V OLUME 4, ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 2005 BUCCANEER An Official Publication of the USS King (DLG-10/DDG-41) Association

PUBLISHED BY: DAVE NESBITT 7983 Bradwick Way Melbourne, FL 32940 [email protected] HAPPY BIRTHDAY USS KING—17 NOVEMBER 1960 Message from the Board of Directors Harry Pate, President Greetings Shipmates! If you remember we didn’t do so well the year before in New Orleans. Well, the results from the Seattle Reunion are in I am happy to report. We ended up with a surplus profit from the Seattle reunion. As we are a Non-profit organization the Board had the task of what to do with this surplus profit. After a few ideas were kicked around it was decided that a portion of the money would stay in the Association coffers and the rest would be refunded to the attendees. The refund will come in the form of a letter. You should receive it sometime in December. BALTIMORE HARBOR AT NIGHT It will basically be a receipt for your 2006 Associa- tion dues or at your option; Regular Members that have a ways to go but the Reunion Director for next attended will receive $20.00 and Associate members year, Dave Nesbitt, is working on the Budget for Balti- that attended will receive $10 instead. If you desire more so we can come closer to our Goal. You will be the cash refund, please let Bruce Carlsen, Treasurer, hearing more about Baltimore from him later in this know of your desires before December. Newsletter.

The Seattle Reunion was only the second since we Speaking of Reunion Directors Doug Schutz the decided to organize and run on our own. The first Director for the Seattle reunion is from New Orleans year we didn’t do so well and this last year we were and we lost track of him in the aftermath of the hurri- not happy with either. Our goal is to make it come canes. I’m happy to report that Dave heard from him out almost even, no debt and no more then a 10% about the first of October. He was away on business profit. It is almost impossible to come out exactly on and I believe he stayed away until just recently. His budget, so a small contingency is planned on (10%). home did not have much storm damage so we grateful Any monies that we receive that are in excess of the for that. There were a lot of other folks that were not actual costs along with the monies from the Raffles so lucky. are used to either make up for the loses of the previ- ous year or help to fund the activities of the next re- The last item before I close is the Board of direc- union, as long as it does not exceed 10%. Well, we tors. There are three members of the board who at the 1 end of this will have served for three years. According to our By Laws that is the maximum allowable. There are also three others that have not indicated to me if they will run again or not. We need your help! These folks have worked very hard to build this Association into what we have today. If you enjoy the Reunions, the Website, the newsletter and every- thing else that having an association makes possible, and would like to see it continue, step up and help keep it going, by considering to run for the Board of Directors or volunteer to help out in the other committee positions. Communications Chuck White, Director

For those of us that have computers, communications via email is a great asset. Not only do we have speed on our side, we don’t have to worry about sleet, hail, rain, low flying ducks or goats chewing up the mail. We do have to worry about spam, virus’s, worms and intruders in to our semi-private corner of the World Wide Web. We sometimes for- get that someone on the other end is waiting for an answer to a problem or waiting to hear of a friends well being. As an association we read of upcoming events via the website and emails amongst ourselves. What about those that only have snail mail? I think sometimes, and I am in- cluded, that we forget about those non-members who consequently do not receive the “Buccaneer”. I am wondering, out loud here, if we took it upon ourselves, to mail a copy to a shipmate that we know the address of and know that he is not a member (check the online database). Also for us online types, it would be good to share with the USS King com- munity the whereabouts of that shipmate, with his permission of course.

A couple of big changes have taken place on the website. Due to be- ing hit by smut peddlers and those looking for free advertising many times a day, the search of a new guestbook was successfully found and installed, one that is security rich and very customizable. This may or may not answer the problem we were having with not so nice people, let us hope it does. The link http://www.uss-king.com/gb will get you to the New Guestbook. Click on Sign guestbook to enter your data.

On your next visit, please sign in and if you have a photo of yourself in uniform way back when, the New Guestbook has the capability of up- loading that photo. Other items that you can add to the guestbook are your email address, identities for AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Mes- senger, MSN and ICQ. Instead of me explaining everything, you have to experience it. Go to the Guestbook page and click on GUESTBOOK.

Another new addition to the website is a Discussion Forum. This is designed as an adjunct to the Message Board. The Discussion Forum is a place to talk about old times, specific events and share experiences, start discussions based on rating or division or something in general. Mark Donovan has added Avatars to the registration process so that you can select your Rank or Rate. The Discussion board can be accessed in a variety of ways. The front/index page has a link for your convenience,

2 or access it from the Message board page. A direct way is to input http:// uss-king.com/smf into your browser.

Deck Logs are being added to the website. This is a day by day ac- count of the King’s whereabouts; yellow green days in port, blue green at sea. Our Historian, Mark Donovan and I are working together to provide and online version. Click on History, then select Deck Logs or enter http://www.uss-king.com/decklogs.shtml

So for now, “Fair Winds and following Seas”, especially to the areas ravaged by high winds and even higher seas.

Reunion Dave Nesbitt, Director Plans are proceeding for the upcoming reunion in Baltimore. The Holiday Inn Inner Harbor is located a short walk to the heart of the inner harbor, and within walking distance to all the sights. Beginning 15 No- vember 2005 you can start making your hotel reservations at the Holiday Inn Inner Harbor by calling either 1-800-HOLIDAY or you may call di- rectly at 410-685-3500. Please make your reservations early, reserva- tions may be cancelled later on with no penalties. At six months prior to the reunion, the hotel has the right to evaluate how many rooms have been booked and adjust our block of rooms reserved accordingly. The rates for the rooms are $119 per night plus tax and surcharges. The hotel has extended the group rates for two days before the scheduled reunion and two days after. For those of us that will be driving to Baltimore, there is a $15 per day parking charge. Transportation from the BWI Air- port is available at a nominal charge.

Registration Packets, including the Registration Form, will be mailed out to all shipmates that we have valid mailing addresses on in January. The Registration Form will identify those costs above the Hotel Room Rate; meals, name tags, tours, etc. Your membership dues help to pay for some of the front-end expense of pulling together a reunion, for that rea- son there is one registration fee for members and another for non- members.

3 As mentioned earlier, almost all the sights in Baltimore are located Welcome New Members within walking distance of the hotel. We have put together a tour to An- napolis, MD, the first Nation’s Capital and home of the United States Na- David McHenry val Academy. We will be picked up by bus at the hotel which will take us William Roberts to Annapolis. Upon arrival we will take a guided walking tour of the Na- Harvey Towler val Academy, and then we will be able to sit down for a luncheon at an excellent local area restaurant located on the City Docks. After lunch we Rick Tuel will board the bus with a tour guide for a driving tour of Annapolis, then back to the docks for a 40 minute harbor cruise to complete the day’s touring, followed by the return trip to Baltimore. This tour is not pack- aged requiring each segment of it to be individually scheduled, i.e. Bus Charter, tour guide, Entrance fee for the Academy, the luncheon, and har- bor cruise. We need at least 40 people to sign up for this tour to make it happen. The approximate cost for the tour will be $60 per person. If you are not able to do the walking tour of the Naval Academy, special ar- rangements can be made to allow our bus on the property. Also, a picture ID is required to get onto Academy grounds.

The 2007 Reunion in Branson, MO planning is well underway. Harry Pate, our President, visited Branson in October to evaluate the hotels that had quoted us. During a conference call with the rest of the Board, we all agreed with the hotel that Harry recommended. This is a major milestone for the King Association; we will have a hotel on contract a full 19 months before the reunion date. We got the hotel we wanted, on the dates that we wanted it, instead of getting what was available as we had to live with in the past. As an example, our hotel selection in Baltimore was based on only two responses to our Request for Quote (RFQ), to get the hotel of choice of those two, we had to change our reunion dates. For the Branson Reunion we had thirteen responses to our RFQ, giving us the opportunity to pick and choose. We did change the dates, but that was because of a special event which we decided we wanted to take advan- tage of it. BRAVO ZULU Harry.

See you all in Baltimore.

King and Mahan moored in San Diego Harbor 1961

Photo by: Jerry Cook 4 MY DAYS ON THE KING AND IN THE NAVY Jerry Cook 1960-62, Vice President I enlisted in the Naval Reserve while still in high school. I had been a scout since I was eight years old including the Sea Scouts. So I didn't want 18 weeks of boot camp. I went on active duty just after graduation in 1960. I was a seaman apprentice at that time. Sitting at the center in San Diego asking for Photography School and they said NO. Then I got orders to the USS King DLG-10 pre-commissioning school. No one knew what a DLG was but there I was still in San Diego going through school and waiting to go to Bremerton, wherever that was. Precom school wasn't bad. I did learn a lot of stuff that I never used ex- cept the night vision course. NBC warfare was a little exciting. Fire fighting wasn't so good as I couldn't get a mask to fit. Gunnery was OK. I trained as a gun captain on the three inch. We all did a lot of cleaning. One time I spent all day doing one commode along with 20 others. Other times it was cleaning out old barracks. I was assigned ships photographer Photo by: and they sent me TAD to the USS Dixon and the Naval Base to learn Na- Jerry Cook val Photography as the ship was supposed to have a photo lab on board. Where is BM1 Paul Whitman? 1961 Photo Guess what, it was cancelled and I was out of a job. Then came the time to fly up to Bremerton, We all flew on Fly Tiger Airlines that flew Super Constellations. That plane rattled all the way to Washington. Then we were there and there was our ship, the USS King DLG-10. Captain Bustard got us all together and told us we had the greatest ship in the Navy and we were going to be the greatest crew the navy ever had. Never fear the King is here. I was assigned to WD Divi- sion with LT Piotti as the First Lt. There was a lot to do getting the ship Photo by: ready. Sea trials that was something else. One time the skipper took us Jerry Cook out into a mini hurricane and we steamed at 16 knots for a long time. I got sea sick for the first time. Everything on the foc'sl was wiped out ex- USS King in Pearl Harbor 1961 cept the 5 inch gun mount. Then we really worked our butts off to get ready for commissioning. About this time they had exams for seaman. 26 people took the exam and only four of us from WD Division passed it. That's when I made bos'n mate of the watch in port and underway. My underway station was IJV talker and capstan operator on the foc'sl. My GQ station was Mt 63 control. What a life, it got me out of mess cooking. Then it was off to San Diego and more sea trials. Then it was Photo by: off to . We hit a whale on the way over and did something to the Jerry Cook shaft but we did chase the USS Coral Sea around for a few days at 30 Jerry Cook manning the capstan 1961 knots. The Coral Sea was happy to have someone who could keep up. While in Hawaii the ship went into dry dock to try and fix the shaft prob- lem and we had liberty. Three of us rented a pink jeep and toured all over the island. We even climbed to the top of Diamond Head Mountain to see what was there; nothing but a big hole and a building. We had dinner every nigh at Trader Vics and ate lobster and listen to the Martin Denny band. Now that we all had Commissioning Certificates the skipper got permission for us to steam to Johnston Island and cross the equator so everyone Photo by: could be a Shell Back. So now I'm a Shell Back. Then it's back to San Jerry Cook Diego and then back to Bremerton to install the NTDS Gear. I never Jerry Cook on the 3” 50 1961

5 found out what it did but we sure steamed a lot finding out if it worked. Bremerton, Washington was a beautiful place for a guy who loved Naval History. There was a pretty good size mothball fleet there. Some of the notable were the Indiana, Alabama and the Missouri. Lt Piotti and I went over to one of the jeep Carriers trying to find some photo gear but we had no luck. The captain loved to fish and I would have to take him and some other officers in the U boat for fishing trips around the bay. I also operated the U boat in San Diego for liberty runs to Fleet Landing. Then it was back to San Diego to operate with the Mahan and Oriskany PHOTO BY: testing out our NTDS gear. We did a lot of steaming testing the gear. J. Cook One day pilots off the Oriskany flying an A-4 Skyhawk bailed out, but never fear, the King is here. I was just coming off watch on the bridge and ran down and got my camera. I took picture of the whole thing even when he went under the ship. His name was Lt Jack Truly. He was my first death in the Navy. I was also onboard for the mercy mission to Mex- ico to rescue a seaman on a Navy Supply ship. We steamed at 30 knots all the way down and all the way back to San Diego. What a trip. Sorry I wasn't onboard for the ASROC torpedo into the submarine but I've seen photos of during my career as a photographer. I PHOTO BY: J. Cook was onboard the King until March 1962 when she was getting ready for her first WESTPAC Cruise. My enlistment was up in June and I didn't want to go to WESTPAC, I wanted photography school. I was trans- ferred to the USS John R. Craig (DD-885) going to the yards in San Francisco for FRAM; my worst duty station. I re-enlisted in June and went on to become a Navy Photographer. I finished with 22 years of ser- vice in the Navy and enjoyed most ever minute of it. I still miss it and I've been out for almost 25 Years, this is why I jointed the King associa- tion. PHOTO BY: J. Cook

Historian Mark Donovan As you can tell from our Communications Director, Chuck White, a lot has been going on behind the scenes on our web site. The upgrades that Chuck implemented to the guest book and the addition of the fo- rums will greatly increase our ability to share our experiences. The fo- PHOTO BY: rums section is still new to us and we’re still feeling our way around, but J. Cook we have come up with some new ideas. One addition to the forums is a section called the USS King Techni- cal Information Project. The purpose of this section is to detail the tech- nical capabilities of the ship and to allow shipmates to post their stories and experiences with them. This will allow anybody to get an idea of what day-to-day life was like aboard the King. This is a section in which all of our shipmates can get involved. One of the things I think that many people forget is that the King was cutting edge warship technol- ogy in the 60’s and then again after her AAW upgrade in the 70’s. Even in the 80’s, with the addition of the Missile System, she was a formidable weapon. Some of the systems on the King are still in use to- PHOTO BY: J. Cook day and are an integral part of the fleet. Many of our shipmates had ex- 6 perience with systems that were to become the foundation of today’s navy. I am also happy to report that the scanning and processing of the photos and documents that I received in Seattle (as well as others mailed to me afterwards) is complete and I have sent them to Chuck White so that we can get them on the web site. I was very pleased with the amount of photos and other information that I received and I hope to see more soon. As the Ship’s Historian, I would probably be severely repri- manded and perhaps even keel-hauled if I failed to mention that this month marks the King’s 45th birthday. Yes, I realize that the ship is gone, but we should still remember the day she became the newest in PHOTO BY: the U.S. Navy. D. Nesbitt

PUBLISHER If you received this newsletter time to get something to me. This Dave Nesbitt via the postal service, you’ll notice newsletter is the tools we use for the that we used a different type of pa- Board & Staff to let you know what For those of you that receive per to print it on. It costs more to kind of mischief they have been up this newsletter via email. I may print with this paper but the gain in to, but it is also a way to share sea have formatted it in Acrobat 7.0. clarity, may be worth the costs. stories with your other shipmates. I At the time of this writing it is not Please let me know what you think know there are stories out there, I certain which level is to be used. If of it. see hints of them in the website it is at level 7.0 and you have diffi- We are still interested in print- Guestbook and Message Board. culties opening it, please let me ing your pictures and articles. The How many of us remember the drill know and I will send you a copy at next newsletter will go out in Feb- that was conducted frequently; a lower level. We are constantly ruary 2006, so you have plenty of “PAINT SHIP”? trying to update what we send to you as technology improves. 7 Kingsmen Celebrate King’s First Birthday 17 November 1961 Capt. Bustard Cuts the Cake

PHOTO BY: Seattle Photography Inc. DLG-10 Plank Owners at the Seattle Reunion 2005