She wasn’t much to look at but like most homely ladies she had a heart big as all out
doors and a need to be loved. Even on her best days she could never compare in looks
with a slick destroyer or a behemoth bird farm but oh my, she was a worker. She could
keep up a steady 15 knots and churn along not missing a beat while the sixth fleet came
along side to sample her wares. Like back street lovers with a brief kiss from high line to
high line and a promise of more to come.
That crew in the early sixties she loved the most they took her from unfit for sea duty to
proudly showing the red and white E’s for excellence. With paint, sweat and hours of
work even though they cursed her at times their was love in the heart of all who served in
her. The old girl showed her appreciation by never letting her boys down and always
returning them to Barcelona where she could rest and they could play.
As she sat in the bone yard in Texas awaiting the searing torches that would tear her to
pieces. Ripping her right down to her keel where she began. That steel back bone that
stood true through thousands of miles of storms, cold and heat. From the battle for
Okinawa to her life in the Atlantic and Med she had had a wonderful life and reflected on
it.
She recalled the stormy passing through Cape Hatteras in early 60, bobbing around like a
cork on a string under tow from a sea going tug. It was embarrassing not to be able to rely
on her own turbines to make this trip to the Brooklyn yards. In the yards however she
began to renew her strength. CWO Goodson was breathing a new life into her engine
room changes in her evaporators meant she would never be with out fresh water. New
nozzles in her turbines meant better underway speed control.
The deck apes (funny how she never thought of them as monkeys) they were always so
dedicated to their work fighting rust and keeping her top side in ship shape. The electric
wenches and all her rigging under their supervision were put in perfect working order.
Her store keeps had a place for everything and everything in place mostly
Then came the sea trial she was a little nervous with a new untried crew heading to Cuba
with stops in Jamaica. Her first shakedown in the fifties was to Cuba also. Just before
that she had been renamed the Altair. She wondered how many plank owners are still
around and how many even remember her. They were a fine group of seamen. She was
sure most of this crew would be career sailors.
The shakedown went well the men performed outstanding with their first replenishment
drills. Soon she was back in Norfolk awaiting orders to deploy to the Med. When the
word was passed to single up and she got underway she virtually trembled with
excitement. She was not sure if it was a bad shaft bearing or the crew’s anticipation of
liberty in Barcelona. The night before arriving in Spain she knew it was the crew. The
entire crew had comedown with channel fever and was wide awake the vibration from all
that energy was electric.