Naval Stations & Shore Commands - NAVSTA CENTERS SCHOOLS FACS, If it don't float...

[Salvage Sailor]

On 2/19/2014 at 12:47 PM, Salvage Sailor said:

While you're pondering....

 

Andros Ranges AUTEC

Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center

 

Another AUTEC patch - MARINE DEPARTMENT, ANDROS ISLAND

TOTO RANGE "Tongue Of The Ocean" - Tough, Observant, Tenacious, Orderly

 

[Salvage Sailor]

NAVFAC SAN SALVADOR - British West Indies, in operation 1954 to 1970

 

[Salvage Sailor]

On 10/21/2017 at 8:03 AM, Salvage Sailor said:

 

Fleet Weather Central Kodiak Alaska

 

 

 

1960's Combined services patch (pre-1971) when Kodiak was operated by the USN but shared with the USCG

US Naval Air Station, US Naval Station, Coast Guard Air Station

Kodiak, Alaska

 

[Tonomachi]

On 5/24/2019 at 1:45 PM, Salvage Sailor said:

Nice Patch

 

It's early 1960's from the USAUWS in Key West, Florida. The school was primarily for ASW rates (sonarmen, torpedomen, etc)

 

From a torpedoman's 1960 navy memoirs: "From boot camp it was on to the United States Naval Advanced Undersea Weapons School in Key West, Florida. This was to be only the first of several trips to this school learning the latest in high tech weaponry."

 

 

More from his pages:

 

After boot camp it was off to Key West, Florida for what would turn out to be the first of many classes in advanced undersea weapons. Unlike my previous public school education, I managed to graduate first in every class I took in the Navy.

 

Advanced Undersea Weapons School

 

Here they taught everything from basic electronics to high tech rocket launched homing torpedoes to atomic warheads. I signed up for everything I could get. By the time I was 18 I knew how to prepare weapons that could sink almost anything afloat. The part of the Navy base that housed the school also housed an anti-submarine helicopter squadron. Our barracks was next to the airfield.

 

More info on USAUWS in Key West, Florida

 

Came across a period photograph of what looks like a graduating class of sailors at this facility.

[Salvage Sailor]

United States Naval Strike Warfare Center (NSWC) Est. 1984

Naval Air Station, Lemoore, CA

Strike Leader Attack Training Syllabus (SLATS)

Later moved to NAS Fallon Nevada in 1988

Early History of the Naval Strike Warfare Center

 

[Salvage Sailor]

FLEET TRAINING GROUP PEARL HARBOR (FTGPH)

Ford Island, Pearl Harbor Naval Station

'Been there done that many times'

 

[Salvage Sailor]

On 5/11/2019 at 2:15 PM, USARV72 said:

Note, Hatteras, N.C. was called, “Graveyard of the Atlantic”. No patch of Northwest , Va.?????

 

Northwest, VA

[USARV72]

Nice, grew up and lived about 5 miles from there. We wondered what they thought when we fired Mgs and cannons. We could hear the Marine detachment shooting.

[Salvage Sailor]

US Naval Receiving Station Norfolk Virginia

 

 

[Salvage Sailor]

Here's a difficult one to find....it was all 'hush, hush' as the Brits say

 

 

NAVFAC BRAWDY WALES

"Oceanographic Research Station"

aka Cold War SOSUS Project Caesar Terminal Building

 

The US Navy base, next to RAF Brawdy in Pembrokeshire, was officially an "Oceanographic Research Station", though it has long been know that it was a processing centre for a network of underwater microphones, some of which were submerged off the British coast, listening to submarine movements in the Atlantic.  S.O.S.U.S., or Project Caesar was began in 1954 and comprised of several bases designed to track Soviet submarine movements via their propeller sounds. Brawdy was its biggest station, opening in 1973 and closing in 1995, when its function was transferred to another UK site, either St. Mawgan (Cornwall) or a Corsham (Wiltshire) site.

 

This was a major intelligence facility with 22 US Navy Officers, 278 other ranks and 7 civilians working there in 1980. Its budget was $20m between 1978-1984, 80% of which was spent on electronics or computer equipment. $3.6m was spent on doubling the size of the operations block in 1981.

 

Little is known for certain about the base, though details of its role may have partially been revealed in 1993 when a whale researcher obtained recordings of whale song from the base, he was told that once, US Navy technicians were able to track an individual whale for 40 days by which time it had reached Bermuda - rather impressive technology.

 

[Salvage Sailor]

...and my larger NAVFAC BRAWDY WALES  patch

 

 

 

 

[Salvage Sailor]

...and now for something a little different

 

 

SAUDI NAVAL EXPANSION PROGRAM (SNEP)

FLEET INTRODUCTION TEAM 1975

 

The Saudi Naval Expansion Program (SNEP) was the main program for matching that of the ongoing training of the Imperial Iranian Navy. The Iranians were being trained in the USN schools at Great Lakes Naval Station (Service School Command) and at Groton, the Submarine School.  The goal was to develop fleets to patrol the two coasts of Saudi Arabia and to defend the shipping and supply lines in the region.  The SNEP program began circa 1975 prior to the Iranian Revolution & hostage crisis (1979).  

 

With the loss of our ally, the Royal Iranian Navy, the USN began to rapidly equip and train the Saudi Arabian Navy in the 1980's with US gear.  The Fleet Introduction Team training was primarily undertaken by the staff at Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Virginia 1979-1984

 

[Salvage Sailor]

...and the Shah's Imperial Iranian Navy training program, also conducted by the US Navy prior to 1979

 

 

Imperial Iranian Surface Warfare Officer Badge made by Vanguard

 

IIS BABR (TIGER) ex-USS ZELLARS

 

IIS KOUROUSH (Confiscated - became USS KIDD)

 

IIS PARANG (Leopard) ex-USS STORMES

 

I trained alongside the Shah's naval rates (mainly FT's) in early 1977 at Great Lakes.  They shared our barracks with the USN Service School Command.  These were to be the crews of the four newly constructed Spruance type destroyers ordered by the Iranian Navy.  After the revolution, they were confiscated by the USN and became the Kidd Class destroyers in the USN inventory.  Kidd class ships were known in the fleet informally as the "Ayatollah" or "dead admiral" class.  The ships are still in service, now with the Taiwanese Navy.

 

Imperial Iranian Navy Submarine Training at Groton, CT

IIS KOUSSEH (Shark) ex-USS TROUT