Hi there
This is obviously my first post. I have a few questions, and a little history about myself, and hope I don't bore you guys too much. I'm an ex sailor, joining the Naval reserve while a senior in high school back in January '57. My first 2 week summer cruise was in '58 aboard the DE WILLET out of New Orleans. It was not much fun. I was assigned to the deck force, chipping paint, and swabbing decks most of the time. At times it felt like hard labor. But that's the way it goes when you're an E-1. During GQ drills I was assigned to the after steering compartment. That was kind of boring.
The following summer I took a 2 week cruise aboard the DE TWEEDY out of Charleston, SC. By then, I was E-2. That went a lot smoother, as I was assigned to the gunnery dept. No more paint chipping! lol. During GQ drills I was assigned to a compartment directly below the quad 40. When those guns went off, it sounded like being in a house with eager carpenters putting up shingles on the roof. (all that banging) That's how those guns sounded. I still have an empty 40 mm shell that I stuffed in my sea bag before leaving the ship. By comparison it was like a pleasure cruise.
The following summer '59, I reported about the USS WASP CVS-18 homeported in Boston for my 2 year active duty requirement. Growing up and working with my Dad in his blacksmith shop, I had a metal working background. So I was hoping to get assigned with the aviation metalsmiths. Well, that was not to be. It so happened that at that time, half of the personnel office guys had just been separated from active duty. So there was a void there that needed to be filled. My page 4 said that I could type 30 words per minute, so I was assigned to "X" division working in personnel doing transfers and separations. I ended up being a YN3.
There at the Boston Navy yard, on the way out to the main gate, off to the right was like a grave yard, with rows of Benson and Gleaves class DD's, and CVE's mothballed, and rotting away. A very sad sight indeed. Years later, in the early '70's, I witnessed some of those same DD's being towed in and dismantled, and scraped in Brownsville, Texas. Another sad sight indeed. Evan had a light cruiser in there at one time being scraped. What a beautiful hull it was. Another sad sight.
My last summer cruise was aboard the USS MADDOX out of Long Beach. That too was a pleasure cruise. There wasn't much room there in the tiny personnel office, so I didn't do much of anything. I was assigned to the bridge manning a sound powered telephone during GQ drills. Whenever those duel 5" 38's would go off, it just plain hurt. There were no ear plugs or ear muff being passed around. The skipper BTW was actor Walter Brennen's son-in-law. An avid sportsman, he would shoot at flying fish off the bridge with his M-1 rifle. Little did anyone know at the time that the ship would be the main character in the Gulf of Tomkin incident a few years later.
So you see, that's why I'm here now. I know what it's like to be aboard those old guys, being an old guy myself. lol When Revell first came out with the 1/144 Fletcher, I thought about getting one, but kept putting it off. Then after a year or two, Squadron put them on sale. Such a deal, so I bought one, also assuming that sooner or later they would go OOP. Needless to say, I was a bit intimidated by it. So it stayed in the stash till a couple of months ago when i attended an IPMS show in Stafford Texas. There in full view was one, which BTW took best of show, and it just blew me away. So now I'm fired up to do mine.
So before I start assembly, I'd like to ask a few questions. I would also like some day to do a 1/144 Gleaves class, and was wondering if the Fletcher torpedo tubes would be the same as the Gleave's torpedo tubes. If so I would like to do a casting of them for the Gleaves. Just thinking ahead a little.
Also, the Destroyer History Foundation's DVD-ROM of the Fletcher engineering drawings is no longer available. Is it available from another source, or maybe a duplicate? I'm thinking of doing a late war Fletcher. TIA
Best regards, glad to be here. Patrick Victoria, Texas
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