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Praetorium Honoris

Monday, June 18, 2018

Gaffney

OK, First the Important Stuff!
  • MBD's dress is at the fitter's requiring minimal alterations.  As is Mrs J's.
  • Dance lessons for mois are scheduled to begin this week.  
    • While I think I dance like this.

    • I really look like this. (and dance and sing) 

    • I'll probably end up still looking like Frankenstein.
  • The rest of the wedding stuff is coming together nicely.
So we might just get through this after all.

In other news,  my computational device has failed.  It freezes a couple of minutes after logging in, and requires a hard shutdown to recover.  It's 6 years old, so probably time for a new one.  

In case anyone is asking, I'm writing this from the computer in my office at work.  Yes, I'm working.

Or rather Powershell and Sql Server are working, querying every computer in the district for their name and service tag.  We'll be using that information to rename every computer in the district with a new naming convention which will, of course, make everything "bigger, better, faster".

Or so they say.

Dang, juvat! What an exciting job you've got!  Nothing boring like this.




Ahhh...Those were the days.

Sarge forwarded an email from Ox saying that he also had been a passenger onboard the USNS Hugh J. Gaffey a few years earlier than I.  Which led me to do some Binging on her history (sounds kinda weird saying "her" on a ship named for a guy, but I'm Air Force... wadooino?)

Anyhoo, here's the info packet distributed to passengers on the ship.
Source


Copied, almost verbatim, from this site.  The Gaffney was a Admiral W. S. Benson Class Transport:


  • Laid down, 15 December 1942, as a Maritime Commission type (P2-SE2-R1) hull, under Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 679), at Bethlehem-Alameda Shipyard Inc., Alameda, CA.
  • Launched, 20 February 1944
  • Acquired by the US Navy from the Maritime Commission, 18 September 1944
  • Originally commissioned USS Admiral W. L. Capps (AP-121), 18 September 1944, CAPT. Niels S. Haugen, USCG, in command
  • During World War II USS Admiral W. L. Capps operated in both the Asiatic-Pacific and the Europe-Africa-Middle East Theaters
  • Following World War II USS Admiral W. L. Capps was assigned to Occupation service in the Far East for the following periods:

    Navy Occupation Service Medal
    22 to 29 January 1946
    20 to 25 March 1946
  • Decommissioned, 8 May 1946
  • Struck from the Naval Register, date unknown
  • Returned to the Maritime Commission for transferred to the US Army Transportation Service, renamed USAT General Hugh J. Gaffey
  • Reacquired by the Navy, 1 March 1950 and placed in service by the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) as USNS General Hugh J. Gaffey (T-AP-121)
  • In 1956, a 10 month old boy saved the ship by reporting an Iceberg while enroute to Okinawa.
  • Placed out of service and struck from the Naval Register, 9 October 1969
  • Transferred to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet
  • Reacquired and reinstated in the Naval Register, 1 November 1978
  • Placed in service as a barracks hulk, redesignated Miscellaneous Unclassified IX-507
  • Laid up in the NISMF Pearl Harbor, HI., date unknown
  • Struck from the Naval Register, 25 October 1993


  • Given that she was laid up in Pearl Harbor at least until '93, I've probably laid eyes on her again since the area where those ships were stored was visible from my off base house when first assigned to Camp Smith.  Small World.
    Apparently, on June 16, 2000, she had a rendezvous with a missile and can now be found about 2700 fathoms down as a reef.





    Source
    "Hugh Joseph Gaffey, born 18 November 1895, in Hartford, Conn., attended Officers Training School at Fort Niagara, N.Y., and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery Reserve 15August 1917. Assigned to the 312th Field Artillery at Fort Meade, Md., he went to Europe in August 1918 and served in France and Germany before returning to the United States in August 1919. During the next two decades he served at various posts in the United States and served with the 15th and 18th Field Artillery and the 7th Cavalry Brigade. Assigned to the I Armored Corps in July 1940, he served with them until July 1942 when he was assigned to the 2d Armored Division. Appointed Brigadier General 5 August 1942, he was sent to the European Theater in November. From 1943 to 1944 he was the Commanding General of the 2nd Armored Division. In April 1944, he was designated Chief of Staff for General Patton's 3d Army fighting in France. He then assumed command of the 4th Armored Division in December. From 1945 to 1946 he was the Commandant of the Armored School. Major General Gaffey was killed in a B-25 crash at Goodman Field, Ky., June 1946." 
    Source 

    36 comments:

    1. Interesting. The BENSON class destroyers were also named after W.S. Benson. You don't often see two ships named after the same person serving at the same time. The DD was just USS BENSON, and had different call letters, so there would be little chance of mix ups, but interesting, just the same.

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      1. Good catch, StB. I could see where that might get confusing, but only at the wost possible time :-)

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    2. Third video didn't work out of the box, I mended that for you (somehow the YouTube code was in there twice).

      You and I dance and sing the same way.

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      1. Thanks, that probably happened one the first iteration which was attepted on my iPad. Kids, don’t try that at home. And missed it at work. Kids, always review the html. Sure would be nice if preview allowed links and vids to work.

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      2. You should be able to play videos in the editor. I do that to make sure, the preview I use for sizing and the like.

        Could we use a better editor? Why yes, yes we could!

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      3. I haven't tried it since you showed me the new way to load them. Maybe that's the difference.

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    3. Is this a a test to see if we are actually reading your posts? For some reason I doubt the validity of the claim that "In 1956, a 10 month old boy saved the ship by reporting an Iceberg while enroute to Okinawa." Good luck with the festivities. I suggest stashing a bottle of Jack Daniels somewhere close at hand. It tends to be a time of high angst among the ladies.

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      1. Damn, I was hoping that was a topic for a future post.

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      2. Uhhh, I try to avoid writing fiction, other than a little bon mot here and there.

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      3. I was thinking that ten month old boy would be an ideal trainer for lookouts on Westpac and SE Asia cans.
        But then I realized icebergs weren’t involved in those collisions.

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      4. See, I just thought, ok, they are shipping families over at the same time, and some little kiddo saw something, and told Mom, who said "Uh, Honey?? Is that big block of ice supposed to be right there?"

        But, I guess not...

        See, we do read your posts!! And, I am willing to bet cold hard cash that you dance waaay better than Frankenstein...probably not as well as Fred, but still better than Frank!

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      5. Skip, Yeah I'm sure there were multiple people from each ship involved in those disasters. Plenty of blame to go around, I suppose, but I don't know the actual facts only the initial reports.

        Thanks, Suz, for the vote of confidence, but I'd save that money if I were you. If you saw me dance, you might need it for the ER visit to recover from your fit of laughter.

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      6. I'm a nurse juvat...trust me I have seen far funny things in my 40 career than you dancing...not saying I wouldn't giggle a little, but need an ER...not likely :)

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      7. "...seen far funnier things..." I'm sure you have. Evidently I was "Highly entertaining" under the pain killer's influence when I burnt my hand a few weeks ago. The nurses (and my wife) were laughing pretty hard. Now, I'm usually a pretty funny guy, but by their reactions, I guess that night Steve Martin could have taken lessons.

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    4. Started serving your country before your first trip around the sun. Amazing!

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      Replies
      1. We also serve, who poop in their pants!

        Thanks

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      2. That would explain so many Penta-wonks.

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    5. Interesting side note. After WWII a lot of B-25s were outfitted as transports by the Army, and many of these were transferred to the Air Force when it was born.

      My mother used to fly Mitchell Airlines (as one pilot called it), catching flights from her base in Alabama to Kirkland and back, until she (1st Lieutenant, USAF) had to leave due to being pregnant in 1958. The other passengers usually were nice to her and allowed her to have a forward facing seat (about where one waist gunner would stand.)

      A bazillion Goony Birds and Commandos lying around, and they kept Mitchells flying until at least 59. Weird. Guess the Mitchell was both cool (which it is) and faster than the transport-transports. Come to think of it, the movie "No Time for Sergeants" had a B-25 flying as, I guess, a transport.

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      1. When I worked pumping gas at Lubbock International, my boss was a part owner of one. He kept promising to take me up in it, but the bastige never did. Mike, I'm still available for a ride.......Mike? Mike?

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      2. One landed at the Gainesville Airport, and I 'just' had to take something out to the police aviation unit that day...

        And there was an HE-111 there, ex Spanish AF job.

        I had the scratch for a ground tour, not enough to actually get off the ground.

        And to think they took the -25s off of an aircraft carrier the size of one of our Wasp class LHDs! Ball, large, brass, 2 each, issued to those gents

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      3. They took Multiple, fully loaded B-25s of an Aircraft Carrier for an unescorted max range, one way mission to bomb an enemy capitol. Balls, HUGE, brass, 2 each. As of Apr 18,2018, only one is still with us.

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      4. A USAF B-25 gets a few seconds of screen time in the movie, "Them."
        I doubly checked for a photo in the Internet Movie Plane Database. (I didn't even know there was an IMPDb until a few seconds ago.)
        http://www.impdb.org/index.php?title=Them!




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      5. Well, thanks John, there went the rest of the week! ;-)

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      6. juvat at 1:52 - And they did it after launching early, carrying little to no defensive armament. In bad weather. And our Ally, Russia, interred one crew for over a year before allowing them to 'escape' and kept the plane. Ally, my ass. We paid them to fight us, the rat bastiges.

        Ah, man, "Them." First horror movie I remember. Gotta find it now!

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      7. The Navy once got a PBJ-H on and off an INDEPENENCE class CVE, and several times on and off the ESSEX class CV SHANGRI-LA. This was in anticipation of the assault on Kyushu, as a means of getting them to new airfields built by the SeaBees, bringing the planes directly from the Phillipines.

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      8. https://litz.photoshelter.com/image/I0000f1y6oTRBnLg

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      9. Thanks for the picture StB. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of 8-10 50 cal (depending on which way the top turret was facing) machine guns firing at me. I wonder how much airspeed it would lose. The book I'm reading about P-47s in the SW Pacific said they always started a strafing run at max speed so they's still have a fair amount of speed when they finally got TO the target after firing.

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    6. Fake a twisted ankle, that way you don't have to dance! :-) Glad to hear things are coming together! And those Mud Eagles were just showin' off... LOL

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      1. Not Mud Hens, Jim. Both were C models (single seat, light gray paint). Oregon guard if I read the fin flash right.

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      2. Which I didnt, Florida Guard. IPads—->web surfing= no bueno.

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      3. "Oregon guard if I read the fin flash right."

        Those F-15s may not have been OANG, but I have seen and heard the 15s at PDX do the same type of scramble. Loud, they are.

        Thanks for the post.
        Paul L. Quandt

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      4. Sound of Freedom, Paul, Sound of Freedom!

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    Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
    Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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