A salute to the toughest men in the world.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The English tar.

[Bruce Burleson]

I see that you are a Navy fan. Let me give you my Navy story. My father, Robert C. Burleson of Mart, Texas, joined the US Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. He had a college degree from Baylor University, so he was eligible for officer status. He attended officer training school in Rhode Island, in the same class as John F. Kennedy. He was given the command of a PT Boat, and eventually took part in the D-Day invasion of France. During the invasion, he escorted the Battleship Texas, which is retired and currently moored at San Jacinto State Park in Texas. (Last week I took two of my grandchildren to the park, and we toured the battleship - you can feel its history as you walk on and beneath its decks - a dreadnought that was in both world wars). Prior to D-Day, he once transported King George on his PT Boat. I grew up with Navy stories.

I had the opportunity to take my father to see "Saving Private Ryan" before he died in 2003. He told me that the D-Day scenes were quite realistic.

Here's a link to the USS Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I see that you are a Navy fan. Let me give you my Navy story. My father, Robert C. Burleson of Mart, Texas, joined the US Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. He had a college degree from Baylor University, so he was eligible for officer status. He attended officer training school in Rhode Island, in the same class as John F. Kennedy. He was given the command of a PT Boat, and eventually took part in the D-Day invasion of France. During the invasion, he escorted the Battleship Texas, which is retired and currently moored at San Jacinto State Park in Texas. (Last week I took two of my grandchildren to the park, and we toured the battleship - you can feel its history as you walk on and beneath its decks - a dreadnought that was in both world wars). Prior to D-Day, he once transported King George on his PT Boat. I grew up with Navy stories.

I had the opportunity to take my father to see "Saving Private Ryan" before he died in 2003. He told me that the D-Day scenes were quite realistic.

A salute to your father!

I saw SPR once and that was enough. "Somebody has seen the elephant."

[JimC]

I knew there would be a thread devoted to cardigan-wearing physics teachers one day!

[Bruce Burleson]

A salute to your father!

Thank you.

[Ian]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

[Bruce Burleson]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

Gracias.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

As opposed to the previous poster, who was sail-navy.

[Ian]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

As opposed to the previous poster, who was sail-navy.

From my POV, anything before the days of Aegis doesn't count as the modern Navy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

As opposed to the previous poster, who was sail-navy.

From my POV, anything before the days of Aegis doesn't count as the modern Navy.

From my POV anybody who hasn't woken up in Longapo doesn't count a real Navy.

[Ian]

+1 from a modern-day Navy guy.

As opposed to the previous poster, who was sail-navy.

From my POV, anything before the days of Aegis doesn't count as the modern Navy.

From my POV anybody who hasn't woken up in Longapo doesn't count a real Navy.

[piscator]

don't want to be disagreeable, or slight rum, sodomy, and the lash in any way- but English and American merchant seamen generally had a tougher day to day existence than the navy seaman
sure, Jack Tar the merchantman didn't usually have much fighting to do, but his diet sucked just as bad, his skipper was usually just as callous and demanding, and there were usually far fewer of him aboard to make sail and keep the ship in good repair and trim during an average 2 year voyage aboard a Cape Horner or Indiaman

the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians had a lot of ships too, but their Sundays were usually inviolate, especially at port and unless the weather was bad, they had a lot more holidays, and usually had a much better selection of alcohol aboard
for a lot of the 18th and most of the 19th Centuries, most American merchant vessels were dry (so called "Temperance vessels") - not as much for the strong religious convictions of their owners as for the fact that rum cost money...

merchantmen were usually always going as fast as the boat could go too
this meant the skipper usually had on as much sail as the ship could carry, and also meant that "the off watch" were summoned much more often to reef down and clew up
this did not allow Jack to get as much sleep on a thinly-crewed merchantman as he usually could on a warship

also, in addition to having many more men aboard, a warship usually had medical personnel and a much better medicine chest, such as it was
a sick sailor was the lowest form of life on earth, but doubly so for a merchant sailor who makes it harder on the rest of the crew, who if he was lucky, might have a sympathetic cook to look after him
Richard Henry Dana's description of suffering from an abscessed tooth so bad that his whole head swelled up grotesquely while his short-handed ship attempted to round the Horn in winter is sobering to anyone who has ever had a toothache...
the little bit of laudanum that the ship had left was saved in case someone broke a leg or lost an eye, and Dana was moved from the forecastle to a leaky storage room with no light to tough it out

it was a hard life









http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4277

[Animavore]

I thought these guys were the toughest men in the world?

[Fact-Man]

I see that you are a Navy fan. Let me give you my Navy story. My father, Robert C. Burleson of Mart, Texas, joined the US Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. He had a college degree from Baylor University, so he was eligible for officer status. He attended officer training school in Rhode Island, in the same class as John F. Kennedy. He was given the command of a PT Boat, and eventually took part in the D-Day invasion of France. During the invasion, he escorted the Battleship Texas, which is retired and currently moored at San Jacinto State Park in Texas. (Last week I took two of my grandchildren to the park, and we toured the battleship - you can feel its history as you walk on and beneath its decks - a dreadnought that was in both world wars). Prior to D-Day, he once transported King George on his PT Boat. I grew up with Navy stories.

I had the opportunity to take my father to see "Saving Private Ryan" before he died in 2003. He told me that the D-Day scenes were quite realistic.

Here's a link to the USS Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought

My father served in the US Navy in War I, on those old four-stacker Destroyers used in the Atlantic as sub hunter/killers and to escort convoys. He had two of them sunk right out from under him ... but managed to survive and live to tell the tales, and best of all, to father me (!)

He was a pretty salty guy but urged me not to join the Navy. I took his advice and joined the army, a year before the K-War broke out in 1950, which eventually swept me up and had me on the line in that conflict for 16 months, a real horror show.

When I was a kid during War II I had a gig in which we and some of my possemen sold newspapers aboard Naval ships moored in the outer mole of Los Angeles harbor (as they waited to get into drydock for service and repairs). The Texas was in there a number of times and I sold papers aboard her more than once. She was old even then, having been built in 1914 as I recall, and seemed ancient to my young mind. But she was a mighty ship, not doubt about that, though smaller than the more modern battleships that came in there, like the Iowa and Missouri and Pennsylvania, and only had 12 inch guns instead of 16 inch.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

I think anyone with an interest in Naval history would be interested in General-at-Sea (Admiral) Robert Blake.
He has his place in the Royal Navy museum http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/history/nav ... ert-blake/



And I have visited the house in which he was born, many times, which is also now a museum.


PS, Btw, my signature is a tribute to him.