Deck Drawings
Whether it's a single letter or a 100-foot greeting, aircraft carrier crews stand ready to spell it out.
- By Roger Mola
- AirSpaceMag.com, May 27, 2011
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U.S. Navy
During a deployment for a joint exercise in the Gulf of Alaska in June 2009, crew members of the weapons department on the USS John C. Stennis honor John Finn on his 100th birthday. Finn was the last survivor of 15 men who earned the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Naval Ordnanceman Finn saw Japanese aircraft flash by the window of his apartment, sped to the airfield and grabbed a .30-caliber machine gun, blazing at enemy aircraft for two and a-half hours while suffering multiple wounds from shrapnel and strafing. Finn died in May 2010.
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Comments (5)
Regarding deck drawings -- USS Ranger CV-61. When was this photo taken? My son was assigned and did duty on this ship during Desert Storm - 1991 and returned to San Diego. He doesn't recall this event. Please advise and thank you in advance. JDL
Posted by John Lucas on June 10,2011 | 02:07 PM
The Navy archive says that the original photo by Navy PH2 Wimmer was dated December 1, 1988, but may have been taken about a year earlier.
Posted by Roger Mola on June 16,2011 | 10:45 AM
Maybe I missed it in your collection of Deck Drawings, but I didn't see one of my favorites: the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) spelling out "Big Stick."
I am pretty sure that "Big Stick" is a perfect description of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Is that picture available?
Thanks.
Posted by Tim Colman on July 1,2011 | 03:48 PM
Thanks for your note. The "Big Stick" photo from September of 1999 is floating around the Internet and easy to find, and you're right, it's a great shot (especially since many schools no longer teach the cursive-style letters the crew used to spell it out). We collected dozens of images and it was tough to choose which to post. --Roger Mola, Researcher, Air & Space magazine
Posted by Roger Mola on July 7,2011 | 04:03 PM
There was a very famous article in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in the Sixties profiling the Enterprise's around-the-world cruise. The "centerfold" was the aerial view of the ship with the sailors spelling out E=MC2 on the flight deck.
Posted by Stephen on February 25,2013 | 04:17 PM