On 20 July 1969 (a Sunday then), Biddle‘s crew enjoyed a cookout on the fantail. (You’ll notice that there is much discussion today about the moon landing. In our case — and for all others on our side of the International Dateline — the date of the moon landing was 21 July 1969. There will be a post on that tomorrow.)
This wasn’t the first cookout, as my journal for 20 July reads, “Had another cookout today.” It is the one from which we have pictures . . . and film/video!
Perhaps it was the first appearance of our band — the . . . anybody remember if they had a name? It wouldn’t have been “The Hard Chargers,” would it? Anyway, they performed on the helo deck, which is why you see people in line in the photo at top looking up.
My journal noted that SN McDade was the singer and FTG3 Evans played bass. Welcome any additional identifications. (I know about the bass, because Evans was playing my bass guitar. I could not play anything on that guitar, and never could. My talents, if evident in anything, were not in music. I think I got the guitar to appear to be cool in the eyes of young women. Yeah, right.)
Below is a photo of me “enjoying” (maybe “examining”) some kind of sandwich, next to whom I believe is QM3 Harrell. I think this might have been an earlier cookout, because I don’t think I would have been wearing that cover if the ship’s ball caps had been available. (This photo shows that, of course, all I needed then to look cool was a bass guitar.)
Here’s video of the 20 July 1969 cookout from the film shot by GMG2 George Boyles or GMG2 Jerome Kuczmarski.
In the 80’s they changed the name to “New threat” (our upgraded radar and missile system).
The bass was play by boyes ftg3 I remember some of the cook out we had a skee shooting on the fan tail those were the days