Coral Sea (CVA 43) - Naval Cruise Book

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Men. . .from all corners of the world and all walks of life Doctors, lawyers, cooks and photographers, journalists, radi- omen and radarmen. Here are pipefitters, coxswains, accountants and Marines, boilertenders, electricians, engineers and yoemeng mechanics, quartermasters, pilots and ordnancemen, stewards and clergy- men. The Mexican, Greek and Australian. Men of all races, creeds and nationalities, skills and avo- cationsg the potential artist and career naval officer. Here are the familiar faces of men who are required by the necessities of a democracy to live and work together in a cacaphonous atmosphere of dedication and indifferance, boredoin, hard work and amusement, and lonliness, in the midst of human congestion and companionship. Working together on this city built to protect a nation are the hands and minds of teenagers and grandfathers. Here are hands maintaining and repairing. Hands always groping, touching, manipulating throttles and swabs, valves, computers and cont- rol sticks, rockets and bombs. Hands holding a prayer book.. And minds always thinking. . .probing. Minds planning and pondering over complex battle problems, seeking better ways of improving the vital skill of waging war. Minds sharing disap- pointments and laughter, dreams and goals, failures and achieve- ments. Here are minds experiencing-some for the first time-the

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Cfffmfz. L!! 1' 4,2 A A , U 0 IQ ft 1 UNITED STATES SHIP CORAL SEA CCVA-435 Unit of the U.S. Seventh Fleet April 3, 1963-November 25g 1963 -xv

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anxieties and hopes which arise during the search for a lost shipmate. In this mixture of sights and sounds, emotions and purpose are the men of a warship which carried them over thousands of miles of ocean to peoples and continents flung far and wide .. . the same warship which provided each man with the wonderous opportunity to experience an infinite variety and richness of impressions and to fill the mind's storehouse with memories which last a lifetime. Hawaii, Australia, the Philippine Islands, Guam, Japan and Okinawa. The customs and accents all varied, but rare was the man who found himself a stranger in any of these lands. For there is no strangeness in the familiar eyes of countless Japa- nese and Australian orphans who visited the ship. Eyes univer- sal in their expressions of wonder and awe. Nor were there feelings of strangeness among the American sailors and Aus- tralian girls who found themselves in love...or in the minds of men who returned to lands and, oceans which echoed personal memories of a war and the familiar names of its battlegrounds. Leyte Gulf, Midway and Mindanao, Coral Sea and the South' ern Cross. Here is the story-told pictorially-of eight months in the life of a warship during peacetime. Still preparing to defend the United States of America.