USS White Plaines (AFS4) Supply Ship with 400 personnel. Providing food, goods, and fuel to ships at sea.

USS White Plains in Subic Bay. Our main port over seas for resupplying our ship with goods.

Loading Inventory

IBM Key Punch Machine for maintainig inventory

DP Johnson in our DP shop

DP Gonzales in our DP shop

At sea between work

At sea

DP crew goofing off

Down time at sea between duty

Fun times in our DP shop while at sea

Many games of Risk and card games

Me (Ken) in our DP shop

I'm next to one million dollers as part of the payroll we provided to the fleet around Vietnam

One of many visits to Hong Kong for R&R and pick up goods

RR in Singapore. Took up a little snake handling.

Me at Subic Bay

Vertreps - Vertical replentishment at sea using one of our two helos

Supplies to ships at sea

Helo carrier

Large carriers come along side and we send cargo over by lines

Carrier close up

Some rough seas repletishments

Our ship preparing lines to transfer goods and fuel to a ship in the next pictures

Supplying fuel, food and even payroll - no ATMs or debit cards in the late 60's and 70's

Easy to get swept off ship

Crossing the equator by US Navy ship involves an initiation for sailors who experience it for the first time. They are called Pollywogs and become Shellbacks once completing the ceremony.

Preparing to meet King Neptune's Court. Clothes on backwards and on our hands and knees

Fire hose cut into pieces were whips to move everyone along.

The long crawl through the tunnel filled with a week's worth of left-over food and garbage, machine grease, raw eggs and other slime items

Plenty of whippings along the way

No stopping even if losing your clothing.

Everyone must be presented to the court with King Neptune residing. All are found guilty of being Pollywogs (Initial time passing through the equator)

Into the box. Full of slime. Plenty of rougth jogging and bouncing from the forklift.

Next...

More beatings

Mouth filled with raw unbroken eggs

Time to kiss the baby's belly

A mix of peanut butter, greese, and other fine smears

You can't get away with a mouthfull

Even the officers had the pleasure of the initiation

More initiating activity

Some additional pain before walking the steps to be pushed into a tank of green dye-marker

More beating with the fire hoses

Blowing the water out of the helo deck tie-down wells

Cleaning up with the fire hoses on the fantail after the ceremony. While all looks horrific, it was all in fun. No fatalities - maybe a couple of bruises

On deck at night in Hong Kong