Dodge city. Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Olongapo was the greatest place that has ever existed. I was partial to 100% Rock and Roll.

  10. Man, I miss living on a mid-ocean atoll. Did three years as a milbrat on Kwajalein watching our best and brightest work to defeat each other (Ballistic Missile people vs Anti-Ballistic Missile people) and the spooks do spooky things in a technical manner.

    Great place to grow up as a kid.

    Kind of hard to wander off and run away (yes, I tried, packed sandwiches, change of clothes, hit the road, got two blocks down and realized I was on a friggin 3 mile long island with nowhere to go. Duh.)

    • Beans:
      I passed through Kwaj in the 1960s as a kid.
      Dad worked for the Govt on another island in the Pacific and

      Kwaj was a vacation spot for us a few times.
      Saw the missile launch migration (from trailers to hard
      roofed buildings) once or twice. The Guest House had a hard
      roof so we didn’t have to join the parade.

      If I could ask, when were you there?

  11. The third photo, the one of the “seats”. I know what those machines are. We had similar ones in the sonar shack aboard the boats. They were highly classified back then. (…and maybe still are.) Back in the day, a photo like that one, without the Naugahyde covers in place, would have gotten you a term in the federal dungeon.

    Question: Did those “machines” on the P3 stink up the place as bad as the ones on the boat?

  12. Beans- Ah yes, Kwaj… BTDT…

    Roy- Not anymore… sigh. And yes, they stank to high heaven! 🙂

  15. My sub stopped there in the fall of 80 after spending 10 weeks in the IO. I made it up to the tender to get a radiation meter calibrated but never ashore.. Not a lot of point when there were sharks active in the lagoon and I wasn’t fond of Navy beer.

    If you were there you know the Brits kicked ALL the natives off before we arrived, so Nuthin-But-Navy on that beach.

  16. P3b difar if I remember correctly. First saw Diego Garcia early in 1974, chasing the Indian Ocean Squadron the Russians put in early in 74. We bounced from DG to Bandar Abbas Iran communicating with the poor trailing sub tasked with following and reporting. Quiet deployment…. NOT

  19. Thanks for the education on Diego Garcia. Never seen a pic of it. I always thought it was full of warehoused heavy mil equipment waiting to be deployed.
    Looks like a good place for fishing and scuba. Bearing in mind Rick T’s remark about sharks, maybe not so much scuba!

    Always learning here.

  21. Geez.I hate to admit it, but I never saw DG from that angle. My two approaches were from seaward while we were terrifying the Russkies with our two QH50D’s with a nuc or two on board!

  22. Ev- LOL, that was back in the day! 🙂 Those things were scary to any other aviator within 200 miles!

  23. Visited DGAR while onboard Belleau Wood LHA-3 in 1981. The ship threw
    a big beach party during our stay. If you visit kbr.com, they have listings of job openings at DGAR (and other areas as well).