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1955 Ship Pictures
A friend of ours, up in Washington state, came across a picture of the
old girl and rescued it from resting in an old binder of a collector so we could
share it with the crew and family. Thinking it was from the mid 50s, I asked the guys for
input. Here's a compiled response.
It shows Groton in the
background as she is heading up river to the base. Up on the bridge is Lt-Cmdr.
"Moose"
Grossetta, Lt. Jg. Norm Berge and Lt-Cmdr. Jim Jefferies on the bridge. The
other officer looks like Lt. Jg. Jack Mckee. It appears to be HM1 "Doc" Weber in the
background and a QM1 Earl Willis on the port side. It also appears she
was returning from a short cruise as Moose has a heavy 5 O'clock shadow.
The torpedo loading boom may have been deployed to take on fish upon arrival at NL
or they may have fired an exercise shot and rigged the boom to recover it.
The picture had to be taken before July 1955
because Moose made Cdr in July 55 (There are no scrambled eggs on his cap in
this shot.)
Since most of those in the pix have on foul weather jackets, it's probably March
or April of 1955. She is headed for the barn between Electric Boat Company and the Bridge. The CPO on the bow looks like
TMC R. Morgan (the CoB). The guy next to him could be TM1 "Blackie" Orystick.
Here's a close-up of the bridge...
and bow personnel.
Well, wouldn't you know, here's a second picture from the same timeframe... Don Dresch climbed aboard in 1956 and
bought this picture of the old girl, stored it away and just recently uncovered
it. If you look close, you can see that the black on the sail, just
below the boat number is EXACTLY the same as the above, as is the feathering of the black deck
to the side. He loaned it to the web master, who scanned it and
cleaned up aging spots.
Here's a close-up of the bridge...
and bow personnel.
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