Moale (DD 693) - Naval Cruise Book

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IFLAPEX The biggest pcrforn lance of the year was callcc FLAPEX. It w ired two dress rehearsals that had every- thing the real thing had but the audience. We w ere putting show offeree, a nd the theme of the play was Power for Pat . The players ncluded just about every unit of the fleet. Iron the sleek subm rines to the ungainly amphib . The occa- sion was Sixth Flee t ' s Twentieth Anniversary i thc Med. Out role was rclativ civ small, but it had its own spectacular qual tics It was una zinglv simple. As soon as the announcer stopped talking we alew our whistle, pulled the trigger and e-fired two rack of hedgehogs into the air. It was more of it tor us than for the spectators since wc had n ever seen it don. culler and we v ere closer to the action.

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But it was not all ASW. The time was approaching when COMSIXTHFLT would call on his ships to operate at peak performance, and the Commodore wanted to be ready. Thus it was, midshipmen and OOD ' s were put through the mill and helmsmen were harried with quickly changing commands as the squadron conducted hours of maneuvering exercises called DIVTACS. All this was in preparation for the biggest event of them all. On the Mid- watch of 22 June, fully psyched fot the days ahead, we sped through the of Messina, three ships in the wake of USS COLUMBUS (CG-12), at the unbelievable speed of twenty kn

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The rest 3 f the she. w was equally succ •ssful. Ba ley and Claude V. Ricket s shot a drone out o the air with ive display of five nch fire power, while the Columb is with her ASROC and Zellars w th her D sh demonstrated n ore moc ern ASW we aponry as the flagship steamed pas the firing lint . The car iers, of course, put on a sho voftheitow n. The highhg hrofth show, howe ver. was the P ass-in-Rc ' lew. Here the enti e fleet in full dress asse mblcd in two column abreast and each unit got o take its curtain call as Little Rock passed in betv. een the ranks