Japanese Surrender, DDD and Nikon Connections

[Phil_F_NM]

When the NEW JERSEY was recommissioned by Reagan back in the early 1980's, it left its home port of Long Beach for a short cruise which turned out to be over a year with unexpected deployments to Nicaragua and Beirut, Lebanon. Anyway, I lead a flight of two CH46's to ferry US and Thai VIP's from the embassy in Bangkok out to the NEW JERSEY.

Normally, UH-1's were used by the USMC for VIP missions but only wheel equipped aircraft were allowed to land on that mahogany flight deck. Hueys have skids while CH46's had wheels. Trying to navigate low level around Bangkok while dealing with Thai air traffic control was the most difficult part of that mission. I can honestly claim to be one of the few pilots to have landed on a battleship. And those 16 inch guns were amazing.

The decks of the Iowas are teak, even more precious than mahogany in the amount used for shipbuilding. The 2 helos kept aboard the New Jersey were UH-1 Hueys. The flight deck has always been a raised section of armor plate, not wood, since the Korean War commission.
I actually had the honor of taking a Vietnam veteran who served aboard the ship around on a tour today. His two brothers were with him as well, all served in different branches of the military during that era. This particular vet was also a Photographer's Mate, just like myself. He showed us how the ship looked and how the photo lab changed from when he served and the major configuration change which took place in the early 1980s.
I asked him what his issue kit was and he said a Leica M2-S (KS15-4,) a Rolleiflex, and a Speed Graphic. He also said there was a Kodak camera that was junk and never worked. He showed us a bunch of photos from the Naval archive we have in our museum that he took. Crossing the Equator, Bob Hope and Ann Margaret, normal ship operations, he was there. One of them was when hanging out the side of a Huey over a site in Vietnam that BB-62 had previously bombarded with her 16" guns. He took her all the way into the yards in Bremerton.
Some days on the battleship are pretty dang awesome.
Phil Forrest