Dutton on San Francisco Bay

This Dutton photo was taken while she was shifting berths to the Oakland Army pier, May 1979.

I had just bought a new Cannon A-1 camera and it was one of the first photos I snapped with it. I remember that a Navy tug slammed the Dutton into the pier. In Yokohama they had to repair a fuel tank baffle that was broken by this tug's ineptness.

If I remember correctly, we had a couple of reps from Bell Aerospace to check the gravity meters during our shake down cruise. They left their rental car on the pier. While we were at sea, the Dutton got re-routed to Port Huineme before we left for Japan. I wonder if the car is still there?

USNS H. H. Hess in Yokohama, June 1979

Chris Smoot has pointed out the Japan cruise during the summer of 1979. We first arrived in Yokohama, I think it was in late June. Shortly before leaving on this cruise I discovered that I didn't have a Japan endorsement in my passport, so I had to run by the Japanese consul office in New Orleans to get one in my personal passport. For some reason they kept asking me if I needed a weapons permit. Turns out that we would arrive about the same time as President Carter.

Climbing Mt. Fuji

While in Yokohama we arranged through the USO to climb Mt. Fuji during our July inport when the Dutton went to Yokosuka. This is a photo of me. The guy on the left was one of the OcUnit2 crew.

Climbing Mt. Fuji

This is a group shot. On the right is our mag, I believe it is Virgil Betencourt, On the left is Chief Castro, Gus Gustaphoson (sorry about the spelling, he was a flag hawk!) is to the chief's right, and I'm not sure who the other two guys are but they were also part of the OcUnit2 crew I believe.

The cruise from Yokohama to Yokosuka was a memorable cruise. We had a bunch of female middy's onboard for their summer cruise. During "Hump Day" they were sealed in their room with aluminum foil. They used a scissors to cut their way out in a very curvaceous way. One of the middy's was the daughter of the Admiral in charge of the Pacific fleet at the time. We kidded her the whole cruise that the USS New Jersey was following us all summer.

Bowditch in Drydock

Bowditch in dry dock in Baltimore May of 1981. I helped install a Bell BGM-3 meter on the ship and also took care of the gravity meters on the USNS Wyman T-AGS-34, before sailing off on the Wyman later that month.