Life on a Destroyer
Destroyer life isn’t always like this. But, every so often, a weather system overruns a Sailor, yanking him through a horrific maelstrom, the ship savagely bucking as she desperately seeks calmer seas. And when they do come, those night watches under an ebony sky where millions of God’s brilliantly lighted sentinels [...]
SURRENDER AT TOKYO BAY by John Gobbell
September 01, 2006 At a little after two o'clock, General Douglas A. MacArthur's four-engine C-54, aptly named Bataan, landed and bounced to a stop in a cloud of dust. The General descended the ramp, smiling and waving, his corn-cob pipe clamped between his teeth. Only weeks before, Imperial Japanese Army and [...]
How a Fletcher Class Destroyer Became a DDG Overnight By John J. Gobbell
(Reprinted with permission from the fall, 2007 issue of Tin Can Sailor) February, 1962 U.S.S. Tingey (DD 539) Somewhere near the coast of Honshu, Japan Tingey, a 2,100 ton Fletcher class destroyer rolled easily in the calm Pacific under a moonless night. Yesterday, she had emerged from a series of bone-jarring [...]
ON BROTHERLY LOVE by John J. Gobbell
(As printed in the Fall 1995 issue of THE SCROLL of Phi Delta Theta.) Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third ManVice Admiral John S. "Slew" McCain In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. [...]
SOSUS AND CONNECTING THE DOTS by John J. Gobbell
(As printed in the Spring 2019 issue of Tin Can Sailors, magazine.) I marvel at the way this was revealed to me. I marvel at the way our Navy works without tipping its hand. The first of several dots connecting this story began in 1949. As twelve year olds, we were [...]
USS McCambell (DDG 85) Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) class destroyer heads to Portland Oregon
It isn’t often we see a new modern destroyer steam past in such elegance. She is the USS McCampbell, homported in Yokosuka, Japan and in this clip, headed up the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon for modernization. The shot is so great since we get to stand on the riverbank and [...]