Way back when and yesterday:   At left, enjoying an
   ice cream cone aft on  the Lafayette in Rota, Spain;
                above, in the kitchen here at home.
  Above, the USS Lafayette Charleston Naval Base championship football            team, 1965.  Photo was taken topside in Rota, Spain.  We won the               championship by defeating the US Marine Corps team 7-0.  I'm the last                                    one on the right in the second row.
             Me receiving my dolphins from Captain Schenker in 1965.
                         Preparing to depart Rota, Spain, on patrolrbbbbbe to add text..
                Patrick J. Hannifin, first Captain of the Blue Crew.
                 The ride home waiting at the Rota airport.                                                            
At right, Submarine Escape Training Tank at the base in New London,       Connecticut.  Above  is a sign painted on the inside wall of the
             tank (personally, I never noticed it on the way up).
C       Me hard at it on watch in the Navigation Center.
                                         Underway
  Me at diving           school.
                                                                            Note the increase in postage for a post card from 1962 to 1964!
         Left:  Bob Knoll and Lt. John "Rocky" Groth check to see if we are still in the Mediterranean; Right:  Bill "Bier" Fraser with his meerschaum.
                              Left:  Thanksgiving Day chow underway;  Right:  Qualls and Kuris in the galley.  Paul Qualls is now on eternal patrol.
                                   The ubiquitous Russian trawler.  They were everywhere photographing and recording sound signatures of                                                                                                              US submarines leaving  and returning to the Rota, Spain, base.
                                                                                               CDR Strong, me, and VADM Hannifin
                                         At left, VADM Hannifin.                                                                             Above, Lawrence "Stubb" Crawford and wife.
                                        CAPT Groth and some of the Electronic Technicians who worked in the Navigation Center on the Lafayette.

                                                                 All of us prior to the banquet the last night of the reunion.  The photographer had
                                                                           all the best looking men stand in the third row (that's where I am).

              Checking out Beale Street in nearby Memphis, Tennessee



At left, some of the action on Beale Street.  Above, BB King's club at night.  Below left, action in a park.  Below, one of the blues clubs at night.


                                              Below, me delivering the Treasurer's report at the banquet and me and the famous Radioman John Dixon
                Left: Reggie Clarke, me, and CAPT John "Rocky" Groth.  Right: CAPT Groth, Bill Fraser, Lloyd "Ham" Berger, and Reggie.  Ham Berger
                                                                                               has since departed on eternal patrol. 
                                     Above left, a game of pinochle in the crew lounge; right, having a a cup of coffee in the Fire Control Center.
                         The Lafayette, above left, in graving dock at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Brementen, Washington, undergoing
                                     dismantling in 1993.  Puget Sound Shipyard is known appropriately as the "Graveyard of the Nukes".
               The Lafayette is among the 16 nuke boats (and the submarine tender Proteus) after the nuclear reactor compartment and the missile                                    compartment had been removed.  It is ironic that the Lafayette was the first boomer to tie up alongside the Proteus in Rota, Spain, and                                              they ended up in a ghost fleet together.  It appears that the neutered subs get their aft planes painted green.  Wonder why?
      Above left, a bunch of nukes awaiting their turn in the graving dock;
                right, a drydock full of discarded nuclear submarine sails.
       Above left, two more nukes in the graving dock;  right, the nuclear                            reactor compartment has been cut out of a boat.
             Above, tugs bring a barge loaded with the nuclear                                        compartment of a submarine to the "Hartford Site" in         
         Richland, Washington.  Right, a burial trench at the site
                         with several compartments in place.
Top left, a worker walks under one of the compartments in the trench; above, another view of the trench; right, a later photo of the trench showing a listing of 77 compartments which are all identified.  The Lafayette's compartment is number 21.
   The submarine tender USS Proteus, AS19 during her glory days.  She was converted in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to the IX-518, a barracks ship used for berthing, dining and classrooms.  Below, she is the second ship from the left, next to the USS Iowa, in the mothball fleet at Suisun Bay, California.
   Above left, the USS Lafayette being launched from General Dynamics Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut,
   in May, 1962.  She was christened by President Kennedy's wife Jacqueline; right, a Polaris missile is launched from                          her off Cape Canaveral, Florida.  She was modified during the 1970s to carry Poseidon missiles.

                           Above left, the FBM submarine training center at the Charleston Naval base in the 1960s (note the absence of windows);                                                                                              right, me offshore from Key West training to be one of the boat's  two divers.
                           
                                         DEATH OF A SUBMARINE AND HER FIRST TENDER

                                   Below is the identifying plate from a buoy on the USS Thresher.  A reminder that things can go wrong in a
                                     hurry on a sub.  The Thresher was lost on April 10, 1963.  All aboard perished, including the crew, some
                                         officers from the Portsmouth, NH, Naval Shipyard and several civilian engineers and technicians.
       This plate showed up for sale on EBay in 2001.  A man by the name of Harry Cairns was offering it to the highest bidder.  An acquaintance of Lori                      Arsenault, daughter of Chief Engineman Tilmon J. Arsenault of the Thresher, sent her an email notifying her of the impending sale and she
                     contacted Mr. Cairns.  He reportedly canceled the sale and donated the plate to the Naval Historic Center in Washington, D.C. 
                                     My first boss, Reggie Clarke.                                                                  Dave Barth, who supplied many of these photographs,
                                                                                                                                                        in the forward torpedo room with a Thompson.
     
                         Stubb Crawford in the navigation center.


                                     Movie time in the mess hall.                                                                                                 Standing watch.
                                 Back in the Navigation Center.                                                                                      Moored at the Cape.



  In May and June, 2005, the first reunion
    of personnel who served on the USS
  Lafayette was held in Tunica, Mississippi. 
  It was well attended, mostly by men who              served on her in the 1960s and 1970s,
     and was unique in that the first two
     Captains of the Lafayette attended,
        Vice Admiral Patrick J. Hannifin
       of the Blue Crew and Commander
         James  Strong of the Gold Crew.
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                   Stubb Crawford in the Navigation Center.                                                      US Navy Underwater Swimmer's School, Key West, Florida
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                         On my first patrol on the Lafayette, I was fortunate enough to be underwater both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. 
                                                         Above is the menu for Thanksgiving and below the one for Christmas.
Above, me holding a bedsheet from the USS Thresher; right, a close-up of the sheet.  A member of the Twin Lakes Base of the US Submarine Veterans, Inc., Ralph Klotz, took some clothes in to the laundry at the Sub Base in New London, Connecticut in 1963.  He picked up his things a few days later, and                 this sheet had mistakenly been included with his things.  I sent it to Lori Arsenault, whose father perished on the Thresher.
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                                      Above is a later satellie image of Rota, Spain, with the airport visible top center and the naval base lower center.