From Colleen (Bailey) Short, 28 May 2008
Hi James, my name is Colleen
Bailey Short. I am so glad my brother Patrick found you on
this site, and I wanted to say how much I appreciate you
taking the time to respond about our father! I have always
been in such a search to know- and I once contacted the
military record keeping somewhere but they said a fire had
destroyed all of his files, That was very devastating and I
figured there was now no way of knowing anything more.
Pretty much all I know of him is what his sister Virginia
tells me. I enjoy seeing his pictures on the site- So thank
you for running such a wonderful site
From Patrick (Bailey) Miller, 27 May 2008
Thanks for your site. My father was Jack
Bailey. He died when I was 2.5 years old and its pretty neat
to find a couple of his pictures on the site and to learn
about what MOTU 7 was. I honestly never knew what he did in
the military - and it was great to see. It would be great if
you could pass my email on to Herb Roach who mentions that
he remembers my father.
From Herb Roach, 11 July 2006
Served in MOTU-7 from Mid 1963 to Mid 1966. Remember Jack
Bailey. He taught me how to shoot skeet. We formed a skeet
club and shot all over the western Pacific. Lived on base
above what used to be the Pistol Range. Some names I didn't
see: Jerry Barden, RCA Rep., Skip Lanter, ETCM, Jack
Beauchamp, ET1, ETl named Ski, The gunners were in another
bldg near the CPO Club. I will be in Yokosuka for a couple
of days about June 18,19 or 20. Plan to take a lot of
pictures, I sure didn't the first time around.
From Rich Pietrantoni, 11
April 2005
It is
with deep sadness that I have to tell you of the
passing of our friend Larry. Toshiko called me Saturday
about 1PM and told me she was called from the hospital
that morning that Larry had passed.
Toshiko
told me that about 2 weeks ago he decided he had enough
of the rehab home in El Cajon and wanted to go home.
Toshiko did not agree but knew that is what he wanted so
he went home. Last Monday, he complained of terrible
pain in his stomach and had a severely decreased appetite
for a few days prior. Toshiko took him again to Kaiser
and they immediately admitted him into ICU with a
diagnosis of dehydration and a urinary tract
infection. Toshiko noticed that around Thursday and
Friday he seemed in her words "out of his head." She
went home Friday knowing something was wrong even though
the hospital nurses were telling her that he was
perfectly normal and it was just the medication.
His
daughter and family are coming back from England
tomorrow and wake/funeral arrangements will be made
then. I will let everyone know.
From Fred Hengst, son of
YN3 George Hengst, 7 February 2005
Hi,
I stumbled across your webpage while doing some internet
searches of my father - George Hengst. He passed away
a couple of years ago.
From Jim Graslie 22
September 2004
The Fred Jones Story
I'll try to
keep the personalities out of this. After MOTU disestablished,
LCDR Jones transferred to the USS Independence as EMO.
He kept his MOTU Seven telephone card and continued to use
it, ran up about $2K worth of charges with the bill going to
MOTU (FTSCPAC at the time). OIC turned the bill over
to the Indy, who in turn, turned it over to NIS (and
everyone knows they'll screw it up). He was put on
legal hold (turned out to be a lot more than a couple
thousand he took the Government for, I believe over $20K).
During that time frame he was allowed to go on leave, (even
tho' he was on legal hold), left his wife and daughter
living in the Navy Lodge, went home, stole his mother's life
savings and credit cards, went to Thailand for about a year,
got caught when he wrote his brother asking for money.
(His brother turned him in, gee I took Mom's money.
Will you give me some more)? He was escorted
back to Yokosuka, popped positive for marijuana, Court
Martialed and sentenced to 6 months in jail, fined around
$20k and allowed to retire as an LCDR.
From Jack Thomas 22 September 2004
Time frame:
mid-1980s.
Mission: Ship
needs tech assist in Pattaya Beach, Thailand.
Scenario of
accomplishment:
Day One:
Depart to Bangkok one day prior to ship's arrival.
Establish base of operations in Pattaya Beach (a nice hotel)
Day Two: Meet
ship on arrival. Introduce self to Ops/EMO, etc. and
discuss the mission. Set time frame for tech assist the
next day and get out of the way of liberty party.
Day Three: Do
systems checks and provide tech assist to restore casualty
and provide tech training. This may extend to next day, but
not very often. Instruct ship to leave the system on to
ensure it stays up.
Days Four and
Five: Confirm that system is still operational and offer
assistance to look at other systems that may need work and
provide training to operators and technicians that are
available.
Day Six:
Debrief OPS/EMO and C.O. if he desires. Check out of
operating base and proceed to Bangkok for "One Night In
Bangkok".
A good, solid
Tech Assist effort. However, a tech assist for NAVMACS came
up and all of the normal NAVMACS techs were already TAD at
other locations. The only available asset was an ET1 at
MOTU-13 in Subic Bay and he hated to travel. He skipped Day
One and flew to Bangkok the same day the ship arrived in
Pattaya. He hired a car to take him from the airport to
Pattaya (about a two hour drive or so), paid the driver to
wait, hired a boat to take him to the ship, fixed the
problem, debriefed the duty ET, took the cab back to Bangkok
and flew back to Manila, all on the same day. He was back
at MOTU-13 the next day when the OIC came to work. The OIC
said "I thought I sent you to Thailand. Come in to my
office." After the ET1 briefed the OIC, the OIC called OPS
(ETCM Larry Wolfe) into his office and went ballistic. He
asked how come it takes you Chief's five to seven days to
make a trip to Pattaya, but a First Class can do the job in
one? Larry Wolfe got a serious look on his face and said
"Training, Sir. ET1 failed to provide any training and
didn't debrief the proper people in the chain of command.
But don't worry, sir, I chewed his ass out and it will never
happen again" Needless to say the ET1 never went on another
out of area tech assist and business returned to normal.
From Jack Thomas 14 September 2004
Just thought of another ETC that isn't on your
list. Scotty helped me pull his name up. ETC Ron Kirk. He was
there from 74 - 76. He was our first alcohol counselor. And
with an OIC like Bob Carlson and us, his supporting staff, he
should have had a lot to counsel. I don't think he ever
counseled anybody. Ray Loob used to call him "fuzzy face"
because of his beard. He was the counselor when we had our
first visit from the CAAC center. At the all hands meeting
where they hit on the evils of alcohol Larry Boyette spoke up
and said "Mr. Carlson, as I look around the room I have known
most of the people in here for years and we have drank enough
whiskey and beer to float the USS MIDWAY in DryDock 6 and not
one of us has ever gone ape shit".
From Jack Thomas 3 September 2004
Graz, the reason ________ stands out in my
mind is that he knocked up our replacement Yeoman, YN3 Olivia
?? Her husband was a third class ET on the Midway. The reason
we had a replacement yeoman? Our full time Yeoman got busted
selling or giving away Xmas BJ's in the head of the old Club
Alliance. ______ shared a house with him, but insists
that their relationship was platonic. He never made a run on
Scotty or me either.
From Jim Graslie 2 September 2004
One of my own, actually this was
from 1996 at FTSCPAC, but everyone involved was a MOTU Seven
Sailor. We had
CSRA's (Combat System Readiness Assessment) on a ship in
Yokosuka followed on by one in Sasebo. We brought Dave
Frank over from Everett for both of them. Then the Taiwan
Straits blew up and we were tasked to support the Nimitz and
Independence Battle Groups. (Needless to say the CSRA's
were cancelled). Six of us including Dave, were sked to
fly commercial to Singapore, meet the USNS Pecos and ride her to
pick up the Nimitz Battle Group and take care of their CASREP's.
About the time we were working out the details, a message came
in with our Government Flight info for our trip to Sasebo,
flight was Atsugi, Nagasaki, Phuket Thailand and Diego Garcia
(C-21 Navy Lear Jet). I immediately went in to the OIC
(LCDR Sproull) and explained how I could save him a bunch of
money, fly us on the Government flight to Phuket, do an
overnight and then on to Singapore commercial, and pick up the
Pecos. The OIC called me into his office about an hour
later and told me the Pecos had been delayed and asked if
anybody would object to spending an extra night in Phukett as
the perdium was cheaper. I told him he probably wouldn't
get any grief about it. I'm not going to get into the
story of the ETCM that went reverse bungee jumping the second
night in Phuket (It wasn't Dave Frank). Bottom line, got on the ships, got the
job done and took a COD into Okinawa, a quick round of golf and
back to Yoko.
From Ray Stein 1 September 2004
The OIC was LCDR James G. English. He was
promoted to LCDR early '59 and was transferred around June "59.
I cannot remember the name of his relief. I am positive
that Foran's first name was Ray, short for Raymond. I know he
was an ET2 and was transferred in September '59, as I visited
him and Chief Walker in Navy housing in Oakland, CA at that
time. Coogle's first name was Leroy. I cannot remember ET1
Bradfords first name. Also assigned to METU-7 was Western
Electric engineer James Corbin. The other W.E. eng name I do not
remember For what it's worth, ETNSN John Koch, a reservist,
served as the "Yeoman", if you will. The "bldg" we were in
was on the edge of SRF, just a block from the O club.
Right next to our office was a group of Chiefs, MOTU-7 (Mobile
ordinance tech unit). I remember one of the Chiefs had a sling
shot, and used balls from bearings, to bring down pigeons in the
bldg rafters. He got an ass chewing for making holes in the
roof, when he missed, which was most of the time.
From Paul Bublitz 28 August 2004 (on
Glenn Knox)
Graz and Jack
Thanks for the info. I talked to Glenn on the phone yesterday
and is the first time we
had talked since the 60s. I remember when his wife was pregnant
and the kids are
now around 40 years old. Time flies!
I asked Glen for his email address and he said: "I'm not in to
that." so he doesn't have
a computer or an email address.
Again - thanks a lot.
From Glenn Barbee 25 August 2004
Camille J. (Chuck) Levasseur and I crossed paths
a few times over the years. We were on the Yorktown together
1955-57. He was a convertee to the FT rate during that time when
so many first class and chiefs came over from ratings where
promotions were almost non-existent. He changed his rate from
Dental Technician (DT1). We never called him "Chuck," he was
"Doc" in Fox Division. I think they called him "Frenchie" in FT
school. I guess he became "Chuck" after he got his commission.
To my knowledge, he did not go through the warrant officer
route. I think he went straight to LDO from FT1. He was a LTJG
when he was at MOTU-7. He retired as LCDR. When I was on the
Yorktown, besides Doc, we had for first class petty officers, a
former BM, MM, ME, YN, and a former QM for our chief. They used
to call the ones of us who were not convertees,
"straight-coupled." It means something if you have been in
electronics a lot of years, youngsters wouldn't get it.
I hope you will get a lot of hits. The site looks great and it's
wonderful to have a MOTU-7 site.
From
Frank Sedlacek 20 August 2004
JIM – great site!!!!!!!! being
an old KWR&T 37 and KW-7 tech – wow, the crypto site is
awesome. I can’t verify for sure but
served with Jim Sears twice – once while he was EMO on the
Kitty Hawk and the again when he was
Director, AES. Remember talking with him on the Kitty Hawk
many times, I was 1st
Class at the time and running OE01 (Comm Shop) as he used to
come up to the shop and BS a lot, about his
experiences in Yokosuka and I remember him telling about his
MOTU background. His widowed wife
is Japanese.
More on Jim Sears from Frank
Jim
passed away of cancer about three years ago. maybe
closer to four.
I was out at Balboa for
one of my quarterly pulmonary appointments and this car
pulls up to me in the parking lot. Until Jim spoke I
didn’t recognize him. He had lost a lot of weight and
was looking very frail.. Said he had cancer (didn’t
elaborate as to where, etc.) but said he thought he was
on the mend. About six months later saw his Obit in the
paper and called his wife to confirm and offer
condolences.
Hello to all – is Pat
Wiltgen still over there???
From Jack Thomas 20 August 2004
One other ET that I remember - ETCM Dave Margetts. He is the
one I tell the story about where Glenn Knox replaced Dave's
screening rubber stamp that assigned jobs to SRF, Tender, S/F,
or MOTU when MOTU was part of CTF73. Some ET3 handed Dave his
work request, Dave read it, and promptly stamped it " Fuck You
and the Ship you rode in on". That poor third class about shit.
From Paul Bublitz 8 August 2004 (on Jim
Sears)
This was probably the same guy: Jim was pretty tall and usually
was slim although
I remember him having a pretty big beer gut. The Jim Sears I
knew left MOTU-7 for
the MOTU in San Francisco (MOTU-9?) I guess he made Chief and
got commissioned
there. The last time I saw him was around 1968 in Subic. I
took him to the Chief's Club
for dinner as he couldn't take me to the O club. He had to
leave and write up some
Top Secret Op plan for some operation he was involved with - he
wasn't on a ship.
I'd like to know more about how and when he died. I have tried
several times in the
last few years to find him on the Net but as you can guess, I
wasn't successful.
Also do you have any idea where I could contact Glen Knox? I
saw you had him listed
as ETCM Knox on the MOTU-7 Web page. Glen and I were both ET1s
at MOTU-4 in
Norfolk and he used to come and help me sample my home brew.
I thought of a couple of more MOTU-7 names: ETC Bert Snyder
(SS), YN3 Ted Whitehouse
(I think) if this is correct, he got out of the Navy, went to
college and came back in and was flying F4s. His relief was YN3
George Hengst. More civilians: Ralph McQuid and Orrie Evers,
who came up from MOTU-3 in Sasebo.
From Paul Bublitz 6 August 2004
I'm not sure if this is a good email address but here goes:
I was stationed at METU-7, later MOTU-7, from 1960 to 1963. My
initial orders read USS METU-7. I remember quite a few names
from when I was there so I'll give them to you as I remember
them. I'm not too sure about some of the spellings.
OIC when I got there: Lt. Bud Godfrey. later relieved by Lt. Ray
Thornton. AOIC Chuck Levasseur who went from MOTU-7 to MOTU-13
as OIC.
Chiefs: ETC Roy Coogle and later ETCS Musgrave
ET1s: Jim Key, Jim Wasco, Ed Nebrowski, Ray Foran
ET2s promoted to ET1s while there: Me (Paul Bublitz), Jim Sears
Civilians: Fred Bybee, Fred Robins, Al Mendes, Lloyd Britton,
Jack Bailey, Lloyd? Turner, Chuck Hogue, Jack Myers.
I don't remember any of the Gunner's Mates as I guess they
stayed in their old MOSU office. (METU + MOSU = MOTU)
After I left MOTU-7 I went to MOTU-4 in Norfolk, spent around 6
months in MOTU-6 in the Med. I then went to the Naval Weapons
Services Office in Philadelphia for a few crypto schools and was
transferred to MOTU-13. I made Chief while going to crypto
school at the Norfolk Naval shipyard. After leaving MOTU-13, I
was assigned to the USS Annapolis, AGMR-1 where I decided I
didn't like being back in the Navy again (9 years in MOTU'S) so
I got out in 1969.
Let me know if you got this.
Thanks for the Web site.
From Glenn Barbee 1 August 2004
It's great to see something getting started for MOTU-7. I've
often thought about those days and have done some Google
searches looking for a trail. You'll be filling a gap that is
needed.
MOTU-7 was my last tour of duty before I retired in July, 1975.
I was there about three and a half years. I can give you some
names, but I'm sure I will leave out some equally important
ones. You already have Jack Thomas and Scotty Kniess, who were
there when I was.
The OIC when I arrived was LT Sam Curry II and the AOIC was CWO
Glenn Rice. (He later advanced to LTJG). I remember I thought
some detailer must really have a sense of humor to have the only
two officers in a command named Curry and Rice. LT Robert
Carlson relieved Mr. Curry the year before I left.
