Back in 65’ I was in HS-2 and had been on SAR Det for about 3 months. Had a nice beard, walked around what every ship with a issue 38 so we were ready to fly at all times. Well they decided we needed a brake and we got to go to Hong Kong on Kitty Hawk. We slept on cots on the Focsle. Had a real problem with people steeling our stuff, Blankets and flight jackets and other stuff. It was in December and we had snow in Hong Kong. Kitty Hawk was ordered back to the line because of TET Offence. We were steaming way above the 30 knots the advertised speed. You could not stand on the fantail to smoke, it would bounce you about a foot in the air. We ran into a storm and the Focsle was cover with ice. We had to move to the galley. We had green water over the flight deck. The escort DD’s had green water over the top of everything. Store was the a J.O. on talked to one of the DD’s and they had to slow down because of the waves. The J.O. called back to the DD’s and told them that Kitty Hawk would go on and to keep at periscope depth. If my memory serves me right we lost 100 feet of cat walk. Hong Kong was great but the trip back to the line was a t**d floater. It was nice to get back to the line and warm air.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 17:44:25 +0000