USS Alabama (SSBN 731) Celebrate 25 Years of Service
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:31pm
Sailors aboard the USS Alabama (SSBN 731) celebrated the 25th anniversary of the ship’s commissioning with a small ceremony at the Keyport Undersea Museum May 25, Keyport, Wash.
Members from the Northwest Chapter of the Universal Ship Cancellation Society (USCS) USS Columbia #106 sponsored the event that included a special guest speaker, Alabama’s first Commanding Officer (Gold Crew), Capt. (ret.) Mal Wright.
"It is always great to come back and tell the rich history to the Sailor’s,” said Wright. “Our guys don’t get a lot of recognition so being able to get together and celebrate an important day in Alabama’s history has been wonderful.”
Members of the local USCS chapter created commemorative cachets and postmarks in keeping with their tradition of recording naval history through the naval postal system.
Rear Adm. Frank Caldwell, Commander, Submarine Group Nine, presented Cmdr. Christopher Kline, Alabama (Blue Crew) commanding officer, with a letter from the governor of Alabama commemorating the 25 proud years of service from the boat and crews.
“I think it is important to pause and recognize the contributions of the ship and the crews who have served on her,” said Caldwell. “When the ship was put into service 25 years ago there was a threat to our nation. Today that threat has changed but it still remains, and Alabama has the capability to ensure our nation is safe.”

Texpex 2011

Next Show Apr. 15-17, 2011
Doubletree Hotel Dallas Near the Galleria
4099 Valley View Ln. (I-635 at Midway exit)
Dallas, Texas
Free Admission, Free Parking
Open to the public

Another source of ad-on cachets is the thousands of uncacheted covers in our midst that are finished off many years later with a computer printed cachet. I know what a duck looks like when I see a duck and don't ask anyone to stamp it DUCK! I know an ad on cachet when I see it and I feel the same way. I'm not fooled. Most times, it's probably a cover I need in my collection and I purchase it. I do perfer that the cachet makers name or USCS number appear somewhere on the cover, but the wording "ad-on" is not necessary for me to make a decision on purchasing the cover.

Thanks Richard and contributors for the interesting reading for this week-end.

1813 - Frigate Essex and prize capture five British whalers.
1917 - First underway fueling in U.S. Navy, USS Maumee fuels 6 destroyers in North Atlantic. LCDR Chester W. Nimitz served as Maumee's executive officer and chief engineer.
1957 - 1st of 24 detonations, Operation Plumbbob nuclear test.
1980 - 55 women become first women graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy.

By Navy News Service May 29th

1781 - Frigate Alliance captures HMS Atalanta and Trepassy off Nova Scotia.
1991 - Amphibious Task Force in Bangladesh for cyclone relief redeployed.

By Navy News Service May 30th

1814 - Navy gunboats capture three British boats on Lake Ontario near Sandy Creek, N.Y.

By Navy News Service May 31st

1900 - Sailors and Marines from USS Newark and USS Oregon arrive at Peking, China, with other Sailors and Marines from Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan to protect U.S. and foreign diplomatic legations from the Boxers.
1919 - NC-4's transatlantic flight ends at Plymouth, England.
1944 - USS England (DE 635) sank a record sixth Japanese submarine in 13 days.

For more information about naval history, visit the Naval Historical Center Web site at www.history.navy.mil.

Mike Brock
141 Kingsgate Road
Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035

I know my contact person aboard the USS BUNKER HILL went on leave soon after we exchanged emails. That may be the reason for the problems.

http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=53631

1944 - USS England (DE 635) sinks fifth Japanese submarine in one week.
1952 - Tests from 26-29 May demonstrate feasibility of the angled-deck concept conducted on simulated angled deck on USS Midway.
1990 - USS Beaufort rescues 24 Vietnamese refugees in South China Sea.

I hope to see many of you at the convention.

Nice Cover!

Well Done Mike Brock, Pete Leenhouts and their shipmates at Columbia!

•1830-Navy officers, under furlough from the Navy until April 1832, were given commissions in the Revenue Service.
•1941-CGC Modoc sighted the German battleship Bismarck while the cutter searched for survivors of a convoy southeast of Cape Farewell, Greenland. British Swordfish torpedo planes from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Victorious circled Modoc as they flew towards the German battleship's position. The Modoc's crew then spotted the flashes caused by anti-aircraft fire from the Bismarck and then sighted British warships on the opposite horizon. The cutter then maneuvered to avoid contact with any of the warships and managed to steam out of the area unscathed.

Lets see, a 240-foot, 1,506 ton patrol gunboat comes across a battleship of 823-foot, 41,700 ton vessel, it is time to get out of Dodge!

1917 - First U.S. convoy to cross North Atlantic during World War I leaves Hampton Roads, Va.
1918 - USS Olympia anchors at Kola Inlet, Murmansk, Russia, to protect refugees during Russian Revolution.
1939 - First and only use of Vice Adm. Allan McCann's Rescue Chamber to rescue 33 men from sunken USS Squalus (SS 192).
1941 - Authorization of construction or acquisition of 550,000 tons of auxiliary shipping for Navy.
1945 - Fast carrier task force aircraft attack airfields in southern Kyushu, Japan.
1945 - Nine U.S. ships damaged by concentrated kamikaze attack off Okinawa.

Historic Warship's Future May Be Sunk
(PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER 23 MAY 10) ... Edward Colimore

The old warship has been part of Philadelphia's waterfront for 50 years and left lasting impressions on thousands of visitors who heard gripping stories of its role in the Spanish-American War.
Now the Olympia - the last surviving vessel from that 1898 conflict - could face an ignoble end as an artificial reef off Cape May if a new benefactor cannot be found.
The Independence Seaport Museum and the Navy have already checked with officials of New Jersey's Artificial Reef Program on the possibility of sinking the ship, once a source of national pride.
"Another option would be scrapping Olympia," said James McLane, interim president of the museum, which owns the ship and is adjacent to it at Penn's Landing. "But the Navy has told us that 'reefing' is better because it would allow divers to go down on it and would preserve Olympia."
The museum can no longer afford the ship's upkeep, McLane said. At least $20 million is needed to tow, restore, interpret, and endow the deteriorating vessel.
"We have a couple people we're talking to who might take the ship," McLane said, "but these things don't move with great speed."
The ship will be open until the end of September, then closed while its future is determined, McLane said.
"This may be the last summer for people to visit," he said. "They should come to see it while they can."
Another former Navy warship, the Arthur W. Radford, a 563-foot-long Spruance class destroyer, will be sunk by the fall to create a reef about 30 miles southeast of Cape May.
As for the Olympia, "we recognize the historic significance of the ship," said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "It's not our call. It was an inquiry. The DEP is not endorsing this."
Countless tons of vessels, military tanks, railroad cars, and other materials have been reefed since the state's Bureau of Marine Fisheries began the program in 1984. The purpose is to provide a habitat for marine life, fishing grounds, and points of interest for scuba divers.
Talk of making the Olympia part of New Jersey's reef network disappoints ship supporters such as Harry Burkhardt, a merchant marine captain and steam-engine expert who is a volunteer on the vessel.
Burkhardt is president of Friends of the Cruiser Olympia (www.fotco.org), which is trying to raise money for preservation of the ship. The group got its nonprofit status this month and has begun receiving pledges and interest from individuals and corporations, Burkhardt said.
"We want to take over its ownership and operation," he said. "We have a long list of ideas, but we have to save the ship to implement them."
Burkhardt, 53, of South Philadelphia, said he would turn the Olympia into a self-sustaining museum with a living-history crew and education programs for inner-city children.
"I think what's happening is a total disgrace," he said. "The Liberty Bell has a crack in it, but we don't melt it down. The Statue of Liberty turned green with corrosion, but we don't throw it away."
The Olympia "was a symbol of America's might and freedom," Burkhardt said. "Now she's a symbol of negligence."
Concerned about the condition of the Olympia, the Navy sent a letter to the museum last May asking about plans to dry-dock the vessel for the necessary maintenance.
On the water line, small portions of the Olympia's half-inch steel hull have corroded to an eighth of an inch and must be monitored continually. Water leaks through the deck into the interior, causing further rust.
"We have cared for Olympia lovingly," McLane said. "We have put $5.5 million into it and spend money on it every day."
The Olympia was authorized in 1888 and commissioned in 1895. The state-of-the-art vessel led five other U.S. warships into Manila Bay in the Philippines on May 1, 1898, and fired shots in a battle to wrest control of that country from the Spanish.
Navy Commodore George Dewey stood on the bridge of the ship and uttered the famous words: "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."
Under Dewey's command, the U.S. fleet destroyed 10 Spanish cruisers and gunboats in hours without losing an American life.
The Olympia spent World War I in the Atlantic Ocean, and brought remains of the Unknown Soldier home from France in 1921.
It was docked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard from 1922 to 1959, and was on display at Pier 11 at the Benjamin Franklin Bridge through the 1960s until 1976, when it was moved to Penn's Landing. Today, the vessel is the world's oldest floating steel warship. "The Navy has been in discussions with the museum to come up with a disposition plan if they can no longer operate it," said Patricia Dolan, a Navy spokeswoman. "Any plan for disposal of the vessel - scrapping or reefing - will have to be approved by the Navy."
The thought of scuttling the naval time capsule - filled with paintings, photos, and artifacts - has raised the ire of historians.
"It will be a national disgrace and major embarrassment for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania if Olympia is disposed of by scrapping or being sunk off the coast of New Jersey," said naval historian Lawrence Burr, who has produced documentaries and written four books, including U.S. Cruisers 1883-1904: The Birth of the Steel Navy.
"Neither the Spanish navy in 1898 nor the German navy in 1917-18 was able to sink Olympia," he said. "It will be ironic if the State of New Jersey is able to sink this unique historic warship that has been in the care of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania for over 50 years, and who have benefited from its role as a tourist attraction. . . .
"If sunk, she will only be seen by a small elite who are able to dive, with the risk that she will be plundered for souvenirs," he said.
Also expressing disappointment was the nonprofit Theodore Roosevelt Association in Oyster Bay, N.Y. Congress chartered the group in 1920 to perpetuate the legacy of Roosevelt, who was assistant secretary of the Navy before the Spanish-American War and ordered the Olympia furnished with extra coal so it could be sent to the Philippines. Roosevelt resigned from his office and served as a colonel in the Rough Riders during the invasion of Cuba.
The possible sinking of the Olympia "is an outrage," said Howard Ehrlich, executive director of the association. "You would think veterans groups would get together and lobby the Navy to save the ship."
Even sinking the 5,600-ton ship would be costly. Because of the ship's 211/2-foot draft, the basin where it is berthed would have to be dredged so the vessel could be moved to dry dock. There, it would be structurally reinforced so it could be safely towed down the Delaware River to the reef location.
"No decision has been made," McLane said. "This is not what we want to do. In these tough economic times, everybody is forced to make tough decisions."

Has anyone gotten any covers back from the USS LINCOLN recently. Something is really haywire in their post office.

1850 - Washington Navy Yard begins work on first castings for the Dahlgren guns.
1917 - USS Ericsson fires first torpedo of war.
1944 - Accidental explosion on board an LST unloading ammunition in West Loch, Pearl Harbor, and the resulting fire and other explosions sink five LSTs.
1964 - The initiation of the standing carrier presence at Yankee Station in the South China Sea.

From the Navy News Service May 22nd

1882 - Commodore Shufeldt signs commerce treaty opening Korea to U.S. trade.
1958 - Naval aircraft F4D-1 Sky Ray sets five world speed-to-climb records, May 22-23.
1967 - New York City reaches agreement to purchase Brooklyn Navy Yard, ending 166 years of construction and repair of naval vessels.
1968 - USS Scorpion (SSN 589) is lost with all hands.

From the Navy News Service May 23rd

1850 - Navy sends USS Advance and USS Rescue to attempt rescue of Sir John Franklin's expedition, lost in Arctic.
1939 - USS Squalus (SS 92) sinks off Portsmouth, N.H., with loss of 26 lives.
1962 - Launch of Aurora 7 (Mercury 7), piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Malcolm Scott Carpenter who completed three orbits in four hours, 56 minutes, at an altitude up to 166.8 statute miles at 17,549 mph.
1962 - USS Valcour (AVP 55) provides medical care to a merchant seaman from tanker SS Manhattan in the Persian Gulf.

For more information about naval history, visit the Naval Historical Center Web site at:
http://www.history.navy.mil.

1801 - Four warships sent to Mediterranean to protect American commerce.

1815 - Commodore Stephen Decatur (Frigate Guerriere) sails with 10 ships to suppress Mediterranean pirate raids on U.S. shipping.

1844 - USS Constitution sails from New York on 'round-the-world cruise.

1943 - Establishment of 10th Fleet in Washington, D.C., under command of Adm. King, to coordinate U.S. antisubmarine operations in Atlantic.

Don...the USS BUNKER HILL & USS SAMPSON arrive in Portland on June 3rd.

Rich H - 7 more pictorial designs headed your way.

Thanks to all for the help with Adm. Knapp

John W and Rich H. - will also bring some picture cards and photos I no longer need to NOJEX.

I just put over 400 items on eBay with prooceeds going to Decatur Chapter. Seller: cgcoverguy

Greg below is a link to a picture of Rear Admiral Henry R. Knapp. That's about all I can find about him.

http://www.genealogyimagesofhistory.com/images/funstondeath.JPG

Enjoy a safe trip to NOJEX.

Ark Royal’s 800 sailors will join the British frigate Sutherland, destroyer Liverpool, fleet replenishment ship Fort George, landing ship dock Largs Bay and assault ships Albion and Ocean, according to a Navy news release. The French submarine Perle will also join the exercise with the U.S. guided missile destroyer Barry and amphibious assault ship Kearsage. There are about 2,000 sailors participating in the exercise.

The British deployment, called AURIGA, is a major 2010 deployment to exercise on the eastern seaboard of North America and in the western Atlantic, the news release said. The group deployed from the United Kingdom in April.

All of the AURIGA multinational Naval Task Group, except the Ark Royal, arrived in Norfolk no May 11. The sailors will spend the weekend sightseeing, shopping and attending sporting events in Hampton Roads before the exercise begins.

The multinational exercise will take place off the U.S. and Canadian coasts. The exercises include training in traditional war-fighting areas of carrier strike, amphibious assault and anti-submarine warfare operations. Some of the task group will also participate in the international fleet review in Halifax, celebrating the centennial of the Canadian Navy.

Rich Hoffner: Changed my mind- will attend USCS
Convention in the Meadowlands- sold all my beer
coasters to local pub owners that sells imported
beer from Pennsylvania

Will be at Secausus- to join you in the hunt for
launch cover of 1791 Revenue Cutter Massachsetts.
Rumour has it, it might be un-cacheted, stampless
and written in Latin

USS Bunker Hill (CG 52)
USS Sampson (DDG 102)
Canadian Maritime Forces

HMCS Vancouver
United States Coast Guard

USCGC Alert
USCGC Fir
USCGC Bluebell
USCGC Henry Blake
USCGC Blue Shark
Triumph
USCGC Bertholf*

[* Not available for tours. Ship located on Swan Island]
Army Corps of Engineers

ACOE Redlinger
Historic Ships

Sternwheeler Portland
PT 658

There are several Naval cover sellers at Wensy.com, it is a completely free auction site, no listing fees, no final sales fees.

Right now it appears there are are 150 Naval covers up for sale, by three or four sellers.
The owner/webmaster of this site bought out Stampoffers.com last year and most, if not all members of SO went over to Wensy. They are much like e-bay, as they not only stamps & coins, they have a little of everything.
I've picked up a few Naval Covers there in the last few months, prices are a lot cheaper, as sellers can sell for less where there are no fees of any kind.

WASHINGTON — Midshipman Jessica Wilcox, who graduates from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis this month, said she first pictured herself aboard a submarine when she was a “dreamy young person,” long before women were allowed to join the nation’s nuclear submarine service.
Now, she is among the first group of women to be tapped for the elite force, one of the military’s last all-male bastions.
She is ready to break into the fraternity, even though it means being submerged for three months at a time in a space no wider than a motor home, outnumbered 70 to 1 by men, many of whom will not want her there.
“I just feel blessed,” Ms. Wilcox, 21, of Honesdale, Pa., said recently in a phone interview. “Each individual branch of the service has its ups and downs.”
The Navy announced last month that it would place women on submarine crews. By January 2012, after 15 months of training, a total of 19 women will be assigned to four ballistic missile submarines based in Bangor, Wash., and Kings Bay, Ga.
Aboard the ships, the women will share a bedroom so small that only one person can stand up at a time. When they want to use the bathroom — just two showers and two toilets for 15 officers — they will hang a sign on the door that says “women only.” To move from bedroom to bathroom, they will walk corridors so narrow that two sailors cannot pass without pressing against each other.
But while the decision opens a prestigious career path to women and increases the Navy’s recruiting pool for submarine postings, it has been met with quiet resistance within what has long been proudly called “the Silent Service,” according to active-duty and retired submariners.
The development comes amid other changes that threaten 110 years of tradition in the brotherhood, including a ban on smoking on submarines, effective Dec. 31, and the anticipated unwinding of the “don’t ask, don’t tell,” policy that bars openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military.
John Mason, a retired senior chief petty officer who served aboard four submarines and two surface ships from 1977 to 1994, began preparing an online petition opposing the integration of women this spring. So far, Mr. Mason has collected the signatures and comments of nearly 550 retired and active-duty military personnel, as well as their spouses — all of whom argue that submarines are no place for women.
Privately, many active-duty sailors said they believed that the decision was made for political reasons, not operational ones. A sailor who has served on a fast-attack submarine based in Pearl Harbor since 2005 said that pregnancy would undoubtedly end up disrupting missions and that the cramped ships could not accommodate women.
“The chief of the boat calls it a brotherhood of master mariners — not a brother and sisterhood,” said the sailor, who withheld his name because he was disagreeing with official Navy policy. “If all of a sudden they put females on my submarine, things would change so drastically, I don’t think we would be able to flow as well.”
Mr. Mason said the presence of women on submarines would put an end to the kind of camaraderie “that involves close physical contact, like man hugs and bottom pats” that sailors use to cope with the pressure of extended deployments.
The issue of allowing women on submarines has been considered and rejected several times since 1994 when women were allowed to serve on surface ships, usually with the argument that it was too expensive to retrofit submarines for both sexes. Several allied countries allow women to serve aboard submarines, but their ships rarely deploy for as long as American ones.
Rear Adm. Barry L. Bruner, who led a task force investigating the issue, has addressed the controversy on his blog, saying the integration of women was necessary to maintain American dominance beneath the seas.
“We’ve looked hard at the impediments to successful implementation of the plan,” Admiral Bruner, the commander of Submarine Group 10, based at Kings Bay, wrote when the policy was changed. “Given the need and the more open attitude of the current generation of submariners, I continue to feel that this change to policy is needed to maintain the readiness of the most operationally active Submarine Service in the world.”
At first, female officers will be assigned only to the Navy’s largest submarines, known as boomers, equipped with long-range nuclear-tipped missiles. The Navy will then consider allowing enlisted women to join the submarine force and whether to make the necessary changes to accommodate women on the smaller fast-attack submarines.
Misty Webster, another midshipman bound for submarine service, conceded that the size of the submarines could make integrating more complicated, though she said women at the Naval Academy never felt they were denied opportunities under the old policy.
More important, Ms. Webster, 21, of Wesley Chapel, Fla., said that after she spent a full day on a submarine, she felt as though she had found her niche.
“I felt like I fit in more than in any other community in the Navy,” she said.

Cash-Strapped Navy Being Cut To Bone, Analysts Say
(OTTAWA CITIZEN (CANADA) 12 MAY 10) ... David Pugliese

As celebrations continue for its 100th anniversary, Canada's navy has announced what defence analysts say is a major reduction in the number of ships available for service.
The move, sparked by budget problems, will leave the navy a shell of its former self, according to analysts.
The fleet of Kingston-class maritime coastal defence vessels will be reduced from 12 to six ships and three frigates, HMCS Montreal, St John's and Vancouver will now be conducting domestic and continental missions to a "limited degree," according to a letter sent to naval formations by the service's commander Vice Admiral Dean McFadden.
Combat systems on HMCS Toronto and HMCS Ottawa will be "minimally supported to enable safe to navigate sensors and communications only," states the letter written April 23 and released to the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday. The same will happen to the destroyer HMCS Athabaskan, it added.
A key weapon system on board the Protecteur-class supply ships designed to destroy incoming missiles "will not be supported," it added. Some anti-submarine warfare capabilities for the navy's destroyer fleet will also not be supported.
"I have had to make difficult choices that will directly impact fleet capability and availability this year and possibly for the medium term," wrote McFadden.
Funding issues are behind the moves and even though the navy and Defence Department successfully argued for additional money, "a shortfall still remains," he added.
McFadden noted that the reductions are being done to ensure that the navy's top priorities, the Victoria-class submarines as well as the modernization of the Halifax-class frigates, are supported as fully as possible.
Defence analyst Martin Shadwick said the move cuts the navy to the bone. "The sheer percentage of the fleet that will be unavailable is staggering," said Shadwick, a York University strategic studies professor. "It leaves the navy in the medium term with very limited capability."
Liberal senator Colin Kenny, the former chairman of the senate's defence committee, said the reductions are a major blow to the navy. "This is some happy 100th birthday isn't it?" he said, referring to the May 4 celebrations of the navy's century of service. "It means for the next few years there won't be much of a navy."
Still, Kenny said McFadden should be commended for making the right moves in dealing with the lack of money. "If the Harper government is screwing him this badly I think he is making the right decision to protect the core of the navy," Kenny said.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office could not comment on the letter released publicly by the navy on Wednesday.
But in a letter published in the National Post on Wednesday, MacKay highlighted that the government is laying the groundwork for the future navy. "Our government's defence blueprint is providing the navy with what it needs to serve Canadians on our three coasts and internationally," MacKay wrote.
McFadden's letter warns of the difficulties the navy will face because of the reductions. "I fully recognize the challenge that these capability reductions will cause the navy, particularly as the HCM (Halifax-class modernization) program ramps up and the number of hulls available for force generation and force employment is reduced," he wrote.
Smaller vessels will also be affected. Support for auxiliary vessel maintenance will be reduced by approximately 60 per cent, McFadden wrote.
Some sailors had contacted the Citizen to say that a number of ships would be decommissioned. But McFadden stressed that this was not the case. "It is important to note that when the letter indicates that a class of ships will be reduced this does not, in any way, direct the disposing of assets; it simply indicates that some ships will go into Extended Readiness," he wrote to the Citizen.
HMCS Winnipeg, Fredericton, Calgary and Charlottetown will be fully supported and capable of achieving high readiness, according to McFadden. HMCS Algonquin will be supported at a reduced state of high readiness.
The status of two other frigates will be determined later. A seventh Kingston-class vessel will be used for training this summer.
Retired vice admiral Peter Cairns said that there have been rumours around the navy about ships going to be tied up because of a lack of money. "The general feeling is there is not enough operating money for the navy, particularly in light of the costs of the operations in Afghanistan," said Cairns, president of the Shipbuilding Association of Canada
Cairns said he had heard the navy was going to dock some of the Kingston-class vessels but he is concerned that once that is done, the ships might not be going back to sea. "Once you tie one up some smart people in government say 'you haven't run with it for a year so why do you still need it?," Cairns explained.

ABU DHABI -- Somali pirates have become bolder and more inventive, staging increasing attacks despite ramped up international efforts to thwart them, delegates to an Indian Ocean Naval Symposium said.
Once limited to areas near the Somali coast, pirates also now hijack the traditional and less detectable wooden trade boats that ply Gulf waters, to use as motherships from which to launch more distant attacks with their smaller, nimbler skiffs.
"Piracy is expanding," Nirmal Verma, chief of Indian naval staff, told Reuters on the sidelines of the symposium. "It's come to a point where you have non-state actors occupying strategic spaces. That never happened before."
"In 2005, piracy didn't extend miles off the Somali coast. Today, the latest attempts were about 1,000 miles away," he said.
Once sailing vessels at the mercy of ocean breezes, wooden Gulf dhows are now motorised and made large enough to carry tons of foodstuffs and even cars. The wooden vessels can slip past radar scans, but also withstand the rough high seas.
Dhow owners in the United Arab Emirates, a major dhow hub, complained in March that their boats were increasingly targeted by pirates, and some had halted trade to Somali ports as a result, Emirati media have said.
In what some delegates said were increasing attacks, Somali pirates now hold some 400 sailors hostage overall. The London-based International Maritime Bureau said attacks were at a 6-year high in 2009.
Foreign navies have been deployed off the Gulf of Aden, where nearly 20,000 vessels pass yearly, since early 2009 and naval officers say the area has become more secure because of the use of convoys and monitoring of transit corridors.
SIGN OF DESPERATION
But the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean inevitably leave ships vulnerable in pirate-infested waters. Piracy has cost tens of millions of dollars in ransoms.
"The pirates adapt new methods. Every time we suppress piracy, they change their tactics," said Ibrahim Mohamed al Musharrakh, commander of the United Arab Emirate's naval forces.
French and Australian naval commanders said they were optimistic that increasing cooperation in counter-piracy efforts would improve results. Australia's naval chief Russell Crane saw attacks far out at sea as a sign of desperation.
"That mean's we're having a positive influence closer to the coast, and it's driving pirates into more dangerous territory," he said. "The further out you go, the more difficult the task."
Even when authorities do nab pirates, they are often released because of vagaries in international law and the expense of detention and prosecution.
Russian sailors released Somali pirates into the open sea after their failed attempt last week to hijack a Russian oil tanker. Russian officials said there had been no grounds to prosecute them in Russia.
"We need a more comprehensive understanding for application of international law in domestic legislation," Crane said. "It's difficult to ensure proper prosecution because countries are independent nations with independent views."
But even convicted pirates are problematic. Overburdened East African countries complain they can't afford to keep pirates in jail indefinitely.
"Our prisons are congested with over 150 pirates. They're putting a drain on our prisons and judiciary," Kenyan navy commander S.J. Mwathethe said.
A member of the Seychelles delegation, who asked not to be named, said his country sends prisoners to a prison established by the United Nations in Somaliland.

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus visited Sailors aboard the Navy's newest Virginia-class submarine, USS New Mexico (SSN 779), during his first submarine embark as secretary May 11.
Mabus experienced the ship's movement during angles and dangles, high speed turns, and standing on the bridge in the ship's sail while the submarine was surfaced.
"This has been such an informative day. I am amazed at the level of skill and the level of expertise of our Sailors," Mabus said. "The ability to fully operate a Virginia-class submarine and all of its complex systems is truly remarkable. Our Sailors continually show that they are the best trained and the best skilled force our nation has seen."
Mabus also took part in a submarine warfare qualification pinning known as the Dolphin Ceremony. It recognizes enlisted and officers' completion of a yearlong qualification process that familiarizes them with virtually all of the submarine's systems. Mabus pinned the newly acquired submarine warfare insignia on Lt.j.g. Vincent Bove and Sonar Technician Seaman Kyle Hassler.
"This has been an extraordinary experience for me. The reason I'm here today is to thank you for you service," Mabus said. "Your expertise is so crucial to the Navy's mission. Because of your vital role, you spend more time away from home and your families. I want you to know that I appreciate you and your families' service and sacrifice."
New Mexico is the sixth submarine of the Virginia-class. It has improved stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities and special warfare enhancements to meet the challenges of the 21st century and the Navy's multi-mission requirements.

Mid year and I need to restock the pending file. I do have a few articles that I am saving for future months.

Seldom get articles on ship war time operations in Europe. Any takers?

But this leads to the problem and probably the answer of why we are not seeing many "election" cancels with daters. In the past few years the USPS has replaced worn out cancels with preinked cancels with changeable dates (a wheel to change the date on the device). I suspect that they no longer have current date slugs in USPS supplies to replace daters for that type of postmark. Our chapter recently purchased a set for Norfolk, so that Heryey T could continue using some of his hand cancels for the same reason. A collector also donated daters to Groton last year so they could continue using their Submarine Base Station CDS.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked a simple question last week. Do we really need 11 aircraft carrier task groups patrolling the oceans for another 30 years?
Boy, did that raise eyebrows in military circles.
Gates spoke before an audience of naval officers and defense contractors, many of whom no doubt viewed his remarks as heresy.
But he made some telling points, namely that as anti-ship weapons have become more sophisticated and precise, our fleet of gigantic floating bases has become increasingly vulnerable. Does it make sense to tie up so many scarce defense dollars in assets that might be overwhelmed by anti-ship missiles or submarines?
In other words, are we headed for a moment like Pearl Harbor, when we suddenly learned that we had invested too much in battleships and relied on them for too long, ignoring their vulnerability to relatively cheap airplanes carrying torpedoes?
Since man began forming armies, a debate has raged. Which is best, heavy and expensive or light and agile? It depends: The two are in perpetual tension. In the Middle Ages, heavy and defensive ruled; some fortresses were effectively impregnable. But at Pearl Harbor, light and agile won the day.
Gates was saying that current conditions tend to favor forces that are widely dispersed and highly maneuverable — yet lethal, thanks to advances in weaponry. It’s time we put fewer eggs in the carrier task force basket and more in dispersed, maneuverable forces of our own — meaning smaller ships, perhaps with stealth capability, that can work closer to shore.
All of which is fine, as far as it goes. But Gates went much further. How many carrier task forces are enough? He didn’t propose a specific number, but he suggested a profoundly troubling measuring stick for deciding: The relative power of other seafaring nations.
“Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups … when no other country has more than one?” he asked.
Robert Haddick, a former Marine officer who writes at the Small Wars Journal site, noted that the answer to that question could be found in part on Okinawa, where residents are demanding closure of a major U.S. air base. Once that happens, Haddick wrote, a “big strategic hole” will open up in America’s western Pacific defense plans, and we will need our carriers even more to project force and deter aggression.
Okinawa isn’t the only problem. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain bases in several other countries. Yet we have vital interests in far-flung regions such as the Persian Gulf, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.
“The fact that no other country, today at least, operates anything like a USN carrier strike group says nothing about their utility,” Haddick wrote. “I am surprised that Gates said this, especially to an audience of naval officers.”
The carrier force has been the primary instrument by which America maintains freedom of the seas. The importance of this benefit was highlighted more than a century ago by Alfred Thayer Mahan, in his pathbreaking “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.” Mahan’s basic point was encapsulated in his introduction.
At one time or another, many of us read stories of the wars between Rome and Carthage, illustrated by pictures of Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants.
What was he doing in the Alps, anyway? Why didn’t he go by sea? It turns out the Romans controlled it, forcing Hannibal to go overland — a trek that cost him more than half his army. Those losses could be credited directly to the Roman navy.
U.S. control of the sea is a benefit largely conferred by the existence of a powerful fleet of carriers, able to project awesome power virtually anywhere on short notice or help in disaster aid when the need arises.
No one knows the “right” number of carrier task groups. Gates is surely right to suggest that it’s time to throw more money at lighter, cheaper, more maneuverable ships.
But the standard he suggested — the relative power of other navies — hints at something other than a measured adjustment. What Gates could have in mind is a radical cut in the carrier force, and that would surely be a big strategic mistake.

There are no immediate plans to modify the 17 attack submarines assigned to Pearl Harbor to accommodate female officers because the Navy plans to allow the first U.S. women to serve aboard larger submarines.
Changes will be limited to the larger nuclear guided-missile and ballistic-missile subs assigned to Kings Bay, Ga., and Bangor, Wash., said Lt. Cmdr. Dave Benham, Pacific Fleet Submarine Force spokesman.
"That is because this class of submarine has the most living space," he added.
The Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines—often referred to as "boomers"—at 560 feet are three times larger than the 360-foot Los Angeles-class attack submarines and 12 times larger than the World War II diesel submarine USS Bowfin.
Only Ohio-class submarines will have female officers on board. That includes four of the older models that have been modified so that two of the sub's 24 missile tubes can launch and recover Navy commandos.
The decision to limit sub duty to female officers serving on boomers skirts the cost and problems in modifying smaller Los Angeles- and Virginia-class boats to have separate bunks and bathrooms for enlisted men and women. Enlisted sailors make up about 90 percent of a sub's 160-sailor crew. No time line was given for integrating enlisted women onto subs.
The Navy ended one of the few remaining gender barriers yesterday by lifting the restrictions against women serving on submarines. Despite lifting the ban against women serving on its surface vessels in 1994, the Navy kept female sailors off submarines because of the problems of cramped quarters and privacy issues.
Navy officials said the first female submariners will report for duty by 2012.

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your dad.
Know the empty spot it leaves, my dad passed away in '59. He was a Navy Seabee veteran of WWII

Cowboys of the Silver Screen Station

Postmaster

205 Clarkslanding Rd.

Port Republic, NJ
08241-9998

That hobby is kinda like collecting covers isn't it?

Elgin...Greg C. made the design and Rich had the rubber stamp made.

Great design Greg...Thanks!!!

I recall Taze Nicholson mentioning that he was preparing to do a decommissioning cover for USS LIBERTY and was told the ship would not be decommissioned. He did do a cover, but it is rather generic and I don't think it was on the date she was decommissioned.

C.O.P.E.
USS BUNKER HILL CG-52
Rose Festival Portland Oregon Postmark
FPO AP 96661-1172

eCRATER is also an online site for selling, but I have never used that one.

DOn't forget to send for the Commissioning pictorial for USCGC WAESCHE WMSL 751 at Alamada CA. on May 7. Covers to:

Vicki Soriano - OIC
Alameda USPS
2201 Shoreline Dr.
Alameda CA 94501-9998

Freedom will be in dry dock for about five days. After her yard period, the ship is to sail to the northern Pacific for the Canadian Fleet Review, and then to Hawaiian waters for the annual Rim of the Pacific exercise.

Will have several ships for SINKEX-not named yet.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island nonprofit group on Monday launched a campaign to bring the retired aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy to the state for use as a museum, citing President Kennedy’s connections to Newport and the support of his nephew, Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
The effort by the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame pits Newport County against Portland, Maine, the other site being considered by the Navy, which plans to donate the decommissioned ship. The winner will have to move the 1,050-foot ship from Philadelphia, where it’s currently being kept.
The JFK, known as “Big John,” was the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier built by the Navy, and it once carried a crew of 4,600 and 70 combat aircraft. It was built in Virginia and christened by Kennedy’s 9-year-old daughter, Caroline, in 1967. It was active in both Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan, and decommissioned in 2007.
Kennedy did his PT Boat training at Naval Station Newport during World War II, was married in Newport in 1953 to Jacqueline Bouvier and spent so much time during his presidency at her childhood home in Newport, Hammersmith Farm, that it became known as the “Summer White House.”
Among the supporters of the Newport County proposal are Evan Smith, president of the Newport and Bristol County Convention and Visitors Bureau, who in a recent letter of support cited the Navy’s long history in Newport, and said the region’s 3 million annual visitors might like to tour such a ship. In a separate letter, Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said it would help continue President Kennedy’s long association with the state.
The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame has been working for about a decade to open a museum on a different decommissioned aircraft carrier, Saratoga. But Frank Lennon, president of the group, said Monday they were abandoning that effort because of a recent decision by the Navy to dispose of the Saratoga rather than donate it.
“We’ve got the population mass, located between the Boston and New York market. We’ve got 10 years of experience. We’ve got Kennedy family connections,” he said. “I’m confident that we have a winner.”
Lennon estimates they will need to raise $8 million to $10 million for the JFK project, which is less than the $12 million to $15 million they would have had to raise for the Saratoga, which was in worse condition.
He said they already raised about $10.5 million, including donations, pledges and federal support, for the Saratoga. He said all the major pledges will be transferred to the JFK project, and the group is investigating whether the federal money can also be transferred.
If the application is approved, a hangar bay will be dedicated to a USS Saratoga Museum, he said.
Lennon said there are three or four locations on Aquidneck Island that would be appropriate to dock the carrier, but he would not say what they were because they are in “delicate discussions” about them.
Richard Fitzgerald, chief financial officer of the Maine group, known as JFK for ME, says they intend to raise $60 million over 10 years. He noted that given the choice of a port of call in 1989, the sailors from the Kennedy chose Portland Harbor, indicating Portland is the ship’s proper home.
“The return of the JFK to the waters of Portland Harbor will complete the wishes of the former crew,” he said. “This ship will have the honor of becoming the landmark of our harbor and in time she will honor all that served on her, and she will equally honor the state of Maine.”
The two groups have until early next year to submit a second-round application that includes a plan for operating the ship.

1861 - USS Surprise captures Confederate privateer Savannah.
1898 - Marines land at Cavite, Philippines, and raise U.S. flag.
1949 - First Navy firing of a high altitude Viking rocket at White Sands, NM.

From June 23 through Aug. 1, the U.S. Pacific Fleet will host the exercise involving 20,000 personnel, 34 surface ships, five submarines and more than 100 aircraft.

U.S. military officials said Monday that RIMPAC demonstrates a commitment to working with partners in guarding the sea lanes, protecting national interests abroad, and ensuring freedom of navigation as a basis for global peace and prosperity.

The exercise includes units or personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Peru, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.

Later on in the day CNN was conducting a poll on how teachers should be fired - should it be by seniority or by quality. However, if you fire hundreds of teachers do you also need to fire supervisors and administrators since they have fewer people to administer and supervise. How should administrators be let go - seniority or quality of performance? For that they had no poll.

May 15th Armed Forces Day Bremerton, WA 98337

May 25th USS ALABAMA SSBN-731 25th Anniversary Keyport, WA 98345 also Groton, CT 06340

Thanks to Greg C. for the cancel design and Rich for the rubber stamp.

Try this site for full-color logos

http://www.seasky.org/spacexp/sky5b11.html

I gues an exception might be an AVSGS (a very small garbage scow).

This note has been modified to fit your
monitor!

This note has been modified to fit your
monitor!

Member of the Month photo of Walter Grabowy,
taken in November 1944, while aboard FS in
South Pacific. Walt was cachet agent for the
Coast Guard Study Group (1984-2002) One minor
typo- He started producung Coast Guard Day
covers in August 1982