THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 15, 1995 TAG: 9502150494
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICHARD GRIMES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Where is the Independence?
The Navy's oldest operational carrier, the Independence, is based on the West Coast but is stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. The ship is expected to return to North Island near San Diego sometime after October 1997.
Why does the manager of the Navy Exchange at Norfolk get the parking space nearest the automatic teller machine? It's the closest parking spot to the entrance, and at the very least, it should be a handicapped spot.
Before construction crews paved the parking lot at the Navy Exchange, a committee planned out the parking spaces.
Planners intended for the ATM to be used mostly by exchange customers; people would stop by the money machine on their way in - picking up cash to spend inside.
Still, the Navy is open to suggestions about the parking. The command master chief's hot line number is 444-2273.
Why has the Navy switched to new personnel ID cards?
The Defense Department has ordered all service branches to switch to the new ID cards for many reasons.
The card is now credit-card sized, so it slips easily into a wallet, and a digitized photo is now printed on the card where before a paper print was pasted on and laminated. This one-piece construction makes it tougher for forgers.
The new card floats and won't disintegrate in the washer. Navy officials even boast that it can withstand microwaving.
The card has two bar codes that give more information than printed identification. The first bar code contains standard ID stuff - eye color, social security number. The second code details services you have the right to use.
I was on the tanker Bull Run that refueled the battleship New Jersey on her only voyage into the Pacific - in March or April of 1944. I'm not sure, though, whether the refueling happened off of Finchhaven, New Guinea, or Enewetak Atoll. How can I find the answer?
Because the Bull Run was not a Navy tanker, the Navy Historical Center could not give us an answer. But they pointed us to a book likely to have all you want to know about anything related to the battleship New Jersey, titled, appropriately, ``The Battleship New Jersey.''
It's by Paul Stillwell and it retails for about $50. The Norfolk Library does not carry it, but you can put in a request at your local public library for a nationwide search and borrow it through an inter-library loan.
Another option: Write the National Archives to see if the refueling is mentioned in the New Jersey's logs, stored there.
The address:
National Archives
Military Reference Branch
Washington D.C. 20408 by CNB