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| - EARL ADAMS - | ||||
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| BOWDITCH MEMORABILIA, 1967-1968 | ||
| Wheelbook | ||
| My wheelbook from Bowditch, with notes on equipment operation. |
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| Friden Flexowriter Class, Oct-Dec 1966 | ||
| My certificate from the Friden Corp. for Flexowriter
training. The
Friden Flexowriter was the terminal device for the
NavDAC Mark 1 Mod 0. See John Hansen's Photo Gallery for a picture of the Nov. 1962 graduating class. My class would have looked the same! |
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| A menu from the Mardi Gras Restaurant and "Nite" Club, in Rochester, NY, where our Flexowriter class had its parties. Check out the prices! Coffee, however, was an outrageous 15¢ . We lived in hotel rooms, which were paid, and received a monthly allowance for meals. So even with a monthly pay of only $211.50, I could afford to eat here. And a live orchestra every night! |
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| Travel Orders and Vouchers to USNS Mizar T-AGOR-19. Sep-Oct, 1968 | ||
| These are the travel orders and vouchers for my
temporary duty assignment to USNS Mizar during the Scorpion SubSearch
mission. They represent a good example of Navy travel orders in Europe during the period. |
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| Amsterdam | ||
| Custom made souvenir by a local artist. Oil on photograph on a tree trunk (looks like cedar). A local artist made these up just as we docked, then came aboard and sold them in our crews mess. Fast work! About 16" wide and made to hang on a wall. I don't know how this was arranged but we often had locals set up in the crews' mess soon after docking to sell stuff. |
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| Barcelona | ||
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Los Caracoles The Los Caracoles Restaurant was a favorite of the Bowditch Crew in Barcelona. The restaurant was on a corner with the dining room largely open to the street. On the corner by the front entrance was a rotisserie, with chickens cooking away. Forty years later, the Los Caracoles Restaurant is still in business at the same location, in a much higher class incarnation: http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/restaurants/restaurant-los-caracoles.html In May 2006 John Hansen and wife Nancy revisited the Los Caracoles. |
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The Kit-Kat Also a favorite of the Bowditch crew, but of a different sort than Los Caracoles. A card... |
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| ...and a pin (about 3/4" high). |
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| Malta | ||
| A match book from the Gillieru restaurant. Thirty-Five
years later, this restaurant was still operating, at the same address, and
WITH THE SAME PHONE NUMBER! |
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| See reviews at http://chefmoz.org/Malta/Malta/Saint_Paul's_Bay/Gillieru972517784.html | ||
| Rota | ||
| Patch from the U.S. Naval Station, Rota. |
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| Patches from Bowditch Ports of Call | ||
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| Private Clubs: | ||
| Wherever we went in the UK, there were private clubs, and the Bowditch crew were always welcome as "guest" members. Here are my membership cards from clubs in Swansea and Plymouth. Belfast was also a great place for private clubs! |
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| Taxicabs: | ||
| Wherever Bowditch docked, we depended on Taxicabs for transportation and cab drivers for information. I was never cheated or mislead, a truly amazing experience considering. There was many a night when a helpful cab driver got us back to the ship with no more detailed instruction than "Barco Americano Bowditch"! Of course, in England we spoke the same language (sort of). I always had business cards from cabbies in my wallet, but only these two have survived. |
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| Money: | ||
| Paper notes from each of the countries Bowditch visited during 1967-1968. |
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| Sheath Knife | ||
| The Sheath Knife that I bought while stationed on Bowditch. I used it to cut nylon line used in the rigging of Deep Ocean Acoustic Transponders (see here and here). The small companion knife is long gone, stolen by a neighbor kid in Groton (aarrrrgggghhhh!!!). I replaced it with a new one, but it's not the same. See the photo of the knife as worn here. |
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| Kodak Film | ||
| While stationed aboard the Bowditch I used a
Kodak Instamatic camera for color photographs. The successor to
the Kodak Brownie, most early models of the Instamatic (I think mine was a
Model 100) were simple point-and-shoot cameras with an all plastic body and
lens, and a fixed aperture and shutter speed. All of my color slides
were taken with 24-exposure
Kodachrome
126
cartridge film. As I (vaguely) recollect, flash bulbs came in 4
bulb cartridges, packed 6 in a row in a transparent plastic box. Despite the modest equipment almost all of my slides from the Bowditch have survived and are posted here. The 126 cartridge was sold at the Bowditch ship's store, and came with a prepaid development mailer. Here's a box of slides as returned from Kodak. |
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| I took a few rolls of
Kodacolor 126 cartridge color print film. These were also sold in
the ship's store with prepaid mailer. The negatives from this film
have survived very well; some examples are photographs of my
stateroom. Only a touch of color correction and some mold and dust
removal were required to produce these digital prints from the negatives. This is an envelope of prints and negatives as returned from Kodak. |
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| MICHELSON MEMORABILIA, 1970-1971 | ||
| Wake Island | ||
| I flew to Japan to meet Michelson in Yokosuka in ca. April 1970. The military leased commercial aircraft to transport people from San Francisco to Japan. The flights had to land on Wake Island to refuel. Wake I. is a truly isolated site. This post card is perhaps the most famous photo from the island. Wake was the site of a gallant and hopeless defensive stand by United States Marines and civilian construction workers against the Japanese during WWII. (Note that no Japanese city is included on the sign.) |
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| Notebook | ||
| My notebook from Michelson, with notes on equipment operation. |
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| Shellback Certificate: | ||
| On 26 December, 1970, Michelson crossed the
equator. I suspect we may have slowed down so that this did not happen
on the 25th, as the traditional Shellback initiation is not a ceremony
suitable for Christmas day.
The seal says: The certificate is signed by John L. Hammer, CO of Oceanographic Unit Three. He was a good CO. |
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| Money: | ||
| Paper notes from Japan. |
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| Sasebo | ||
| A match book cover from the "BAR TWILIGHT". |
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| Yokosuka PO Club Patch: | ||
| "Yokuska" apparently did not have an Acey-Deucy Club, but a PO club, which included PO3s. I actually don't remember this, but it would have been OK with us. Everyone in the OcUnits was a PO1, 2 or 3, with only a few Chiefs and Os. We wouldn't have liked it if our Third Class couldn't come into the club with us. There's quite a story which goes with Yokuska and this club, which I'll tell elsewhere. |
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| Yokohama | ||
| A match book cover from the "Bar EROS". Let's see...a Japanese waterfront bar named for a Greek god with an Aztec theme. Wow! (See my photo album of Sasebo for a waterfront bar with a Mexican shotgun wedding theme!) |
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| A match book cover from "The Red Vest" and "Stork Piano Lounge". Japanese waterfront bars. In China Town. |
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| Unknown Japanese City | ||
| An ashtray from the "Bar Robins". I don't known if this counts as a souvenir from a bar, since the original packing box indicates that I actually paid for it. |
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| Michelson postal "cover" | ||
| A postal "cover" from Michelson, ca. 1971 (This is supposedly from 1971, but the cancellation date is illegible). See the Universal Ship Cancellation Society site at http://www.uscs.org/ for an explanation of the historical significance of Naval Covers. |
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| MSTS Cigarette Lighters |
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| MSTS Button |
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| The "Hallmark" Patch | ||
| Bloody-minded Cold War sentiment. Not necessarily a T-AGS item, it's from the SSBN culture, but it is closely related. |
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