TBT…

Cubi Point, 1975…

From the bounce pattern!

Left turn on takeoff, looking out over Olongapo at Subic Navy base and the main gate.

Downwind. USS Kitty Hawk at the carrier pier, with Cubi off to the left, and Grande Island in the distance.

Over the top of Cubi Point Air Station. Marine A-4s, A-6s, C-1 CODS, and two C-47s on the ramp along with eight of nine P-3s. And some other cats and dogs aircraft I don’t remember…

Photos by my shipmate, S. Shell

Comments

TBT… — 14 Comments

  1. My Dad got his fouled anchor tattoo at Subic Bay on his first cruise aboard the USS Wisconsin on their way to Korea in 1951.

  2. Nothing like a Cubi Dog and a San Miguel in the BOQ Bar.

  3. My first trip to Cubi was March of 1975. VP40 was tasked to take PATWING 10 reps around WestPac to all the forward deployment sites; Barbers, Midway, Guam, Cubi, Naha, Iwakuni, Atsugi, and Adak. We had received the last P3C Baseline models in the fall of ’74. I finished VP31 in August and reported to 40. As the only fully trained NavComm in model I was selected for the trip.

  4. Had a buddy get an anchor tattoo in Subic Bay in ’77. Deck ape on the Blue Ridge as I remember. He told some hair raising stories about the bars past front gate.

    Those A4 Scooters look tiny….

    • And a better time was had remembering it 20 years later, after everyone survived. 😉 (DadRed got to patch up a few Marines and Sailors after “mildly interesting” shore leaves to Olongapo)

  5. Celebrated my 19th b-day in Olongapo. It’s a bit cloudy but I was told we had a blast by the guys who insisted on hauling my drunk ass around. Beers at the Economical Cafe in the morning before going back to the boat. D’Legend bar was a fave.
    Thanks for the memory wake up.

  6. Made that left turn once, 90 degree crosswind from the left leaving runway 07 during a typhoon evac. When we lifted off the plane slewed immediately to a 360 deg heading. Cubi got 90″ of rain a month that summer. It was like living in a sauna.

    Good memories, thanks for posting.

  7. Mike- Yep, LOTS of tattoo parlors out in town!

    Ed- Yes!

    Hawaiian- LOL, it was!

    SoCal- We were there! I was in VP-4 at the time.

    STxAR- Oh yeah…LOL

    Herso- Yep, well before that!

    r- For those that ‘remembered’ them!

    TXRed- Snort… No comment…

  8. Thanks for the photos! I was in civvies heading out when a shipmate snagged me “Hey, they’re looking for you! Something about bouncing a UHF signal over some mountain.” It needed to be encrypted, of course. Sigh. WHY would I believe I could get some time off? Good times. Gawd, I wish I were 50 years younger…

  9. Three WestPacs on two ships. Got pretty good at navigating Olongapo. Used to go to Cubi O Club on occasion to see how “the other half lived”.Grande Island was pretty nice. Never made it to Gaines Beach though.
    Saw Corregidor twice.
    Time and a place long gone.

  10. Robert- LOL…

    Boat- Sadly, that it has. Although the Cubi O club lives in Pensacola in the museum now, but it doesn’t smell like the old days, and the Cubi dogs are the wrong color… sigh…