Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
- Thread starter fester
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Doesn't every major naval base (and most minor ones) have ancillary services attached to it to take care of all the sailors' needs?
JFK wanted badly to be a teacher and writer. Joe Jr's death took that option away from him. If Joe Jr. doesn't die, (and he really doesn't have to) then it is likely he may slip out from under Joe seniors thumb and go his own way.
Note though it's rather likely Joe Jr. doesn't go as far or as high as JFK did. He was supposed to be less charismatic and savvy than JFK or the younger brothers were.
Randy
still wondering how the Belgian Royal Family produced a Man of Kings Albert caliber him being 7th in line for the thrown probably had something to do with
From my..uh..experience..in the pre-AIDs Navy, yes, definitely. Even at Great Lakes NTC where most American sailors go to basic training, and the USN has many of their training schools (I went to 11 months of Gunnery School there). The Strip outside the main gate was mostly sleazy bars, a rip-off jewelry store, pawn shops, and the like. While I was there it was known for 4 large white girls that trolled for sailors in a white Cadillac. They were known as "The Great White Fleet". I was home-ported in Charleston, SC. It had quite a collection of bars..."clubs", that before I put on a uniform I wouldn't have been caught dead in. They mostly had "rooms in the back" for special clientele (anyone dumb enough to pay 50 or 100 buck to go back there) basically a lap dance and cheap champagne from what I heard (no, really). The Purple Tree Lounge, with their star attraction, Carry Hunt..the A&N Club and a few others. I tended to hang out at The Little Nashville..a redneck bar where a fellow Gunner was a bartender, so I got doubles for half price..and no hassle from hookers. That saying about "Sailors have a girl in every port" is true..if you budgeted your pay. I would assume with AIDS, a more evolved view of women, and commonsense today's sailors are not quite as degenerate as we were in the 60's and 70's...or WWII. Thank goodness.
Story 1992
Messina, Sicily April 10, 1943
Dawn rose from the sea. Alert eyes scanned the horizon for ships and planes. None were seen. Today was just another day.
Early morning battle drill was a constant. Stay alert an hour before dawn to an hour after sunrise. If there was nothing, as there had always been nothing, the Luftwaffe tank soldiers would stand down for breakfast and then resume their normal training as the primary counter-attack force for the Sicilian armies.
Story 1993
Mers El Kebir, April 11, 1943
Another half a dozen assault ships pulled into the harbor. Over the next twelve hours, each ship was tied up to one of the piers. They were administratively loaded to bring the most cargo from the United States to the immediate area behind the front. None of the ships could be used for an assault just yet.
Work gangs composed mostly of French speaking Arabs and Berbers and American colored troops began their routine. Empty the ships to the keel, move everything to the warehouses and the rail yards and then move most things back on with the most useful and needed things at the the top or the front of the ship. They had been engaged in this logistical ballet for weeks now, and could empty out an LST and reload her in less than three days as long as the officers did not interfere with their brilliant ideas.
Even as longshoremen began their dance, the brand new French aircraft carrier Rochambeau entered the harbor. She had been an American cruiser and was converted on the ways to a light aircraft carrier. Thirty one humongous fighters sat on her deck. Three slots were missing from trans-Atlantic landing accidents. Two French crewed and American built destroyers followed the light carrier to the French navy’s side of the harbor where they pulled in next to the three fast capital ships that had concluded another bombardment mission of the Italian islands.
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Story 1994
Riau Islands, April 12, 1943
HMS Manxman and HMS Abdiel left the harbor with only a few hours of daylight left. Fighters circled the cruiser minelayers while a single amphibian hunted ahead for submarines. The division commander hated to go to sea without a destroyer escort, but none of the available little boys could keep up with the cruisers at thirty knots for the entire mission. Their speed would be their defense against Japanese submarines.
Thirteen hours later, the cruisers turned around. A massive minefield with over three hundred mines was now covering the most common northern approach to the port of Miri. The screws turned rapidly and soon the two ships were heading home at thirty-six knots.
By mid-afternoon, the cruisers were tied up again. Anti-aircraft ammunition was being passed to the half empty magazines. Manxman’s divers were looking at the hull as a near miss buckled some plates. It was only the timely intervention of some Australian Mustangs that kept a bad morning from being a fiasco.
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I know of the CO of one Scottish battalion that had to write to the majority of his battalion wives telling them not to go near their husbands until they'd been tested after his lads decided that a night in the Sportsman's in Kenya daring each other to go bareback on the local entertainment was a good idea, so I assume most uniformed services still keep their end up (fnaar).
I've never been to Singapore myself but I've been reliably informed that the best night spot on the island is the poetically named Four Floors of Whores
During the Vietnam era the docs of units deployed (Navy), and it was air units I know about personally, would post on the Plan of the Day towards the end of deployment the "PCOD" (pussy cut-off date). If you caught an STD AFTER this date the doc could not guarantee your cure before you got home. This was before AIDS, and also when certain other STDs like Herpes and Condyloma Accuminata which don't get "cured" were out there as issues. Basically the ones worried about were syphilis and gonorrhea. Towards the end of the Vietnam War (early 70s) there was also the issue of "super clap", gonorrhea resistant to the common antibiotics used to treat it coming from SEA - not a problem elsewhere initially.
Driftless
Donor
And here in Fester's universe, considering his more (politically) conspicuous service probably makes him less likely to volunteer for such a high risk mission as he did historically. No need for extra heroics. To paraphrase Gen Patton: Up to this point, Joe Jr. hasn't been "shovelling shit in Louisiana" in his war.
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?? Are you asking what its original is? Because that is explained in the next sentence. If not, what are you asking.
Sorry Rochambeau is suppose to be what american carrier?
she is an US Independence class CVL which iTTL was gifted to the Free French...
mostly to make use of the crew of the old French carrier Bearn that had been interned in USA custody.
(IIRC Fester never told us which Cleveland class light cruiser hull was used for this particular conversion
... or even if an extra one was converted to keep up the USN Numbers - 9 iOTL
plus 2 of the similar Saipan Class based on Baltimore class HEAVY cruiser hull)
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