USS Constant MSO 427
Welcome to the USS Constant of the late 70's! I served aboard her from March of 1978 to November of 1979. She was stationed at Long Beach Naval Station, Pier 9. We had a Regular Navy crew of about 40, and a Reserve crew of about another 40. We had a reserve drill weekend once a month and spent most of those weekends off the southern coast of California with out sister Sweep the USS Pledge MSO 492. We still did quite a bit of steaming without the Reserves onboard, which usually meant a lot of Port and Starboard watches! Those V12 Packards ran forever and our Engine Men were the BEST!
With the exception of the first two, all of the pictures on this page we taken by myself using a Canon Ftb that I purchased in Subic Bay on my previous tour aboard the USS John S. McCain DDG 36.
A very special THANKS goes out to Rick
Szpyrka of the Chain Locker/NMSOA for his
help in putting a link on his site to this page.
Click on any photo to
see an enlargement, use you browser BACK button to return to this page.
Enjoy!
Classic Port and Starboard views Circa: late 70's.
Prior to a Sweep Exercise, She must go through the Degaussing
fields.
The easy part of a typical Sweep Exercise involves
finding all the mines,
The hard part is picking them up from the ocean floor and
bringing them on board!
After a lot of hard work and a "Clean Sweep",
We finally get to head for the barn at a blazing speed of 12
Knots!
It's a SWEEPER Party! Treasure Island, San Francisco Summer
79 Our sister Sweep USS Pledge coming along side for a Hi-Line Exercise Only the Bravest of souls volunteer for this maneuver, in
this case "OSCAR", and he seems excited about it! USS Pluck behind Constant on our way to Seattle in Summer of
79. Problem with MSO's is they are made of Wood! Doesn't
take much to get them to Rock-n-Roll! Any Navy ship has a lot of photographers, and you can see
why! And finally, back home, Pier 9, Long Beach. DING DING....DING DING....CONSTANT DEPARTING......
