Coast Guard LORAN Stations

[BuoyJumper]

Someone please tell me how to post pictures.  I have some from Loran A Station San Salvador that I'll try to post.  But I ain't real smart so I might have trouble!

Not hard to do TJ.  Just click on this LINK to the Everything from Avatars to Zippers board and we have a tutorial section that will show you how to do just about anything you want to do.  Post photos, images, links, resizing images, posting videos and much more.

[BuoyJumper]

I decided to rescue this Bob Urie story from Jack's Joint which is beginning to show signs of neglect.  RIP Jack and thanks from all of us.

[Halfway way between Honolulu and Midway is ...... ]

FRENCH FRIGATE SHOALS

By Bob Urie

French Frigate Shoals Loran Station

French Frigate Shoals is an atoll, the rim of the remains of an ancient volcano. The spike formed by the last eruption visible to the south of Term Island. The original location of the station was on East Island, which was washed away in a storm some time after the war. For information, see Coast Guard Construction Detachment, by Van R. Fields, which appears in Volume One of Coast Guard Stories. (Story # 0031 on Jack’s Joint) 

The island was about 3000 feet long and 410 feet wide. Both ends of the island were lengthened to get room enough for take offs and landings.

During WWII, I am told, a Japanese submarine was stationed at French Frigate Shoals to observe, and to refuel seaplanes. That prompted the Navy to install a station of some kind in the area.

I am quite surprised that so little has been written about the Shoals at Jack’s Joint and feel compelled to record my recollections.

Life here, as I knew it in 1969, could be boring at times but really was rather pleasant. I must have done snorkel diving 200 of the days I was there. But it was amusing what we found interesting—one day we spent a couple of hours standing on the roof of the main barracks building to watch a vessel go by out on the horizon. It was easily the best show in town. That was the only vessel we saw except for the KUKUI which came only once per year with fuel and heavy equipment. Small stuff, mail and personnel were flown in weekly. We hated it when the District inspectors rode the plane because they sometimes bumped the mail.

There are many stories about French Frigate, and most deal with how the crew was, shall we say, a little off center. With this in mind, the 14 of us, with the knowledge that we were to get a new HM3, as our whole medical department, arranged a special reception.

Our LTJG Commanding Officer put on leggings and carried a riding crop. The BMC rode the fire truck so he could alert the aircrew that we had not really gone over the slope. When the new Corpsman went to the C.O. with orders in hand to report, the C.O. made a growling sound and threw his orders on the runway. The BMC was by now shouting unnecessary orders to the guys unloading the cargo, mail and such. We didn’t keep it up too long. The aircrew stayed on the plane until the show was over but they really got a kick out of all of this.

With but one supply ship each year, people, mail and other small items were flown in each week by the Grumman Albatross. While these were built as an amphibian about the time I was born, very few water landings were attempted. Because the Island was only 3000 ft long, JATO bottles were used to assist in takeoff. All four if there was no head wind, two if that wind was light, and none if there was a fairly stiff wind. Two JATO bottles were equivalent to one more engine. Of course they only lasted for a minute or less. These aircraft were normally used for Search and Rescue aircraft and there was little room for freight and people.

The workday was 0600 to 1300 followed by dinner, which then was followed by a required volley ball game. The evening meal was a do-it-yourself deal, sometime on the BBQ. Primo beer was 10 cents a can.

The original barracks included the galley, mess deck, offices, some two-man rooms and a single garage. The LORAN building housed LORAN A transmitters, C monitors and radio beacon transmitter. The electronics for the C was in an air-conditioned room. (C was paid for by the Navy, Radio Beacon by the FAA, but A by the Coast Guard.) Also in the LORAN building were the generators that ran everything on the island: four General Motor’s 6-71s with radiators on the roof of the building. There were also two evaporators, odd by any standard. The engine’s cooling water was the only source of heat, and the engines drove vacuum pumps[1]. Fortunately we had enough rain to fill the tanks while I was there and only ran them for the engine maintenance.

Our drinking water was rain caught on the roofs of the barracks/mess building and stored in 1,000 gallon cedar tanks, and a 5000 gallon rubber tank that tasted like rubber, too. Even though we had evaporators we never needed to use them while I was there because we got enough rain to keep the tanks full.

At the recreation building was a half court gym, a music machine, an abundance of weight equipment, a small stage, and a ham shack for KH6ABH, where I was often, but more off duty time was enjoyed while snorkeling. We played volleyball for at least an hour, from 1300 to the end of the current game.

We had seven fuel tanks with a year’s supply of diesel fuel. Only five drums of gasoline for our two trucks (M37s,) and 150 drums of aviation gasoline for the supply planes. Each truck had a trailer, one for the gas truck, the other the airplane fire truck. We had two boats for work but mostly used them for recreation—an outboard for water skiing, the inboard for fishing. Some guys went to other islands for fishing or diving and checking out the wild life. Corny?

You say you always wanted to live on a desert island? Well, there you are—an island paradise!

[1][1] Waste heat evaporators. Those on the station were rather primitive by today’s standards: a vacuum pump was installed for drawing the initial vacuum and making up the losses. The vacuum had to be relatively deep to accommodate the low heat intensity of the feed water leaving the engine heat exchanger. The idea was good but this type of evaporator wasn’t very good in it’s primitive stages.

For some great information and lots of photos visit member Radio Jerry Lentz's website
                                      FRENCH FRIGATE SHOALS

[BuoyJumper]

Found this photo of a FFS bright chrome Zippo lighter at Fred's today.
This has to be a very rare lighter to come across.  It is part of a big collection of CG lighters and here are some more
from the same collection.  Never was aware that we had so dang many Loran Staions all over the globe.  

[vftb]

Would really like to see someone form LORAN Station Con Son check in, just to make sure my memory isn't playing tricks on me.  I mean tropical island with a few small quirks  :  One steps (if you've been there you know what I'm talking about) hanging by their tails from the plumbing in the gen. room, tiger cages, etc.  I did surf there though, even if you didn't have any friggin wax 

[BuoyJumper]

CG Veteran ET3 David L. Masinter has started a new
Coast Guard Channel Community Group for CG Loran Vets

             

Click on the link above to join the CG Channel
Community and the LORAN_A_/ LORAN_C_vets

[cuttercoasty]

Lorsta Port Clarence  18Jan2005


Resized Image to remove slider .. Buoy

[popeye]

do they still have the mermaid painted on the bottom of the water tank

[Jack]

The Mermaid mural was originally painted by SNBM Bowman in the summer of 1964 - the mermaid was sitting on a large rock as I recall. The pool was just the thing for an after watch dip or after taking a sauna in the steam box over by the evaps.

[popeye]

Here is a picture of the Mermaid painted by SN O'conner during the summer rehab in 1989 also a couple of pictures of the front of the admin building after a really good snow storm which led to the Snow Blower being stuck and 90% of the crew with crazy haircuts.

[Jack]

This what we it looked like after a rather heavy storm back in 64 - nice mermaid looks a lot like the original one.

[Jack]

Maybe the 2nd time is a charm

[JerryM]

I never knew for sure if it was true, but I was once told that the CG saved money on LORSTA Caribou by using the exact same plans for the station building as for one in Florida. The building was made of concrete block with no insulation. I recall one winter day when the furnace was cranking at full bore and the temp in my office was 55 degrees. Of course the outside temp was -35 with a wind around 50 knots.                                     

[Jack]

Would not surprise me at all if they did it that way - at Port Clarence they decided to use the transmitters to keep the xmtr building warm - they figured one was always on air and the other on immediate standby and it did keep the bldg between 55-70 in winter - unless of course you had to take one of them down for routine maintenance or perish the thought if one were to fail - we lost the output transformer (3T5) in one of them - not on the spare list because we had a modified 3T5 that had to come from Wildwood - took about 10 days to get it - bldg got a wee bit chilly (it was January).

[cuttercoasty]

I will look around my photos and bring up a online photo album of Port Clarence from when I was there in '04 & '05.

No, the mermaid was gone.  We had a bunch of fish painted on the bottom in there... dont think i have a picture of that though.  stand by for more pictures.  I will post it on a photobucket site so not to take up way too much room on here.

[BuoyJumper]

       

        Feature Story Release
        Date: August 28, 2008
        Contact: D5 Public Affairs


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