Ticonderoga Apollo Recovery (CVS 14) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 46 text:

Souvenirs and phone calls . Another way of celebrating the special event of TICONDEROGA's recovery of Apollo 16 was for the TICO Post Office to issue a first day Apollo 16 splashdown cover commemorating this very important occasion. This was the largest, most arduous job the crew of the TICONDEROGNS Post Office has handled to date. Over 20,000 cached requests were processed on the ship. What made this job so difficult was the fact that cancellation of the envelopes had to wait until splashdown actually occured just in case the recovery date changed. To the men of the TICO Post Office, Well Done , for an outstanding job.

Page 45 text:

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Page 47 text:

Hello Honey C I I ! Q Located on the starboard side of hanger bay number 2 was a blue van with thelword MARS written across it. This van was one of the more popular places on the ship since leaving Pearl Harbor on 8 April. It was not a new piece of NASA's experimental equipment-it was just a way of keeping in touch with the people back home , via a telegram or phone call. Jim O'Connor and his Mutual Broadcasting System van, which was located adjacent to the island structure, also got into the act by making numerous telephone patches to mainland points for TICONDEROGAE crewmen via HAM radio stations. Jim, a veteran of ten Apollo recoveries, including Apollo 16, and five Gemini missions, was responsible for a big share of the high morale throughout the cruise for his services of enabling the TICO officers and men to say HELLO HONEY, HOW ARE YOU, .... OVER.