Jim Walters
(3/4/04 3:30 pm)
Zone Inspections and Western Movies
I served as an RM aboard Atakapa from roughly 1965 to 1968. The skippers during this time
frame were LCDR Gott, and Lt Curtiss.
During Lt Curtiss' time, a fairly formal zone inspection regimen held sway. The ship was divided
into three sections, and the CO, XO and one of the other officers (Ops, Deck, or Engineering)
oversaw the inspections, and rotated through the zones.
LCDR Gott had command prior to Lt Curtiss, and I don't recall any zone inspections. I do recall
standing an RM mid-watch one morning while underway.
I left the shack briefly to drop a copy
of a message through the slot in the storekeeper's office. It had to be around 2 AM local time, and
finding the skipper out and about this early surprised me. He was in his "standard" uniform:
khaki pants, T-shirt, and slippers. He was checking the inspection tag on a fire extinguisher in the
passageway outside the storekeeper's office.
I can also remember what happened when we got hold of the John Wayne movie "McClintock."
LCDR Gott enjoyed the movie enough that we got to see it about 4 evenings in a row, with one
unscheduled afternoon showing on the mess decks on a weekday workday.
I guess he rather
enjoyed it.
Later we'd come across one called "The Red Garter." The ship we'd swapped movies with
assured us it was a western, but wouldn't say much more than that. It was about the only movie I
can recall emptying out the mess decks during one of our movie calls.
Jim Walters
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