We visited the Navy Museum which has free admittance.
We found a hat in the store that commemorates the carrier that Al served on from 1955 to 1957. Al had just graduated from the 26 week Navy "A" school for Electronics Technicians when he went aboard for recommissioning after a complete work-over in a shipyard in San Francisco.
They had a display of the USS Nimitz with lots of photos. This is pretty much what he looked like as he joined ship's company as a nineteen year old. By comparison, we had about 2500 Sailors on board and no females.
This is a generous display of a breakfast with eggs and pancakes. We would have wished for such a meal.
When Sue and Al arrive at a restaurant with a full lobby and a 20 minute wait, Al votes for leaving for another venue. Here is an example of why Al hates lines for in addition to the chow line wait, we waited for pay, sickbay attendance and other events. We did not however feel that our time to eat was limited to any time but what we needed to rest and have a bit of a chat with shipmates.
After his time in the Navy, Al received and engineering degree from the University of Illinois. At that time we used slide rules for calculation but he never saw a calculator like this one.
The USS Yorktown was sunk at the Battle of Midway. Initially to have been named Bon Homme Richard, she was renamed Yorktown while under construction to commemorate USS Yorktown (CV-5), lost at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. [And to confuse the Japanese Naval Fleet] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-10)
The USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA 31) was built in 1944 and fought in three wars, WW2, Korea and Vietnam.
Al was transferred to the USS Pascagoula (PCE 874) in New Orleans in 1957 and served aboard until 1958 when he was released from active duty. Perhaps the Bon Homme Richard was two thirds the length of the Nimitz shown here but it was quite a change to serve aboard a ship of 180 feet in length.
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