USS Randolph CVS15

BTB, Gooney Bird… the label on your E-1B pic says “Gunman Tracer”… it should read “Grumman Tracer”.

That was just a typo – too late in the day!

Anyway many thanks for the info – very informative.

Another easy way to get data on what USN carriers were where is to use this site:
http://navysite.de/carriers.htm

Click on the ship you want to look at, and lots of information comes up. Scroll down, and somewhere (varies by ship) there will be an line like this: “Click here to get a view of the deployments of USS RANDOLPH”

The word here is hyperlinked to this sub-page http://navysite.de/cv/cv15deploy.htm.

This brings up a table with the following columns:
Date of Departure – Date of Return – CVW – Squadrons – (Aircraft) – Tail code – Area of Operations – Battle Group – Operations/Exercises – Ports of Call

“Tail code” is the code painted on the vertical stabilizers of all aircraft assigned to the ship during that deployment… this helps date photos.

Not all these fields are filled… so sometimes you can’t get all the data you want.

For example, Randolph’s “ports of call” section is blank from 1956… disappointing in this case.

Interesting is that the list for the embarked squadrons seems to contradict that article:

1965 “European Vacation”: VS-26 (S-2); VS-36 (S-2); HS-7 (SH-3A); VAW-12 Det. (E-1B)

1966 “European Vacation”: VS-39 (S-2D); VS-34 (S-2D); HS-9 (SH-3A); VAW-121 Det. (E-1B)

1967 “European Vacation”: VS-24 (S-2); VS-27 (S-2); HS-3 (SH-3D); VAW-121 Det. (E-1B)

As the front-side shot of the S-2 shows VS-34, it would be the 1966 visit, and either the site or the reporter got the E-1B squadron # wrong.

BTB, Gooney Bird… the label on your E-1B pic says “Gunman Tracer”… it should read “Grumman Tracer”.

Thank you chaps…..those certainly were the days!

I like the shot of the whole ship….August 1966…put Randolph Portsmouth into airliners.net and www.abpic.co.uk

http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA—Navy/GrummanS2F-3-Tracker/0881779/&sid=cdc13d420729134fe70c32df259d5681

http://www.abpic.co.uk/results.php?q=randolph+portsmouth&fields_all&sorts+latest&limit=50

Could this be of help, a few photos from Colin Louries wonderful collection, these being from the visit of said aircraft carrier to the firth of forth between 20th and 27th July 1966 !!!

Keith.

I think the Randolph was the first carrier I went on, wehn it came into the Forth estuary in 19 oatcake

Look at post 137.

Maybe it helps?

http://www.maritimequest.com/guestbook/guestbook_pages_125_149.htm

Update, gives date of overhaul

430510 A1 CV-15, USS RANDOLPH, Essex class, Essex modernization