I found my Dads old Navy Slides (CVA-66 USS America world Cruise 1968)

[JeepsGunsTanks]

I do not post much here, since I do not have any large scale models in the works, but you guys do such wonderful work, I thought you might appreciate these photos, get a glimpse into the 68 and 69 Navy, from a member of VF-33s ground crew. 

 

My Dad was in the Navy from 1965 to 1969. He's been dead since 2000, so there is no asking him for info on this stuff, my mom is around but won't knot much about the Navy details so I am putting this together from memory and whats in the photos.  The slides were not in great shape, and the first set of scans were rough, and then the scanner broke. So, since Amazon didn't have the same model anymore, I spent a little more money and got a much nice scanner, with a better "technology" for film scanning, and it fixes the flaws when it scans them. The results are remarkable.  As far as I know these images were taken with a Minolta 35mm Camera,   I guess an SLR, since he had a bunch of lenses for it. I learned photography with it, and have a few pictures of my GTO I took with his Camera.  This was the type of camera you focuses, and set the light settings, and had to hand wind. Considering how much harder a camera was to work back then, I think my old man was a reasonably talented photographer.

  

As far as I can remember he went to boot camp in San Diego, then he went to schools for Ejection Seat Maintenance and Air Condition systems on the F4J Phantom. He got assigned to VF-33, part of CVW-6, with  VF-102,  VA-82, VA-86, VA-85, RVAH-13, VAW-122, VAW-13 Det. 66, and VAH-10 Det. 66. CAG-6 was assigned to the USS America, who was about three years old and about to go on a world cruise, that would include the Ships only Vietnam deployment in 1968. When the ship got back, it was stationed on the east coast, and VF-33 went to CVW-7, and ended up on the Independence. My dad was with them for at least one work up cruise, since there are a set of photos from that ship. By mid 69 he was back in San Diego, working with VF-121, the west coast RAG, waiting to get out . I do not have any photos yet from San Diego, at least Navy stuff. (Thanks for the correction on the Carrier groups Ziggy)

 

Here is a shot of the CVA-66 USS America, she displaced 61,174 tons empty, 83,500 full load. She was the second Kitty Hawk Class Carrier,  she would spend the majority of her Career in the Med.  (if the logo for the Sherman Tank Site seems like its in odd places, its usually covering a flaw the scanner could not fix)

 

 

Here's a VF-33 Phantom. 

A VF-102 Phantom, an F-4J the same as VF-33. 

 

Here are some pretty cool shots from an underway replenishment. It could be anywhere on the World cruise in 68. 

 

I think this is also from an Unrep, maybe the same one.  This photo is one of my favorite, you get an A-7 and Sea Night for the the price of one!

 

A Vigilante about to get a cat shot. This was scanned on the old scanner and is just a place holder for a dupe. 

 

This shot is of the flight deck, by the cats on the angle deck looking forward. Not the kill mark on the intake of the F-4J, 212 sitting there, pretty cool. 

 

 

 

These last three shots are all from the USS Independence, in early 69, I assume off the East Coast on work ups for their upcoming Med Cruise. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my old Man, Rick T, I'm pretty sure that's a Martin Baker Ejection seat right next to him. Several VF-33 Phantoms got shot down, and the seats always worked, so he had that going for him.  This image was scanned on the original scanner, note how cruddy it looks, when I get to this slide again, I'll post the improved version. Compare the below image to the one above too. 

 

I'll posts more as I water mark them and host them. 

 

There was a crossing of the line ceremony, that my Dad took a ton of pics on, its pretty interesting. 

 

It was really nice to find these, I had thought hey got lost in a move. 

Edited January 26, 2020 by JeepsGunsTanks

[AlbertD]

Great photographic memories of your father's service. Thanks for posting them and please do post more.

[MikeMaben]

Cool ! nice pix , thanks for posting 'em 

 

 

[Lothar]

That's a treasurechest your father left you - stunning and most interesting pics  thanks for posting!

Lothar

[phasephantomphixer]

Nice that you're not only taking the time to carefully work with them, but sharing in a great post - Thanks!

[jenshb]

Fine pics of everyday life on a carrier.  Feel free to post more.

 

 

[ziggyfoos]

Thanks for sharing that time capsule of carrier ops. Excellent photos, even if they'd have blemishes. Looking forward to seeing more. I too am glad you didn't lose them in the move. I often wondered how many old slides/photos end up in the landfill by family members not realizing the significance of them.

 

If you don't mind, what's the new slide scanner you ended up getting? Also is it still a relatively slow process?

 

BTW "Carrier Air Group" naming was changed to air wing (CVW) in 1963 so it was "CVW-6" by 1968. CVW-6's only Vietnam deployment was that 1968 one but USS America would go back to Vietnam two more times (1970 and 1972) with other air wings.

[Troy Molitor]

Thanks for sharing these pictures with us.   

[chrish]

Very appreciated and inspiring pictures, thanks!

[LSP_Ray]

I would like to know what scanner you used, too! I need to do that myself.

In case you are doing this for a personal archive before chucking the slides, you might want to re-scan that last one; you have it backwards. Easy to do with slides, I know.

Thanks for sharing them with us!  Those are great pics.

 

Edit: Never mind about rescanning, upon closer review it is a reversed repeat of an earlier posted pic.

[LSP_K2]

1 hour ago, LSP_Ray said:

I would like to know what scanner you used, too! I need to do that myself.

In case you are doing this for a personal archive before chucking the slides, you might want to re-scan that last one; you have it backwards. Easy to do with slides, I know.

Thanks for sharing them with us!  Those are great pics.

 

Edit: Never mind about rescanning, upon closer review it is a reversed repeat of an earlier posted pic.

 

My Epson V370 scans slides, as does the scanner that my roommate uses; works pretty good too.

[JeepsGunsTanks]

Thanks for all the great feedback guys!  I knew you guys would enjoy them. Many I had never seen before, or I'd not seen them since I was a kid.   

 

6 hours ago, ziggyfoos said:

Thanks for sharing that time capsule of carrier ops. Excellent photos, even if they'd have blemishes. Looking forward to seeing more. I too am glad you didn't lose them in the move. I often wondered how many old slides/photos end up in the landfill by family members not realizing the significance of them.

 

If you don't mind, what's the new slide scanner you ended up getting? Also is it still a relatively slow process?

 

BTW "Carrier Air Group" naming was changed to air wing (CVW) in 1963 so it was "CVW-6" by 1968. CVW-6's only Vietnam deployment was that 1968 one but USS America would go back to Vietnam two more times (1970 and 1972) with other air wings.

 

Thank you for the info here, I thought there had been a change,  most of my reading has been on WWII and Korean era Navy stuff.  Tracking down Air Wing and squadron info and what ships they were assigned is harder than I thought it would  be.    

 

2 hours ago, LSP_Ray said:

I would like to know what scanner you used, too! I need to do that myself.

In case you are doing this for a personal archive before chucking the slides, you might want to re-scan that last one; you have it backwards. Easy to do with slides, I know.

Thanks for sharing them with us!  Those are great pics.

 

Edit: Never mind about rescanning, upon closer review it is a reversed repeat of an earlier posted pic.

 

I started out on a Epson V370, that I bought to replace an very old HP all in one printer scanner, were the scanner was the only thing left working.  When I bought the V370, I had no plans to scan film of any type since I thought the slides had been lost. The purchase was for scanning old Sherman manuals, I got a couple of originals, last year.  It worked really well, it could do four at a time, and it took about 10 to 15 minutes a batch. 

 

Then I noticed this.  See the blue band. It most images it was showing up as a rainbow band, but this one is easier to see. I worked art UMAX scanners back in the day, and that looked like the CCD loosing senors or filters, and a dead scanner. 

 

I haven't had the scanner that long, so I just decided to swap it with Amazon, but they were out of stock on it.  The V370 was out of stock, so we decided to go with a little nicer model and went with the Epson V550 scanner.  It's a little bigger, and claims to have a better film scanning technology they call Digital Ice that helps clean up the slides. I was a little skeptical, having worked at scanner company, but the difference was pretty big and I'm very happy with the upgrade.  One big advantage with the new model, is the preview window on the slides is much bigger, making it easy to not get them inverted like the A-7 above. 

 

Here is one scanned on the V370, if you look really close, you can just see the banding a the top on this one. 

Same image on the V550 using their Digital Ice setting. 

 

If there is a drawback to the new scanner, it can also scan four slides at once, but is a little slower,  about 20 minutes for the four.  The scanner isn't very processor intensive, so I can go work on other things while it chugs along in the background. 

 

I should have a new batch to post this afternoon. Thank you again for all the great feedback, I'm glad other people are enjoying these photos as well!

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by JeepsGunsTanks

[LSP_Ray]

Wow, the new scanner does a great job of cleaning up the slides! I have an Epson scanner now, an all-in-one the WP-4530, as well as a XP-860. I will have to check their capabilities.

[Dragon]

Is that a AIM-7 mounted on the wing pylon of phantom 202? I don't think I've seen these before. Was this common?

 

 

[easixpedro]

As a HUGE fan of 60s era NavAir, thanks for posting those! America showed up on Yankee Station right after the Kitty Hawk in 68. Her loss rates in the air-to-Air realm shocked a lot of Navy leadership and is one of the catalysts for Topgun.

 

Also, Clyde Lassen from HC-7 was awarded the MOH for rescuing VF-33 aircrew that those seats saved! Amazing stories all the way around...thanks again for sharing.

 

Peter