Background
From February
1970 to October 1975, I served in the U.S. Navy as an Electronic Technician.
My boot camp time was spent in San Diego (it sure beat the other choice:
Great Lakes, IL in winter). After boot camp, there was a 6 week basic electronics
class before I moved up to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay for another
1-2 years of electronics school.
Once that was completed, it was only a short move southwest to Moffitt Field Naval Air Station at Mountain View near San Jose, in the heart of what was to become Silicon Valley. This base was a training center for the Lockeed-built Navy P-3, a large 4-engine turboprop plane which could fly over the ocean and electronically detect submarines under the surface.
By 1974, the Navy decided I had enjoyed enough of sunny California and sent me to the U.S.S. Howard W. Gilmore, a submarine tender (repair ship) homeported on a tiny, isolated rock-infested island off the northern tip of the island of Sardinia, Italy. While we went on short cruises on the Mediterranean a couple of times a year, most of the time was spent tied to the pier in Italy with 1-5 submarines in for repair alongside.
As a sidelight, the Gilmore returned to the U.S. a while after I did. It was decomissioned in September 1980, and I believe it's currently mothballed on the James River near Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.
During my tour onboard the Gilmore, I traveled to many other countries including Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, France, Tunisia and the Soviet Union.
During this time, I spent a great deal of time dabbling in photography and took thousands of color slides which were eventually weeded down to the 1000 or so I still have today. Recently, I had a few transferred to Photo-CD so I could use the images with my PC. They appear on these pages.
Related Internet Sites
Howard W. Gilmore Home Page - Pictures and Specs
Bullfighting Information - More than you would ever need
Barcelona, Spain - Info and Specs