The 1955 Cruise: Early on the morning of Tuesday, 4 January 1955, the USS HOPEWELL hauled her last line on deck, and therewith began her fourth cruise to the Western Pacific since her recommissioning. As we steamed past Point Loma, some of us were already contemplating the number of days until 22 May, when, according to the employment schedule, we would again hit the beach in San Diego; but the thoughts of others were already turning ahead to the ports we were to visit in the Far East.


	After a smooth trip to Pearl Harbor, we were greeted on the pier by a troupe of grass-skirted hula girls who danced on the quarterdeck, while the crew clambered over the superstructure in search of vantage points to watch and/or take pictures. During our all-too-short stay in Pearl, all hands (with the exception of a few of the old-timers who had been there too many times before) spent their liberty hours "terrorizing the natives" in such spots as The Royal Hawaiian, Don the Beachcombers, and Waikiki Beach. Then we were underway for Midway, arriving there on a day when the wind and rain were so disagreeable that even the Gooney-birds were considering moving to another island. After refueling and giving all hands a few hours ashore to take pictures of the Gooneys, or have a few short ones, whichever idea seemed the more attractive at the moment, we were off again with our next stop Yokosuka.

One day out of port, we ran into our first real taste of bad weather. The veterans of the last cruise said it was nothing like "back off Formosa in the old days," but still there weren't many people to be found out of their bunks, except for the watch. Then one morning it was calm, and there, on the horizon, was Fuji, and we knew that soon we would be in our "home away from home," Yokosuka. After a short availability, we were off for the island of Formosa, and our tour of patrol duty. Until we arrived, patrol duty had been just that, steaming up and down a section of the coast until fuel was needed and then heading in to cosmopolitan Keelung for fuel, provisions, movies, and LIBERTY. The morning we first saw Keelung, it was raining, and for the rest of our time in the area, each time we entered the port, we were met by precipitation, sometimes just a drizzle or mist, but always wet.