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Steve Thrasher
 
Posts: n/a
Default Tall Ship Question: What is an idler?

DSK wrote:

Sort of a fore runner of the technician class.


Hey I resembled that! As an ET (electronics tech to the non-Navy folks)
I didn't stand watches while at sea. Unless of course you're an ET on a
tender...then you get to stand radar watch while at sea, because there's
no radarmen assigned to the ship that stand watches, and hang around at
the head of the pier with a .45 pistol and no bullets waving to trucks
and cars. Ahhh...the good old days of the late 60's...pulling into the
mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and trying to track a pile of targets using
a repeater designed sometime in late WWII, but only recently (as in the
Korean conflict) built...wonderful green blob on the screen and the bozo
officer saying "give me a range on Bravo Sierra". At least on the
second ship they let us have bullets, I stood quarterdeck watch while in
port for it.