Columbus (CA 74) - Naval Cruise Book

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, ' KlJ JiPit . = B I Ps ifl jt J ; fli 1 :j ii he pale nervous lad, clad in a towel, tensed himself and waited for the inevitable. As the cold sweat dripped down his forehead, his eyes widened, his heart raced madly, and fear had all but overcome him. Suddenly, without warning, it happened — ouch! The little needle had found its way under his skin and it was all over. Shucks, nothing to It after all, exclaimed the lad, regaining his sanity. This little drama was one of many caused by those guys down in Sick Bay; your hi Division. Besides just giving inoculations, there are countless other jobs and specialties this group performs in the interests of treating the sick and injured and preventing disease. Under the direction of C. Rich LT MC USNR and J. D. McMurray LTJG MC USNR of the Medical Department, and G. M. Drew LTJG DC USNR of the Dental Department, this division Is ready to cope with medical or dental emergencies that could arise at anytime. Now while it Is known to all, the usual functions and jobs of the Medical and Dental Department, which are typical of all H Divisions and Naval Hospitals everywhere, one may ask, What of the men In this division? Again we will say typical, because the men are typical of any division on any ship or station. We have our share of racketeers, brown- baggers, lovers, sleepers, bar experts, students, and just plain hard-working, conscientious lads. Sometimes, this group has to work long hours, then at other times, it has it easy; for one can never predict mother nature, accidents, and the number of people In the sick-call line trying to get out of work, but the job is always accom- plished. Between operations, inoculations, simple treatments, inventories and recording, and tooth yanking and plugging, this division manages to have as much fun as any on the beach. As If there were not enough specialties aboard the ship among - Division, already, there are many others when on liberty. But these are far too numerous to mention here, so we will just refer you to the gossip column of our ship ' s newspaper and let it go at that. In closing, let us say we ' re proud of our division, and more so, our ship, for we think the Columbo is the finest afloat, but naturally, we all look forward to getting back to shore duty In the USA and here ' s to it! CREW ' S CONCEPTION OF HOW DIVISION AT WORK •!!. '

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Steel his group of smiling faces is known as the pip jockies or radar men of the King Division, operating the radar gear of the ship along with finding out all possible information from the pips such as courses and speeds and how close the contacts will pass the ship. These are those pale faces you see sneaking in and out of the hole or as it is called in the book, CIC . In our division the officers nearly outnumber the men. The division officer is LT Davies who has four able assistants in LT Randall, LTJG Chisolm, LTJG Moore, and Ensign Short. They were hesitant about tackling us in any sports as they are getting pretty old. They did do a good job, however, in keeping us on the straight and narrow although it was a hard and tedious job. Many of the men took advantage of tours that were available in the different countries. In fact, I wouldn ' t be surprised if the men that went to Paris are still vent to Switzerland to see if there really were mountains as he ' s from Florida where recuperating from it. Bi there ain ' t no such thing. Most of the men tried to buy out most of these countries and came back claiming they had got a real bargain. The fact that the vendres all bought new Cadillacs the next day didn ' t faze them a bit. They still claim they weren ' t taken. We learned- to speak several languages even though it was limited to the all important phrase hello baby . The mystery language was the one spoken by Van and Satch. As to this day no one can understand it. France was probably the best liked country of all of them. It did seem funny though, that Baham, Kaiswe and Olsen all had aunts too. Frenchy Gauthier was an official interpreter even though it looked like he only knew sign language. They claim however, that he could really speak it. One thing for sure was he didn ' t complain about permanent shore patrol nor did Mr. Chisolm who seemed happier with that duty. The division was represented on the ship ' s combo by ' hlot Lips Preissing with his trumpet, Billups with that trombone of his, and Jefcoat with his wild guitar. The ship ' s basketball team had Satch Kander who managed to throw quite a few points during the season. We ' re still wondering why they called him hog. For many of the men this was their first cruise and they looked forward to it while for others it was their last as they have reached the end of their navy career. I ' m sure this cruise will be remembered by all, regardless whether first or last.