The Divers Locker 458 Old North Berwick Rd. Lyman, Maine 04002 USA Michael R Bridges Sr. Personal Experience Story The thing that I remember most about my experience aboard Uss Nimitz is how new it was and how everything worked, unlike all of the other ships that I had been on. The first thing I did was to get lost on the boat so that I could figure out the lay out of the ship. The greatest experience was our North Atlantic cruise to Wilhelmshaven, Germany, Edinburgh, Scotland and Portsmouth, England. We made our transit across the Atlantic and ran in to a NATO task force the first ship that I remember seeing was the H.M.S. Arc Royal with that Ramp on the bow and I thought how odd that it looked. We actually played a game with some of the British aircraft that landed on board, They actually started it by painting a character on it depicting their squadron and the word ZAP, another words, we got you. So every time one of theirs landed we would make sure we had a can of red paint and a Lion Stencil with the word Zap cut into it, our squadron was HS-15 Redlions. This went on for a few days and they were getting mad because every squadron on Nimitz had someone out there doing the same so every time they landed they would leave with about 10 of the little squadron emblems with zap on them. It all came to an end not to long after that when one of their birds went down and they had to tow it to the hanger deck , the next morning the bird was covered from top to bottom with Zaps. The Captain of the ship made every squadron go to the hanger deck and clean this aircraft. Not to long after that the British navy sent some mechanics over to fix the aircraft and we had some of them in our shop working along with us. I can remember them complaining that we didn’t have any beer on board. They are allowed a ration of beer daily but we weren’t. Our first port was Wilhelmshaven Germany, what a reception we received when we got there, I couldn’t believe it people were going out of their way to help us out and shake our hands and even sign our names on there shirts. The group of guys that I was with, Jim Morrow and John Radavsky both played guitar so they started playing on the side walks and people were just flocking to hear us sing. Jim was a great Elvis singer and sounded just like him. later that evening we ended up meeting this German with a car that took us to a local bar and got Jim and John up on the stage to sing, and the crowd went wild, it was so good that the crowed didn’t want Jim and John to leave the stage, but the group that was being paid to sing got mad and made the owner have us removed from the bar because they knew that they couldn’t compete with Jim and John. We had to leave and the crowed almost rioted because the owner made us go. Our Second Port Edinburg Scotland was more of a historical tour we all went to Edinburg castle and did that tour, then we went to some of the shops in town. Of course being sailors we had to find a bar to hang out in at the end of the day. We ended up staying until the place closed and the weather was getting bad. A Scottish couple asked us to go back to their home to have a few more drinks with them, so we did. We stayed there for a couple of hours and then we decided to go back to the ship, the couple told us we could spend the night there but we told them we had to get back to the ship. As we left that couples home we got a cab and took it to fleet landing which was across from the British Royal Naval reserve building. We tried to get a launch and found out that launches were secured because of weather and that we wouldn’t be able to get back to the ship until the weather calmed down. So here we are standing in the cold rain thinking, what are we going to do? One of the officers at fleet landing said go to the Royal Navy building across the street they are putting us up for the night. We ended up on their Quarter deck and the sailor on watch said that the last bus to the prison had just left and he didn’t know what he was going to do. They were sending some of our guys to a local prison that had extra beds. He finally got word to have us bunk in the gym in the building that he was standing watch at. There was no heat in this building so we all found Gym Mats and curled up on them. The next day around 10 am the launches were started up again and I got on the first one and what a rough ride that was back to the ship. Our third port Portsmouth England the Sister port of Portsmouth New Hampshire, near where I grew up. This was an interesting port, our fleet landing was on the Royal Naval base and was it loaded with history, there were a couple of old Masted British naval vessels, I can’t remember their names but I thought that was cool. Near the Base entrance their were some Bow figurines that were painted like they were new. We did our usual thing there walked around town checking out the shops and talked to some of the locals. I remember talking to one guy who sounded just like my grandfather. I am from Maine so he sounded like he had a Maine accent, so I asked him if he was from here and he said he had lived here all of his life. I told him that he had a Maine accent and he said well you have to remember who settled the area. Later on in the day we located an amusement park and went on some of the rides and then we found a pub and then went back to the ship. The Next day we got under way to go play War games, while we were underway one of my friends came below and said lets go topside and look at the white cliffs of Dover. That was the most awesome sight I had seen to that point, I stood there for a little over an hour just looking at the cliffs until they faded out of site. Of all of the ships that I was on The Nimitz brought us to some of the best ports and some of the friendliest. My later cruises would bring us to the Med where it wasn’t so friendly , places like Beirut Lebanon and Rhodes Greece. Lebanon was at war and Rhodes wouldn’t let us in port and Stoned our boats so they canceled Liberty. I am proud to say that I was part of its first crew or (Plankowner) as they call it and thankful that we started her out on a great note. We lost an F14 while we were on that cruise and later on in life while working at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine. I was assigned to overhaul the Nuclear research vessel NR-1 and they showed a slide presentation about what they had done in the past, so that we would know a little about the boat. In one of the pictures was the F-14 that we had lost on that cruise with fishing nets all over it, on the bottom of the ocean. Thank You Nimitz for being a great ship named after a Great Man.