Steve C.

That 1066 in the last picture has a clamp-style rear wheel, at least on the right side. That's pretty uncommon.

I could even tolerate Letterman, but you're sure right about the rest.

Runner's fishing thread made me think of it.

Game warden noticed a local fisherman always coming back to the dock with his limit, even when no one else was catching anything. He was getting a little suspicious about this. Figuring that whatever the guy was doing must be illegal, he decided to go under cover to find out his secret. So he dressed up in his old fishin' clothes and started making conversation with this guy down at the dock early one morning. Warden finally asked "I don' t know this lake very well - would you mind if I went with you to kind of learn the ropes around here?" "Sure, you're welcome to go with me. Get your stuff and get in." So off they went, to a remote cove several miles from the dock. He shut off the outboard and started drifting. Then he opened his tackle box, reached in, and pulled out a stick of dynamite. As he pulled his lighter out of his pocket, the warden pulled out his badge and fessed up. "I happen to be the game warden for this county, and what you're doing is highly illegal." The old fisherman just ignored him, opened his Zippo, and fired it up. The warden says "did you hear what I said? I'm going to arrest you for this." As the old boy lit the fuse, the warden, pretty excited by now, said "did you hear me? I'm going to arrest you." So the fisherman handed the dynamite to the warden and said "you gonna talk or you gonna fish?"

I own this book. Very well researched and written. After reading it, I can understand why your uncle might have been reserved about his experience. https://www.amazon.com/Utmost-Savagery-Three-Days-Tarawa/dp/159114003X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550341872&sr=1-1&keywords=utmost+savagery+the+three+days+of+tarawa

Until I wrote these experiences out, I never realized how many vets I've talked to had the kamikaze experience. I need to write down some more of those conversations before I forget.

I've been fortunate enough to talk to a few guys about their Pacific experiences. One was an attorney who was on the Bunker Hill when it was kamikazed. He was in a 20 mm tub on the side of the island. Got a purple heart when a magazine of 20 mm from a tub above his fell on him and broke his leg. He loaned me his diary for a few days. His only entry for that day was "big bad day". Another fellow who I knew quite well, a former landlord of ours, was a trainer on a twin 40 mm on the destroyer / minesweeper Requisite. He told me that while they were on radar picket duty north of Okinawa they spotted a kamikaze flying overhead, requested permission to fire, and got it. He said as soon as the pilot saw their tracers, he banked over and came after them. They saw one of their 20 mm gunners kill the pilot through the canopy and he crashed about a hundred yards away. I also had short conversation in Charleston harbor with the man who was at the helm of the USS Laffey when it was hit by six kamikazes and four bombs. His description of the ship's movements at the moment of one of the impacts was interesting. I remember his name was Ari:; last name was Greek but I don't remember what it was. Last story I'll tell now was of a local guy I met about 20 years ago who was on a picket destroyer, which I don't remember the name of, also north of Okinawa. He watched a kamikaze hit the torpedo mount amidships and saw several buddies burn up. Pretty sobering stuff.

I was thinking the same thing.

Anybody interested in digging in to this a little deeper ought to check out Samuel Eliott Morrison's "History of United States Naval Operations in WWII". I used to check these volumes out from the local library one at a time. He gives very interesting details and perspectives of these battles. I believe he was actually commissioned to write this extensive history. Well worth reading. https://www.amazon.com/History-United-States-Naval-Operations/dp/0762854316/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1550286841&sr=8-5&keywords=samuel+elliot+morrison+books

David and Goliath for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_syMKoTsi0

Yeah, Robert Ballard gives a good blow by blow description of the battle, pretty much as you described. The South Dakota soaked up the Japanese fire while the Washington did her thing, and later redeemed herself during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, at about the same time the Hornet was sunk, by shooting down something like 26 Japanese planes in a short time. The only other time that I've read about was the Battle of Surigao Straight, when the old battleships raised from Pearl Harbor crossed the Japanese T at night and blew them to pieces. But I don't think the Japs got off many if any shots that night.

Is that out yet?

I picked this book up on sale probably 20 years ago - it's well worth owning if you're interested in this sort of thing. Tells the story of the naval battles (mostly at night) around Guadalcanal, and shows the ships that Robert Ballard found in Iron Bottom Sound. Especially interesting are the paintings - since the water was cloudy enough to limit the range of the submersible's cameras, an artist was commissioned to paint composite pictures of the sunken ships based the photos taken. I've included two of those paintings - the Japanese battleship Kirishima (which did turn turtle), sunk by the USS Washington off Guadalcanal in November of 1942, and also a painting of the remains of the USS Quincy, also resting in Iron Bottom Sound. These ships were all sunk in relatively shallow water, compared to the Hornet. https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Ships-Guadalcanal-Exploring-Pacific/dp/0446516368/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550111109&sr=8-1&keywords=lost+ships+of+guadalcanal

Our youngest was in the Kansas University med center for a month, back in 1985, with a weird infection in a disc space. It all turned out good but was really scary for a while. You're so right about the ones that don't get visitors. It's incredible how many parents don't deserve to have kids. People often asked us if she was our only child because the redhead was there through the whole thing. We were blessed with relatives that looked after the other two while this went on. That's also when we learned that if you have anyone in the hospital, especially a little one, someone had better be around to keep tabs on what's going on. Those little people are tough.

I don't order from Ebay often, but when I have I've always bought from a seller with lots of reviews and at least 98% positive reviews. For example, I've ordered several iron-on t-shirt transfers from a seller with over 4000 reviews and 99.8 % were positive. Never had a problem.