Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
As I recall, there were four aft berthing spaces.GM’s, FT’s and cooks were in the rear port/aft, Electricians in the forward port/aft, BT’s in the rear starboard/aft, and the engine room gang, MM’s, and R div in the forward starboard/aft.My rack was the bottom corner rack nearest the head and only a few steps from the engine room door, which seemed to open every five minutes emitting even more heat and noise.Real pleasant on those sultry Westpac nights.
Yes sir, definitly a good site. I wish I had found it a long time ago. Thanks!
Hey Ed, Ray Venning here. R div. I vaguely remember you. That first cruise in 69 is a little fuzzy and I haven’t found my cruise books yet. It’ll help having some faces to go with the names. Hooper and Blieu sound familiar too. I found this site a couple of weeks ago. It’s great. Who started it? In case you haven’t noticed I’ve jumped right in and started a thread for R div., gotten a couple of guys already. Later.
I worked for a lot of years for city gov’s, mostly water treatment. Got tired of the gov. BS and changing technology. After the kids were grown I decided to chuck it all and went to driving truck. Been to every state in CONUS (remember that one?) except North Dakota. Got tired of the road and being gone so much. Right now I’m on unemploynent and trying to decide what I want to do next. Thinking of gold mining, but there I am back with the gov. BS again! What’s a guy to do?
I think my email is working again so I will try and contact some of the other guys and get them on here. My wife said she still has Mike Grillo’s wife’s email and he should be able to get in touch with Lou Lambden.Later
Hello, Gordon. Yup, looks like we did the exact same things.
York left about 6 months before you came aboard and I left about 6 months before he left. Did you know Juan Martinez? I’m not sure when he left. I trained York and Martinez to run the cargo control board. Great guys. Yeah, I worked in the fuel lab for awhile too, and of course the SF shop.
I think you mean LTJG Otto, AKA Otto-matic. He was the last div officer I had, shared duties with LTJG Will Charbonue (probably misspelled) who was DC and liquid cargo officer as well.
Keep checking in hopefully we can find more shipmates. I’m going to email York, he’ll probably know some guys you knew. Later.yeah, I usually check all the pages I’m on every day or two, usually at night.
I remember the bigfoot stories now that you mention it. I’m definitly going to have to go look for my cruise books to help my tired old memory.
As for Lou and Ghetti being retired, I know what you mean. I’ll be working the rest of my life. I gave up a career in city gov or I would probably be close to retirement. What’s your line of work? I’ve been driving truck for the last 15 yrs or so, currently not working.
I still haven’t emailed Mr., oops, Larry Dykes yet. been having some problems with this puter.
I would love to attend a Bula reunion but will probably have to wait for one out here on the west coast.
Well, time for bed, Talk to ya later.Yeah, Willy I remember you too. Glad I found this forum. I don’t have my cruise books handy as their in storage but I think I remember Slominski. We called him Ski, 3rd class SF, right? I see Mr. Dykes is signed on here too. I’ll have to email him if he doesn’t show up here soon. Same with Ron York, he was on the next 2 cruises after you left. I saw lou Lambden and Mike Grillo about 3 or 4 yrs ago. Mike lives about 40 miles from me and Lou was out here on vacation so we got together for dinner once. I might still have Lou’s phone number, I’ll have to check. He was retired from the Baltimore FD and Mike had just retired from the Hayward, Ca. FD.
I haven’t been to hullnumber.com yet but I’ll do that after I cruise this site for awhile. Great hearing from you, don’t forget to muster in once in awhile.
Came aboard 1/2/69 as a FN2, right out of boot, and left 9/5/72 as a HT2. The Bula was all the Navy I knew. Spent most of my time in Cargo Control operating the “board”. Worked with a lot of great guys over the 3 1/2 yrs and 3 westpacs. Lots of good memorys. It’s funny how the memory fades with the bad times and the good times stay sharp.
Hi, Tammy, my name is Ray Venning. I was on the Bula from 1969-1972 in R div. I just found the web site. I knew your father tho we weren’t real close. Different dep’t, different ends of the boat. My memory isn’t real good but if I remember right he was from or lived for awhile in Fairfield, Ca., my home town. I remember many times we sat on the fantail talking and smoking. It was the only place topside where you could smoke plus I hated being cooped up below decks.
I remember searching the ship for him. We made at least two full searches. Being in R div. we knew of places in the ship that most guys never knew existed. We searched them all. They even had aircraft from the carrier groups searching, plus we had turned around and searched as well. I never found out what happened. There were rumors but I don’t remember anything conclusive or official, Just lost at sea.
I’m sorry for your loss. It was a loss for all of us. I imagine you probably know more about this now than I do, but if you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to contact me.
