{"id":7929,"date":"2025-11-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azadkinsiii.com\/blog\/?p=7929"},"modified":"2025-11-04T11:59:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T16:59:03","slug":"203-welcome-aboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azadkinsiii.com\/blog\/203-welcome-aboard\/","title":{"rendered":"#203\u2014Welcome Aboard!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trivia Questions (Answers @ end)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Who said, \u201cAll of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.\u201d<\/em>?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. In what movie, and who said it: \u201cGo ahead, make my day.\u201d<\/em>?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. In what song, and who sang it, did we hear:
    I’m about to give you all of my money<\/em>
    And all I’m askin’ in return, honey<\/em>
    Is to give me my profits<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    <\/div>
    Blog #203 (audio)<\/div><\/div>
    <\/div>
    <\/div>
    Published: <\/span>November 4, 2025<\/span><\/div>
    <\/div>Audio by Andy Adkins<\/a><\/div><\/form><\/span>2<\/span> Downloads<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>
    <\/div>\n\n\n
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    My transfer orders read, \u201cReport to USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) no later than March 20, 1975.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019d left my first<\/em> duty station, NAS Agana, Guam<\/a><\/strong>, a month earlier (February), after spending 15 months working one day on and one day off as a Crash Firefighter<\/strong>. It was great duty\u2014lots of scuba diving during the off hours and \u2026 I learned to fly (\u201cAirplane Single Engine Land\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Arriving home on 30 days’ leave, it was the first time I\u2019d seen my mom, dad, and sister, Anne, in forever. Two Thanksgivings and two Christmases away from home, but now, I could make up for lost time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was great being home, seeing my family and friends, eating home-cooked meals, and just chillin\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But I also had the itch to get to my next duty station. Instead of taking a full month\u2019s leave, I decided I\u2019d only take three weeks and then skedaddle out to San Diego and Kitty Hawk<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, unbeknownst to me at the time, Kitty Hawk<\/em> was out on RIMPAC<\/strong> (Rim of the Pacific Exercise) maneuvers in Hawaii and wouldn\u2019t return to San Diego for three weeks. RIMPAC was done in preparation for overseas deployment. The Navy wouldn\u2019t fly me out to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Well \u2026 that sucked!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After spending three weeks at San Diego Naval Station<\/strong> in a temporary holding company (there were three of us), we ran out of working parties. We began duty at 0730 and after cleaning the barracks, we could do whatever we wanted until we had to muster again at 1245. After muster, we took the rest of the day off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Boring!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Finally \u2026<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Finally, I got on board Kitty Hawk<\/em> on March 30, 1975. I had had enough of the boring barracks life in a temporary holding company, but I was mature enough to realize that\u2019s the way it was in the Navy. \u201cHurry up and wait!<\/a> It\u2019s not just a job, it\u2019s an adventure!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kitty Hawk\u2019s<\/em> home port was North Island Naval Station<\/strong>, just west of San Diego across the bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"USS
    USS Kitty Hawk <\/em>(CV-63). January 2009, Bremerton Shipyards Decommission Ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    When I first arrived on the pier, I was looking up at this magnificent aircraft carrier, which was to be my home for the next two and a half years. I wouldn\u2019t say she was beautiful (that would come later), but I would say it felt right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My good friend from Guam, Glenn Law,<\/strong> was already on board. He had come in a couple of weeks before I did and was aboard when Kitty Hawk<\/em> left for Hawaii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I first arrived on board and checked in with the personnel department (commonly called \u201cprocessing\u201d), Glenn came down to greet me, and we shook hands like old friends. It was good to see him. He told me that Gary Borne<\/strong> was already on board and in the Crash crew\u2014they called it Crash and Salvage<\/strong><\/a> on the ship. That would be my assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    \"Glenn
    Glenn Law, Gary Borne (R.I.P.). NAS Agana, Guam (1974).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    While I had already been in the Navy for a year and a half, and I had learned some \u201ccolorful\u201d language<\/a> in boot camp and on Guam, I was about to learn more of this second language aboard Kitty Hawk<\/em>. As with many Navy traditions I experienced in Guam, there would be more aboard the ship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Family Day Cruise<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    During my first week on board, Kitty Hawk<\/em> sailed for a \u201cFamily Day Cruise,\u201d which was a one-day cruise allowing sailors\u2019 dependents on board for a day. In other words, \u201cSee what daddy does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Since this was my first time on the ship at sea, I was told to stay off the flight deck and hobnob with everyone else. I could watch flight deck operations from Vulture\u2019s Row<\/strong>, an open-air balcony on the ship\u2019s island overlooking the flight deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I was okay with that, because I got to see for the first time flight deck operations<\/a> up close: Navy jets being launched off the catapults and landing on the carrier. It was pretty exciting, and I couldn\u2019t wait to get onto the flight deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The ABH Rate<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    The ABH<\/strong> rate has two types of jobs. One is the aircraft firefighting that I had done in Guam. The other is a combination of tasks that involve handling aircraft (Yellow Shirts<\/a><\/strong> & Blue Shirts<\/strong>), hence the rate Aviation Boatswain\u2019s Mate Handler<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    These tasks include directing jets around the flight deck, driving aircraft tow tractors, and tying the aircraft down to the flight deck using chains. I would learn it all soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My first assignment aboard Kitty Hawk<\/em><\/strong> was with Crash and Salvage, and that was fine with me. There were fourteen guys in Crash. I would find out later during the Westpac \u201975<\/strong> cruise just how short-handed we really were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019m Not Old Enough<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Over the next couple of months, Kitty Hawk<\/em> would be getting ready for a forward deployment cruise called WESTPAC (Western Pacific). The cruise would last a six months, and we were scheduled to deploy on May 21. Before that, we would be at sea training for a week here and a week there, and I would learn what an ABH does on board an aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One of the things that pissed me off at the time was the drinking age in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In Guam, the drinking age was eighteen. I was twenty years old now and had been drinking like a sailor for a couple of years. The drinking age in California was twenty-one, so I didn\u2019t have any luck going out drinking with the guys, and I even got kicked out of a bar or two. That meant that I would not be able to drink legally<\/em> in California until we returned from the Westpac cruise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Kitty Hawk<\/em> Stats<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Kitty Hawk<\/em> was 1,065 feet long from bow to stern (about as long as the 77-story Chrysler Building is tall), 282 feet wide at the flight deck level, and displaced over 83,000 tons with a full load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    She had a draft of 38 feet and was powered by eight steam boilers with four bronze screw propellers (each 21 feet in diameter and weighing about 30 tons), producing 280,000 horsepower, giving her a top speed of about 35 knots. She carried about 2,000,000 gallons of fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"
    Andy (“Chet”) Adkins, Bremerton Shipyards Dry Dock (1976).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    She also had an onboard desalination plant that turned salt water into fresh water, making about 340,000 gallons a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When on deployment, she carried a complement of over 5,500 officers and enlisted men and over 75 aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The ship\u2019s company (those men assigned duty aboard the ship) comprised about 3,000 officers and enlisted men. The rest of the 2,500 men were the air wing<\/strong> (those men assigned duty to the various air squadrons but temporarily assigned to the ship).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 1961, her cost was about $265,200,000. In comparison, today\u2019s aircraft carriers cost more than $13 billion. It took $9 million in ship support and another $22 million in airwing support each year to enable Kitty Hawk<\/em> to perform her mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    No More \u2026<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Over her forty-eight years, Kitty Hawk<\/em> completed eighteen deployments in support of operations including Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and air strikes against Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    She underwent three major overhauls in Bremerton, Washington Naval Shipyard<\/a><\/strong> in 1976, 1982, and 1998. But its most significant maintenance period was in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard<\/strong> in 1987. Called a SLEP (Service Life Extension Program<\/strong>), the four-year overhaul added an estimated twenty years to the originally planned thirty-year life of the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Since 1961, Kitty Hawk<\/em><\/strong> sailors experienced liberty in many different countries during these deployments, most of them in the western Pacific including Japan, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Philippines, Kenya, Singapore, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Guam, and Thailand. She\u2019s also stopped in ports in Spain, Trinidad, Brazil, Chile, and Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I was on active duty, 1973-1977, there were twenty-seven carriers in the U.S. Navy. When Kitty Hawk <\/em>was decommissioned in January 2009<\/a>, she was the last of the diesel-powered aircraft carriers. I made the trip to Bremerton to help celebrate her life \u2026 a great lady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now, there are only eleven active aircraft carriers in service. The latest commissioned carrier is the USS Gerald R. Ford<\/em><\/strong> (CVN-78). All are nuclear powered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Until we meet again,
    Andy<\/p>\n\n\n

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    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    Andy Adkins is a US Navy veteran<\/strong> (\u201973-77) and the author of several books (www.azadkinsiii.com<\/a>), many of which are free downloads (PDF, eBook format). He is currently retired and lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife and life-long soulmate, Becky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Previous Blogs mentioned in this Post:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n