Navy vessels on the Mississippi & Ohio Rivers

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Not to eat, but to play with, in a pit, with members of the opposite sex. I may be old, but my imagination is still quite active.

[RichardKCMo]

Both to eat and Ahem!! with.
You guys crack me up having never been in the army.
Having a crazy cousin though that was ind. wealthy from an invention though.

He aquired a lifeboat from an old lake freighter , and was a carpenter also as was his Father , on a liberty ship.
He had to work with concrete, so he painted a water line on this thing , and ordered a truck of ready mix for ballast and poured until.

Wayne , his heartbreak that week was he had to dump a good portion of the load.

Just wouldn't hold that much, before computers you know, even if you lick the lead anyways.

What i was going to say was all i know about boats is 1st hand.

RichardKCMo

[Gene East]

Not only can concrete be used as ballast, hulls can actually be poured from concrete.

On my assigment to Green Cove Springs, I saw several ships with concrete hulls.

If you displace the weight over large enough area, I supposed most anything will float.

[Smokin' Joe]

My dad was radar technician on the carrier Monterey, Halsey's Fleet. Went to Okinawa, Tokyo. After the war he was allergic to 'Navy beans'. Our racing interest started with his Chris Craft kit boat and 25 Johnson around 1955, a friend had a similar rig but my dad's was always faster. We had the luck to participate in NOA racing during the birth of OPC around Knoxville 1958-1960. He grew up cutting tobacco on a farm, had two pairs of jeans, wore jeans again in the navy and refused to wear jeans afterward. At races he rolled up his long sleeved starched white shirt sleeves, and the legs of his gabardine pants and then drove barefoot. He wasn't stiff, he just hated blue jeans after the navy. He won races in white shirt and gabardine pants. But he wasn't a mechanic, I was the mechanic.

My Dad was a carpenter working in the Panama Canal zone when WWII broke out. He enlisted in the navy. I'm not sure of all the islands he was on, but I do know he was at Guam, Siapan and Okinawa. His job was following behind the island hopping invasions and repair landing craft for the next move. I think he must have been on Saipan for awhile though like in a central repair docks because him and the guys in his unit were able to "soup up" one of the boats that took people around in the corner, and it was the fastest boat of its type on the base. After the commander saw how fast it was, it became the boat he used to be shuttled around in. I forget all the kinds of landing craft he worked on, but there are more different types than people may realize, from the great big ones to the ones you usually see coming up on the beaches. They each had their specialized uses. That's something else to think that you and that gentlman may have walked on that very LST Gene. My Dad liked spam and when he was first learning to cook for us kids, he did the easy to cook navy food including SOS.

[Roy Hodges]

I served MY time in the Air Force , (1958-1962) and I liked S O S !

[jeff55vDSH]

An LST stopped at the Quad Cities on the Mississippi this fall. I veiwed it from the outside only. Too big of a line waiting to get into it. I hate standing in line. Maybe that's my own side affect from the Navy. No complaints about my time in the service though. What an adventure! And a learning experience.
(Also, I had enough S.O.S. in the Navy to last a lifetime!)

[Gene East]

Jeff,
The ship you saw in Quad Cities was the same one I toured in Hannibal.
We had a long line there as well. My opinion was the wait was well worthwhile.
Perhaps my knowlege of the Hannibal riverfront and the location of all the heads (restrooms) helped

[racnbns]

I was in the Navy from 1952 to 1955[kiddy cruise]. My home port was Sheboygan WI. The navy had a fleet of ships that were manned by reg. navy and trained the naval reserve. There were about 7or8 ships in the fleet. There were about 4 PCE a couple of DE one LSM. We would cruise from late aplil to late Oct., then go in the shipyard for repairs and then home to our homeport for the winter and routine work.

Joined the navy to see the world and saw the great lakes!

Bruce

[Gene East]

Bruce,

The important factor here is:

The Navy got to see you!!

Happy New Year old friend!

[fbref5269]

bruce,

what was the navy afraid of in the 50's an invasion from canada?

have a happy new year!

frank