Talk:USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Thailand and Philippines goodwill visits

I did add these 2 goodwill visits and template since this article has no references or links, for citations and specifics. She left Laem Chabang Port after a short visit to Asian University in Chonburi, Thailand on May 7, 2008,pattayadailynews.com, ASIAN UNIVERSITY ENJOYS VISIT BY THE US NAVY and docketed at Manila, Philippines on May 22 for a 3 day goodwill visit, and also, for her crew to help construct Gawad Kalinga homes.gmanews.tv/story, US Navy ship to visit Manila on 'goodwill mission' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Florentino floro (talk • contribs) 08:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Time to link to Glenn Marine Group?

http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/08/more_heads_will_roll_navy_promises_as_it_benches_intel_chiefs_in_bribery_scandal In one example, the criminal complaint against Misiewicz says he attended a Lady Gaga concert on May 25, 2012, with other Navy personnel who visited Laem Chebang, Thailand, during a port stop by the Blue Ridge, the command ship of the Navy's 7th Fleet. Several of the officer ensnared in the scandal served on the ship during their careers.

c.f. Glenn Marine Group Hcobb (talk) 16:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

A few things to note

My words of wisdom regarding this article would be:

• Focus on a summary style. Remember this is an encyclopedia, so there is not really a need for a detailed discussion of each week of a deployment. Summarize and include the important details, remove the rest.
• Infoboxes generally have one or maybe two nicknames if the second is highly notable. I don't know which is the most common (and documented one). Pick the most common one and remove the other 20.
• Featured Article-class ship articles has a list of some of the best wikipedia articles about ships. USS Missouri (BB-63) is an example of a Featured article and how things are laid out and what details are included.
• Category:GA-Class Ships articles is another list of "Good" articles about ships on wikipedia.
• Remember that the reader might be anyone. Think of a mother, a sister, a daughter or anyone without a navy background reading the article.
• Photos like 90% of the ones in this article would probably be best left in a gallery on the Commons. For example, scans of text documents would probably not be needed in the body of an encyclopedia article. Same with the photo of a Commanding officer, that one is fine in his article, but not really needed here.

I mean no offense here, but I don't want to see you spend hours adding lots of detail and have it all end up getting deleted later by another editor. As with every wikipedia article, someone else will eventually find the article and make drastic changes to it. Look at some of the Featured Articles and Good Articles and use them as models. --Dual Freq (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

The Battle E problem

Sorry, for whatever reason, you do not understand the "Battle E". The Navy, for whatever reason, uses that expression to represent two different awards. The one BR received in 1972 was for actual combat, Battle Efficiency Award. That award was ended in 1974. BR only got one. Do you see two stars on BR's Combat Ribbon? The Navy award site does not track the old award for whatever reason. Do you see today's Battle E on that award site for 1972? It's not one of the 15 that they have been awarded since 1977. IT'S A DIFFERENT AWARD, THAT'S JUST NAVAL REALITY. Today, the ships and commands prance and dance in competition for the current award. In 1972, a ship had to actually do it. I phrased it that way, with that link, because a lot of people, including you, don't understand the difference.

http://www.public.navy.mil/surflant/cg69/Pages/BattleE.aspx "The Battle Effectiveness Award replaces the Battle Efficiency Award and retains the name Battle "E"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_E_Ribbon "The Battle Efficiency Ribbon, Navy "E" Ribbon, or (informally) the Battle "E" ribbon was established in July 1976 by Secretary of the Navy J. William Middendorf. The Navy "E" Ribbon denotes permanent duty on U.S. Navy ships, squadrons, or units (including construction battalions) that have won a battle efficiency competition (Battle "E") after July 1, 1974." Plankownerblueridge (talk) 10:47, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, that makes more sense. I lived on a ship for over 4 years and I have 3 Navy "E" ribbon awards (post 1976) and what you have in the article makes no sense to me. A regular person has no chance of understanding it either as it is written. We don't need to have the cg69 reference there because it doesn't add to that particular statement, it doesn't refer to pre 1976 awards. --Dual Freq (talk) 13:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Medals

June 2011 USS Blue Ridge medals cropped from this photo of bridge wing.

USS Blue Ridge medals in May 1993 croppef from this photo.

Can anyone explain why in 2011, Blue Ridge wasn't displaying some of the Vietnam Era awards? The two Navy Unit Commendation is conspicuously absent and no Vietnam Campaign Medal either. Vietnam Service Medal lacks the two service stars as well as the campaign star on the Southwest Asia Service Medal. This image also shows Navy Arctic Service Ribbon, Navy and Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia) and Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait) lower than the sea service ribbon, but those seem to be missing from the unit awards print out. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC) Well, apparently I uploaded another photo in 2006 that shows the 2 awards of the Navy Unit Commendation. Seems like quite an oversight to omit a ship's 2nd highest unit award. To further muddy the waters it shows 2 campaign stars on the Southwest Asia Service Medal but only 1 campaign star on Vietnam Service Medal. Also it shows the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia) but not the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait). So apparently the accuracy of the bridge wing medals isn't a high priority. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

You might want to check out my FB entry on this subject. I started this section on my FB page after my attempt to comment on Blue Ridge's official FB page about the lack of the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal on a pic of BR's flying bridge got my comment censored and a few weeks later I was blocked from commenting on any official Navy FB page. A later pic of BR's flying bridge showed it had been missing four additional medals and additional stars for earlier medals, so I suspect someone on BR censored and blocked me to cover up their failure to update the ship's ribbons on their flying bridge. Your current ribbon rack on the Wiki is not current and I believe at least one medal is not correct, the Arctic Medal. You may be confusing LCC-19 with LCC-20. Mt. Whitney was involved with a NATO exercise of the coast of northern Norway. I tracked every medal on BR's flying bridge with its photo history and source the best I could.

https://www.facebook.com/blueridge.plankowner/media_set?set=a.191014564273716.40479.100000955215058&type=3&l=0036d7bb73

Part of this is in one of my Wiki Commons entry pics:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Ridge_Awards,_file_05,_Jan_2012,_port_side.jpg

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 04:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The only reason I put the Arctic Service one on there is they had it painted on the ship in the 2011 photo I linked above and it appears to be in the same spot on the photo you linked. second row from the bottom above the Kuwait ribbon. If that is not the Arctic Service ribbon than what is it? --Dual Freq (talk) 21:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

When I came up with my list of BR medals a couple of years ago, I came to the conclusion (with ???, since it didn't really look like it) that this medal was the Armed Forces Reserve Medal. I never even thought of the Arctic Service Ribbon because in the Pacific you have to get north of the Bering Strait for about 30 cumulative days to qualify for it and this award is tracked by official award site (AT) and there is no record in that report. But I can see why you assumed it was the Arctic Service Ribbon, it certainly does look like it. It probably is just one more sloppy job on that ship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_Reserve_Medal

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess I don't feel too confident in the identification of each ribbon, especially the Arctic or Reserve one, so I have removed the wiki display. I think a photo is file and if the current crew of Blue Ridge would like to release an official list and new photo via USN press release or the ship's website, we can use that instead. Was the ship ever attached to the reserves? --Dual Freq (talk) 00:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I know reserve units come aboard BR for training. Perhaps this qualifies the ship for that medal.

http://www.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123414246

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 12:15, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Order of Precedence should rule out the Reserves medal, unless they messed up the order an painted it oddly. Arctic Service fits visually and it also fits in the correct order between Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and Navy and Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon. Armed Forces Reserve Medal would be on the next line. No mention of the arctic in any of the ships history files, at least by searching via google. I guess we'll never know what they intended that medal to be. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

This may be part of the problem with Blue Ridge's display of a medal on their flying bridge they didn't earn. If you look at the pics of Blue Ridge's flying bridge ribbon display from the early 1990's, they look like they were made by the crew. If you look at pics of the same from later years on BR's Wiki Commons, they look like the ribbons have been outsourced to corporations.

When I did a google search using "Ship Service Ribbon Board" this is the order form of medals available ( http://www.sea-display.com/awardsch.pdf ) from the only company that lists its products from that search ( http://www.sea-display.com/index.php ). While Blue Ridge may be entitled to the ARMED FORCES RESERVE MEDAL, you will not find one offered on that order form. However, you will find a ARCTIC SERVICE RIBBON offered. They look very similar to the uninformed from a distance. It fooled me.

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

WLBrown8 "Charlie Brown"

I see that WLBrown8 is back again on this subject. He was aboard BR as a OS striker, plank owner and he may have been in San Diego for pre-commissioning school as I was, but I don't remember that. He was in Ops berthing, as I was as part of the IOIC Dept., and was a big BSer back then as he is now in this article. He has done this BS about BR on several other internet sites. Some of his BS is new (Rio, canal, Tiger Island) and some of it is old (Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, Battle E, AGI Kursograph), but the vast majority is BS and not one single reference. I don't know if this is his idea of having fun or that he has problems with remembering the past but he seemed to be just another swabbie back then. Plankownerblueridge (talk) 02:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

USS Blue Ridge & AGI Kursograph

I am trying to note the significance of BR's Intel incident with AGI Kursograph in 1973. Intel operations by their nature don't produce a lot of public documentation unless someone with connections thinks they can make a buck on it with a book. Beyond what I found several years ago, this link is the only Russian source I can document. When I put this incident on a international navy blog about 4 years ago, I was contacted by a retired Soviet sailor who told me this incident had considerable coverage on Russian naval blogs at that time. So far I haven't found anything from our side in any of the Wikileaks documents.

This is what I attempted to post on BR's page the other day:

" BR's ensign was the first known non-Soviet aboard a Soviet intelligence collector (AGI) to be returned and if "A Grechko" was Andrei Grechko, Minister of Defense and member of the Soviet Politburo, this incident apparently had the attention of the highest level in the Soviet Government. " PSU CC I am reporting, that: On 28 September 1973 our military ship in the Pacific Ocean collected Michael Dough/Doe [?], an American non-commissioned officer, who allegedly fell off the USS Blue-Ridge while it was being refueled on the open seas. The NCO remained in the water of 16 hours. He was given first aid on our ship. I think that after some time he can be handed over to the Americans. I am tasking the USSR MFA with informing the State Department of the fact that a US military seaman has been given first aid and that we are ready to send him back to the US side. The transfer could take place in the Pacific Ocean to an American military ship. [Signature] A. Grechko [handwritten] Executed 1 October 19-73 ". [1] [2]"

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I removed that as original research / synthesis. I kept the loc.gov as a ref, but the second is a WP:Circular reference. You need a published source that makes the claim: "first known non-Soviet aboard a Soviet intelligence collector", that is an assumption and discounts the possibility that eastern bloc / other USSR allies may have participated in the intel operations on those ships. Additionally, there is no need to block quote an entire source, this article has a big enough problem with numerous block quotes. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a collection of copied block quotes dumped into a chronological orders. The paragraph prior says all that really needs to be said about the incident and it already says the issue required "diplomatic negotiations" to resolve. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

There is an interesting discrepancy here. US sources say the sailor was Ensign Michael R. Long, but the Soviet source says he was an NCO named Michael Doe. I could imagine the poor guy not wanting the Soviets to know that he was an officer or what his real name was. But I agree the article already says enough about this. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Given that any current organized Wikileaks for BR are after '74 and any "search and rescue" after '76, I will have to depend on some book or other government document that I haven't found as of now. However, I have finally found an entry in a Russian Navy blog that another retired Russian Navy vet (Northern Fleet) referenced in a comment on an earlier international navy blog where I presented the AGI incident and my assertion that the US Navy considered this ensign the first non-Soviet aboard an operational AGI to be returned. While that comment and other comments didn't affirm that, they also didn't disagree with that assertion. And talk about discrepancy, check out this Russian blog entry about this incident, :::http://forums.airbase.ru/2010/02/t52931,24--vladivostok-shestaya-versta.html#p2137093 , and here is the Google Translator version of it: Removed

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 04:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you can't just dump a copied wall of text on the talk page like that. What exactly is the point you are trying to make and add to the article? You need more than a web forum to support any additions. A book, magazine, news paper, etc. See WP:RS and WP:OR. --Dual Freq (talk) 21:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't read Russian and I suspect most people following this don't either. Perhaps his spelling is hard on the Google Translator output, but both this Soviet sailor and myself were the only ones actually on the scene that have talked so far. As you can suspect, the "acceptable" documents are contradictory except for the dates and the ending and all of its critical nature is contained in that "diplomatic negotiations". What surprises me in reading the Russian blog so far is that there is no further mention of "Kursograph" while other Soviet AGI's are repeatedly mentioned. From another American blog, I know Kursograph was on Yankee Station in '72 during the Easter Counter-Offensive, and for the few nights we watched the after-burners of the bird-farm birds take off for the NVN mainland, I don't remember BR having any problem with the AGI.

Plankownerblueridge (talk) 03:14, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Did you read the two links that Dual Freq pointed you to? I find this all very interesting but we can't use any of this primary source material. And this talk page isn't the place to discuss this incident. If you were there, your story is important and needs to be told, but WP is not the proper forum. Kendall-K1 (talk) 11:01, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I was on board when all this happened, and in the captain's gig when we went to get him from the russians.

the ensign's last name was "Long", we'd went to GQ before daylight and he fell off the stbd gun director.

m baggett

sm3 cs div

uss blue ridge

lollygag12000@yahoo.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.132.52.221 (talk) 19:45, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Nicknames

Does anyone have a source for the nicknames? The section has had a "citation needed" tag since June 2014. It was getting repetitious ("Long Continuous Circles" and "Large Continuous Circles", "Let's Continue Cleaning" and "Let's Commence Cleaning"). A few of these might be interesting but at this point they really should have a source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 05:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree, there is no need for that section. If there is a commonly cited nickname, I can see having it in the infobox, but a huge uncited list just encourages more unencyclopedic additions. It would have to be something along the lines of Old Ironsides for Constitution, "Big E" for Enterprise or even "Hanna" for USS Hancock (CV-19).[3] All those are fairly easily cited with photos, newspaper articles, ship patches and likely to have been recognized by outsiders / non-crewmembers. That's what would need to be found for each nickname here. --Dual Freq (talk) 17:42, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Quotes

@Thewolfchild: You changed several quotes in your latest edit. Did you actually check the cited sources? Some of these quotes are obviously wrong, and if you have access to the sources, it would be good to fix them all. For example the one that starts "He stated that when the battalion was alerted..." clearly has the quote marks in the wrong places, and you can't tell what part is quote and what is not. Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

TBH, I'm not sure what you're talking about. As I was looking through the article, I noted several instances where a ship's name was either preceded by the word "the", or was not italicized, or both. In each instance, I added italics and/or removed the word "the". I didn"t intend to change or attempt to correct any facts or details in any of the quotes, or alter any quotation marks. If you're referrig the the word "the" preceding a ship's name needing to remain as part of a direct quote, then I'll revert tbose changes. In the meantime, if you could clarify your remarks, I'd appreciate it. Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 23:36, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Note; I jist revrted myself. All my changes were made in a single edit, so I'll just start over, (another time). As of now, however, any errors in this article are not mine. Also, I think there are too many quotes in this article (hence the template someone left over a year ago saying the same thing), and this article is quite long and could use a little trimming. imho - ^theWOLFchild 23:48, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

That was probably me. The quotes are a real mess and I was hoping you would clean them up! You may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by reverting. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:41, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I was just looking to fix some minor issues. I'll get around to them again. But, yeah, the major problem is the quotes. I don't recall seeing another naval ship article with so many quotes. I've read quite a few, and many don't have any quotes at all. I think if we just ditched a significant majority of the quotes from this page, (like almost all of them) that would go long way to improving it. (imho) Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 00:49, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I re-applied your fix, which I consider a vast improvement, and removed the few changes that were parts of a quote (or could have been; it's hard to tell sometimes). I've thought about simply removing all the quotes, problem is that some of them would really need paraphrasing or we wouldn't have much of an article left. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. Saves me the trouble of going through it again. Cheers. - ^theWOLFchild 02:58, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

1980 Vietnamese Boat People Rescue

Concerning the following:

>>>. Mechanical failure of the second boat had left the 37 adrift well short of the shipping lane. Initially it was unclear how long they had been at sea, though they had been without potable water for many days.[citation needed]<<<

What kind of citation is needed? I was onboard, recovering in sickbay when they asked me to move out of my sickbay bed so that they could bring the boat people from the 2nd boat in. I wasn't discharged from sickbay yet, but had to give up my bed.

As all medical staff were busy finding out the condition of the dehydrated group, they asked me to find one who could speak English and try to find out what happened.

Their boat was blown off course by a typhoon that had passed through several days to one week earlier. Then they had engine trouble as mentioned in the Wiki page.

They said that several died and they threw the bodies overboard, but didn't give an exact number. They said the survivors had been drinking their own urine for 2-3 days to stay alive and that's when we discovered them.

I witnessed the above first hand. I handed in a written memo of the above to the ship's doctor including the names of those I took the information from.

There should be some kind of ship's record that can verify this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbenton (talk • contribs) 14:16, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Blue Ridge class wiki article

I copied the paragraphs from this article relating to the design of the ship and pasted them into the wiki article on the class, and then supplemented it with information from Norman Friedman's U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History. I would like to remove most of this text from this article as redundant, but I would like to get a consensus first.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk • contribs) 05:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)