Hamner (DD 718) - Naval Cruise Book

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RADARMEN-Back Row: ACKERMAN HENDRICKS POE CLARK JENNINGS PURDY, Front Row. RUDE, GODWIN, MACDOUGALL, GONZALES, Missing. GLUCK. RADARMEN Interrogative flash brown is the call in quest of hot fresh coffee by the sleepy back sore radarman sitting before his PPI searching for traces of a contact that will inject some life into his watch. Hot coffee seems to be the universal Navy stimulant to long, repetitious, ever occurring watches, and the veteran radarman knows well that the effectiveness of the stimulant is directly proportional to the flash brown .fre- quency. In our CIC CCombat information Centerj, the home of the radar gang, it is always dark, as we find it necessary to turn off all lighting, the clear plastic status boards and maneuvering tables excepted, to facilitate continuous search on the green fluorescent PPI scopes of the air and surface search radars. With the lights dim we ask, How can anybody keep from becoming sleepy g so bring on the coffee! I! Combat's mission is to provide the Captain, through the Officer of the Deck, with the necessary information of all tactical events external to but directlyconcerning the HAMNER. Steaming in formation with other ships, we must be alert to pick off tactical signals in the air whether coming in by flag hoist, signal light or voice radio, break the meaning of the signal, rapidly work out the maneuvering board problem and send course and speed solutions to the OOD on the bridge FAST before he starts bellowing down the voice tube. As the HAMNER maneuvers combat must send up timely infor- mation concerning course adjustments, the guide's range and bearing when on station, the exact time for returning to base course and speed to avoid overshooting station, etc. As the OOD is keenly concerned with collision possibilities, he demands to be informed of the ranges and bearings to and the courses, speeds and CPA's of every surface contact and will send back a terse rebuttal for every wrong piece of data submitted. Surveillance of aircraft is done around the clock, and while at General Quarters it is we who distinguish friendly from unfriendly aircraft, advise the OOD and Gunnery Officer of firing sectors and gun warning conditions and provide the gun directors with initial range, bearing and elevation from which to begin their target acquisition. Whenever continuous navigation must be done, whether entering or leaving port, steer- ing in restricted waters or patrolling an assigned offshore station, combat plots radar fixes on charts over the same DRT table used for plotting ASW, ECM and SAR tracks. While doing all this we also bear with and contribute to the squealing intermittent dialogue of the various Cl voice radio circuits which we use to pass contact and raid reports, secondary tactical information and administrative traffic between the CIC's of the accompanying ships to eliminate undue traffic on bridge tactical radio circuits. N-Qt. Iwi f my ii L fini: 'rl7i'iY' xvl I fN gy lv vi 'E

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I 'Qi fx Q dd- X so i bm - C J V SHE? cfffE,J! L-' 'X' FF f if-f-L E A ag C ff SDNARMEN Front Row GRIGGS HOVER A D HODGE EWU? ,A Back Row:-wnno, T. 'M., REEVES, ENS. DAMERONZ Closing the WILTSIE with a relative speed of over fifty knots on a SONARMEN Except for occasional maintenance to the hedge hog projectors and the depth charge racks, we sonarmen have little affinity for the fresh ocean breeze topside. Our preference, quite naturally, is to remain within the confines of our kingdom, the sonar shack, where, in addition to our acoustic-electronic equipment by which submarine detection and attack is possible, we maintain an ample supply of magazines, books, candies, cookies, peanuts, etc., plenty of hot coffee, a mattress for off hours snoozing, various varieties of shoe shining materials, and, best of all, a unique amount of privacy from the bustling activity topside. During operations with the Seventh Fleet it is our beam to beam search sweeps by either echo ranging or hydrophone listening which provide the HAMNER with its first warning of impending actual or practice subma- rine attack, and, during the contact portions of these operations, the accurate use of additional depth determining and solution generating equipment makes a rapid succession of attacks not only possible but commonplace. Having operating knowledge of our equipments and being proficient in visual or audio differentiation between the peculiar traits of old wake, water inversion layers, schools of fish and the first telltale traces of a submarine compose only half of our job with the other involving maintenance of our equipments, whether for normal cleaning or for complicated rewiring. Having worked well as a team through many ASW exercises, we feel strongly that, regardless of how close the scrutiny or terse the comments across the conference tables, over foaming beer- steins at the club or wherever ASW maneuvers are discussed, the HAMNER's ASW reputation, thanks to us, will always remain amongst the best. clear hot tropical day, just -north of the equator, we torpedomen were offered the slim opportunity of staking out of HAMNER's first claim for an E during this competitive year. For the past few years, the results of our shoots had been sadly disappointing despite the countless hours spent carefully lubricating the torpedoes and tubes, chipping and paint- ing the mount and director, aligning the computers and aiming devices, testing out the propelling motors, recharging the compressed air and running through many practice dry runs. While we waited nervously on the mount and director, keeping the WILTSIE lined up in the sights and applying the proper range, and bearing corrections, the bridge suddenly made a radical maneuver to gain a better firing position, settled on a course and gave us permission to fire. The torpedo burst out in a cloud of compressed air, settled perfectly into the water and except for the wisp of air trailing on the surface well behind it, withdrew from our view. Long seconds passed while we waited, with crossed fingers, for the announced results. Hit, directly below my 422 stack was passed excitedly over the pri-tae. WE DID IT! WE DID IT! Finally, after years of famine, we've obtained our just reward. ' x NV' 4 ul C9 Q37 X I TORPEDOMEN-Front Row: MANN, C. A., DECOUD, DIEHLg Back Row: Q 9 BUSHART, ENS CAMERON, DUCHARME, GRAGEg Missing: KETTERINGHAM. me if

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RADIOMEN- Back Row: LAKE, BENNETT, WERNER, MCBRIDE, ENS WILLIAMS: Front Row: LOUVIER, HARBERT, BOSS, HELMS, L. I. RADIOMEN To be able to convert the buzz of dots and dashes thumping into our ears onto a neat printed message in the typewriter before us is one of the many tricks of the radioman's trade. Of course, trying to accomplish this trick successfully while the second man of the watch, the messenger, is out routing the message board and the bridge is hollering over the squawk box for adjustments to their voice radio circuits is another story, generally of frustration and anguish. lt is on our shoulders that the maintenance of radio communications with the ships in company and the naval communications stations ashore rests, and it is within the crowded radio central, containing sixteen receivers, four transmitters, two teletypes, typewriter tables and work desk areas, patch and antenna coupler panels, status boards, drawers for spares, tools and the various communica- tion publications, bins for current messages and boxes upon boxes upon boxes of back message files, that the communication activity of the HAMNER is centered. ln fact, radio central is so crowded that we've overflowed in to the adjacent radar transmitterlroom, and we are eyeing temptingly the fire control radar room across the passagewey. Except for inport periods, all voice communications are administered from the remote control units of either the bridge or CIC. Our headaches arise from maintaining these voice circuits at peak performance on the proper frequen- cles despite the fact that we aren't using them, from keying out by Morse code our administrative messages over the CW circuits, and from watching the ship-shore teletype Fox-skeds for all mes- sages concerning the HAMNER whether they be operational immediate encrypted schedules changes or routine telegrams from families at home rendering to any one of our crew news of good fortune, complicated domestic problems or distressing sorrow. Every message coming to or leaving the HAMNER must be written up in a smooth multicopy form for dogged routing to the various concerned officers, sometimes the most difficult of people to locate. Though reduced in strength during the latter part of the cruise from eight men to five by two schools and Boss' broken leg, we were never found lacking in endurance to satisfactorily maintain our important communica- tions guard at all times! ,E if 55.- Q7