As for history, I'd like to hear about the history of your tour aboard. Not much occurred out of the ordinary during my tour or prior to that as it was a new ship and things were pretty quiet around the world during that period. We made two WestPac cruises, as I recall both commenced around August of '58 & '59. Hit Pearl Harbor & Hong Kong both trips, Guam, Midway, Japan, Formosa and Subic Bay. Did an Eisenhower directed People to People cruise around Japan and hit ports on both coasts that hadn't seen a U.S. ship since WWII. Transported an entire ship load of 55 gal fuel drums to Muko Jima where as I recall there was nothing but goats and a Marine Air Group. Moved part of a MAG to Formosa then from there participated in the largest Amphib landing exercise in the Northern Philippines since the war. Spent two week there with our boats in the water most of the time and assisted in putting about 10,000 marines ashore. Don't hold me to the numbers, it wasn't yesterday. That exercise was designed, I'm sure, as a power display to the Chinese who were shelling Qamoy and Matsu at the time and making noise about invading Formosa.

We did in fact, spend some time patrolling the Formosa Straits during that period and the Navy had us weld mounts for .50 machine guns all around the gunnels. An alleged Chinese tactic at that time was to place large fleets of civilian appearing junks and sampans in the path of maritime traffic thru the straits and when the ships slowed to negotiate thru the junks the Chinese would set upon them with firepower and boarding parties. Never witnessed such an event but do remember vividly running down a Junk that crossed our path on the mid-watch. He was on a collision course with us for over an hour, crossing in the red, and although I'd given the skipper constant warnings, he stuck to his guns and the rules of the road (Combat version), never wavered, and cut right thru the Junk at 20kts. It was like a slight bump in the night.

Believe it or not, we never slowed or looked back. I'm sure the orders were; let no Chinese vessel interfere with you under any circumstances.When China backed down, I always assumed it was because the Tulare with its massive firepower had terrified them. ;-) Or maybe it was the rest of TF77

I went thru the same tactics later during the Cuban blockade with Russian ships who constantly engaged in a game of chicken with us. At that time we moved our ass at the last minute, wooden MSO's would have suffered the same fate as the junk if we'd been obstinate.

The only photo I have of the Tulare is in a book by Barry Gregory titled "Vietnam Coastal and Riverine Forces." On the same page is a paragraph giving the stats of a "Tulare" Class ship. The information is completely wrong as to size, weight, speed, guns, etc.

The Tulare must have been, based on the aforementioned book, involved in support for Naval Riverine forces, but I have no personal knowledge about that. As I said earlier, would appreciate the history of your tour aboard. Don't know whether Tulare was scrapped or is in mothballs somewhere but she is no longer on any roll of naval ships that I can find.

George Dean
April 1998