Fascinating thread and a million miles away
from anything I have experienced. I would not
even join the cub scouts! And yet, and yet..
I have been a small part of the system. My
first job after leaving school found me in
an armament depot cleaning mark 8 torpedo
parts. I used a wire brush and parafin to
remove storage gunge so the thing could be
rebuilt and checked out by the fitters.
It was fascinating getting to know how they
worked, air driven gyroscopes and all.

Twelve years later after an apprenticeship
and collegs I was at a new firm. I had to
get up to speed testing some gubbins that
went in the exocet missile as the overseer
was coming to check a sample of the latest
batch. I got through all right.

Then 4 years later the Royal Navy used
mark 8's in anger. Probably not any I worked
on but still. Then HMS Sheffield was done for!
Well that made me neutral I suppose. Two very
lovely ladies who had assembled hundreds of
the things had a sombre discussion I noticed.

I was of course over awed by the professional
acheivements of the services. But it all
seemed so damn silly. I had lived through the
Moon landing and sinking ships belonged in
the time before I was born. I thought!

I worked for over 10 years with a former Nuc electrician on the Halibut who served from '64 to '69. He always maintained secrecy involving a certain mission, the now (somewhat) declassified Operation Sand Dollar. He still refuses to answer questions about it.

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

HI, We don't call it " The Silent Service " for nothing.

Dan

Aww, more like the "Silent But Deadly" service.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

We used to sneak over there at night and smoke weed in the conning tower.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin

The Marines at then NAS Miramar would watch you for at least ten or twenty minutes through night vision gear before busting dumass sailors smoking up in the baseball dugouts. Like every weekend. No lights at all but no cover either. Sailors is stoopid.

There is a small spider on my monitor and I'm teasing it with the mouse pointer. Weird it can see it.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

As far as comfort goes though, I think I had it best on the Love Boat, a.k.a. USS Acadia AD-42, destroyer tender. We had enough freshwater to supply four ships--Hollywood showers every day and real plates to eat off of. In the daytime, there was vollyball, and shuffleboard; at night, there were ice cream socials and star-gazing. We even had a secret hot tub up by the stack. Good duty if you can get it.

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin