Haynsworth (DD 700) - Naval Cruise Book

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VENICE. ITALY Arriving early on the morning of January 6th, the ship was moored in the Canal Di San Marco, several thousand yards from the entrance to the Canale Grande CGrand Canall, and almost directly abeam of the best known place on a tourist's itinerary, Venice's artistic center and meeting place, the Piazza San Marco with its enclosing famous buildings. A few of these are, the Basilica oi San Marco, the Campanile, the Clock Tower, and the -Ducal Palace. Since the city of Venice itself is built on numerous small islands the buildings in most parts of the city are built to the Weter's edge to form straight sided canals. Gondolas are still the principal means of transportation and every sailor made it a point to take at least one ride in these outsized canoes. It was strange indeed to wander through a city where not one wheeled vehicle was seen. ' q Perhaps the better remembered things at Venice will not be its canals and buildings and visits to the glass factories and its tourist rigged shops, but the food and drinks Harry's Bar, the Luna Hotel cocktail lounge, duty office: of Shore Patrol, and that beautiful dozen and a half roses sent in Bon Voyage compliments from a famous citizen. CGRTINA DPLMPEZ. 0 Probably the tours that were the most successful of all were those to Cortina. This wonderful and famous mountain resort is situated high in the Dolomites in northern Italy. Ceded to Italy after the First World War. Cortinafs population is predominately Austrian. Cortina is not just a resort for winter sports. The Italians love to go there in the summer to escape the heat that is the lot 01 all Mediterranean countries. Hunting is good in the woodland and fish are abundant in the mountain streams. However, with three full size ski runs and several of the practice variety in addition to the impossible ones they save for olympic competition, Cortina is most famous as a fabulous snow-tirne resort. Some of us will remember Cortina as the place we almost broke our necks learning to ski. The hotel service is better in Italy than any country in the world. The average price in the resort is about four thousand Lire a day with full pension Call mealsl. That equals about gf6,40. Perhaps there are places more beautiful than Cortina, but the guys that went there on tour doubt it. No description could do justice to the towering peaks and the beautiful town. 'Q

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I v 1 1 1 g ! I 5. gg it 1 1950 ou see everyone scurrying to either the mess hall or the - t 17 . ' , Ejzgerspvllxggf-Ztaigoigiey goigg? Why friend, they are all going to .the movies. i fan liiovies are swell moral boosters: when you are feeling down in the mouth Just go ' d f t our troubles for awhile. . y to tgiumgvag gslk wclffe we get the movies. Well, when in port we get them from a motjgn picture exchange ship, usually a tender. When at sea we transfer them among 0 .V .I they various ships with which we might be operating. I E- S Wh shows the movies? The movie operators may come frcm any division as lang o 33 they have gone to movie operators's school and are qualified to run tne machine. On our ship they are all electricians. In case you run into them sometime their names T 1 , L uis Bergeron, David Reynolds, and Louis Stellflug. - are gtziclthiniyttiley have done a swell job of keeping the ship happy. Thankis a lot fellows. MAIL CALL Il' you want to make a service man happy while he is away from home, all you need to do is write him a letter. When you can't talk or be with a person, a letter is the best way to send your feeling to him. When you are thousands of miles away from your friends and loved ones your heart leaps with joy when you receive a letter from them, and better still when a package is received it makes you feel good deep inside to know there is someone that loves you and has taken the pains to make up a cake, cookies, or candy. MAIL CALL is a welcome sound when a person has been away from home any length of time. Mail is a woonderful service, and by far the best morale builder on a ship. Our mail is carried by naval air transports and sometimes the service is surprisingly fast. On the other hand, due to a shortage of transport planes, our mail sometimes arrives a little late. Better late than never we always say, because without our sugar reports the best recreation program in the world couldn't keep our morale up. . I , All mail going overseas is flown to Port Lyautey, French Morocco, which serves as a fleet post office for ships operating in the Mediterranean area. The mail is sorted there and flown to the various portsthrough-out the Mediterranean wherever the ships are located. The average time for a letter to reach a port somewhere is the area is around ten days. Mail has been received in as few as five and as many as twenty-five days. 'From Suda Bay the ship went to Iraklion, Crete, located about fifty miles to the eastward, where the mail for ships anchored in Suda Bay was being flown in. We picked up the mail and upon our return, they I-IAYNSWORTH was met- and followed to its anchorage by motor launches from ships of the Sixth fleet. which were anxiously awaiting their mail. It was after our second mail run to Iraklion we rendezvous at Sea with the Sixth Fleet ShiDS and spent all of one day and half of another transfering mail at sea. It was lots of hard work, but good experience for our ship. ' We wish to thank all our friends and loved ones for the wonderful packages we received while we were at Naples, Italy. Each package carried with it a feeling of Christmas ,spirit and good cheer. The ship was soon covered with fruit cake, cookies, and fudge. Each package opened seemed to fill the air with just that much more good old Christmas feeling. I ' Our ship's post office is equipt to handle 'every thing from the sale of stamps and money orders to registered mail and parcel post but one of the biggest jobs in the post oifice is answering the question, When do we get mail? . A ship's basketball team was organized while we were in Dry Dock in Gibraltar with R.L. Benbow, YN3, acting as team captain and coach. Due to lack of practice and time to get organized, we lost our first game to the USS ROOSEVELT by a score of 62-31 Since then the team has shaped up much better and to date we have won six of the nine games that we have played. It is generally felt by each member of the team that we can go far in the coming DesLant tornament if given the opportunity. Following, are the names of the teams we have played and the scores. USS ROOSEVELT 62 TURKISH ARMY CISTANBULJ 63 Basket' RHODES GREECE COMMUNITY TEAM 28 b BRITISH ARMY CCYPRUSJ 30 HAYNSWORTH 31 HAYNSWORTH 89 HAYNSWORTH 44 HAYNSWORTH 58 Team BRITISH ARMY KCYPRUSJ 20 HAYNSWORTH 64 USS WALDRON 25 HAYNSWQRTH 31 USS CAMBRIA CMARINESJ 74 ITALIAN CIVILIAN POLICE CTRIESTED 29 U.S. ARMY MILITARY POLICE CTRIESTEJ 44 I-IAYNSWORTH 50 HAYNSWORTH 35 HAYNSWORTH 38 Team members are as follows: TODD, E-L-, SN sAi.UsKI WR SN 'LTJG BJ MILLER IQEEIEEYLS, A.R.,- ErsN LANG, B.W., ETSN LTJG RJ... STOEQKER MGC , .D., Rnsm LTJG R.L. s'roEcKER BENBOW, RL.. YN3 1 W' E-Cu SN ENS H.F. COLENDA . . .. 1 - , .il '1',..?s.2ir. .i'. .aR1f.-ffs if gg :-.':..-f' 4- i

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1 'I' R I E v S T E This cruise will furnish material for many sea stories in the future. The tales of Trieste will not be unlike the liberty - bigger and better than all others. We encountered more Americans here than in any other port. The reason, of course, is that the Free Territory of Trieste is administered by the Allied Military Government and there are some q5,000 U. S. Troops in the area. Trieste became a free territory in 1945 when the British and U. S. troops took over from the New Zealand detachment that had received the area by surrender frorn the occupying Germans. A i The administration of the Free Territory is divided between Great Britian, United States and Yugoslavia. The city of Trieste proper is all within' the British controlled sector. - There will be many tales to tell. Undoubtedly many of them will involve one, or many, of the beautiful Triestine girls that are so abundant here. Perhaps the highlight of our visit was the two ship's parties that were held at the Sugar Bowl. Our own band furnished the music and the Army's special service section supplied the dancing partners. A group of European artists entertained us with a most enjoyed 45-minute floor show. The Army did much to make our visit enjoyable. They opened the doors of their clubs, bowling alleys, gymnasium, and other facilities to us. . The cruise, as far as liberty ports are concerned, ended with Trieste. No other port could have been more appropriate.