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Captain Patrick Moloney mmrpat@earthlink.net
July 1989 Sept. 1989
USS Kawishiwi (T-AO-146),

I'm really a Hassayampa guy.  I spent 5.5 years on her as Cargo Mate, Chief Mate and most of the time as Master (CO).  When I was Port Capt at MSCPAC, instead of taking leave during the summer I'd assign myself as Relief Master for a month or two.  This was in 89-91.  Just checked my records: I did two relief tours on Kawishiwi.  She was a good ship but she was a West Coaster.  The Hass, and I also briefly commanded Ponchatoula were Far East ships...where the action was. 

Currently I am master of the liberty ship
SS Jeremiah O'Brien
In San Francisco
Kawishiwi got a much better conversion than the Hass when she transfered to MSC.  I was impressed when I first got aboard.  Her MSC life was the most benign of the Pac 143 class, but she had more unreps because of her FLETRAGRU assignment.  The Hass and Ponch were the ones on the IO battlegroup beat and the Far East Masters actually had contests going to see who weathered more typhoons in a given year,  Payoff was in San Miguels. 
In MSC the Hass and the Kawishiwi were homestead ships.  The same guys kept coming back for repeat tours (we could do that in MSC).  When I left the Hass in late 88, more than 75% of the crew had either been there when I got there or had joined, departed and rejoined while I was commanding.  Kawishiwi was the same.  She had a West Coast cadre crew.  For some reason, the Ponch, which had the best conversion overhaul, was never the home that the other two were. 
The Hass Vet's Assn has welcomed the MSC gang with open arms.  Hope the Kawishiwi group does to.  We loved those ships. 
I was up in the mothball fleet last fall with a select group of Hass reprobates and got a run throught the ship.  This was a week before the Hass reunion.  The Kawishiwi was just outboard the Hass and I have photos of the nest as we were approaching.  It looks like the elephant's graveyard. 


The Jeremiah O'Brien (J O'B to the crew) will be making memorial cruises on May 17 & 18.  Underway at 0900, out the Golden Gate to Bonita Cove for memorial services and casting of wreaths, then back into the Bay for a steaming tour.  Usually we go up to Richmond one day and up the Oakland estuary the other.  I do an education program on the 1MC, alternating with a swing band on #3 hatch.  Coffee/donuts on boarding and a BBQ lunch mid-day.  Return to berth at about 1530-1600. 

We do the same thing during Fleet Week in early Oct.  That's a three day gig.  I've got a spot where we go for the Blue Angels demonstration that they fly right over the ship.  I like to claim we've got skid marks on the stack. 

We are also doing a cruise to Stockton over the 4th of July weekend and a run to Sacramento over Labor Day, (right past the Kawishiwi).  Those are one way runs with a bus back to San Francisco included.On this cruise, we don't have time to get close to the mothball fleet were the J O'B languished for decades and make a presentation. I do talk it up the fleet as best I can. Anytime I have to go to Sac'to from SFo and back, I have a pair of 10X glasses with me and I stop at the overlook in Benicia at the intersection of I-680 and Lake Herman road and commune with my old girls.  All three of them, but the Hass gets most of my heart.

Aside from that she's moored at Pier 45 in SF near Fisherman's Wharf.  Every third weekend of the month is steaming weekend with the boilers lit off and the engine rolling on a slow bell. 
This year she turns 60 years old, but she's still in great shape.