THE SCUTTLEBUTT
The Newsletter of the
USS Buchanan DDG-14 Association
November 10, 2002
Vol. IV, No. 3 http://www.uss-buchanan-ddg14.org Editor: David B. Malone
For those who were wondering whatever happened to the newsletter, here it is. I can only offer apologies for not getting it out in a timely fashion. In a way of explanation, I will say that my wife and I purchased a house in September and at the very same time we bought a new computer. Needless to say I had little spare time between getting the house up and running and finding time to retrieve all the compiled data for the newsletter off the old computer for downloading on the new up-to-date and modern (well...relatively modern) computer. Understand that this is not an excuse but merely an explanation. Ill stick with the old military standby of No excuse, Sir and beg your pardon for my tardiness. The December newsletter will probably be an abbreviated version, unless I can find a plethora of material in the next 40 days or so. But, Ill see what I can put together. Its the least I owe you guys.
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TREASURERS REPORT
PAID MEMBERS (25)
Boston, Richard; Browning, Rob & Marian; Casmier, Dave; Congdon, Bob; Daisley, Dick; Falade, Mark; Falkenhan, Marc; Giardina, Joe; Glidewell, Mel; Herrman, Larry; Looney, Glenn; Malone, Dave; Manis, Frank; Mezori, George; Myers, Dean; Parks, Bill; Poplin, Dave; Ridlon, Lawrence; Sample, Eric; Schiefelbine, Ron; Scott, Walter; Shortreed, Fred; Ursich, Al; Wihera, Victor; Zimmermann, Dick
NEW MEMBERS (3)
Mezori, George BT3 1961 - 65
Schiefelbine, Ron EN2 1961 - 64
Shortreed, Fred EMC 1971 - 75
TREASURERS REPORT
Balance 4 June 2002 $1,162.35
Dues 252.00
Ship store sales 394.85
Ship store expenses - 49.00
Balance
31 August 2002 $1,760.20
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SHIPS STORE
Ships Store operator Rob Browning announces a Two For sale. The video The Final Mission, the US Navy filming of the Buchanan Sinkex in June, 2000, and the video Who Needs you Buchanan. Both videos are packaged together for $25.00, a total savings of $10.00. You can also purchase Who Needs You Buchanan separately, reduced from $20.00 to $15.00. Both sales expire on December 31, 2002.
And, dont forget that Rob has a supply of USS Buchanan ball caps which sell for $15.00. These are good quality caps, and are actually a much finer quality than the ones we purchased aboard Buchanan.
Orders can be placed with Rob Browning at:
Rob Browning
3576 Calvin Ave.
San Jose, CA 95124
Please make all checks payable to USS Buchanan Association.
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A VIRTUAL TOUR OF AN ADAMS CLASS DDG
OK, shipmates. This web site is a must see. A great virtual tour through an active duty Perth Class DDG. This one will take you to various parts of the ship and allow you to do a 360 lateral or vertical scan. No special software is needed.
Click on this link: http://www.navy.gov.au/vf/default.htm
When on the site: Click on "Start Tour".... Select "Destroyers"..... Select "Perth Class"
Select the different panoramic views you wish to see. Be sure to click-n-drag the panoramic views to look left/right and up/down.
This site is about as close as youre going to get to touring an Adams Class DDG without either flying to Greece or cracking open one of the decommissioned ships in the mothball fleet. Its simply amazing...
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I Cant remember whom I received this from. My apologies to the author. Both Carpenter and R. A. Owens leased to Turkey in '81 and sold to Turkey in 87.
Also: DDG 24 Waddell, 1 Oct 1992, Greek Nearchos, 1 Oct 1992 (lease).
I really hate to see good ships - great ships - go down the tubes. Sad. I guess we can't keep them all. But all those crews - steaming, working, living - serving in proud ships. Ensigns two-blocked; sig flags flying; bow waves' salt spray across their decks; in some a break-away diddy on the bitch-box, in others, the pop-pop of the 20's, bam-bam of 40's, and boom of the 5-inch - or the 6, 8 or 16-inch. Even more - sweat and strain hauling in the hose; walking, bow-legged and careful, main deck forward or aft in a 30 foot seas; working the reefers cold and miserable loading in meat and vegetables; mess-cooking, grinding spuds. And the smell, even miles off, of the next port; liberty and no boats, boats and no liberty; fleet landing. Shore Patrol, Beach Guard, and to some, Landing party. Sunrises on the morning watch - sunsets in the Dogs - stars in the Mid. The serenity and the rage of a sea.
And Oh, so much more.
Ships have a life, a soul - the composite of their builders and their crews; of the sweat, tears, and sometimes - blood - of men, of women, past and present.
We who have experienced our ship and the sea - we know... we surely know. We have gone down to sea in ships and we have our memories. There are those who will never know... such memories.
Taps, Lights out, Silence about the Decks. Taps.
G'nite.
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REACH OUT TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
Submitted by Pat Sena.
If you are so inclined, visit the Department of Defense web page belowand sign a brief message thanking the men and women of the U.S. militaryservices for defending our freedom. The compiled list of names will be sentout to our soldiers and sailors at the end of the month. So far, there are only about535,000 names. What a shame. National Military Appreciation Month (pleasepass it on to your email friends)http://www.defendamerica.mil/nmam.html
It takes 10 seconds...literally.
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CHAT GROUPS
For those who may be interested, Ive begun a chat group online for the discussion of topics of interest concerning the Navy. Its been going on for a while rather informally, so I thought I would announce it in the newsletter. On a daily basis (or as close to it as I can keep) I send to the list a This Date in the US Navy report, which details historical events in the US Navy that occurred on that date. Every once in a while, Ill even throw in a trivia question to keep the mental juices flowing. We also run short stories. Right now, Mark Falade is sending out a great story about the raid on the Nazi submarine pens and dry dock at Saint Nazaire, France. The original USS Buchanan (DD-131), which had been sold to Great Britain in the lend/lease program was used on this raid, renamed as HMS Campbelltown.
The idea behind the list is to keep in touch, and to provide fodder for discussion. The only rule I have is that we try to keep the BS down and hold the topics of discussion to the US Navy as much as possible. A number of Buchanan men are on the list, and so are some former sailors from other Adams Class DDGs, in addition to a few other friends of mine. As a warning, you should know that there are days when you may receive as many as 20 or 30 e-mails. If you want to receive the history report only (and there are a number of people in that camp), I keep a separate list where there is little or no discussion. Just the history report. If you would like to get on either list, just send me your e-mail address at malonedave@aol.com, and let me know which list you wish to join.
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A SEA CHANTY
Sea chanties were work songs, led by the Ship's Bosun and used for keeping parties in unison when carrying out an evolution of ship's work. Different chanties were used for different kinds of work, such as weighing an anchor with a capstan, or hauling on a line. Often a musician with a fiddle or a concertina (squeeze box) accompanied the Bosun who sang out the chanty, with the work party singing back the chorus. The following was a popular chanty in the US Navy during the War of 1812.
(Bosun) Now coil up y'r nonsense 'bout Egland's great navy,(Chorus) And take in y'r slack about oak-hearted tars;(Bosun) For frigates as stout, and as gallant crews have we,(Chorus) Or how came their Macedonia decked with our stars?(Bosun) Yes how came her Guerriere, her Peacock, and Java,(Chorus) All sent broken-ribbed to old Davy of late?(Bosun) How come of it? Why, split me, than Britons we're braver;(Chorus) And that they shall feel, too, whenever we meet.
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SEA STORY OF THE QUARTER
Submitted by Dick Zimmermann
A Ship ... from Two Viewpoints In my current life, I am a naval architect and I work with lots of other naval architects. Most of them are much younger than I am - a few are even younger than my children. They became naval architects by first going to school, and by then going to work in an office that designs ships. They know how to manipulate their computers and how to make fantastic drawings and computer printouts. Long ago I noticed that they think of a ship much differently than I do. While I usually understand their computer manipulations and can even do a few of them myself, there seems to be something vital that they are missing. It's not really their fault, and besides, all of what they do is actually quite necessary to get a ship out there and floating in the water. But it just doesn't seem that they have the whole picture of what a ship really is. These young guys and ladies think a ship is something that has structural strength, which they can analyze with their whizz-bang finite element analysis computer programs that use the characteristics of the steel and some magical formulations about what forces are driven into that steel when a ship is rolling and pitching in the open sea. They think a ship is something that has stability, and again they punch numbers into their computers, numbers that describe the shape of the hull and how the interior watertight compartmentation is set up. They think a ship is something that has spaces and tanks, and they make nice drawings showing all the various spaces and tanks on each of the decks and levels and platforms, again with their computers. They think a ship is something that has weight and weight distribution, and they analyze with their computers just how the weight is spread around the ship in all three dimensions. And on and on and on. They think a ship is something that has seakeeping and maneuvering characteristics, just as their computers tell them. To them, a ship has machines that turn natural resources into various forms of power, which then gets distributed to many things which need that power. Everything these people touch is handled by the computer, and the computer analyzes these things with all kinds of rigorous mathematical equations. These studies are important, and I don't really mean to belittle them as much as it sounds like. But these guys still lack a feeling for what I think makes a ship to be a ship. You see, in my prior life, I was fortunate enough to have been a proud destroyer sailor. To me, a ship is something that has Boyd in the Forward Fireroom and Chief Clark in Main Control. To me, a ship has Hammond in the After Gun Mount, and Bunosso in CIC. A ship has Malinoff in Sonar, Friesen running the Missile Fire Control System, and Souza on the Signal Bridge. A ship has Nightingale in the Galley, keeping the mess decks humming. And no, we won't forget good ol' reliable Predovich at the helm, with his clear and crisp "LEFT Standard Rudder, AYE, Sir." To me, a ship has all these guys working as a team, and I mean a real team, not like one of those 'teams' that landlubber offices nowadays think they can get by sending their people to a 'teambuilding' program where they go out into the woods to play some silly games for a couple of days. A ship has sailors working as a team sweating through endless ordeals that none of my office mates could even begin to comprehend, just to get their ship ready for a commitment. And then working again as a team when they are on the gunline and the Gunner's Mates, Fire Controlmen, Radarmen, Snipes, Deck Apes, and Predovich at the helm, are all pulling together in another way, no longer preparing, but now carrying out the real thing as five-inch gun mounts keep going KA-BOOM from both ends of the ship. And we can't forget watching our sailors coming back from liberty in Naples or Singapore, still as a team, with those who could see and walk a little better, helping those who had a lot 'more fun' on the beach, who needed that little extra help. And we could only hope that nobody who crossed their path would be foolish enough to make a crack about 'that rust bucket over there' or maybe something even worse, so they would then have to defend the honor of their ship. It was always OK if we had a few bad things to say about our own ship, but that right was reserved for us alone. It was a different world back then and there, and I'm sure I couldn't begin to handle it now after all these years, nor would I even want to. But it sure was great while it lasted. There's no point in trying to explain what a ship REALLY is to these guys in the office who think of a ship as a thing with structure, and stability, and all those other characteristics the computer looks at. They wouldn't begin to understand. In order to understand, as we used to say back then, 'You had to be there.' I'll always be grateful that I had the privilege to serve in those ships, where I learned that a ship is something that has sailors like Boyd, Chief Clark, Souza, and Bunosso. And Predovich at the helm.