(Defunct) Target: Babies in Open.
Fire For Effect.

It's about time to pull down the shutters on this blog. Posting has really dribbled off over the last several years. And so, I am offi...

So, back in the day, I was sent TAD for an exercise to a replenishment ship. The food was decent and the ossifer staterooms were nice. It...

An old USN-issue sewing kit: Note the colors of the threads: Navy blue, white and khaki. Those were enough to mend all of the uniforms ...

The sail and the top rear fin are going to be emplaced at the town library.

Thirteen years ago , I first began writing about the stupidity that was the change to the Navy's working, ie, shipboard uniforms. I bem...

ROCS Lan Yang (FFG-935) is the former USS Joseph Hewes (FF-1078) . I've mentioned her here and showed a photo of her during a port v...

(NB: This story is at least third-hand, so I can't vouch for it.) This is no shit: Over forty years ago, there was a coup in Liberia. ...

Submarine USS S-48 sank by the stern in Long Island Sound during a pre-commissioning test dive on December 7. 1921. A manhole on a ballas...

This is no shit:

The Navy Times has an article about the shitty retention rates for Surface Warfare Officers . One of the things mentioned in the article is...

(This is all from memory. Any difference between what I remember and how things are is what it is. Suck it up.) You've probably read...

One of the nicer gigs at sea was an "airpower demonstration". These was usually put on for VIs, often foreign muckety-mucks. Thes...

I can't recall his name exactly (LCDR Orrin Reems or something), for I knew him as "Ops". He opened his home for Xmas dinner ...

The USS Memphis , ACR-10 (ACR meant " armored cruiser ") was driven ashore by giant waves on this day in 1916. The captain of the...

(Inspired by the fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard ) I've been through one major overhaul, a few SRAs (Shipyard Repair Availabiliti...

Back around the mid-1980s, the USS Josephus Daniels (CG-27) was preparing to deploy to the Med. As some exercises were going to be held o...

These are some Navy uniforms from the 1890s: The admiral, in the front, center, is wearing the "special full dress" uniform. i...

For some reason that I've long since forgotten, there was some brouhaha between the US and the USSR in the late 1970s/early 1980s over t...

The Navy kind of, sort of, encouraged sailors to donate blood. The way that they did that was to give people time off for donating blood. ...

(N.B.: I heard about the following story from two different people who were there.) You may recall that in 1982, the British and the Argi...

It's been 39 years since the Thanksgiving described in this post . Read the POD closely. Note that there is an officer designated as ...

Refueling at sea was an interesting maneuver. Two ships would steam about 125' or so apart, lines would be shot over, then bigger lines...

A submarine stands out to sea while a ferry comes into port: The small craft at the stern of the ferry is one of the armed security bo...

I had a few old posts on this subject . A-type boilers were definitely a prewar design in the USN.

If you're watching a naval-themed movie and somebody says "fire a (name of weapon", that's amateur. On naval ships, the ...

I don't keep in touch with my ex-service buddies. It's been a hell of a long time and we all change. So it was with a little sadn...

I have hesitated for a long time in writing about underway replenishment. For I was mostly an engineer. I'd sit either in Main Control...

55 years ago today, the USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost. She was the lead ship of her class, which was renamed the Permit class. The lo...

This is no shit: A few months before this incident , the same ship was visiting another port. Each month, the captain of a ship was suppo...

I mentioned this awhile back . This is no shit: There was a sailor on one ship who was a pretty nice guy. He was pleasant to everyone, h...