USS Schenectady

Precedence of awards is from top to bottom, left to right Most folks who served aboard the "Skinny-T" may wonder where the ship's web site came from and why it was erected in the first place. As a shore-duty sailor from the 1950's who regretted never having served at sea, I'd like to take a moment to explain why I first erected the USS Schenectady... web site. Shortly after the demise of the Schenectady, I encountered a YouTube video of a ship that was surplused by the navy and used as a target. What amazed me were the details of a military exercise that utilized aircraft from Hawaii, Japan, Guam, and half a dozen air bases in the US. They consisted of B-52s, B-1s, F-15s, F-18s and many other support and radar aircraft. The exercise focused on a single, solitary decommissioned navy ship as the target of destruction. What began as an expression of amazement to the lengths that the military would go to sink a single ship became an object of admiration to me. The amazing thing was that after taking a tremendous battering, this small ship (by navy standards) withstood the missiles and bombs and stayed afloat for three hours. In this "Last Great Act of Defiance," the Schenectady shook off the wounds of fatal destruction before reluctantly plunging to her grave, off the island of Hawaii. I was so impressed by this valiant ship that I wanted to share my admiration of her with anyone who might come across my simple web site. Shortly thereafter, several former shipmates wrote me, thanking me for publicizing their ship and volunteering ship and crew photos. One of these former ship mates was Tom Totoris, EMCM (Ret.). He wanted to play a bigger part in the web page and asked if we could construct additional pages. I agreed and told him I would be happy to make him the Webmaster. I was surprised when he arrived at my door two weeks later to learn more about working on web pages. All the way from Albuquerque, NM to Conover, NC! Since 2006, Tom and I have worked together to make this web page what it is today. I have become ...Read More