Newpie news stories

Stories of the shipyard and the people who worked there
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toadeblois
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:13 pm
First Name: Glenn
Last Name: DeBlois
Crew?: Blue
Which Years on Board: 1981 -1985
Special Crew?: Neither
Rate: mm2

Newpie news stories

Post by toadeblois »

NewportNews was great Remember doing Beers With Floyd Payne, Chip Davis and Chief Bonneau more than Once also got in a pretty good car wreck on way to work one Sunday Morning! :oops:
Twangg1
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:43 am
First Name: Thomas D.
Last Name: Cantrall
Crew?: Gold
Which Years on Board: 1963-1968
Special Crew?: Commissioning
Rate: MT1(SS)

Re: Newpie news stories

Post by Twangg1 »

During construction, Newport News was pretty great... how we all lived through that period is a mystery to me.

All through our time there, the Yard constructed a new roof for the office barge when they moved the carrier America to the next pier over... and her elevators kept us in the shade all day... We left to go to the Cape and fire our missiles... we goldies flew down to meet the Bluies and "observe" the launch. After their launch, we Goldies took the boat and fired our missile then left on a 27 day shakedown cruise... I believe that's when we went to the Caribbean for sound trials... though I could be mistaken about that... When we returned to NN we found that they had brought in the crew for the America and had brought in the Enterprise for refueling... where their had been a few hundred boat sailors in town there were now 8,000 BIRDFARMERS!!! Talk about going to Hell in a Handbag!!!

We were used to wearing dungarees to and from home to the yard.. and now they wanted us to wear DRESS uniforms... Hell, most of us couldn't even remember where we had LEFT them... It was terrible...

After we left the yard and moved to Charleston, Jimmy Cardiff and I were assigned to a one week Warhead school back at Dam Neck. Talk about your sack duty... a pair of MT2's in a school of SA's and SN's... we were royalty... one or two nights we returned to NN to visit all our old watering holes... to make a long story short, we left (or attempted to leave) NN enroute back to DamNeck... Jim was driving... and he got stopped. Neither of us could have found our butts with both hands... and they came up to the car... just as I felt the need... and opened my car door to puke... just in time to see a pair of leather boots standing there! OMGosh... I knew we were gonna be hung for that... but Jim told them I had contracted the flu that day and was feeling it... Oh yeah, I was.. The Black Velvet Flu....

I knew we'd be arrested for DUI.. but they didn't.. they had Jimmy follow them back to the police station and he paid a fine and they turned us loose and we returned to Dam Neck... Loved the Police in NN... they were pretty cool to us.
Thom Cantrall MT 1 (SS)
'63-'68
Radwaste
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2016 6:40 pm
First Name: John
Last Name: Culbert
Crew?: Combined and Gold
Which Years on Board: 1980-1983
Special Crew?: Neither
Rate: IC nuc

Re: Newpie news stories

Post by Radwaste »

The same thing happened when USS Carl Vinson started taking on crew in 1981. I was walking to the gate in civvies when a hardhatted 1st class looked just past me and started shouting "Hey there young third-class petty officer!". It got bad for that 3/c.
I have always congratulated myself on picking a command where such things didn't happen. Knowing everybody on board was always a plus, even if I was embarassing myself.
A submarine is the starship of today. That said, a lotta people think they're propelled by nuclear power. Nope. It's sweat.
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