Hard to believe this was 51 years ago… sigh…
Digging WAY back in the vault…
Of memories, and the few operating brain cells that remember…
Setting the way back machine to 1974-5 thanks to a conversation last night with an old shipmate, he sent me a picture of the bar map from Olongopo, RP from 1973 (note- These were probably good for two or three days… Then somebody would change their bar’s name, and the Shore Patrol would have to go re-do it). Sorry it’s basically unreadable, and can’t be blown up any further!
There were over 100 bars and ‘restaurants’ in about 4-5 blocks of Magsaysay… interestingly, ‘our’ bars were on the first street to the right, Gordon Avenue, and NONE of them are listed…LOL
The picture below is from the cruise book from 1975, kinda says it all… The Mayaguez rescue, Jenny the donkey in Diego Garcia, and a monkey in the BOQ at Cubi eating popcorn it had stolen from a room…
The donkey loved beer, and would actually drink it from the can (until she got too drunk, then she’d go lean against the Butler hut that was our ‘hangar’)…
A ‘normal’ road trip was 6 weeks, 7 countries and about 11-12,000 miles of just transits, not counting the operational flying…
Fun stuff, and good memories (the bad ones have been long forgotten)! An interesting side note, we never called ourselves ‘combat’ air crews, just alpha crews (You had to complete multiple qualifications to meet all the requirements to actually be certified to perform all the P-3’s missions), unlike the specialized crews today…
We could have a surveillance flight one day and an ASW flight two days later, or a mining evolution…
Love that all the bars you went to were the unlisted ones. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me, not even a little. 😉
I could make out shit river , the rest is too small , I always went up the hill to Subic City , Barrio Barrieto. I can’t remember the color code transfer from jeepney to jeepney to get there . Oh God Monkeys , I was a monkey magnet , I’ll spare you the repeated stories. There was a bar on magsaysay that had an entrance like an apple and you walked through the core to get in . Minda’s Bos’n Locker up in Subic was a favorite hangout , friendly people , one time the three stooges came on tv over the bar and the bar girls absolutely lost their minds laughing , never seen anything like it . Oh yeah the White Rock (resort) was a very relaxing hangout. Good Times oh oh delaga , wahlung tyee . Spelling ain’t right . Thanks for the memory inducer Sir !!
Ag- Snort…
Boats- Ah yes, the ‘memories’! Nina’s Papagayo for food!
Surveillance and ASW I understand, but what is a mining evolution?
I suspect it means practicing deploying naval mines by airdropping them from the P-3
Made the first Cubi deployment in ’71 after they moved everything over from Cavite (Sangley Point). We did a split deployment that trip. I can remember the VP bar off to the right off Magsaysay but for the life of me can’t remember the name.
We had two mining crews in VP-1 at the time, Us (Crew 7A) and crew 5. Crew 5 was the screw-up crew and we picked up their slack. We would take the used exercise mines up to the mine shop at Naha and pickup ready exercise mines to fly back to Cubi and drop on a MINEX. Crew 5 loaded their mines backward so we helped them download and reload. Almost missed our arrival time on the MINEX, put 100% of our mines in the box and crew 5 missed every box.
I went twice. I only remember two bars but I was never much of a drinker so Olongopo didn’t hold much charm for me. I remember that the first one the mama-san made a beeline for me, presumably since I was a bit older and maybe that made me more obviously an O. All the guys around me had cute girls on their laps, I had grandma. Probably just as well, kept me from getting in trouble. Also Bullfrog and the other one, which I can never remember. Monkey on a stick. About my only memories. Oh, and balut at the second bar we hit, but I’d been forewarned.
Second trip. Pinatubo had erupted so we were evacuating dependents. No liberty, just multiple trips with seasick civilians down to Cebu. Just did a quick search and discovered that it was actually called Operation Fiery Vigil. I don’t remember that either.
D’Legend bar
The Economical restaurant-coldest San Magoo you could find.
What was the fancier restaurant up by Cubi?
Turned 19 in Olongapo in ’73. Man what a ride!
Thanks for the memory jog