The history of the Electronic Warfare Technician (EW) rating is directly linked to RADAR (Radio Detection And Ranging) systems installed on U.S. Navy ships and submarines prior to and during World War Two.
Although the EW rating merged into the Cryptologic Technician (Technical) (CTT) rating on October 1, 2003, the fundamentals of this rating continues to play a significant role in the tactics, techniques and procedures applications of the CTT rating today!
U.S. Navy RADAR History:
In the autumn of 1922, Albert H. Taylor and Leo C. Young at the U.S. Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory were conducting communication experiments when they noticed that a wooden ship in the Potomac River was interfering with their signals. They prepared a memorandum suggesting that this might be used for ship detection in a harbor defense, but their suggestion was not taken up. In 1930, Lawrence A. Hyland working with Taylor and Young, now at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., used a similar arrangement of radio equipment to detect a passing aircraft. This led to a proposal and patent for using this technique for detecting ships and aircraft.
Robert Morris Page was assigned by Taylor to implement Young’s suggestion. Page designed a transmitter operating at 60 MHz and pulsed 10 microseconds (μs) in duration and 90 μs between pulses. In December 1934, the apparatus was used to detect a plane at a distance of one mile flying up and down the Potomac. Although the detection range was small and the indications on the oscilloscope monitor were almost indistinct, it demonstrated the basic concept of a pulsed RADAR system. Based on this, Page, Taylor, and Young are usually credited with building and demonstrating the world’s first true RADAR.
Antenna size is directly associated to the operating frequency/wave length; therefore, the operating frequency of the system was increased to 200 MHz, allowing much smaller antennas. At the time, the frequency of 200 MHz was the highest possible frequency due to existing transmitter tubes and other components. The new system was successfully tested at the NRL in April 1937. That same month, the equipment was temporarily installed on the USS Leary (DD/DDR-879), with a Yagi antenna mounted on a gun barrel for sweeping the field of view.
In May 1939, a contract was awarded to RCA for production. Designated CXAM, deliveries started in May 1940. One of the first CXAM systems was placed aboard the USS California (BB 44), a battleship that was sunk in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. By 1942, over twenty Navy ships were equipped with fully operational RADAR systems. Prior to WWII, selected Sailors within the Electrician Mate (EM) rating (a) were designated to operate and maintain the systems, but these Sailors had very little, if any training on the RADAR systems.
Creation of the Radarmen Rating:
As the RADAR systems were being installed ships and submarines, they were also being turned over to untrained operators and technicians and readiness became an issue. In Admiral Richard O’Kane’s book, Wahoo: The Patrols of America’s Most Famous World War II Submarine, the Admiral made significant mention of the submarine’s unreliable RADAR system and the continuous need for the ship’s radiomen (RM) to operate and service this new technology. The USS Wahoo (SS 238) was not the only ship having these problems.
To correct this deficiency in readiness, the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel (BUPERS) in 1943 created Radarman rating (RdM) in order to send qualified personnel to the fleet to better operate and maintain this new technology. Because many of the early Radarmen had previously served as Radiomen, the rating badge symbol used the electrical spark bolts (three rather than the four seen on the Radioman’s insignia) with an overlaid arrow indicating the directional detection aspects of the job, indicating the rating’s origins and the technology from radio. In 1946, the Navy updated the insignia, incorporating the oscillator symbol while carrying over the arrow insignia. In 1950, the RdM rating changed to RD.
Creation of the Electronic Warfare Rating:
In 1973, change impacted this rating once again as BUPERS split the rating. Those Radarmen who operated the WLR-1 Electronic Support Measure (ESM) system located in the EW module of CIC on surface ships were designated as EW Technician. As a result of this new rating, the EW rating badge was created. Because of the maintenance requirements for the system, several Communication Technicians (Maintenance) (CTMs) and Electronic Technicians (ETs) were involuntarily converted to the EW rating. The Sailors who remained in the RD rating were redesignated as Operations Specialists (OS) with the RD rating badge carrying over to the OS rating.
For ratings performing similar duties on non-surface platforms, the ETs were assigned to submarines; Aviation Electronic Technician (AT), Aviation Electrician’s Mate (AE), and CTT were assigned to VQ squadrons; and Aviation Warfare Systems (ASW) Operator (AW) were assigned to VP squadrons.
(a) Today’s Electricians’ Mate (EM) rating is descended from the Electrician rating, which was established in 1883. Not coincidentally, that was also the year that electrical lights—238 lamps in all—were installed on the USS Trenton between June 7 and August 21. In 1921, the Electrician rating was renamed Electrician’s Mate.
Sources:
-The BLUEJACK’s Manuals 1944, 1950
-www.nrl.navy.mil/accomplishments/systems/radar/
-wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar
-ethw.org/U.S_Naval_Research_Lab_and_the_Development_of_Radar
-veteranscollection.org
-LCDR Robert E. Morrison, USN (ret.)
Station HYPO 
5 June 2018 at 16:59
What happened to RDE ? It was between RD and what became EW. I was on
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3 December 2019 at 06:22
John Sweeney, have been trying to locate copy of VAVOP that designated the first group designated EW in 1971. I was a RD(e)2 st the time. I was in RD B school class 6902.
Can you. Bear a hand in my search. TIA
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6 June 2018 at 16:31
I was one of those “involuntarily” converted to the EW rating and it happened before 1973. I was a CTM stationed at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska when I was called in to the CO’s office and given the news. To say I was shocked was an understatement !!! I was given 30 days leave and told to report to USS Jouett (DLG-29) in San Diego by August 1, 1972. I was quickly sent to WLR-1C Operator School at Point Loma. By the end of August we were on our way to Viet Nam, returning in late March 1973. I left the Navy in May 1974 as a CTM/EW2.
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8 June 2018 at 03:33
I went to o EW ‘A’ School at Treasure Island starting in 1971. If my memory is correct all of the guys in my class were grouped in the first 100 EW’s to hit the fleet that were not cross rates. My first LPO had been an RDE, my second ships LPO had also been an RDE.
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8 June 2018 at 03:34
I went to o EW ‘A’ School at Treasure Island starting in 1971. If my memory is correct all of the guys in my class were grouped in the first 100 EW’s to hit the fleet that were not cross rates. My first LPO had been an RDE, my second ships LPO had also been an RDE.
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5 July 2020 at 19:22
Graduated April 1984 Pensacola EW ‘A’ and ‘C’ school for SLQ-32. Two years later returned for WLR-1C ‘C’ school as USS Kirk was dual configured at the time. Keeping the old WLR-1C operating was a fun challenge. Loved the long range intercepts.
In 2008 I landed a job with Baker Atlas, an oil field service company repairing well oil logging electronic instrument tools. The guy who hired me was in the 60’s an ET that was responsible for keeping his ship’s WLR-1C working. It sorta got me hired. lol
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27 February 2022 at 04:13
Went to EW A schooling Pensacola Florida in 93-94. Went thru with the first 2 females in EW rate. Went back for slq 32 V3 in 97-98. Then went back in 2000 for journeyman tech school. Stayed in until 2003. Left just before that combined with CTT.
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12 June 2022 at 06:30
I was in class 7412 at T.I. in 1974, anyone from that class give a shout.
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12 February 2023 at 14:08
Jeff Donahue. I also was on T.I in 1974 . I don’t remember what the class number was. Left there and was assigned to the De 1037 U.S.S Bronstein in the South China Sea. We were assigned with the Kitty Hawk group as the sub hunter killer quite the ride
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12 February 2023 at 15:55
I remember your last name, did you know a guy who bought a brand new RED 240Z, last name POBAT? or a guy who I think came from the Brownstein, named Mike Brick? He drove a BSA 440 motorcycle? Or Tim Waters, the older’bearded’ EW that drove the blue and white ‘hippie’ VW Bus? Mark Lucas, aka as ‘Space Cowboy’ and John Kranich? Roger Hart was an ‘army cook’ converted to EW, with his wife Deborah, and Rybel, and former sub sailor George Burkhardt? I remember EWCS Levan who taught the SLQ-22 HPA ECM system, and a civilian who looked like Einstein, last name was White. The EWCS Ron Meyers and I both ended up at General Instruments in Hicksville, NY after he was the Phase Head Coordinator that drove a beige Ford Fairlane that was always parked in front of the compound. But I rmemember mostly last names, like Richard Matthews who fell back from 7411 into my class and became best friends, later I ran into him on a Gator Freighter at NavSta CONCORD when I was there doing an SLQ-32 tech assist to fix a screwed up logic basket on that ship, I was just about ready to fly my Piper Arrow III back to San Diego IFR with another tech rep who couldn’t get a flight and asked if he could hitch a ride with me and I insisted he get wife’s permission first, but she consented and we took off out of Oakland Metro that night and had to stay ahead of a storm on our tail, in between laywers of nasty ICE going back to Brown Field where I parked my machine at.
So many names, like ET1 Broadnax, an instructor, and EW1 Evans who smoked a pipe when he taught up on the second deck across from the Navy Exchange floral shop classroom there. EW1 Pierce, who I later ran into in Subic at the MOTU there doing another tech assist on SLQ-32 ships, was originally sent to support the U.S.S. Blue Ridge which was doing ‘isolation verification’ but I got fed tainted chicken on a NWA B747 where about 250 of us were in bad bad shape, including the flight crew, when we landed at Narita that trip. Anyway I remember your last name but cannot place a face with it being it’s been so long ago now. I’m amazed I can remember too many people. Mike Trask, a nebraskan who I just e-mailed a month or so ago, used to borrow my 69 Camaro when I would go to Tucson to visit my family there and GF. He’s in pretty bad shape, on O2, with COPD issues but at least last time I spoke with him he was alive. one of the others who shared a barracks room with me in Cosson Hall on the end of ‘E’ wing, was last named Eseppi, and also roomed with a ‘thief’ named John Barkley who stole my wallet one night when I didn’t lock up my stuff in my locker coming back from San Francisco. There was another Matthews other than Richard that I mentioned and another guy named Cooper in 7412 too. Lots of names to remember after all of these years, all too few of us still breathing today.
anyway I spent some time at MOTU-5 there at 32nd St. as a tech rep working on EW stuff and COMMS and Radar for a company called Electromagnetic Technology, hired by NARTE President Kent Mills, the former Marine helo pilot who formed the company. Tom Kelleher flew out from Va Beach to hire me, worked with Fred Sieg and John Kime, and Bill Johnson who was the manager at our Mission Valley Office. I left the gang at EMT and went to Raytheon for SLQ-32 stuff, working with Steve Jankowski who I served with on Truxtun, and Rod Newstrom whom I replaced at NAVELEX when he and Bill Finch had a major fight one day. I threw Finch and Ed Miller off Truxtun for showing up ‘inebriated’ to work on my SLQ 26 / OR-45 / SLQ-19 active ECM system so later when I took Newstrom’s spot, working for Bill Talanian in Goleta (commuted using my Arrow II every day) I was also working with Stefan Kong and Phil Bradshaw, Mike Talbot, and Dan Chapman at NAVELEX, which was the AF Plant 19 Building there next to the airport. Later ended up doing GLCM work at General Dynamics as a Dept 60 GLCM test engineer, working mostl TEL-LCC stuff there at AF-Plant 19, same building. Finch and Miller were absolutely huge pains in the a$$ to work with, they never forgot me throwing them off the Truxtun with the help of the EWCS James Poore, who I worked for then.
so a lot of stuff regurgitated here. I have no clue who’s still left alive, but yeah, I remember your last name, just cannot place you. I’d post a photo of me in the EW module on Truxtun if I could but they do’t have a provision for that. We should all be able to post NAVY photos of ourselves here.
and no disrespect meant for the guys from Corry. I just had no use for the being told I had to ‘march’ to lunch or forbidden to put my hands in my pockets on cold mornings walking to class. That was absurd and lame. Had nothing to do with being an EW in any way make or form. 😦
Thanks for your posting. I hope others who are still alive will post now. We had a good group shot by the saluting battery facing S.F. when we graduated from 7412, but a GF of mine has that photo and I doubt she kept it after she and I broke up. I taught her how to fly and that’s what I get 😦
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14 December 2022 at 03:01
In May 1975, the EW School was moved from TI to NTTC Corry Station. I was one of the first to have classes then. We were backed up with students as school was still installing the equipment brought over from California, that when it was functioning we sometimes were at class from 2300 to 0700, as the chool was on three shifts.
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14 December 2022 at 03:11
I found the training available at Treasure Island to be leaps and bounds better than what Corry had because as I was at a WLR-11 ‘C’ school there for a few weeks, I was as a fleet sailor, infinitely more qualified to teach the class, and in fact, ended up having the proctor just abdicate and let me do it because he was so ill-prepared and lacked familiarity with the system, when he should have had at least a few years experience with it to be at the podium. The impetus at Corry was ‘march to lunch’ and crap like that vs real imparting of knowledge. I subsequently got one of my underlings from my ship to take my orders for the 2nd half of my time I was supposed to remain for SLQ-26 training when again, I already had significantly more hands on than Corry instructors had. Granted much of that was because Corry was still maybe in 1975 still in the process of getting it’s stuff together, but it left a bad taste in my mouth when I went to the O.O.D.’s office and found the dufus’ in there in ‘bullfighting uniforms’ whereupon I wrote them all up for being out of uniform on watch. Treasure Island had real instructors with real knowledge to impart, not green sailors who’d maybe spent minimal time hands on with the systems they were responsible for teaching.
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30 January 2023 at 03:07
it is a shame to see others using this time to bad mouth many others who served. these are our brethren in arms and should be remembered as such. I take pride in serving as one of the many EW’s that have gone through corry station. I have had good and bad times there but learned and taught much to others as well. In short those that wanted to do a good job did so by the time honored hard work and elbow grease. no school could teach that was learned in the field and those that rely on a machine such as the slq32 to do the work for them became lazy and did not do their homework (intel),.
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24 May 2023 at 00:41
Treasure island 74, Corey Station 79
USS Berkeley DDG-15 2 Westpacs, EW-1 DOS 73-80
TI was nice, had a Triumph 650 chopper and drove all over the city, same with Corry station C school (Yamaha 750-2D). Got to visit my old buddy corpsman in Tampa bay. 76 WESTPAC was the cruise from heaven, bicentennial, saw the Drifters play at Subic!. Hong Kong, Midway, Taiwan, Japan. Bought a great stereo, ate wonderful food, “ interfaced” with the local population.
79 WESTPAC was cruise from hell, short, should not have been deployed. November, 24th birthday, Thanksgiving, all in Subic, then stateside for Christmas, and muster out January 4th 1980.
NOT!
Hostage crisis, ship immediately heads to IO, port and starboard, had to replace the SLQ-32 HLTWT, I had never done it, and no one on the ship was trained but me. I did it though. Got helo’d off at sea near GONZO station to the USS Wabash, and then a really long commute back to – wait… TI! Talk about full circle. I still can’t believe they left the ship without a qualified ECM tech. Evidently my fix held up enough to come back to 32nd street. 6/2 rotation rate killed me reupping. Went on to a great career in high power/ frequency Microwave.
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25 May 2023 at 13:57
I don’t remember the names of the instructors names but I remember one that constantly had a cigarette in his hand and would hold it in a way that his hand was stained because of the smoke .I remember the class on fm transmission and he said all you need to know was it was fucking magic. Another instructor doubled as a bartender at the po club. I was in c wing 3rd floor and broke us all up because they thought we were having to much fun. Had the room set up with kegerator and chairs tv and fan we stole from the compound in those tilt out windows. Had a group every sat to watch wide world of sports. Hated standing watch at the guard shack. Damn that island was nasty in the winter great view of the city. Got caught in Elsie the largest typoon in years in the guinsue channel wouldn’t let us leave station when they finally did made a run for the phillipines beat the shit out of us spent the last two months of west-pac in dry dock in subic bay. Got held over in Guam chasing a bommer around for a month after it came out of Polaris point after retrofits only found her once. Since I was senior 3rd on board got to choose duty sp was a lot of fun in subic unless you had to stand watch on shit river. We weren’t the fastest de in the navy but talked the co into playing gitty up 409 as we made our 180 away. We spent a lot of time with our tass out crushing around at 5 knot made for some good fishing. Got out went to work at Raytheon service company in Diego retrofitting ew gear hated mounting the new band 10 on that top of carriers long was up not much room up there and the climb was a bitch but the view was good. I do remember going the the em club on ti had a blue blazer with a Thunderbird wine label on the pocket marines didn’t like especially during there 200 anniversary did find out a bunch of sailors could whip a bunch of marines. Wrecked my mercury montclare coming off the bay bridge when the breaks went out hard to make that hair pin turn at 60 thank God for the water barrier on the corner car spent a month setting in the parking lot at the barracks. I bought it from one of the instructor was a nice car. Did have fun as the flag ship on the 4th of July in Hong Kong harbor for a week.
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29 December 2023 at 01:00
Frank Vincent Corry Station 1985Dec to 1986 Dec. W
Lr-1H tech slq-25 tech. Slq-17 tech
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29 January 2024 at 17:17
OS2/EW Tim Murphy, I was a OS on board USS Southerland DD743 1970-1973. I was one of three OS/EW’s on Southerland. One was a Chief the other was a 1st class. So, we where at sea we were port and starboard.
When I was getting out of the Navy I was shown orders for the EW school at T.I please a very good VRB.
I wanted to go to College and refused the offer. What a mistake!
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26 April 2024 at 12:22
I remember Donahue (EW3)name. Did you remember EWC Levan, aka as ‘cheefy weefy’ to us, the ECM instructor, or the civilian instructor who looked like Einstein, last name of White? Or EW1 Broadnax, or EWCS Ron Meyers, the phase head coordinator? I hung out with a bunch of class 7412 dudes, Richard Matthews, George Burkhardt, Marcus Lucas, aka as ‘space cowboy’ and another guy named Mark Reibel?? Michael Trask, Michael Brick, Tim Waters with the VW Bus/Van with the peace sign on it. EW1 Evans the instructor from the Enterprise. I ran into Rich Matthews who was an officer (navigator) on a gator freighter out of Naval Station Concord..I was there fixing an SLQ-32(V)2 ‘logic basket’ ground loop issue due to ‘crushed’ nylon spacers on the basket. I remember the X.O. of the command being murdered one afternoon, I almost was involved as I saw the argument as I was walking by the main admin building back to the barracks. I lived in E Wing with Burkhard and Richard Eseppi. More guys like Kranich and if I sit down and write names I’d get probably more. Matthews fell back from a prior class into 7412, there was another Matthews in the class, I have him in a group photo on a Mt. Tamalpais road trip where a former Army cook, who converted to Navy EW named Roger Hart from Mendota Hts, MN (I was an Eagan resident for 10 years or so), then Burnsville. Anyway, EWCS Meyers and I ended up at General Instruments in Hicksville, NY before it shut down. I worked on ALR-66(V) and ALR-80, and SASS Bathymetric sonar on USNS Bowditch for awhile but did GLCM stuff at GD Convair and worked at Raytheon, and Electromagnetic Technology, out of San Diego doing SEMCIP and EW systems and MOTU 5 stuff, global travel for SLQ-32.
I remember EW1 Evans smoked a pipe alot, and Terrence Priestley, another instructor there, handed me orders to Truxtun being he hand picked me to go there. He passed in 2014 and is buried at Fr. Rosecrans now. I wish I had the graduation photo taken by the saluting battery there on the shoreline of T.I. looking towards San Francisco, I’d be able to pull more names out of my old mind now. There was a kid from a prior class named Mike Pobat who had a nice red 240Z which I admired. Back in the day in 1974, that ‘E’ wing 3rd floor room in the barracks I was in, right by the end of the wing closest to the chow hall, was incredibly ‘cold’ as there seldom was any real heat then, so blankets were absolutely essential in the winter there. The year went by pretty fast and I years later ran into Terry Priestley on the U.S.S. Horne if my memory serves me correctly, it was then when he told me why he sent me to the Truxtun being he was there before me. He ended his career as a CWO4, which was what I’d have been had I done what the NAVAIR recruiter wanted and come back in in 1981 to teach navy pilots how to fly, as I had completed my advanced flight training on the G.I. Bill. I ended up as a EAL second officer in B727’s briefly before they folded up, and had given many former Truxtun pals rides in my 1969 Piper Arrow I bought and flew the hell out of for a decade or so. I reckoned I had had enough ‘fun’ and actually got more flight time as a civilian than I would have if I had been an instructor as the deal was that if I did the Pensacola training gig for 5 years, I could pick whatever I wanted to fly in the Navy for the next 5 and then retire. I don’t regret not going for the CWO4 gig, as I was recommended for NESEP officer selection, even considered going to be an EWO in back seats of EA6B’s before I found out there were no controls of any kind back there if the dudes in front ate birds for some reason. All in all I’ve looked up many of my former Truxtun pals and others I met and sadly almost all but Hibbs and Schoppe are dead now. Schoppe in Victoria and Hibbs in Canyon Country, North L.A. area. Anyway all of the EW’s I hung out with probably don’t remember me if they’re still alive, Roger Hart didn’t answer when I sent him snail mail a few weeks ago. I’d done radio shows on many venues and even had one in Caravan To Midnight with John B. Wells, Ep 138 I think it is if memory serves me. Mostly geopolitical stuff. I doubt many saw my V.T. articles or my large numbers of shows on YouTube which got taken down. Not politically correct am I.
So, we all near our ends and few probably will read this who were my contemporaries. Fair winds and following seas to all EW’s wherever you were or came from. We all climbed the masts, fixed our spinning antenna’s, chipped a lot of paint and spent long thankless hours standing Port and Starboard watches in some cases. I did PRP / Keyholder stuff on Truxtun as we didn’t have marines for the nuc weps stuff. Cdr Mel Kahanui bestowed the ‘extra’ duty of memorizing one of two combos for that fun…and I stood many a flightdeck loading and or unloading watch, armed to the teeth…with a dude in a circling helo ready to shoot me if I did anything untoward up there with the brown banded ‘toys’ either coming aboard or leaving to and from PANTEX. Best wishes to all of you who spent long long countless hours in EW modules on ships..
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26 April 2024 at 23:45
I had to post one more about a fun day in class where EWC Fred Tate got into a heated discussion with EW3 George Burkhardt, whereupon Burkhardt was threatening to shake his ‘lanyard’ at the EWC, and Tate said: “Break it out!” and so Burkhardt did, but Tate leapt over two rows of tables to get to Burkhardt who had immediately put it back into his dungarees. It was pretty funny that the banter continued and Tate said: “I’d have given you the fastest tour of the EW compound ever…and if you had ‘tripped’ you’d have seen the END YOU HAVEN’T SEEN YET..” Of course everyone busted up at this. What was funny was that EW1 Evans a few days later, left the classroom to go get a cup of coffee and to smoke his pipe again, and during his absence, EW3 Lucas broke out his special blend of tobacco and marijuana mixed together and rolled up one and lit it and smoked it while Evans was out of the classroom. It was a fairly good walk to the main office from that upper level classroom facing the Navy Exchange on the E. side of the EW compound, so it took a few (15 minutes or so). Evans came back in and by that time, Lucas had finished smoking his joint but even with the windows open the smell permeated the classroom. He obviously could smell that when he got back and took a couple whiffs but then had that; “naw, nobody would dare do that in here, in this compound..” It was stuff like this that made life interesting at T.I., and of course the day the air search radar fell on the X.O.’s car (I think it was an MGB) and crushed it, because the wooden platform had dry rotted, that was pretty exciting as well. The day the X.O. got murdered, I had missed being involved by maybe 2 minutes tops and heard the shotgun go off as I had maybe by that time gotten 100 yards away, but for some reason it never occurred to me that the argument between the civilian and his GF would escallate into a ‘shooting’ of the X.O. As some others here noted the Enlisted Club was quite the venue, I one night watched a marine ‘bite off pieces of his drinking glass’ and chew it and swallow it. Next night he was back, no worse for the wear. Some people must have guts of ‘steel’ to do that. And ‘no’ it was a regular glass, because another person handed him another one and he took a bite out of that too. All in all if you had a car which I did, you were better off driving across the bridge and hanging out at ‘Clancy’s Irish pub downtown or trolling the other bars near the nursing colleges for the girls there, because the EM club was really quite the hellhole more than it wasn’t. My one barracks room mate, Charles Barkley, spent every night there, same with Chris Cavaliere who was just a few doors down the hall on E Wing. One day the beer machine malfunctioned and ’emptied itself’ so I quickly used my tee shirt under my uniform shirt and carried beer to all of the other rooms, leaving stacks of beer by each door between the machine and my room at the end of the wing. When the vendor came to refill the machine a day or so later I offered to pay for the beer but he wouldn’t take my money. Many a P.O.O.W. watch down in the main OOD office downstairs was fraught with women calling in and asking for dates. Of course you always in your mind would think; “this girl sounds great but she is probably 300 pounds and 4′ 7” tall maybe” but that wasn’t the case, as I did actually meet up with one at the main gate to the base one afternoon after I talked to her on the phone when the EWC who was on watch with me didn’t want to talk to her any longer. So these are my memories of Treasure Island that after decades, I still can recall. Corry Station was with it’s drama with all of the stairwell dry humping going on as it was a ‘co-ed’ facility with girls from all of the branches there, either CT’s or EW equivalents. I met one PH2, Julie Cotten, who I shot pool with at this little bar just outside the gate there at Corry Station, the Star Lounge, if my memory serves me. She was always fun, absolutely cute to beat the band but I was already involved with a lady who joined the ARMY and was down in Anniston, AL doing her training. Met two girls at the EM club there who knew here from Ft. McClellan, if you can imagine that. Oh, I forgot to mention EW1 PIERCE, from Treasure Island who later when I was supporting SLQ-32(V)3 stuff out of Yokusuka and Subic for Motu 11(??) Pierce was now EWC then, we flew his R/C glider one day andI got it stuck in a thermal and lost radio control of it while he had to go back to the MOTU there in Subic and handle a call. I worked the USS Grayback while there in Subic, it was blowing TWT’s in the WLA-3 preamp due to no MU METAL shield between the TWT’s in the mast. That sub managed to kill a bunch of seal team members and got decommissioned not too much after I fixed that problem with EWC Pierce in tow. Anyway lots of boring but interesting stories here but clearly I guess you could say that if not for all of the dry humping going on in the stairwells there at Corry, it could have been a decent place, with or without the bullfighting uniforms worn in the OOD shack to get the B.E.Q. Award. Just a weird command, making fleet sailors march to and from the chow hall, which I refused to do. I’m sure glad I didn’t go there as an instructor, that’s for sure.
Pierce later ended up in Balboa Naval Hospital not too much later, after surviving an at sea ditching of a CH-46 off of Pt. Loma, I remember visiting him while he was recovering from that episode. EW2 Jeff MacArthur may have gone with me to visit him, both of us now working out of MOTU 5 there for John Kime. Makes me wonder if Pierce or MacArthur are still alive, I know Kime is ‘gone’ as he and I both were employed as contractors working out of Electromagnetic Technology, INC., in Mission Valley. We did SEMCIP support and worked for COMNAVSURFPAC on a bunch of EMI related problems…like the AN/SLQ-19 satnav EMI problem that I fixed using a WRN-5 antenna from the USS Preble that I got a cannibalization order to take off the mast when it was in DD there in Pearl Harbor. I ended up taking the lead EMI troubleshooter post from John Sevco, who worked that problem for 9 years and hadn’t solved it yet. And then there was the USS Bainbridge SPG-55 just overwhelming the WLR-11 with R.F. from the CW Illuminator. I ended up putting in a Telonics Berkeley ‘filter’ I had Adam West from that organization design for me. Never a dull moment as a tech rep for sure, just continual ship riding. Oh well, enough for today.
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