My only vintage military vehical story

[river rat]

When I was in SBU XI our CO supported local events. Over in San Francisco the Liberty ship the SS Jeremiah O'Brien only ship left from D-day I think. Was doing a event for D-Day they ask the Unit for use of a Landing craft we brought over a 8-boat to pick up a WW2 jeep and do a beach landing over at Crissy Field SF well some body put alligator clips on port starter that does all the hydraulics we have port and starboard engines. Well soon ad we hit the beach to pick up a reinactors WW2 jeep the port starter fried due to those alligator clips some dummy put on we broached stuck on the beach with one working engine. A WW2 duck pulled us off the beach a lot of reinactors were there. So we went back to Mare Island naval ship yard on one engine behind the coxswain flat you remove a metal plate stick in a rudder pole one guy steering and another on the throttle due to no hydraulics a slow ride. We fixed the starter and came back late in the evening the Captain of the Jeremiah O'Brien gave us a thank you letter for coming back he did not think we would return well the next day every thing went as planed pick up the jeep and landed it on the beach. We were real Navy doing this was cool seeing some of the vintage military vehicles at this. Any body ever visit SF that Liberty ship is worth a visit think of it as a large vintage vehicle.

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[river rat]

Here is the home page for the SS Jeremiah O'Brien one day a month they light the boilers the cargo winches work off steam and take two to operate the winches because the controls to each winch are separate from each winch. On the modern ones electro hydraulic cargo winches there is a single pedestal with both controls so one man can operate it. Cool to watch these in operation my old boss a retired chief on my civilian job talked me a while later after my unit did that thing on the D-day anniversary to volunteer on it did a little painting on the week end on it a few times. Another one I did some volunteer work was the USS Iowa they had it at Richmond Calf after it got took out of the mouth ball fleet to become a museum they did a short yard period I help remove paint and then repaint the flight deck there I got a lot of photo's when working on it I can post photo's of it if any one is interested seeing them that battle ship is now open to the public in LA.
SS JEREMIAH O'BRIEN - The National Liberty Ship Memorial, Inc