We got some WestPac sailors and Marines here, Army and Air Force too

The best overseas port imo, including the Med and Lant, is Subic Bay in the Western Pacific. The Philippines are lush green islands, friendly people, good weather except for a month or two. A ball to visit or live, uncrowded beaches, and beautiful forested mountains with laid back country folks.

The people are great, hard working and honest when I lived there or homeported overseas. Most folks like/love Americans, even though enough didn't that we got asked to leave in '89, we're back in smaller numbers now. And I hope new President Duterte will continue Aquino's friendliness with us, and hopefully is changing his mind and will continue our joint agreements now that a guy he doesn't like here is leaving office.

My "Another coffee thread" was a bust, let's have some fun talk about WestPac!

isang kahanga-hangang lugar (Tagalog, A wonderful place)

 

Long, long ago me and a bud hopped off the USS Kitty Hawk at our overseas homeport at Subic Bay. Walked out the main gate across Pearl River into Olongapo, 'O-city'. We'd been here a few times before and wanted to take a break from the 150 bars lining both sides of Magsaysay. Hopped in a Jeepney (jeep-style open-body people-movers with lots of running lights, tassles all around, good art on the body, can carry half the neighborhood hanging on.) Rumbled down the road to White Rock in Barrio Baretto outside O-city. A perfect spot for two sea-weary sailors who wanted a few quiet beers on a deserted beach looking out the bay for a couple of days.

A retired sailor owned a bar a block away with rock 'n roll by good Filipino bands that can sound like anyone from ZZ Top to The Beatles. Cold San Miguel beer, but be sure to check how well the bottle was washed out before drinking a lot of it. Good shopping for everything from coral works to monkey-wood furniture. And the people are just straight up friendly, they automatically assume friendship, not suspicion. Loved them there, and enjoyed working with Filipinos in our Navy. Admirable. I knew way more white guys who were FU's, can't recall a single Filipino who didn't do a good job.

Am I gushing too much? I love the place, nearly retired there.

 

Jeepney

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In my day, if you didn't get your "Mumbles Quals" at the Bali Hai in Olongapo you weren't fit to be called a sailor!
Golfing was not so good though. Had a group of Huc's come out of the jungle along the 9th hole when I was there and hose the green down with AK47's. Unfortunately, they killed a Lt. Commander and his golf clubs.
Did they still have the Monkey Meat Stew Casserole at the Inn at Spanish Gate along with the adjacent Miniature Golf Course? I came across my log book in a box a month or so back and inside the flight log book was one of my score cards from the Miniature Golf Course.

Was the P-3 hulk still in the "bone" yard scrap metal pile not far from the AUW compound? I can tell you how that came to be there. My squadron.

A good friend of mine married a nice gal from the P.I.. Wife works with her out at the Indian Casino. She sent us a big plate of cookies, rocky road and other candy for Christmas. I might not be able to get the formaldehyde trots from the San Miguel, but I can sure get a belly ache from the goodies she sends home to us.

BTW, pull out the Forward Observers seat on the P3 and stow it aft when leaving the PI on det. 23 cases of San Miguel and my little GE Refrigerator would fit there nicely.

 

Ha! I knew there was an 'ol PI dawg around here. On and off 1973-1989 for me. Good beer, good food and fast company. I passed on the Mumbles init cuz my shots weren't up to date. But they say i made up for it in Angeles City (who can remember?) but that was a dump compared to O city. Monkey meat stew, BBQ on a stick - never knew if it was really monkey meat, why not, but had no doubt it was dog meat sometimes. And good with a little seasoning in the restaurant. Like in Italy they raise and eat rabbits like we do chicken. The cockfight losers probably ended up on a stick too, cause some of it was way tougher than usual. Don't remember the P-3 in a pile, didn't get out to Cubi Pt much. Did go hiking in Bataan, saw our old fortifications and the beginning of the tunnel our troops were in before the March. Thankfully the Filipinos saved some of our butts.

That golf course was one of a kind - a tow-rope needed to get on one of the fairways. The monkeys liked to run out and grab the balls sometimes, i made it easy by hitting into the rough (jungle). Strangely it happened more as more beer was consumed. Sorry about your friend, it got nasty there in later years.

Good stash on the P-3! My last stop was on a boat enroute Pearl Harbor, the CO ordered us, against all objections, to fill two torpedo tubes with our takings. There's not much room anywhere else.

VP or VQ?

 

Both. VP with home port NAS Barbers Point when doing the PI deployments. PI was more of a hub really. Be in the PI for 4 to 6 weeks, then back out on "the circuit" which included Thailand, Cocus Keeling, Diego Garcia and Bandar Abas Iran.

Never ate out on the town. A good way to get a courts martial from the Admiral in our SOG we were usually assigned to. Monkey meat was on base at the little restaurant by the miniature golf course that was next the Special Aircrew / SEAL/ Marine Recon barracks there at Subic a block or two from the EM Club. They fixed it in a rectangular pan like a Chicken pot pie with the crust on top. Excellent eats. Meat was sweeter than dog or cat. At least the dogs and cats in Thailand.

If you were there in 73 - 74 - 75, the P3 would have been there in the bone yard for sure. First successful ditching of a P3. VP 6 Blue Shark bird. Went in the bay parallel to the runway at Cubi after a PI civilian lineman filled the Water Injection tank on one of our P3A's (T56A10W) with cleaning solvent. Lost the first engine just past the Point of No Return, #2 went just after airborne. Max weight so not a ghost chance in H@#L on 2 engines that were getting ready to go for the same reasons.....Lost one crewman. An Ensign at the tac table. 5/5A bladder cell ruptured and his chair flipped over into the ruptured deck.

Most of the time when I was in and out of the PI, the USS Constellation was coming in and out of Subic. One of our metal smiths had gotten illegally married to a Philippine gal. Got busted from PO2 to AA over it. One day he was supposed to be departing the PI with Crew 9 as the detachment mechanic AMS/AMH for our bird. No one could find him and he was listed as UA ( later AWOL) Turns out, this gal was already married and her #1 husband was on the Connie. Word had spread that the Connie was coming into port and her "1rst" hubby was a 2nd class and made more money so she threw our guys stuff out of the shack. He went AWOL and we heard later that they arrested him in Chicago at his mothers house. We never saw him again.

Time to head out to the my nieces place..........

 

I was 20yo, we relieved the Connie after a nearly riotous 4 day inport of 2 aircraft carriers and several frigates-cruisers. That was a not-funny disaster waiting to happen. 12,000 sailors plus y'all airedales with money to spend and only a couple of hundred bars to fit in. By the third day I was exhausted and took $20 to stand duty for those that hadn't gotten enough. Good thing too, some boneheads started a brawl that turned into a street riot, liberty was cancelled, XO masts convened, and I was one of the few onboard that didn't have a hangover.

A lot of stuff was going on, the war drawing down, troops starting to go home, liberty in PI. We'd limped in after a engine room fire that killed six of our blackhole gang, put us in a list after firefighting, and the ship was topsy-turvy with cleanup.

I likely heard of your P-3 successful ditching, sorry to hear you lost a shipmate. Just can't remember (happens more and more). I'm not familiar with water injection tanks, I guess there was no way that was an accident. I hope the guy was caught. Didn't know it happened in the 70's too -- later in the 80's there was vandalism/sabotage on a few ships, and our guys were getting killed in ones and twos off base. We had a uneventful port'ocall in '89, but just there for a week, i think we closed down everything and left by the end of '89 or thereabouts. It's a fine country, i think they were just tired of 'ugly Americans' waving wads of cash at their women and acting like we owned the place. I hope we can get back together 'like it was', but i guess that's not likely.

Sounds like you had a good circuit (if that's the right name. I was a VAQ intel PO a few years but that ain't the same thing.) Being in Bandar Abbas you might remember the Kitty Hawk in '74 taking the Shah of Iran onboard for consultation with the brass and a big airshow. Besides the normal carrier exclusion zone there was a lot of bomb and missile air closures. We sure were hot and cooking on that friggin' Persian Gulf, rat's nest that it is. A/C was overloaded, no breeze. My feet went pssst on the flight deck.

 

"Never ate out on the town. A good way to get a courts martial from the Admiral in our SOG we were usually assigned to."

No s#!t? We/I ate in town all the time, no warnings not to but the Doc did say smell the meat first, beware hepatitis and TB, if you get the clap come in for free penicillin, the usual. I love Asian food, Filipino has good dishes, stir 'n fry anything turns me on.

 

I don't really remember what was going on with our ground pounders in the PI as far as fitness for duty. I know they had a lot more leeway than those of us in the Air Crew. The CO's always made sure the Aircrews were 100% at all times and it was never a good thing if someone from "Crew 30" had to fill in on the Ops Sked for you. Especially if they had to go "out on the circuit" in place of a regular crew member. I'm sure the Admiral, CTG 72.3 probably had a lot to do with that.

We were doing a lot of flying at the time along the "yellow brick road" and then off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. We were doing some other highly classified ops that required 100% team effort and efficiency. The old "get a sunburn, get court martialed" applied with exclamation points. We quartered in the Air Conditioned "Concrete Hilton Tower" with the Marine Spec Ops and the SEALs, had $5.00 a month house boys ($2.50 in Thailand) to clean uniforms, polish boots and make the bunk and I guess they just expected more out of us. We were also highly scrutinized for OpSec.

I do know that we came back in from the "Circuit" once after being out for 8 weeks and when Denny and I were taking the Aircraft books and gripe sheets into Maintenance Control, we found a sign taped on the MC's door. It said:
"Congratulations VP-6, You have the second highest rate of VD of any unit deployed to Subic Bay / Cubi Point Naval Complex for the month. USS Constellation was #1! By the way, off base liberty is cancelled until further notice!"

And then later on there was the Evacuation and then the SS Mayaguez....

 

Ahhh, you det'd to places I would like to have seen - I took a MAC into Pataya Beach to see what everyone was talking about, would have loooved to stay longer, Thailand's a beautiful hot country. You got some real time outside the bar districts there between flights (right?). A few years ago, a bud here left his five-acre home and retired to northern Thailand, says he isn't ever leaving.

""Congratulations VP-6, You have the second highest rate of VD of any unit...off base liberty is cancelled " What a sweetheart. If you'd have listened to the chaplain you'd have spent more time enriching your cultural sensitivities at the library.


A favorite port'ocall for me was Mombasa, Kenya. Had to park a few miles offshore but what the heck. Nice folks there, semi-westernised after being a British colony. Two of us took ten-days leave, rode a classic English railway coach with bunks and private water-closet around the country. Nairobi, rented a car to go to game parks, the Masai out in the countryside were friendly as heck. Good beer.

 

Ah, Pattaya Beach, aka "Patio" Beach. Spent many hours chasing (but never catching) gals from the Bangkok embassies that came down to the Pattaya Hilton.

Utapao had the best Air Force Staff NCO club I think I was ever in. Sit back in the Playboy Bunny room, and watch live Kick Boxing through the windows.

Scuba diving, fishing, Elephant rides on the Island, Para Sailing, tailors in Sattahip and R&R at The Orchid in Newland!
50 Bacht, all night 50 Bacht, you no butterfly, you no butterfly......

Better be careful here, I could get myself in BIG trouble with the warden.

Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there. Had people throwing hand grenades at us. Tends to put a damper on the party.


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Papa Charlie 9
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"Better be careful here, I could get myself in BIG trouble with the warden."

But you rode elephants. Scuba'd. She would understand! Honey, I no butterfly!

Some of the best snorkelling and diving in the world. I got cert'd in PI in '73. But mostly snorkelled, there was so much in the first 40 feet of water. Saipan, Guam, Truk, Rota too, a whole different world under water. A Guamanian friend of two years, with feet like shoe leather, introduced me to reef-walking, diving and how best to scoop shrimp off the rock walls. His family owned a great little spot on the beach with it's own lagoon that we took dates to, camped out for two-dayers (I was watch-standing), wake in the morning and roll into the warm water. A taste of nirvana.

In the PI off the K.Hawk, me and another experienced guy from Texas took 'Mac', a big burly Philadelphian, and a couple of other guys snorkelling for their first time. They loved it.Poked around for a couple of hours. Then little sharks came by, none bigger than 3-4 feet and minding their own business. But underwater they look twice as big. In back of me I heard a "MMAAAHHHURGH blurb blurb" and lots of splashing, raised my head above the water and there was Mac, running on top of the water with his boot-fins yelling and heading for shore. We laughed so friggin' hard I sucked in water and nearly foundered.

 

I'm going to take a leap and think that you may have possibly spent some time with VQ 1 at Agana? If you did, what years and did you ever run across a EP3 F/E named Mike Goss?

 

Spent some time yes, not PCS...I was NSGA Direct Support 7th Fleet AOR. Worked up to leader for 4-16 man teams. Was out of Guam, sometimes with the Q, sometimes SubRon7, at different times in my career, sometime with the tip of our spear the Marines. Outta' Guam '71-'72, and sometimes passed thru later. I was a CTT, several specialties and my love was ELINT and EW. Had a different job at just about every duty station, it's a big field and stayed interesting. When I started losing my hair became a Chiefs & O's instructor for awhile, very rewarding as they say. Ended up pushing paper full time as a CMC, retired.

Mikes Foss really rings a bell but I can't quite place him...very familiar.
A VQ flight engineer whose name stuck with me (sort of) nicknamed Hacksaw, darned if i can remember his name. I sometimes put my brain into a "Forget this later" mode cuz I was real tight about security and once done it wasn't needed. Now that mode has become nearly permanent and i've got a memory like a steel sieve.Too many knocks on the head.

You're a flight engineer, or longtime analyst? Hats off, that's a big job. How long were you with VP & VQ? Sounds like you were in the thick of it, and they don't like to lose important aircrew billets.

 

If you can't guess, I was tagged with "Seabiscuit", after the race horse. They said I was the fastest F/E they had ever seen on getting the Post Flight done and getting to the Acey Deucey club, so I got saddled with that.

Mike Goss and I went through several schools together. There were 3 of us that were sometimes referred to as the 3 Mousekateers. He was a tall lanky Texan. Eventually Mike remained with VQ 1 and the other two of us ended up at Barbers in P3A's, later B's, then Bravo Updates, (WestPac "Sea" duty) and other points West and then so far West we actually were East. Diego Garcia was plywood shanty's on sticks with tin roofs and mosquito netting from the 4' plywood wall up to the tin roof with sleeping bags for our bedding.
Mike and I ended up exiled to PMTC on restricted, "can not leave ConUS" PCS orders for 2 years. He got there about 6 months after I did - late 75 or early 76.

One of our motto's was "If the adrenalin ain't a pumpin' it probably ain't worth doing!"

A lot of things you just don't talk about. For us, there wasn't much to forget since, for the most part, we "weren't there" doing it to start with so therefore had nothing to forget.

Did a lot of ELINT from Bravo Updates. Mid 75, after Mayaguez we did some ParPro and then were doing some missions out of Taiwan. We got chased very seriously by some folks who didn't like us so very well.
Got sent into "exile" and grounded on Midway for 3 weeks, then sent back to Barbers Point. We landed at Barbers on a Tuesday and by Friday the last of my crew, me, was on a plane out of Hickam and headed for ConUS. My partner F/E and several others including the TACO got sent to the Atlantic even though Cross ConUS transfer bans were in place. One of the guys went to Corpus and another to a Reserve outfit in Warminster Pa as an instructor to a reserve outfit that was in transition from P2V's to P3A's. I was offered Warminster or Weapons Testing at Pt. Mugu. Went with Naval Weapons Testing - Pacific Missile Test Center outside of Oxnard - Ventura County in "Beach Boy" country. That was some really tough and tortuous duty!

One of the first things I had to do when I got to PMTC was go through the school and get the "hemorrhoids packed". Qualified on ejection seats so we could fly radio and nav and do test ops photo in jets. Fox 4, TA 4, A and EA 3's and A6's for the most part. We weren't allowed in the F14's as they were too new and required NATOPS qualified Pilots and RIO's.

Got in on the ground floor of the AGM 84 Harpoon and AIM-54 Phoenix. Lot testing on numerous other weapons systems. If anyone asked, about Phoenix we were to tell them it was a city in Arizona and if anyone asked us about Harpoon, we were to tell them it was a whaler's spear. After that we were authorized to shoot them.
My Division Officer at PMTC was a Tomcat driver who, I believe, made history when he shot himself and his RIO down with the AIM-54. When I wasn't flying (my 'ground' job), I was asst. enlisted shop chief for "PMTC CODE 1120" which I guess we can talk about now. That was Test Operations Control and Coordination, but we were only allowed to refer to it as Code 1120. Our single P3 at PMTC was actually maintained by General Dynamics and not the Navy...and kept in a totally separate and isolated part of the base, if that hints at anything for ya.......