Ranger (CVA 61) - Naval Cruise Book

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l'iC 22 XDEPARTURE ODYSSEY ships, etc. A deployment, a cruise, a WestPac . . . all these are terms attributed to a ship's travels overseas, but a more accurate word might be an odyssey. When a ship like Ranger goes overseas for eight months her crew does travel quite a bit, they do endure hardships and most certainly they enjoy many notable experiences. A Western Pacific deployment is truly an Odyssey. ski '-,,,.N Od-ys-sey fod'isej, n. 1. an epic poem attributed to Homer, describing Odysseus' adventures in his ten-year attempt to return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. 2. any long series of wanderings, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hard- But every odyssey, no matter what its length, has got to have a beginning. For Ranger there were a series of beginnings, each significant in its own way. As far back as January 1975 we began getting Ranger in shape to make an overseas journey. After that, we had the task of preparing ourselves to fight the ship. Our Engineers had to get the ship ready for its numerous propulsion tests. The rest of Ranger's crew had to polish their skills in their particular departments CVW 2 Ranger s air wing had to begin learning to operate with ship s company personnel once again ln other words Ranger had to start functioning as a team ggvq ., . . . . l

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A ,I ..t,f-Q.-,.ne That morning, as we made final prep- arations for our departure, a 7,300 mile trek lay before us. As we said our final goodbyes the thought at the back of our minds was that this trek would take us half a world apart from our families, friends, and loved ones. As we eased silently away from the pier, and the people across the water became just a blur of faces, we knew our Odyssey had begun. DEPARTUREf23 After we had perfected all our skills engineering, flying, fighting, supplying typing, feeding, communicating, navigat ing, healing, painting and operational co ordination, there was still one more be ginning. But that would not come until the first line was cast off on January 30 1976. The upcoming 10-day transit to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii would be a long one. Not because it was 10 days but because we had been sit ting pierside for more than a month. And in those 10 days we'd have the chance to renew old friendships between airwing and ship's company. It also gave us time to make the transition into being 0 sailors again. 'x ..