Gah, it really was 50 years ago…
Way back this time…
1976, and a fall/winter deployment to Northern Japan…
I think I’d made E-6 a couple of months earlier. And was still trying to figure out the airplane, as I’d gone from a P-3B squadron to a P-3C squadron without benefit of going back through the RAG… Fun times…
Back in the day, you put pins on your hat for every country visited on a deployment.
The wings on the back were traded with a Taiwanese radar operator during a stopover down that way…
Lots of hard flying, between the Panmunjom axe murder incident, which raised the WESTPAC DEFCON, and the possible responses, we went something like 120 days launching at least the ready one every day!
Three memories that stick out from that deployment are the amount of snow, Belenko’s desertion with his Mig-25 and the day we had to do TWO different medivacs down to Yokota in a blinding snowstorm, because the USAF didn’t want to fly their C-9 in bad weather. That was a LONG day…
Off topic rant removed…again…
OK, we have another Ray onboard. This should get interesting. In the Winter of 1975/76 I was half way through my first Keflavik deployment. That was a not so good year in Iceland. Winters seem to be cyclic. Some years Winter is relatively mild. Yeah, it’s freezing outside, but it’s a friendly kind of freezing. Then there are years like 75/76. Snow drifts 8 foot deep, winds that would spin a taxiing P-3 in a heartbeat, 6 inches of ice on the ramp making it almost impossible to find the tie down points for the airplane. Getting anywhere on base, was a survival challenge.
Oh, yes… I was on the Midway that year with VAW-115. I remember VMFP-3 had an RF-4 with a beautiful Bicentenial paint job. We had just pulled into Yokosuka when the Panmunjon incident broke and immediately pulled back out, nearly shooting down a private plane chartered by some reporter as we left. We spent the next month doing alpha strikes on Nightmare range along the DMZ. I later heard that the goal was to make any tunnels unusable. I’m not sure about that but we still dropped a lot of ordinance. Even the A-6 tankers had a couple Sidewinders hung on them along with the buddy packs. I doesn’t seem like 50 years, but it does seem like another lifetime.
Great stories! I was in high school in ’76, but I had my first WESTPAC deployment 10 years later, aboard USS RENTZ (FFG-46) The RENTZ was sent to the bottom of the West Pacific in a SINKEX in 2016—30 years after her first WESTPAC.
Wow, 40 years ago—in June 1986—we were taking part in RIMPAC, followed by some R&R in Hawaii. Our arrival. We did a quick turnaround back home in San Diego and were headed for Pusan. It was supposed to be an abbreviated deployment—there and back again—with our return planned to pass through the far northern Pacific to Alaska, then down the west coast of N. America to San Diego. After we were underway, it was revealed to be a full WESTPAC. After Pusan, we spent weeks in Subic, prepping the ship to be the first US Navy warship to visit the PRC since Mao and the CCP took power. We went there with the REEVES and OLDENDORF and two admirals. REEVES was the flagship of our little party.
In that same deployment, we also took part in ANNUALEX with the Japanese and went through the outer bands of multiple typhoons. Fun!
We were the regular close-in escort for USS RANGER (CV-61). Here’s a photo of RENTZ, taken from RANGER, in Spring of 1986 during an underway refueling, a few days after my 24th birthday. My UNREP station was behind the helmsman, making sure we were responding correctly to commands from the Officer of the Deck. UNREP involved a lot of little course corrections to maintain our position alongside the other ship.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Rentz_and_Ranger_Unrep.jpg
Ray- Ah yes… Kef… sigh
Phil- Interesting! We were seeing the FRAGs for y’all but not the ‘why’!
Bob- Neat!!!
1976. 156th Maintenance Co., Zirndorf, West Germany. Made E-5 late that year. Got to go into the field during REFORGER exercises as driver for our company XO. We were basically go-fers with our jeep and trailer. Got to see a lot delivering parts and C-rats hither and yon.
Interview with Victor Belenko.
Heh. Cat food.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010111004300/http://fullcontext.org/people/belenko.htm
Germany 1964-1966. Made SP-5 in spite of my worst efforts. Float Bridge unit. Twice a year on a Sunday we bridged the Rhine where Patton came across in WWII. Always many vistors.
As power boat operators we used normal navy terms until we had Navy guests. Then it was left, right, back up etc. Fun to watch the sailors stroke out.
All here will appreciate this.
As I mentioned, made E-5. Specifically SP/5. Lasted about five hours.
Buddy and I met at Small Arms Repair School, Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Realizing that we were both raving, foaming-at-the-mouth gun nuts, we requested and got assignment to the same unit. We both got promoted to SP/5 side by side in the same morning formation. Hooah.
Off to the shop as usual. Come 12:00 hours, head for the chow hall. On the way, follow the crowd through company HQ to check the mail room. Half way down the hall, 1stSG barks us to attention, locks our heels against the wall, and gives us full throated lecture on esprit-de-corps, setting the example, and why in hell are we out of uniform. During this, buddy and I are side-eyeballing each other, “What the hell did you DO to piss off Top?”.
After letting us stew for a long pause, he slaps rolled up paper against each of our chests and walks on down the hall cackling to himself. The papers were new orders that had just come in. Our MOS (45B) had just been converted to hard stripe. We were now sergeants.
RHT- Definitely a ‘different’ interview than the one he gave in 76… Never spent much time in Germany, not many subs there! 😉
WSF- LOL, y’all had fun with it, didn’t you???
Ah, the lost ratings! I was an AX. I think they’re all ATs now, along with AQs, AWs, etc.