I made my first trip to Sinop in
56, a hurry-up trip to fix some serious problems. We had
detachments at both Sinop and Samsun then. There being no
other means of transport immediately available (that was
before we had airplanes), we made the trip by taxi from
Ankara. I wasn't sure for awhile that my $600 taxi fare
was going to be approved. I also made another trip to
Sinop in 65 as part of the CMMI team from Frankfurt. That
trip lasted a week and you know how inspection teams are
greeted.
I don't know who started it but
there was a standing rule that on Wednesday nights and
major holidays everyone would dress in coat and tie or
class 'A' uniform for dinner and attendance was
mandatory. Just a little touch of normalcy I suppose. It
was very easy to develop a less civilized life styles on
the hill as I'm sure you're aware. We had several people
who at one time or another get very close to disappearing
down a bottle.
 |
| BOQ
patio - Thanksgiving 1959 |
The Thanksgiving
59 photo was given to me by Don Conway, he's the guy in
the middle with hands together, I think he was a Capt.
then. I recognize many of the faces but can't put names
with them right now. The guy with the OD arm band was a
WO who ran the motor pool. The Chaplain from Ankara is
also in the picture and I saw him in other pages on your
site.
I remember one
time during my tour the CG from ASA visited. We rolled
out the red carpet for him, he did stay overnight and had
the best meal I had while on the hill. As he was getting
on his plane he looked around and said "I don't
know, a year here wouldn't be that bad." We know
that if you ain't done the time you don't really know,
right?
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 20:31:02 -0600
....... snip ......
... As to the rank distribution, I think all of the officers
for my tour were in the picture for Thanksgiving 60, if so
there were 7 officers and 6 warrants. If there were others I
can't remember them at the moment. I read about the plane
crash in '78. We had one during my tour also - - well, it
wasn't really a crash but a forced landing. Fortunately there
were no fatalities. I'm pretty sure there were only 3 people
aboard, CWO Ketchersid (the pilot), CWO Allen, and Capt.
Hamlin. The plane burned and was a total loss, along with
some mail and a couple of classified pouches. They were
coming from Ankara and encountered icing, before he could get
out of the icing conditions they were close to the ground, in
mountains, and elected to land in a small clearing. From
conversation with him there was so much ice on the prop it
was totally ineffective. He said it looked like a ball bat.
When people went back to the crash site they went by jeep a
while, hired burros for a while, then walked the rest of the
way and when they got there most of the wreck was gone.
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 19:28:24 -0600
I found a couple more pictures. The one in the mess hall was
obviously on Thanksgiving and I think it was 1960.
The boat in the picture was a kit
Chris Craft built by the guys on the hill and I think they
named her Miss Sinop.
The picture on the
boat is of CWO Jackson (front), Capt. Aines (left), Capt.
Dirkx (right) and Capt. Richards standing.
Capt. Dirkx fell
overboard later in the day and it turns out he can't swim. We
thought he was joking but Jackson finally jumped in and gave
him a hand. I think I read on someone's page that they had
attended Capt. Dirkx' funeral. I lived across the hall from
him. He was a real gentleman and a super person.
I also had the Signal Supply facility just outside
the Ops fence. There was a Sp4/Sp5 Bill Rhea who ran that for
me, do you remember him? There was also a Pfc Rzepcynski (not
sure about the spelling but that's close, pronounced
zep-chin-ski). There was also a Pfc Martinez who absolutely
couldn't pronounce Zep's name so he called him 'Alphabet'.
Bill Rhea was a nice guy and did a hell of a job for me.
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