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Hard to believe this was 51 years ago... sigh...
Digging WAY back in the vault…
Of memories, and the few operating brain cells that remember…
Setting the way back machine to 1974-5 thanks to a conversation last night with an old shipmate, he sent me a picture of the bar map from Olongopo, RP from 1973 (note- These were probably good for two or three days… Then somebody would change their bar’s name, and the Shore Patrol would have to go re-do it). Sorry it’s basically unreadable, and can’t be blown up any further!
There were over 100 bars and ‘restaurants’ in about 4-5 blocks of Magsaysay… interestingly, ‘our’ bars were on the first street to the right, Gordon Avenue, and NONE of them are listed…LOL
The picture below is from the cruise book from 1975, kinda says it all… The Mayaguez rescue, Jenny the donkey in Diego Garcia, and a monkey in the BOQ at Cubi eating popcorn it had stolen from a room…
The donkey loved beer, and would actually drink it from the can (until she got too drunk, then she’d go lean against the Butler hut that was our ‘hangar’)…
A ‘normal’ road trip was 6 weeks, 7 countries and about 11-12,000 miles of just transits, not counting the operational flying…
Fun stuff, and good memories (the bad ones have been long forgotten)! An interesting side note, we never called ourselves ‘combat’ air crews, just alpha crews (You had to complete multiple qualifications to meet all the requirements to actually be certified to perform all the P-3’s missions), unlike the specialized crews today...
We could have a surveillance flight one day and an ASW flight two days later, or a mining evolution...
Great post NFO. USS Ranger Battle Group Echo in both 89 and 91... with 8,000 dudes in Olongapo (before women allowed aboard ship)... just prior to Mt Pinatubo cooking off. One of the coolest hops in the Viking we did while transiting that area was a "radar-run-in" and mark-on-top of the Philippine nuclear power plant. Did a 400 knot carrier break right over the top of it.
OldSENSO with old memories.
Last May, we got to visit the Cubi Point Bar that's been completely re-built inside the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, and actually serves beer. Thousands of stickers and plaques. A must visit for all NAVAIR junkies. Going again later this month. Bringing more stickers this time.
In regards to drunken donkeys, ancient Greek philosopher Chrysippus of Soli actually died of laughter at a wedding reception he attended. The cause of the fatal giggle fit was watching a donkey get so drunk eating fermented figs it couldn't stand up straight.