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In August 1974 I was at COM Subgroup Two in Charleston, SC assigned
to Adm. Cumming's staff pending my anticipated discharge on September 18th of that year. The chief of Staff,
Captain Self, asked me why I was going to get out of the Navy. I told him that, although I enjoyed the submarine
force, my tour of duty on an SSBN as an auxillaryman / diver has nothing to write home about. After punching
holes in the ocean for 90 days you surface in Rota, Spain and fly home for 3 month before coming back and
doing it all over again. I had qualified on my first run out of Rota, Spain on the
USS John Marshall (SSBN-611) , Gold
Crew, in June 1972. After four more runs it was the same "day in and day out", I wanted a challenge and something
exciting. Captain Self set up a telephone interview with a special projects detailer and I reenlisted in exchange for orders to the Bathyscaph Trieste II (DSV-1), Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, CA. I arrived at Mare Island at the end of September 1974 to find the vehicle in the middle of an overhaul. It was covered with scaffolding and workers from the shipyard. There were several trailers for offices and we built fly-away trailers from old mobile 30 foot box-trailers, with wheels removed. We finally completed the overhaul and went to Alameda Naval Air Station for dock-side sea trials. We learned how to hand load shot the Trieste with 21 tons of steel bee bees from 25 pound bags. Daniel Burkett (Danny Bucket) and I were sent to San Diego to set up the support compound at Ballast Point. Four weeks later the Bathyscaph Trieste arrived in San Diego via barge. We initally operated out of San Diego with the civilian support ship "Maxine D" which would tow us to the dive site, fully loaded with fuel and shot and using the Fly -away trailers, that we had completed in Mare Island, as work spaces and offices. Later we were united with the USS Point Loma (ADGS-2) which the Navy had converted from an LST. It was our own support ship which accompanied us to San Clemente Island where we conducted launch and waterborne testing. It was an amazing site to see the ship flood the dock well full of water and watch the vehicle float over the sill. We operated locally off San Diego for the next few months. We then got orders to take the Trieste to the Atlantic for dive operations. As we were in transit to the Panama Canal we put a fresh coat of paint on the vehicle and got her looking Ship Shape. I believe my years on the Bathyscaph Trieste II (DSV-1) were the most amazing and interesting of my entire naval career. The special people we worked with, including Dr. Bob Ballard of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Emory Kristoff and Al Chandler of the National Geographic Society and the knowledge that the work we were doing was at the cutting edge of oceanographic research was most rewarding. The highlight of my tour on Trieste was the mating of USS Point Loma (ADGS-2) and the Bathyscaph Trieste II (DSV-1) from the first waterborne docking off San Clemente Island, to the transit of the Panama Canal and our dives in the Grand Cayman Islands and Puerto Rican . `trench. Stanley N. Reinhold, MM2(SS/DV), USN Hull Division, Diver September 1974 to September 1977.
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