Submitted By: Ed Briggs, CDR, 66-68, VADM (Ret)– 03/22/07
Dick: I am sure it has occurred to you that the Website history will bring forth notable comments, sea stories, and memories in all the crewmembers. I am wondering whether the newsletter might help whet appetites for submitting those recollections to you for inclusion in the publication. Would it help, for example, to publish a paragraph or two representing one of Jack’s historical reviews of a deployment, at-sea training period, or repair/overhaul period as an incentive to bring on the best recollections of our shipmates? For example, I can recall employing our 3 inch 50s in 1967 in several shore bombardment missions when we were close enough to the shore to use them effectively. During one mission we were, as I remember, required to lay down a barrage on a certain Viet Cong site as a pre- assault softening of the target area. I am sure that crewmembers of the 66-68 era could amplify and tell their own stories in great detail. I can remember another time when we had a pre-dawn mission, we sailed in close to the I Corps shoreline steaming on two boilers aft because of a causality forward, turned the screws over at just enough power to offset the 3-4 knot current, settled in, and fired a goodly number of mount 53 rounds directly over the fantail. Jon Hickox will certainly recall the boiler steaming arrangement and the subsequent damage to the after diesel room. When the smoke cleared we surveyed the damage together, noting that concussion broke every gauge in the room. Jon was not a happy Chief Engineer. I can visualize that many of Turner Joy’s crew would appreciate a chance to tell their stories, prompted by a brief segment of history in your periodical, and see them subsequently published in your newsletter. It might add considerably to its interest value and ultimately be a basis for a slick magazine as the Reunion Group grows and the capital fund increases. Your efforts, and those of Jack Haskell and others are the building blocks that will ultimately send the Turner Joy crew to the head of the pack in terms of participation in their own publication and biannual reunions. Please extend Nan’s and my best wishes to Helen, and of course to you, for a most Happy New Year. Ed Briggs