Posted on Nov 22, 2015
Have you read this History declassified: Local Navy veteran survived fatal irony?
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Have you read this History declassified: Local Navy veteran survived fatal irony?
Richard Preston, who served aboard the USS Belknap during the Cold War and was injured as it was struck by the USS John F. Kennedy, sits at his home on Friday, Nov. 20, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. The ships collided on the 12th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, killing eight servicemen and injuring dozens more.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/nov/22/navy-vetersurvived-fatal-irony/336991/
A 20-year-old Richard Preston laid down for some rest in the bowels of the USS Belknap as the ship plowed through the dark off the coast of Sicily.
It was about 9 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1975, and Preston had just gotten off duty in the ship's radar room. He worked as an operations specialist for the Navy.
As a Massachusetts native, Preston had noted briefly it was the 12-year anniversary of the assassination of another Massachusetts man, President John F. Kennedy.
He soon collided with that fact in a cruelly fateful way.
Preston, 59, who now lives in Chattanooga, remembers a voice shouting over the ship's loudspeaker.
"Captain to the bridge," the speaker squawked.
It was about three minutes before the Belknap and the USS John F. Kennedy, a 1,052-foot aircraft carrier, crashed into each other. That loudspeaker call was as close to a warning that the Beknap's crew of 350 received.
Richard Preston, who served aboard the USS Belknap during the Cold War and was injured as it was struck by the USS John F. Kennedy, sits at his home on Friday, Nov. 20, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. The ships collided on the 12th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, killing eight servicemen and injuring dozens more.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/nov/22/navy-vetersurvived-fatal-irony/336991/
A 20-year-old Richard Preston laid down for some rest in the bowels of the USS Belknap as the ship plowed through the dark off the coast of Sicily.
It was about 9 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1975, and Preston had just gotten off duty in the ship's radar room. He worked as an operations specialist for the Navy.
As a Massachusetts native, Preston had noted briefly it was the 12-year anniversary of the assassination of another Massachusetts man, President John F. Kennedy.
He soon collided with that fact in a cruelly fateful way.
Preston, 59, who now lives in Chattanooga, remembers a voice shouting over the ship's loudspeaker.
"Captain to the bridge," the speaker squawked.
It was about three minutes before the Belknap and the USS John F. Kennedy, a 1,052-foot aircraft carrier, crashed into each other. That loudspeaker call was as close to a warning that the Beknap's crew of 350 received.
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 10
No COL Mikel J. Burroughs I had not read the declassified history of the 1975 collision as the USS John F. Kennedy struck the USS Belknap off Sicily during the Cold War. Thankfully Navy veteran Richard Preston survived the fatal irony. With radar and sonar it was amazing that these two Navy ships collided.
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