Click on the shield above to
see a full sized photo of the 1968 edition of the Moctobi Ship's patch. I
had lost my patch in 1970. Greg Collins of Lodi, California had an extra
patch and sent it to me. Greg was a BM3 onboard the Mighty Moc. The patch
was designed during a ship's contest by Gary P. Holmes, an Engineman and
my friend. Gary left the Moctobi in 1969 for a tour of duty in Vietnam as boat
captain of a PBR in RivDiv 535. Today Gary lives with his wife, Dinah, in
Concord, CA. We are still friends more than 30 years later.
The USS Moctobi (ATF-105)
was my first ship. When I got orders to the Moctobi, home
ported in Pearl Harbor, I just knew that I was in for an
adventure. I wasn't let down. THIS was the Navy. There is
nothing quite like riding 30 foot seas on a fleet tug . The
feeling of being on top of a mountain of seawater only to
slide down the side of the mountain in to a valley of water
is like no other. Going to sea in a storm is an unparalleled
adventure. Anchoring in the small cove of an isolated island
is reminiscent of the adventures of Captain Cook. ENOUGH!
You get my point. In reality, the salvage ship was not a
glamorous place to be. It wasn't a destroyer or a cruiser.
It was a little ship, 205 feet long, with a crew of 75 or so
men. We usually went to sea alone-- often in bad weather. We
would be called upon to tow targets for other ships to shoot
at or go out to offer assistance to a burning aircraft
carrier. We worked very hard on that ship but we played hard
too. I always felt that the Salvage Fleet was the way to go.
