Miss USS Tarawa

[Riley Smith]

It was the early seventies when I worked on the USS Tarawa. (LHA1) The ship was in modules, not yet a complete hull. Resources were being attributed to boats already in the water, and as such we mostly laid out the insulation scheme. Shot pins, etc
 There weren't many people assigned yet, and you at least knew who was who. One day there was a heart attack emergency and they hauled an old chipper off the boat. He didn't make it. He was a good old guy and I always liked to chat with him.
 In one of the modules near the bow, someone had drawn Miss Tarawa in all her naked glory on the inside of the exterior hull. Great work too. I wonder if she is still there, under the ocean. They sank her a few days ago, off Hawaii, in a military drill. That'll make you feel old!

[Charles Brennan]

Riley, I had really mixed feelings the first time I saw where they condemned and tore down a high-rise building I had worked on in the 70's.  At the time, we thought that was really IT, the best mix of Cool and Hi-Tech and would last forever.  "Forever" turned out to be about 38 years.

Made me wonder about my Life Choices, realizing I had spent my life and my career, building the Slums Of The Future.
At least, your work ended up in the Graveyards of the Deep and possibly even something useful, like an artificial reef.  All my work ended in a brief explosion, a lot of dust and hauled-away debris, leaving no trace that my labors ever existed.

Been There, Done That; wiped up the sweat with the tee-shirt,
Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

Those are large ships! They'd lead us to our meeting place and workstation, because you'd get lost in two minutes unless you'd been there about a month. Can you say rabbit warren filled with people and material ? Joiner bulkheads everywhere, which is a lightweight honeycomb aluminum wall panel. The work in the modules was actually on LHA 3 but we got called into the fray when they got behind, and headed to the wet dock for a spell. It was so long ago...

My partner in crime was Paul Jones. I like those Jones boys, have known quite a few. Paul was recently back from Viet Nam, flying cobras. He had that long look in his eyes sometimes and I knew. Family moved in and we were close for a while. Had a sister that was cute but she was "sorta" married and pregnant. Paul had his own demons and it was tough coming to terms I think. I left to go climb steel in Middle Mississippi, but got to thinking about Miss Tarawa. I'll bet there are plenty of others that saw the artwork too, a local artist spicing things up for the sailors. A bit of soapstone creativity amidst primed structure.  Of course it was a landmark in the module.

[Riley Smith]

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/b/belleau-wood-lha-3-ii.html

That's 3...which was in modules when I arrived. LHA 1 (USS Tarawa) was the one at the wet dock. That boat BROKE LOOSE during a severe storm. and blew out into the middle of the river. The gas headers all got ripped off and acetylene, air, and argon were all blowing. The electrical went too, and wires were smoldering everywhere. For those on the ship it went black. That was an all hands emergency for everyone in the port. The local Colle tugs herded her back to berth. One gantry went in the water, too. 60-80 mph winds. I wasn't at work but it was a very bad storm.

We had a sudden windstorm yesterday...it sprang up coming in off the water. Rained half the day after the wind but never got serious.

[Norm L.]

Talk about aging ships. The naval ship I was on USS OKANOGAN APA 220 was laid up around 1972. Somewhere around 1978 it got towed to Japan for scrap. (The Japanese finally got it). The company I worked for got the job preparing it for the scrap tow. We had one German scrap company, and one Japanese scrap company so got these tow prep jobs. I did three which is how I got my collection of ship artifacts. I've passed most of them on to a museum.
I so wanted to do the OK tow to visit it again and get some good souvenirs, but my boss was originally from SF and had some family there, so he took it.
September will be the annual reunion of the ship's veterans, this time in South Dakota. Next year will be in New Orleans and probably the last reunion as an organization. Our oldest active member is 97 and aboard for Korea and the Cuban hustle. The rest of us are VN with the youngest around 75 and the officers and some high ratings in their 80's.
Old ships have been scrapped and sunk and now the same with their crews. 

[Doug SC]

I came across this account of how the USS Tarawa was sunk with 1 bomb from a B2 bomber. A show for China's benefit perhaps.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/27/asia/rimpac-air-force-b2-bomber-low-cost-bomb-sinking-exercise-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

[Frank B.]

In the early Seventies I did a lot of welding on Oil and Gas production equipment on offshore platforms and deck sections.  I've always wondered about their history and if they are still operating or have been decommissioned. Most of my welds were on pressure vessels or interconnecting piping.  Also lifting lugs and if you were assigned them you knew you were well thought of.  You had to be able to spend hours weaving vertical up without leaving any undercut or cold lap with a supervisor making regular checks over your shoulder.

[Riley Smith]

Frank, you got my hopes up with that article, except that it TOO doesn't show the KO shot. Or even any of the Tarawa. I smell something interesting. Could be they want to leave the Chinese guessing, or they're editing film, or both. At any rate, the appetite for destruction was abated in the Pacific for a few days. There are lots of factors because of everything concerning "national security", but the data here really IS of paramount importance. And besides, it showed the Chinese that...." so you have an aircraft carrier. We have few, not one or two. As a matter of fact, we have so many that we'll run tests on how to sink one. And heck, let some of our buds expend some rounds too."