| I took these pictures (except for the ones I'm in!) in 1986 while on the USS Saipan (LHA-2). I was the Petty Officer of a surgical support team consisting of nine other corpsmen (green as newborns), a surgeon (LCDR "whadda-ya-mean-you-spent-the-night-in-a-hotel-in-Palma" Montgomery), and a nurse (Lieutenant "I'm-gonna-lose-my-commission-because-of-you-guys" Thompson) that were plucked from our comfortable shore duty at a Naval Hospital and cast adrift on this tub for a North Atlantic operation. I had just finished three years of sea duty, was on my second enlistment, was on my "shore rotation", and I wasn't too happy about it at all. In fact, it played a big part in my decision not to re-up for another four years... that, and the fact that I met Janet just prior to the end of my second hitch.
The pics on this page are mostly of flight operations. I have very few that were taken below decks. They are on page 2. Besides a hangar deck, this class ship has a large "well deck" where trucks, jeeps, tanks, troops, etc., are loaded onto landing craft and ferried ashore. It's pretty cool because the ship floods ballast tanks lowering it's stern causing the lower level of the well deck to submerge. Landing craft are pulled right up into the back of the ship and loaded with cargo. |
| Yours Truly (at the ripe old age of twenty-four) in the office separating the primary care ward from the post-op/ICU (in the background). I wore those huge glasses for another five years. The ship had an impressive medical department; four operating rooms, seventeen bed ICU/post-op, forty-eight bed primary care ward, and overflow for more than three hundred. It also had full x-ray and laboratory facilities staffed by corpsmen permanently attached to the ship. |
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On the flight deck, from the bow looking aft. |
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Underway refueling. |
| A CH-46 on the flight deck. The balcony in the foreground is right off the main bridge. I was standing on top of the superstructure on the observation deck. |
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| The Air Boss. Flight operations are directed from this room. |
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 | Above: A CH-53 taking off.
Left: A UH-1 Huey being refueled. A CH-53 in background.
Below: A Cobra attack helicopter taking off. Notice the guy leaning against the propellor wash. |
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A composite of five pictures showing the coast of Norway. This is almost looking 180 degrees with the hull of the Saipan on both sides of the picture.
Click on picture for larger version. |
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Off the coast of Norway a CH-46 full of marines crashed on our flight deck. The helicopter broke in half and fell overboard. This is what a salvage crew was able to recover. |
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These were the coolest. Marine Corps Harriers. These are the jets with steerable exhaust nozzles that allow the plane to take off and land vertically. On the ship they would take off from a rolling start rather than just go straight up. Coming in for a landing they would hover, slowly moving foward and gliding to the pilot's right until over the landing pad, then from a stationary hover the pilot would gently lower it down onto the flight deck. These were unbelievably loud. The jet blast would just about knock you over, too. |
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