Bill the Goat goes up against America’s finest
August 31st, 2009 | Naval Academy Officers Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Naval Academy mascot Bill the Goat is in this year's national mascot competition, and he needs votes to be able to advance against the other college mascots // MCSN Matthew Ebarb/ Navy
The Naval Academy Midshipmen are starting off their football season with a bang this year — and not just because they’re taking on the pride of Central Ohio for their first game. The Mids’ beloved mascot, Bill the Goat, is taking part in this year’s National Mascot of the Year contest, and he’ll need votes from across the country to compete against other big-time mascots such as Texas Christan University’s Superfrog and the University of Maryland’s dreaded Testudo, the most dangerous turtle in America.
Don’t count ol’ Bill out, though: He has a disagreeable and combative nature, plus he’s in great shape from all that PT. And he has the ear of powerful people.
You can check out Bill’s profile page here, which has a lot of interesting information about him, from height and weight to his pre-game meal (“grass from Army’s end zone”). And you can vote for Bill here, where he’ll be going toe-to-toe with the other foam costumes in the competition.
Makeover for ‘Mighty Mo’
August 31st, 2009 | Historical Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors aboard the carrier Nimitz viewed the battleship Missouri as their ship pulled into Pearl Harbor. The Missouri is due for a makeover in drydock this fall // Navy
Although it’s been decades since an Iowa-class battleship last fired its guns, the 21st century could become a second a golden age for the four beloved battle-wagons, each of them now spending their retirement as museum ships. The New Jersey is available for tours in Camden, N.J. Ownership of the Wisconsin will soon transfer from the U.S. government to the city of Norfolk, Va., which has said it will open more spaces of the ship for tours. And organizers are working on opening the Iowa to visitors in Valejo, Calif.
That leaves the Missouri — the ship that hosted the signing of the surrender of Japan — out at Pearl Harbor. After taking aboard some 400,000 visitors per year since the early 1990s, the ship needs a little work, and so it’s scheduled to move to a drydock in October:
The 65-year-old ship is in good shape, but it still needs to go to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for repairs because rust is protruding from peeling paint in areas and the teak wood deck is warped and bent in others.
The ship’s exterior is due to be sanded down and repainted in a $15 million overhaul paid for by memorial reserve funds and a Department of Defense grant.
“Rust never sleeps as they say,” said Michael Carr, the memorial’s president. “It’s a big job. It has to be done.”
Japan’s new warship — just don’t call it a carrier
August 31st, 2009 | Aviation Carriers Foreign navies Pirates Ships The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Hyuga, an axial-decked, aviation-optimized, haze-gray warship -- marked with helicopter landing spots -- is not an aircraft carrier. It is a "helicopter destroyer." // Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force
The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force launched its latest Hyuga-class “helicopter destroyer,” — ahem — this month, which has revived attention to Japan’s gray, flat-decked, aviation-optimized warships that are NOT aircraft carriers. The latest ship, Ise, is the second in the class and is scheduled to formally join the MSDF in 2011.
The story about the Ise reminded Scoop Deck of a visit not too long ago to Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, where the Japanese military wants to expand its footprint on the Horn of Africa and even build its own base. Japanese warships in the Gulf of Aden began escorting non-Japanese-flagged merchant ships this summer, even though they initially had only been assigned to protect their national-flagged shipping, said Capt. William Finn, commander of Camp Lemonier
“It shows their commitment to this mission,” Finn told Scoop Deck.
Japan already flies P-3 Orion patrol planes that provide maritime domain awareness over the Gulf of Aden, and light carriers destroyers like the Hyugas would seem well suited to providing helicopter support for the international anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa.
A forgotten voice from the Pacific War
August 28th, 2009 | Historical Life at Sea Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
For all the overpowering sensations and experiences of the Pacific War, sailors and Marines were forbidden from taking notes about their experiences // James Turnbull/ Naval History and Heritage Command
With today’s Inter-nets and You-Tubes and silicon chips and such, U.S. service members can correspond with home and record their wartime experiences easier than at any time in history. (Not that it’s perfect, as any sailor who’s been frustrated with bandwidth at sea can attest.)
So it’s easy to forget that back in what historians call “the day,” sailors, soldiers and Marines were outright forbidden from keeping track of what they went through. The greatest Marine writer of World War II, E.B. Sledge, kept notes about his battles at Pelelieu and Okinawa in his G.I.-issue Bible, which he used later for his classic “With The Old Breed.”
Another Pacific War recollection surfaced recently in an unlikely place: Northeast Ohio. A contractor working on a house in Akron, Ohio, found seven notebooks of Bert Raymer, who served as a machinist’s mate second class aboard the oiler Merrimack. As the local paper reported, Raymer also had to make sure his commanders didn’t know he was taking notes:
Dick Raymer said he understands his father wrote the diaries under the cover of darkness, in secret, under a blanket in his bunk on the ship, every night, knowing that sailors were not supposed to keep such logs during wartime.
”They were sworn not to say anything of their travels,” he said.
It’s a good thing for the Raymer family — and for the world, if Raymer’s diaries are eventually published — that not every sailor obeyed every last regulation.
We build, we fight, we visit museums
August 28th, 2009 | Seabees Shore duty The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
BU3 Adrian Trollip, of NMCB 5, worked on a roof at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan May 13 // Cpl. Aaron Rooks/ Marine Corps
As Scoop Deck learned during a recent visit to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, you can’t swing a reporter’s notebook when you’re downrange without hitting Seabees at work on projects for the war effort. They were at Camp Eggers, in Kabul, Afghanistan; they were at Camp Leatherneck; and at Kandahar Air Field, putting up their trademark wooden buildings in record time. A tour of the Seabees’ new U.S. forces building in Kandahar was especially pleasant; even though it was unfinished, its air conditioning provided an oasis from the heat and the wafting aroma from KAF’s infamous “poop pond.”
So it was great to hear about some other new construction taking place in the Seabee world: Workers broke ground this week on a new home for the Seabee Museum outside Naval Base Ventura County, Calif., the Navy announced. And not that the wooden clubhouse-style buildings at Camp Leatherneck weren’t nice, but the designs for the new Seabee Museum make it look especially luxurious.
Typhoon SSBN sighted off the Jersey shore?
August 27th, 2009 | Foreign navies Photos Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing
A Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine altogether unlike the object sighted this week off the Jersey coast // U.S. Missile Defense Agency
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water — well, as “safe” as it gets on the Jersey shore — amateur ship-spotters start spotting Russian ballistic missile submarines out there! Naturally the Center of Excellence went into overdrive when this headline appeared, and then shifted back to normal drive when eyes were lain on the associated photo.
Whatever that thing is, a Typhoon it ain’t.
(For the record, if a Typhoon did get close to a beach, it would probably look like this — although there’s no telling whether this photo is real, either)
So what do you think that thing actually is?
Russia looks to France for its gator needs
August 27th, 2009 | Blogs Foreign navies Science and technology Ships The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
Russia plans to buy several French Mistral-class amphibious helicopter carriers, like the Tonnerre, seen here // Marine Nationale
The ship-o-sphere is spinning after Wednesday‘s announcement that Russia will buy several Mistral-class amphibious ships from France, in one of the biggest foreign defense acquisitions modern Russia has ever made. Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, had a centuries-old shipbuilding tradition, but Moscow’s military leaders are apparently uncertain enough about their own yards that they’ve turned to the French for help.
Even LPD 21′s lettuce supplier feels the power
August 26th, 2009 | Chow Morale Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors from the amphibious transport dock New York had a moment of silence May 21 with a steel pole taken from the wreckage of the World Trade Center // Navy
If there was any doubt that the amphibious transport dock New York carries an aura unlike any other Navy warship, consider the comments of the guys who supplied it with produce.
Dan and Flint Robertson, of Robertson Produce, told Navy Times’ shipmates at The News-Star of Monroe, La., that delivering crates of fruit and vegetables to the New York wasn’t like any other order they’ve done.
“‘They treated us like royalty,’ said Dan Robertson, who toured the ship with his father, Flint, earlier this month. ‘It made me so proud to be an American.’”
“‘There was such a sense of awe on the ship,’” said Flint Robertson, 75, who is retired from the family business. ‘Wherever it goes around the world it will be known for its connection to the World Trade Center.’”
Mids: It’s OK, Buckeyes, boo if you must
August 26th, 2009 | Life at Sea Naval Academy Video | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Naval Academy Midshipmen celebrate their victory over Army Dec. 6, 2008 in Philadelphia // MC2 Kevin O'Brien/Navy
Here’s a tip if you ever find yourself in Central Ohio: If you need to shop for groceries, get your oil changed, or do anything else for which you hate crowds and waiting in line, do it on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. From Springfield to Newark, the Columbus metropolitan area will be shut down so everyone in town can pack into the infamous “Shoe” and watch Columbus’ pro football team the Ohio State Buckeyes beat the stuffing out of some Big 10 patsy.
Only for the first game this season, the Bucks are hosting an unusual opponent: the Naval Academy Midshipmen, who face long odds going up against the Scarlet and Gray Barricade. Still, Ohio State officials don’t want the home crowd of sports patrons to give the Mids the usual High Street Welcome, a.k.a. booing and hissing. Instead, OSU is calling for Buckeye fans to politely applaud the Mids, to thank them for their service.
Because America can’t get enough ‘NCIS’
August 25th, 2009 | Life at Sea The deckplates Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
"Hey Agent LL Cool J, looks like we've got a new case -- some captain named Queeg says he's missing some strawberries aboard his ship." // MC1 Jason Brunson
Just in time for CBS’s fall-season buildup for its new spin-off, “NCIS: Los Angeles,” the Navy has posted several generic images that illustrate the mission of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. NCIS agents are called in when sailors stand in dark rooms looking through disorganized secret files, for example; they respond to situations in which enlisted sailors stand in doorways while women in bathrobes cry; and, as everybody knows, their agents are authorized to press the “I” key on computer keyboards, because there’s an “I” in “NCIS.”
Given the number of Navy warships stationed in Los Angeles — which is to say, zero — it was a little puzzling to hear about an “NCIS” spin-off that takes place there, unless Special Agents Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J spend a lot of time inspecting containers being unloaded at the Port of Long Beach.
“Well it’s ‘Naval Criminal Investigation,’ so, there’s that component of investigating,” Cool J explains in a CBS preview video.
Ah, right.
But you have to hand it to them — they’ll probably be able to shoot many more sunsets and traffic montages in LA than they would have for “NCIS: Kitsap.”