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Bowditch’s newspaper, “The Phantom Reporter” from July 1967 and August 1967. Definitely not a family oriented effort, its purpose was to roast everyone on the crew. Your friendly Admin gets skewered at least twice in each issue. The first issue was basically the effort of one crewman, while the second had some input from others. It’s mostly pretty funny, although some of the comments are no longer understandable after 40 years. These pubs exceeded the bounds of even our poor taste and restraint, so it only lasted two issues.

Contributed by Earl Adams.

The "Cruz" Books, Crew's Books and Spitoons [sic] were produced on large format 44" x 32" photographic paper and folded to 11" x 8". The material was laid out in 11" x 8" format on the front half to produce eight pages. The back half took advantage of the large format to display photographs, so it is not easily divided into normal-sized pages. These presentations attempt to divide the original Cruz Books into sixteen sequential pages.

The Bowditch Spitoon
June 1976

Courtesy of Bob Lord.

The Bowditch Spitoon
July 1976

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
August 1976

That's Carroll "Frog" King on the cover!

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
October 1976

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
July 1977

For the 4th of July I set up a "mail buoy" watch. I found some photos of an air dropped weather buoy system for a C-130. A little creative writing and pasting and I had a page from what appeared to be an official US Navy publication. The page started in the middle of the “Ship born mail delivery” section. It then went on to the "Buoy, mail, air delivery" section (with accompanying photos) and finished with the beginning of the “Submarine mail delivery section”. We had a dozen people on watch that day, waiting for the plane to swoop in, rock it's wings, shoot flares, everything! What fun!

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
August 1977

This issue reports the strange disappearance of the XO's door and also the "Great Seabat Hunt".

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
October 1977

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
November 1977

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
December 1977

The cover illustrates a notional Christmas course track from St. John's Newfoundland to Pt. Canaveral, FL. The track is annotated with these comments:
OK, FORGET THE ROLL BIAS.
HOVE-TO.
“GET THOSE MILES”.
HOW MANY CROSS CHECKS DO YOU WANT, GROVER?
BRIDGE, YOU BETTER CHECK YOUR COMPASS AGAIN!
I WANT TO SEE THEM SMOOTH THIS LINE!
NOT ANOTHER T-S.
BRIDGE, THAT’S TO CANAVERAL NOT THE CANARIES!
SPD INCREASE 2000RPM.

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
January 1978

Here's the story behind the cover photo. The whole crew needed a shot for something, but who was going to give Doc Smith his shot? Here was an opportunity to make some money for the Unit at someone else's expense! We raffled Doc's shot off. The winner got to stab Doc. I don't remember who the winner was but in front of the crew, in the movie lounge, Doc spilled his blood for the good (and the money) of the Unit. Doc was a good sport about it but we all made sure we had our shots first!

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
May 1978

Courtesy of Tom Pusateri.

The Bowditch Spitoon
July 1978

Courtesy of Ron Warmuth.

The Bowditch Spitoon
August 1978

Unmaned rocket launch test.

Courtesy of Ron Warmuth.

The Bowditch Spitoon
November 1978

The Coke vs. Pepsi taste test.

Courtesy of Ron Warmuth.

The Bowditch Spitoon
December 1978