I worked the night shift for some of the time aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard during the Vietnam War. I remember taking a midnight break at the mess hall and chowing down on hush puppies with syrup and coffee with my shipmates. If we needed to go to the flight deck, we had to be especially careful because only red lighting was permitted. This was done to prevent night blindness, but it was still easy to trip over a tie down chain.
At the end of my shift I had the opportunity to watch the sunrise and observe the shifting light on the clouds and ocean.
Flight operations continued night and day when we were at Yankee Station
The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk played a key role as a carrier based fighter during the Vietnam War. I composed this photo as a silhouette.
A view of our destroyer escort
A few more pics worth of Life magazine.
Thanks, a few more to come
Absolutely stunning. Good thing you took these pics. and share them with us. We get to see another, more beautiful side of the non-peaceful side of ‘man’.