Coral Sea (CVA 43) - Naval Cruise Book

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A refrain in the lives of Navy Men... Q 4 lf. H' 1 a . 4 I 1 A U ,ai N L! Q3

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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.

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It had to happen sooner or later and now it was time. Sailors and their well-wishers made the customary parting gestur- esg there were embraces and handshakes, pleadings to write often and warnings to take it easy and stay out of trouble. For some it was something new to be going far away for so long from a cable car, friend, loved one, clumsy pet, self- shingled roof or confounded TV set. For others it was an inevitability with which they had learned to live. And still for others it- was ..... why? I