Tracer Photos: Mostly of the enlisted crew. These photos are fifty years old.
This photo was taken with Korkhouse's brand new Polaroid camera, of which he was quite proud. The photo was taken while the sailors were standing in an open doorway in the Commissary area.
Below are two more photos taken sixty years ago with Warren Korkhouse's Polaroid camera. From left to right, Warren Korkhouse GMG2 sitting at the desk in the armory. Behind him are tools that were used to dismantle the Tracer's two 3-inch gun mounts for maintenance. Near his left shoulder is the tiny brass cannon that was there when I came aboard in early 1963 and was still there when I left in late 1964. I wish I had that tiny cannon as a memento of those days. Wonder what ever happened to it? The Polaroid photo on the left has not fared so well over the last half-century. The photo is of sailors who worked in the Gunnery Division under Korkhouse; left, a young guy named Struthers; middle, Mike Richard; and right, the creator of this website, Roland Phillips. The photo was taken in the Armory in front of the familiar tool board, probably by Korkhouse.
The Photos below were also taken with Korkhouse's Polaroid camera in the Armory. The photo on the left shows two sailors who were assigned to the Gunnery Division in the process of cleaning M1 Garand Rifles. (The designation of Garand is for the man who invented the M1 rifle whose name was John Garand) They had just disassembled the weapons, cleaned them thoroughly, and were re-assembling them.
The Armory on the USS Tracer contained ten M1 rifles, four Thompson Sub Machine Guns, two Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs), twenty or thirty M1911 Forty-Five Automatic Pistols, two 12 Gauge Riot Shotguns, and a fifty caliber Machine Gun.
The photo on the right is of the author, Roland Phillips, third-class Gunner's mate who (at the time of the photo taking) worked under Warren Korkhouse. The leading petty officer for the Gunnery Division before Korkhouse was a man named Scott (GMG1). Scott was an older man, especially to Phillips, who was twenty years old at the time. Scott was an old-time “Lifer,” but he knew his stuff. He was a first-class Gunner's Mate (he should have been a chief petty officer, but the Gunners Mate rate was closed for CPOs at the time). Scotty had been in the Navy for decades; he retired around the summer of 1964 with thirty years in the Navy.
The Navy designation for the Gunners Mate Rating was GMG meaning Gunners-Mate-Guns, so as not to confuse the GMG Rating with other gunnery specialists such as Gunners-mate technicians (GMT), or Gunners-mate aviation (GMA)
The two photos below are of Deck Sailors on watch on the Flying Bridge. On the left, the sailor is Richard Archuleta, with his hand on the signal lamp on the Starboard side of the ship. Archuleta was a Seaman in the Deck Division when I left the ship. He was originally from Pueblo, Colorado, and was a friend of the author. The photo on the right is of a sailor on the helm during the watch. The sailor is Struthers, who was a Seaman in the Deck Division and a Striker in the Gunnery Division. In this photo, he is actually steering the ship from the Flying Bridge.