Randolph (CVA 15) - Naval Cruise Book

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PROLGGUE This is the Mare Nostrum, the mother of a hundred kingdoms, the cradle of humanity. A thousand of Mankindfs greatest dramas have unfolded upon the stages of these waters, for these are the waters that swirled in the passage of a pharaoh's barge and eddied in the wake of a trireme of Caesar. These same waters bore many a Homeric hero to Troy and triumph, then transported the mighty hordes of Xerxes to doom on the plains of lklarathon. From distant Ophir came the copper-laden ships of Solomon, from Sidon and Tyre the spices for Imperial Rome. Long after the collapse of the noble Attic civilization and the division and decay of the Roman Empire, the struggle for the Alediter- ranean .still continued. llloors, Saracens and crusaders all took their turn before the footlights. Napoleon strode forth upon these waters to challenge the world, and within our own lifetime il duce dreamed of turning this inland sea into a. Fascist Lake. But these waters have borne foundations of a more enduring sort for Peter and Paul travelled this way also. In short, kings and emperors, Popes and doges, sultans and slzahs have all wrestled since time immemorial for control of these troubled waters, and each one of us aboard the Randolph, brushing aside for a moment our perennial complaints, can be proud to belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity.

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mv- CAPT BERNARD M STREAN C 0ll1Il1Il7Illf77g Ojicer -1

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.,,,.,,.,., , . wr CDR WILLIAM B MORTON Executive Ojfcer K,, .V N fi A nn S 5 I , wi