USS Cambria (LPA 36) - Naval Cruise Book

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GREETINGS . . . I am your host and a gay old blade. I am taller than three boat- swains and far thicker than the Army. I have weighed better than ten tons every day of my life. I have known the shock of the winter Atlantic over my head for days on end. I have shattered the light blue Mediterranean mirror ' til as far as you could see the shivering pieces bent their heads in quick liquid conference. I have watched the garbage lighters and bumboats as well as the barges and gigs that hovered round you. I have sat back idly at Naples and Phaleron Bay and Soudha and Valletta and Golfe Juan and left you to your dalliance. All but a few forgot me for days on end but when it came time to return to the loves you left adock, my response was immediate and my answer was sure and rhythmic . . . steady as a heartbeat . . .or steadier. Yes, I am just a Screw. Oceanic malteds made while-u-wait. Coast lines swapped while-u-wait. Strange faces manufactured while-u- wait. And home returned — while-we-all-wait. But this short work is in a sense my history. It is of the Turn of the Screw . . . the voyage of my charges . . . and, happily, of Return to America. I hope you have as pleasant Mediterranean memories as I have. Sincerely, P.S. I guess you know I could have gotten you home faster. But you know that screw front the White Marsh. SCREW

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Commander Otto C. Schatz, USN Lt. Colonel Walter B. Carr, USMC Commander John B. Nelson, USN Major Francis J. O ' Connor, USMCR

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NORFOLK rjlHE word was out in May . . . TransDiv 24 had drawn Mediterranean duty . . . underway from NORVA about 1 September. Over it, like the girl in the song, all hands had mixed emotions. The intervening months crawled for the single men — hustled by on the married ones. A merry-go-round of EXercises came. The sands of the Little Creek and Onslow beaching areas were numbed by simulated Navy gun-fire and worn smooth as cylinder walls by trained Marine feet. Through a hot T.A.D. and leave filled August the Cambria sat alongside — plying her innards for all eventualities. Canned pineapple, able able common, powdered milk, spare magnetrons and an auxiliary ocean of haze gray paint. USS Vulcan (AR-5) came down from Newport to provide a last tender period. At length, the final load of potatoes (below) was aboard, guys ' families lined adjoining 03 levels (top right), the in-port O.D. skied a thumb and the brow swung clear. One prolonged blast and the tugs started moving the Cambria out like a dispossessed family (right). So long, Pier 3. So long, fresh milk. So long, Cincinnati Reds. So long, New York Daily News and St. Louis Post Dis patch. In due course passed Buoy 2 Charlie Baker and altered course south to scoop up the 1st Battalion 6th Reinforced and re-enact the so long sequence for the men in green at the Marine port of embarkation — Morehead City, North Carolina.