I remember you Tony Lupis! navyflyboy73 thanks for posting/sharing this! I remember the Airedale Charlie...he was a good guitar player...we used to jam a bit up there in the helo hangar.
I have served on this ship between after she joined the turkish navy. I can say this girl endured a lot of bad weather like this one also in black sea, Mediterranean and aegean in her last years. Just for your information she is now serving as a museum in Turkey open to public visit.
Went through bad weather during 73-74 westpac on Marvin Shields DE/FF 1066. Remembered standing out on the stern, on the access hatch to the IVDS room under the missile launcher, waiting for a following wave/swell to fill up up the IVDS room and shoot water out through the hatch, launching us in the air, ah, to be young and immortal again!!!
Thanks for sharing. I served on her from 81-84, after the hurricane bow was added forward. Was always amazed that you fly boys would launch during these types of conditions when needed.
I was on a Know for 4 years, that stuff was fun for about 30 minutes, then when it turned into a few days, It wasn't much fun. FC3 FF 1066 1988 till about decom in 92
I was on the Ainsworth from 76-80 as Yeoman in the ship's office. I remember this storm; it was my first cruise. Amazing the video is on RU-vid after all these years! I loved those days; little did I know at the time how much I would look back on them and miss them.
Dad was in the Navy, and said it was the best time of his life-sadly he has passed away, so my question about rolling[as opposed to pitching] will go unanswered, hence my asking you guys.
We almost lost the Hawkins, DD-873, in the storm. It wasn't the worse weather we encountered, but it was pretty bad. A storm in the Med later that year convinced me to find a better life. Served aboard her from Dec 75 until May 1978.
TM2 Hampton, I downloaded some Hawkins video shot during this cruise that somebody posted a few years ago on a different site. Shoot me your email address and I'll send you a copy. I'd send a link but it's been taken down and I can't find it again.
Ahhh the memories (barf! Hehe). Great musical accompaniment. Sounds like it was from "Victory at Sea." I remember my days on the USS Elmer Montgomery (FF-1082). Nice to see the Sea Sprite again :) Was the Ainsworth homeported in Norfolk or Mayport... can't remember now. Thanks for the post!
He finally popped up and they called man over board. They got two helicopters off and got them. A wave had washed through a sponson where they where securing 55gal drums. One guys was hurt bad with a smashed pelvis and was flown to a hospital. I never saw the second guy. We had thirty feet of catwalk ripped off both sides of the Bow in that storm.
I was also on the uss knox in jan 81 I remember the deck dept. tied together and breaking up the ice on the bow because it was 2 ft. thick and that is why the 5"foward gun was turned around backwards, in the mess deck equipment welds broke and made one heck of a mess. also the cooks were not allowed in the dry goods locker or in the freezers . stansions had broken and it was too dangerous to go in there. we fed the crew canned ravioli that day. and I also remember tying my belts together and lashing my self into my bunk (top one) you know its rough seas when you can walk over the top of a camel back ( fire hose rack) and not break a stride. as tin can sailors say "over one wave and thru the next one"
@tbi109 I had forgotten about losing the doors. We didn't fly again until inchop so I never saw the hole they left. Seems like I remember the sonar dome having cracks as well.
seriously, why is it that when the sea looks moderate, ships can roll so horribly? often on you tube, ships are shown rolling, yet the sea doesn't look that huge, there must be a reason for this-or maybe on videos, waves look smaller than they are in reality. i have only been on rough short crossings, and the waves weren't huge, but the ferries plunged and rolled.
@tbi109, I took a little video during the height of the storm, but it was unusable. There was so much water and spray you couldn't see out of the window. Were you on board when we jump-started the Simms that December night when she lost power in the storm and went dead in the water?
Muetzel was a RAG instructor when I went through HSL-30. I flew with him a couple of times. Jeff Kranz and I flew together in the WST a couple of times, but my logbook doesn't show us in the air together. The others aren't familiar to me.
That was one hell of a storm. I was in Fox Division on the Indy and we lashed open one of our rear rocket launcher room doors to watch the storm. As we watched those mountainous waves roll at us we were surprised to see this guy in the water waving his arm back and forth. We leaned over the rail and yelled down to the rear port watch man over board. He looked in the direction we were all pointing but the guy was now behind a wave.
@tbi109, Indy lost two men overboard and they were recovered the next day. Air wing called over to see if we could launch to assist. No could do. We had every chain we owned holding the helicopter on deck and whenever the ship rolled, the up-slope wheel came off the deck. There is a book "Ghostrider One" written by an H-3 pilot on the Indy in the same storm. They actually wound up launching two helos. According to him, the seas were 60 feet with 130 knot winds.
@tbi109 As I remember it beat up both ships pretty bad. Didn't you go to drydock when we got back? That was when we went to Arthur W Radford. Did you get my personal message?
I saw some of the pictures of the Indy deck from the cruise book online. Pretty impressive when the bow of a carrier goes underwater. The best description I've seen is at wwwdotfreerepublicdotcom/focus/f-vetscor/2473460/posts
