Point Cruz (CVE 119) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 41 text:

I wasn't much good at reading the radar either, but a sec-ond class QM tried to show me-for an hour-how he to-ok a fix on the radar scope and then checked it with the Ioran. But even if I didn't get the gist of the business, the coffee they scr-ounged out -of the signal gang was good, and the charts they used for navigating weren't too hard to read. I Icept caIIing them maps even after I got c-orrected on that score. After aII, they were just big overgrown road maps on fancy paper-and they didn't tell the tourist spots to visit either. But ab-out a month Iater I made seaman: then I started to call them charts, too. It was about this time my chit went through. I was transferred to M divi- sion in engineering. On the bridge the watches had been wonderfully cooI. In the engine room it was warmer . . .

Page 40 text:

navigation . . . my transfer chit lay in the gun boss's basket for a week. Then he wrote, repIace- ment required before transfer, across the top -of it. But the time went fast, for we were out at sea, and there were no working parties. I sto-od messenger watches on the bridge most of the time, occasi-onally taking the helm during the day-under supervision Ithey hadn't forgotten my career of one day as a c-oxswainl. There was lots of spare time to kill so I watched the quartermasters and the navigator take the sun sights in the morning or shoot the stars just after the sun went down. In fact I almost changed my chit for a transfer t-o navigation until I saw the logs they kept and tried to figure out the true wind on a plastic maneuvering board. Mathematics wasn't my strong point, so I forgot about that transfer soon enough-

Page 42 text:

n division . . . watchers of the stars and sea and of the clocks-minute by minute for accuracy- and to find out when the watch is over. biographers . . . the avoided shoals . . . the times of arrival, seldom missed. the buzz of they gyro alarm . the ping of the fathometer ever present . . . between watches sunbathing on the signal bridge, a bit of paint work to do or a daytime snooze in the admiral's chair . . . then the early morning in the fog and the ticks of the stop watch before the next blast of the whistle.