If he was coming back from the tender or shore, he was “Returning”. If a boat was tied up outboard and the skipper of that boat needed to cross over, you had to say “such and such (boat’s name), crossing”. So one of my favorite stories from those days was being the topside watch when the skippers were returning form a Squadron meeting and getting the chance to make the announcement. In my case it was “George Washington, Returning, Abraham Lincoln, crossing”. But in 1974-75, my memory was that she had her share of mechanical problems. Since she was the Washington’s relief boat, we had to extend a few times on station as we waited for her to be ready to come and take the watch. Plus there was a pretty big typhoon that closed Apra Harbor and made patrol 43 a lot longer than any of us was prepared for. “NAMED FOR Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th President of the United States and, next to Washington, best known and most cherished of all who have held that lofty position.Īdmiral Rickover wrote this in his book “Eminent Americans” Let’s just say cigarettes were in pretty high demand by the time we were told we could finally come home.īut the name Lincoln is certainly one of the most famous of all the 41 for Freedom names. More has been written about Lincoln than about any other President, yet we cannot be certain of having taken the full measure of the man. He is hard to appraise objectively the affection he inspires gets in our way.
