John Thomason (DD 760) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 19 text:

F4 I 4 ,+ ww- , ,f W li ,, ' - W, :ef I y X T f ' MH , F ' X- --r ' N its X T - fa Villwmcfyfnif WAS, . W an , , A .ifvkrv 1 -ff, . wif !ww!fw7'wf, ,wx f f - 1' -w Q ,J--f W Wfwuff ,J ,V f fn. fr .Q-,X w - ,sez -X X, t fm, ,hw . , 1 , Q f .N , ,... - 1 . ' Q is gnffflgl 'F' ,X.1f-offnklxfkf f ,f,,ffL,f ' ' V . 'ft 35 .,,. l wwtv -r x k N,w S,Sx,,g K f , 71 .Nu Q4 X A Q N 0 i. --M ff? f 55: MN . ' ' ly , ' , ,slr - 1 'R 'f ' NA , , fl, ' '15-:if ' - zfl. , K TNFN-YN f r we f ' fsffwb 1 ' by -ver it , M r - -I 'ntl-Q '5 J ' L :ff rv-if' ,fi- Nothing short of acid is more corrosive on metal than salt water, and no one knows this better than the men of the deck force. Chip- ping, scraping, and painting are continuous jobs on any ship. Though this task is la- borious, the boatswain's mates kept the THOMASON looking sharp throughout the cruise. The deck force is an integral part of many of our evolutions. They take care of the raising and lowering of the anchor, launch- ing and retrieving of the motor whale boat, and they man numerous stations during pilot rescue, plane guard, and replenish- ment details. Deck force personnel also man many of the stations in the gun mounts, magazines, and handling rooms when the Fighting John is at GQ or on shore bombardment assignments. They therefore hefted a lot of powder and shells over in Viet Nam. Since new men to the fleet usually start off in the deck force, there are a lot of humor- ous incidents involving deck personnel who haven't yet acquired some salt. A lot of men are on the short end of traditional sailing pranks such as standing mail buoy watch , chasing down batteries for the sound pow- ered phones, hunting for relative bearing grease, etc.

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eck Division FRONT ROW: SA McClung, SA Jones, SN Valasco, BM3 Boehme, SN Huclspeth, BM3 Moore, SN Brown, SECOND ROW SN Struggs, SA Hallowell, SA Link, SA Wiggins, SA Regles, SA Aston, SA Kramer, THIRD ROW: SA Hawley, SA Frank Howser, SA Thomas, Cates, SN Riley, SA McHug , SA McCloud, SA Leach, SA Kem.

Page 20 text:

fa. if x , ' f Now what did I do with my brush? get Q x.x.xXXxLxx Many times, their innocence alone gets them into trouble. This was the case with SA 'McClung while standing starboard look out watch up on the signal bridge. The weather and the seas were nasty at the time, so McClung stood behind the range- finder on the director for some partial shelter. It just so happened, however, that the FT's were checking out their TDS designation at the time. QThe TDS causes the director to rotate very quickly to what ever bearing it transmits.D They, subse- quently, accepted designation, thereby causing the rangefinder arm that McClung was leaning against to spin quickly back- ward. McClung was pushed over backwards, and went sliding across the signal bridge on his posterior--stopping abruptly when he ran out of phone cord. i X A 3, Af X I f K 16 I 1 x Z W