USS Hopewell - DD681: January 2005

January 26, 2005

These floating cities are nice, but not nearly as beautiful as a Fletcher Class tin can.

Ensign Hagerty pretending he's a warrior.

2002 Ops Dept reunion - Lorenzo Hagerty, Jim Thompson, Mary Ann Cooper, George Cooper, and Peter Bittle.

2002 Ops Dept reunion - Marycie Hagerty and Jim Thompson.

2002 Ops Dept reunion - Peter Bittle and his wife, Rhona.

2002 Ops Dept reunion ... Lorenzo and Mary Ann Cooper, wife of the Ops Boss.

This is an image of Santa that will give the kids nightmares.

Remember our skinny Santa? When we had the costume made in Japan they refused to make it any bigger, as this seemed huge to them.

I'm not sure where this is, but let's pretend it's 1SD.

That's close enough.

Ah, food!

Those damn jipneys were always too fast for me to catch.

Remember the dust in the air and the mud in the streets?

Beautiful downtown Olongapo.

Ah, our favorite liberty stop.

Does anyone remember what this was all about?

Repelling borders.

The always cool, Peter Bittle.

Getting ready to take on fuel.

It doesn't seem possible that those huge planes can take off from that little deck.

I'll bet he's making plans with a buddy for their next shore leave.

We were always safe when Jim was OOD.

Jim Thompson and Captin Netnin

What a long strange trip this has been.

I remember the faces but not the names.

Steaming in the South China Sea ... or someplace.

When you think about it, unreps are pretty impressive operations.

Unrep!

I always thought the signalmen were very cool.

Was this a band our crew put together?

I can't remember who this musical group is or where they came from.

The crew works and the officers watch ... just like it's always been.

Nice haricut :-)

This is what it looked like just forward of officers quarters after some H&I.

Thanks to ET1 Jon Kolb, who is a much better combat photographer than me, we have a picture of the gunfire flash.

I missed the flash of fire. All that's left is the smoke.

Am I the only one whose ears are still ringing?

Getting ready to fire.

January 25, 2005

I have no idea what is captivating everyone's attention here. That's Captin Netnin with the cap on.

Compared to today's ships, this isn't much in the way of an electronics mast.

I think this is Hong Kong.

It looks like a line of people is following someone ... anyone know what's going on here?

I can remember the faces, but the names escape me.

I think this is part of the Hopewell's ward room during a break in the Phillipines. I have a lot of comments I'd like to add here, but I'll be nice :-).

Pumping fuel.

Alongside

View from one of the Swift Boats whose crew stopped by for hot food and a shower.

We were always safe when Pete Bittle was officer of the deck.

Repelling borders.

Beautiful Japan.

Lorenzo and the two Vietnamese officers who did some TAD on the Hopewell. I heard later that one of them died in the Tet Offensive.

Our two Vietnamese officers and Pete Bittle, CIC officer.

Looking for pearls.

Pearl farming operations.

Japan, the thousand islands region.

We have lift-off.

Coming up astern.

Plane guard in the South China Sea

All hands mass aft and mill around smartly!

Wasn't she beautiful?

January 24, 2005

I think this was our assistant comm officer ... Marty???

This was taken from the bridge of the Hopewell. We're following someone out of some port, but I can't remember the details any more :-(.

Our OPS boss, George Cooper used to say, "All ensigns should be court martialed for impersonating officers." Now I see what he means.

Years after this picture was taken, Jim Burpo retired as a full captain. At the time this was taken, I thought Jim was a really old man. Now I wonder what we were doing with a kid for an XO ... just kidding :-).

XO Jim Burpo receives a well-deserved medal of some kind.

Captain Netnin ... maybe at his change of command???

Captain Len Netnin was the skipper during our 1967 Westpac cruise ... the best skipper I ever had!

Heavy seas.

The fastest destroyer in the fleet.

The Hopewell firing a broadside.

Be sure to check the January 2005 Archives if you want to see all of the photos, as I've set the limit for the number of pictures on this home page to 10.

Here is another photo blog for the USS Hopewell. I took most of these pictures on our Westpac cruise in 1967. The archive page has quite a few more photos.

If you have any pictures you'd like me to add, just send them to me at hagerty@matrixmasters.com, and I'll post them for you.

Click on the pictures to see a larger image.