Navy from Life

[oose]

Hi all,

Few for the Navy...

yours stu

 

[Atticus]

Thanks, Stu!! These and the nylon photos are some of the best I've seen on the forum in a long time!

AF

 

[Peter Graham]

Nice to see some cool beards Hipppies brfore their time !

 

[deeb7]

• I'm eighteen with a bullet
  Got my finger on the trigger, I'm gonna pull it
  I'm picked to click now
  I'm a son-of-a-gun
  So hold it right there little girl, little girl
  We're gonna have big fun

 

[SpeednAngels]

really good stuff!\
Thanks

 

[zoomer]

Obviously post-WW2 due to the extra stripe in the national insignia.

I assume a beard means one is in the Alaskan command, but some of these shots were obviously taken on carrier decks.

Google offers up exactly one hit for VAdm. Ralph Opstie (last pic), who was Deputy CNO for Air in 1953, when he also served on NACA. Here he is a RAdm., so this must be earlier.

 

[Anonymous]

Sea of Japan gets mighty cold Zoomer, as does Korea.

 

[SpeednAngels]

yeah they look like subhunters to me! may off the Bennington
look at the underwing dome device...

 

[zoomer]

Ah. I thought Korea. Anybody ought to be able to search the LIFE archive and find the date on these.

The survival vest makes me wonder what sort of equipment was carried in it, besides the obvious dye markers, whistle, and bigass knife. What was the dark pipe-like thing? the small can-shaped thing? What went in the long vee-shaped pockets?

 

[watchmanjimg]

The dark pipe-shaped thing looks like the manual inflation tube, while the can-shaped thing near the right shoulder is a distress marker light. I believe the other pockets hold flares.

 

[zoomer]

Them things don't look likely to inflate! :?

What if your Ka-Bar poked a hole in the vest? It'd be down to Davy Jones for ya.

 

[Chandler]

I assume a beard means one is in the Alaskan command,

Don't forget that the Navy used to (maybe still does?) allow beards on ship-board personnel. Sort of a sea-going tradition.

Chandler

 

[Anonymous]

US Navy got rid of beards in 1983. A sad day for Naval tradition due to political presure from the first lady if you can believe that. Scuttle butt was Betty Ford (drunk at the time) bitched that the US Navy band, as it marched by in DC during some official fuction, looked like "pirates" next to the clean cut USMC Band and the US Army band. Politics, killed a fine tradition...sad day for the US Navy.

 

[Maverickson]

Hi all,

Few for the Navy...

yours stu

I appreciate you finding and posting those Naval Aviation photographs Stu! I believe that these are all AD Skyraiders. Much like the ones seen below. This photo was taken by my father in 1954 of his wingman after flying one of those Skyraiders.

Dave

 

[oose]

Hi all,

more shots as promised from the same series...

yours stu

 

[Peter Graham]

Wow ! Incredible photos. Thanks for taking the time to post those.

 

[oose]

Hi Peter,
Got two young kids don't get to go out on a friday night anymore!! I'm men't to be working on websites but can't be arsed! I'd rather surf the web instead!

p.s.
Glad to see you are getting some good Nylon, nice score on the N-2B, mine came out the closet a few weeks ago!

yours stu

 

[Peter Graham]

Glad to see you are getting some good Nylon, nice score on the N-2B, mine came out the closet a few weeks ago!

Wait till you see what I bought last night. I'll say nothing until it arrives in case it doesn't !