Navy Musings

My first ship in the Navy was the USS Worden (CG-18). I was on her from Dec '78 to Dec '81. At first, we were homeported in Yokosuka, Japan, but never spent much time there as we were "the point of the spear", which meant we were usually steaming around in circles during exercises, or going from Yoko to Chinhae (Korea) or Subic Bay (Philippines). We were deployed to the North Arabian Sea during the disastrous hostage rescue attempt. We visited Mombasa (Kenya) and Perth, Australia, during that trip. Later, we changed our homeport to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and went into overhaul there. Basically, they tore the ship completely apart and put it back together again. I left the ship several months before we came out of overhaul.

So what brought these musings on? Well, I stumbled across a couple of videos on YouTube that featured the ol' "Wordenski Maru". Really cool to see the ship operating; brought back a lot of memories. These videos were shot long after I transferred, but they show the ship as I remember it. Well, almost: one video shows a 5" gun turret firing shells, which was from an older destroyer, as the Worden didn't have guns like that.




This video was taken while getting underway from Pearl Harbor ...



Missiles painted blue are training units that can't be fired. Missiles painted white are the real thing. And this video is the real thing!