Ah yes. I remember one SPCM Jim DePew having a counceling sesson with one MM1 Bill Block ond one MM2 Steven Hurt over the "mysterious" dissapearence of one phone booth in after engine room. Also remember MM1 Block standing there repeating "It didn't happen on my watch"..."It didn't happen on my watch"..."It didn't happen on my watch"..."It didn't happen on my watch"..."It didn't happen on my watch"..."It didn't happen on my watch"

I also remember multiple Jr. Officer induced collisions with Bravo Pier. One time three in a day. You could hear 'Screaming Jack' from the bullnose to the fantail. I was throttleman for the 'special sea and anchor detail' then. There were so many bells to answer, I thought I was in St. Peter's bellfre on Easter morning.

Don Reed
MM2 6/66-11/68

D.C. best that can be replyed to that is heh heh heh!!

STEVE

A few more history items:

It was either the 71 or 72 deployment Mount 52 was broke (nothing new) and I was in MT 51 mag. Word was passed that the Newport News (maybe) could not fulfill a NGFS mission and we got it. Close to running out of ammo in MT 51 they passed the word for an "All Hands" working party to clean out MT 52. Near the end they wer handing down ammo as we slammed it into the ammo hoists.

In June 72 we went to the Portland Rose festival via San Francisco. That did take a number of days at about 12-16 knots.

Jim

Well, not that I remember much (too many brain cells gone over the years), but I do remember "the fastest DDG in the West" getting challeged a few times by other West Coast destroyers. We would have full power runs and race the others. We won each time. I think part of it was we had some mods made to the force draft blowers when she was homeported in Hawaii. Nothing like staring at the firebox when you are at warp speed! Or hanging out on the fantail checking out the rooster tail she kicked up!

BTFN '82-'85

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chassny03</i>

I remember the full power runs during seatrials, I was surprised since the DDG 2's weren t known for speed.
I always liked when destroyer types were refueling and pulled away veryquickly upon completion. This was especially if two finished at once and both pulled away, one turning to port and one to starboard.
There was a Fletcher class that was really fast; she ran up a roadrunner flag and had a horn that made that MEEP MEEP sound when she turned it on. She did this during full power runs, too...immediately upon the execute signal. It would be the last we d see of her for a while...it might have been Nicholas. This was amazing to me, those 2100/2150 s werent built to sustain speed for 20 years...just to win the war.

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chassny03</i>

I remember the full power runs during seatrials, I was surprised since the DDG 2's weren t known for speed.
I always liked when destroyer types were refueling and pulled away veryquickly upon completion. This was especially if two finished at once and both pulled away, one turning to port and one to starboard.
There was a Fletcher class that was really fast; she ran up a roadrunner flag and had a horn that made that MEEP MEEP sound when she turned it on. She did this during full power runs, too...immediately upon the execute signal. It would be the last we d see of her for a while...it might have been Nicholas. This was amazing to me, those 2100/2150 s werent built to sustain speed for 20 years...just to win the war.
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I remember.....
It was (I think) 1967. I was aboard the USS Nicholas (DD-449) and we were having sea trials with the Fletcher, O'Bannon, and a few other ships from the West and East Coasts. Our Capt. was a full Capt. at that time, named Hoffstetler. One of the ships from the East claimed to be the fastest can in the fleet (The "Rush?") and a race was scheduled that included all ships on trial that wanted to participate.

I can remember the race was to start at noon and finish at 1600 hours, a total of 4 hours and the ship ahead at the end would be declared the winner.

We on the "Nick" knew from past races that we could hold speed much longer than either the Fletcher or O'Bannon but the in the crew's mind, we knew nothing of the others. Capt. Hoffstetler made full Capt. mid-way during our '67 tour in Nam and knew most of the ships and their reputations that were with us at that time so when 1200 hours came..... all ships were in line and blasted their horns... the race was on.

Much to the crew's dismay, our Capt. chose to keep the Nick at about 21 knots and all the others steamed ahead with black smoke purging out of their stacks. I was a 2nd Class Sonarman and ran down to sonar to get some ranges on what was happening. I then went topside to the flying bridge to talk to a couple of the signalmen to see what was going on..... nobody knew!! The BT's were calling up on the 21mc to see if everyone was awake on the bridge and the reply was "all is well".

After 30 minutes of elapsed time, we could see the others just off the horizon and just knew we were done for. Just then the Capt. made 3 sharp blasts and black smoke started firing out our stacks. At the 1 hour mark we could see we were reeling them in. I took a good look at the pit-log in sonar and it was 45 knots. At the 2 hour mark, we were almost in reach... about 2000 yards from the ship in front of us. As we pulled along side, 3 more blasts were made and our pit-log hit 48 knots. We maintained that speed until we passed the other ships and shut back down to 45 knots.

After 4 hours, ALL ships were behind us and our BT's were on deck black-faced and wet from sweat... I think that's were the Hi-5 got it's start.

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When the Enterprise was on station to launch or retrieve, the Nick was usually the can in front because it could maintain at least 38 kts. for extended periods of time.