Military stuff

[exlrrp]

So manyof you wrote to ask me to show a few more pictures of my trip to --Hawaii--it was overwhelming!--I thought I'd post a few more.
As this is a military website I'll stick to military stuff. Which is easy to do on Oahu--this may be the biggest concentration of military posts in America--all the services--ALL of them-- have major bases here and also many minor ones.
this on an island the size of a mediumlarge California county. That means that pretty near anywhere you point a camera on about half the island you'll hit something military. one of the thing it takes a little while to get used to is the presence of soldiers, sailors, marines, AF and CG all at the same time--in the Bay Area we're down to just a Coast Guard Base.

What youre looking at here far away is Kaneohe Marine Air Base

[exlrrp]

As an ex shipyard and construction welder I was blown away by some of the shittylooking welding I saw on the mighty mo--I worked in Avondale shipyards and this never would have pased there. this wasn't the worst

[exlrrp]

I was up at Punchbowl Military cemetery and these guys started booming these cannons--lordy it gave me such start!!-- I was up at the top on the other side and couldn't get to there to take pictures while the cannons ere booming--this is right after.

[exlrrp]

Course what self respecting old military man could resist the temptation to jump behind this, put both hands on the triggers and go "aah-aah-aah- aah-aah-aah-aah??"

I spent at least 5 minutes here shooting down Japs, I musta got a dozen of em

On the Mo overlooking Ford Island

[exlrrp]

I used to work on the dock at the far left scraping th bottom of Navy boats. I worked with other divers--I was the detail man--taking a hand scraper (like a strightened out hoe) and scraping around the coners where th pneumatic scraper didn't get. This was lik a short hanleld floor buffer, run thesame way by leaning, butwith an airhose in stead of power cord.
I'd be workin around these 20' high props in the halflit stygial gloom thinking--geez, if someon even kicks this over I'm hamburger. How much do you trust the military?? Did I say Pearl Harbor is a breeding ground for hammmerhead sharks? Not to worry, thats over in West lock
I wasn't afraid, I was a paratroopr oh yeah right

[exlrrp]

There's few places in Hawaii prettier than Punchbowl military cemetery--always a quiet spot to get away from the hustlebustle of the city. and the views are incomparable--any photo can;t show the half o it

From Punchbowl, a view of Waikiki and Diamond Head

[exlrrp]

This is the exact spot on the MO where they signed the treaty ending WWII

[exlrrp]

This is looking out the slits from the fire control room--the walls are 16" thick

[the humper]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
SF
NC

[Seascamp]

The weld quality is not a big surprise as the WWII war industry went from zero to warp speed almost overnight, anyone who cold hold an electrode clamp was put to work and there were no real industry wide standards or Navy/DOD standards being enforced as all that was to come later on via the learning curve.

The Baltimore class Cruisers of the same vintage had a lot of the same issues and problems especially with regard to welded seams, pressure pipe flange weld quality and pressure pipe metal quality. The VN war was a real workout for those poor old Gals and it was a never-ending process of putting another band-aid on the band-aid ball just to keep them in service and shooting. The once proud ?Greyhounds of the Fleet? became reduced to dignified Ladies just kind of hobbling along as best they could while the new Fleet hot rods just ran circles around them. There is no mercy to be found out on the briny blue and if ya got it ya flaunt it, period.

Scamp