USS America commissioning ceremony

[MacMillans son]

You look great Phil (and it looks like you chose not to have to deal with taking that pesky cover on and off all day! ). It is a beautiful ship and I am sure it was a wonderful event, so nice that you were able to be a part of it.

Thanks for the photos!

[The Wizard of BC]

Wow, quite a bit different than my days on an LPH.

[tky58]

Which Ship, Steve?
My father is a plank holder of the Guadalcanal LPH7.

Steve Wilson
(Marine and proud Navy brat)

[The Wizard of BC]

USS Inchon LPH-12. I served on her for Operation End Sweep that was supposed to remove the mines from Haiphong Harbor after the Paris Peace Talks. Jan-Sep '73.
I was a CH-53D pilot with HMH-463.

There must have been 2 ships named Inchon. The current listing is for a ship commissioned in '70 yet I distinctly remember looking up at the underside of the flight deck and seeing the original wooden flight deck. The current listing does not mention Inchon being involved with TF 78 in '73 at all.
If you search Operation End Sweep however, there she is.

All Marines have a love/hate relationship with sailors. The symbol of Inchon was, of course, an inch worm. A little green guy.
My helicopter squadron was based out of Hawaii so of course our symbol was a pineapple.

One day we arrived on the flight deck to find little green inch worms painted on the nose of all our birds looking like they were eating our pineapples.
That started a feud that lasted for the entire operation. They would paint inch worms and we would paint pineapples.
If you have never hung in a bosuns chair off the fantail of an aircraft carrier, under full steam, in the middle of the night, to paint a 20' tall pineapple across the stern, you just have not lived.

[416 Rigby]

Thanks for the pics, you look sharp.

Steve, stories like that bring back some very cool deployment memories. Always fun rivalries and shenanigans.