U.S. Navcommsta Londonderry Alumni Association

Do You Remember these Derry Terms .......?

Guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and warmth to your heart!

Submitted by Catherine 'Rene' Doran Wallis, Civilian, 64 - 68

From Gordon Bauschka, RM RM, 6/66 to 5/69:  "Ah - NCS Derry in the 60s. I was there 6/66 to 5/69. What a great place! All the pictures really bring back memories. Petrol on the base for a quarter a gallon (an imperial gallon no less), a couple of shillings for a good pint of beer, movies for a couple of bob, JANAP 127, torn-tape relay, the wire room, crypto, the infamous MAPU machine, that circuit we had with the blokes (mostly WRENS) in Whitehall that used to drive us nuts, Friday nights at the club in coat and tie (remember how the mid watch would relieve the eve watch early?), marching through housing after a personnel inspection, Bridgett the blind telephone operator (never had a misplaced call), flag football - although some guys thought the flag was a permanent part of the anatomy, the bus runs, Borderland, hearing "pass the time" at Ken's Den, the commissary in the Quonset hut with two isles- no American meat, and I could on and on and on. One of my many most memorable times was when I went hunting with Rick Cavazos and Don Decker. I had bagged a pheasant, but as I approached the bird it jumped up and started to take off. Well I shot it again. But I was only a few feet away, and with a 12 gauge, well, there just wasn't much left. Rick tried to piece it together, but no luck. After that I earned the name "Great White Hunter", and they wouldn't let me go hunting with them again. It's a little sad when you talk to some of the young sailors today, they never heard of NST. Most people are surprised when you tell them that the US had a base in Ireland. I guess it was a well kept-secret, which is all right with me. Makes it even more special." 

From Chuck Pattinson (RM, 65-67): Does anyone remember in the 1960's the meat Joe Thigpen and l brought back from Preswick AFB? They (the NI government) wouldn't allow Americans to bring in any food or meat into Ireland. Joe and l got together and drove his car to Belfast and got on the ferry to Scotland. We got on a bus or in a taxi cab [memory not to good] to the AF base. We went directly to the commissary store and filled up 2 carts full of bologna, salami, and pepperoni and brought it back to our base. We passed a good bit of it around to friends and neighbors. One interesting thing happened on the way back to our base. On the ferry there was this dog. Opp's, I forgot to mention we had taken these AWOL bags with us to put the meat in. It had a zipper across the top so you not see inside. Joe and I were sitting on these wooden benches with our AWOL Bags between our feet. I saw this lady with her dog when we sat down but didn't think anything about it. Well this Dog started barking. Joe and I started thinking that damn dog was going to get us in jail. We looked down at the AWOL Bags and the bottom  of the bag was getting wet, some of the meat was thawing out. We did the only thing we could think of and that was move down away from the dog. That seem to take care of things. When the  ferry docked Joe and I got off that boat as fast as we could, got in the car and headed home (to Derry) laughing and cutting up about what just happened.