just go to "jalopnik.com" and look through there.

 

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/this-is-what-a-dream-job-in-the-navy-looks-like-1785153906

 

There is a problem with links at the moment. I've let Ken know. For now you have to copy everything in between the....................


EDIT: Disregard all of the above....Ken fixed it.

 

Yup. Fixed.

But FWIW, I always thought the 'dream' job in the Navy were the guys and gals who trained the seals (the animals.......not the commandos) and the porpoises........THAT'S a cool job!

 

I'm not so sure since all instructors have to (well, used to have to) go through the actual training courses on the discipline(s) they were going to be teaching....I did a number of weeks worth of training with them and lived in the Barracks with the SEALs and Marine Recon at Subic Bay P.I. and half of those guys had been instructors. The only "fun" I remember was the parties they threw on the 2nd floor of the barracks in the P.I..
Getting shot out of an ejection seat was a pretty big "blast" that you could call fun...

 

How long was the first US carrier? USS Langley (CV-1) aka "The Old Covered Wagon" - 542'

 

It was the longest ship that they had, and no one though it was possible at the time

 

My granddad was on the Jupiter...was there for the conversion. Have a painting of the old collier pre-conversion hanging on the wall.
http://www.military.com/video/aircr...om-top-ten-carrier-deck-mishaps/3497025460001

 

The Jupiter's sister ship, USS Cyclops, disappeared without a trace off the NC coast in 1918.

 

Gramps used to always like telling a long drawn out "sea" story about making a couple of runs to France during WW1 on the Jupiter as well some exploits with something or other in or near Mazatlán Mexico. He always said I was too young for some of the Mexican stories and he died before I was, what he considered, "old enough".

His favorite was about transiting the Atlantic to France. The second trip I think. He didn't like going up on deck and was perfectly happy spending his time in the engine room. One day a couple of his buddies finally talked him into going up on deck for a smoke. They were standing there "smokin' & jokin'" and he said he was just beginning to relax and enjoy the fresh air, when one of the guys let out a yell and pointed out at the water. Gramps said he looked down just in time to see a torpedo run full length along the side of the ship, missing by only 30 to 50 feet. He always claimed he turned to the main culprit that talked him into going up on deck, decked him and went back down below. He never returned to the deck again as long as the ship was out to sea in the Atlantic.

 

Granddad had a buddy who was Merchant Marine in WWII, on one voyage to Murmansk, Russia his Liberty ship was hit by a dud torpedo from a German U-boat, strafed and bombed by German fighters and bombers near Norway, then upon reaching Murmansk, the port was under long range bombardment by German artillery and the Luftwaffe, his ship SANK at the pier during off-loading, he was stuck there for 2 weeks before he could hop a British destroyer which started his long journey back to the States by several ships.

Upon return to the US he left the MM for good and moved to Wyoming.................as far from the ocean as possible.

 

When the harbor of Murmansk was frozen, convoys destined for Russia were routed from New Orleans thru the Persian Gulf.

Late 1942 thru 1944, my dad, a USN Supply Officer, was one of the officers in charge of loading the ships with supplies.

Prior to serving in New Orleans, dad was a Supply Officer on a horrid old tub of a Destroyer Tender. Launched in 1913 as the Grace liner SS Santa Catalina, the USN purchased it in 1919, then converted it, renaming it the USS Black Hawk (AD-9).

Dad said it could reach 13 knots as long as the bottom wasn't fouled. Considering the ship served in the Asiatic Fleet 1920/1942, the bottom was usually fouled, so a top speed of 9 knots was about it.

When the ship returned to Pearl Harbor in 1942, it was then sent to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. The ship spent 22 years in the tropics, was wide open with no heaters, and the idiot USN then sent it to the frozen north.

 

Here are a pic of just one of my many "ships" I was on........
#ad

 

Murmansk ? I knew a guy who's ship was torpedoed . In a life boat aresque ship stopped to pick them up. They said no thanks because your ship will be sunk too !! And it was ! These guys spent a month in the lifeboat eating hardtack which caused it's own problems !

 

I have to ask - what were you doing on Midway? P-3's?

Excellent wiki article here on the Jupiter/Langley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Langley_(CV-1)