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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b887e3850b5b6488106359b106d28c7c.pdf
680fa470135551dfd46942395954531e
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Text
Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Larry Richardson
U.S. Navy
1968-1974
Vietnam War
October 11, 2012
Trey Pitts: This is Trey Pitts in Lincolnton, North Carolina the date is October 11, 2012 and I
am interviewing Larry Richardson. Okay first question is: Where were you born?
Larry Richardson: Charlotte, North Carolina
Pitts: In what year?
Richardson: 1949
Me: When you got into the services were you drafted? Or did you volunteer?
Richardson: My dad was in the Navy, during WWII, in the Pacific, my older brother was in the
Navy on riverboats in ‘Nam, and had nowhere to go, I graduated High School, my plan was to
join the Navy, so that is what I did, in 1968.
Me: What was your rank?
Richardson: When I got out?
Me: yea
Richardson: I was E 5, second class, when I got out in 1974.
Me: You served in Vietnam, where exactly did you serve?
Richardson: I was on board a destroyer, what I call a tin can, If you ever see it up beside a battle
ship or a aircraft carrier, you will know why they call it a tin can, because that’s what it looks
like, out there on the water, it goes everywhere. I went to boot camp in Orlando, Florida in 1968.
I joined my ship which was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island at the time in 1969.
Pitts: What was the name of it?
Richardson: The USS. Keppler, DD 765, the keel for it was laid in 1946.
Pitts: While in Vietnam, were you in any battles?
Richardson: When I got on board the ship in Newport, Rhode Island in 1969, we were there for
about 3 months, we were suppose to go to the Mediterranean, had no intentions of going to
Vietnam at the time. They cancelled the cruse to the Mediterranean; they told us our home port
was now changed to Pearl Harbor. From there we made our first cruse to ‘Nam. We went
through the Panama Canal, which was awesome, even though we went through in the middle of
the night.
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�We were a support ship, the Vietnamese had no Navy. They had land armaments, canons, and
they would shoot at us. They had a bunch of sanfrans, you think they were fishing boats, but they
were the enemy
Pitts: They actually disguised them as fishing vessels?
Richardson: Yea that’s what they were; they would have Viet Cong, North Vietnamese on
them. In fact three years before I got on board in 1966, one of those fishing vessels was acting
suspicious, and our ship followed it, up the North China Sea, right off the coast of Vietnam. And
our ship followed it, they got bombarded, our ship was the first U.S Navy ship to suffer
casualties. And it is not recorded anywhere, I have looked. What we did was support the land
movements, Army, Marines, whoever they were. They would call in support and we would blow
up everything.
Pitts: Ok, so you were land support, uh sea support for land movements, so what was, right
before you got out of the Navy in 1974 what was your assignment at that point?
Richardson: I was a boiler technician, back then the boilers made the steam that turned the
turbines in the engine room that drove the ship. They do not use them anymore. After I got out
they did away with boiler technicians, they are no more, the only thing boilers are used for is to
make hot water for showers or whatever, now everything is nuclear even destroyers are nuclear.
Pitts: Was the ship coal fired?
Richardson: no it was oil, number 6 oil;
Pitts: oil, ok
Richardson: It was thick and nasty, where I was always hot, probably over 110 degrees
constantly, you were dirty, stinky. They called us snipes and bilge rats and all this stuff, cause
that what we were.
Pitts: Yea, it was a messy messy job huh….
Richardson: Yes It was, defiantly was…
Pitts: What port were you at when your ship docketed when it was not on assignmen, where did
it dock?
Richardson: Pearl Harbor
Pitts: At Pearl Harbor? So you went to and from Pearl Harbor to Vietnam and back. Ok.
Richardson: yea, we were in the 20th corps, been to several places in the western Pacific,
Southeast Asia.
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�Pitts: So, did you go anywhere else besides ‘Nam, during the war? Was you assigned…..
Richardson: Yes, we went, you talking about other ports?
Pitts: yea
Richardson: Spent a lot of time in the Philippines’, went to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Thailand, Bannock, Thailand, Taiwan, I already said that. Singapore, we were heading for
Australia, talking about did we taking fire, we were heading for Australia for R and R, we were
gone, we had already crossed the equator. That what this shirt is, my shellback shirt, I will tell
you about shellbacks in a minute. We were heading there when our sister ship, the Lloyd Thomas
DD 764, was hit in Vietnam, we would trade places. We had to turn around and go back to
relieve them; they had to come off line, so we never made it to Australia, and I always wanted to
go there.
Pitts: would have been a bit of a vacation
Richardson: oh yea that would have been cool.
Pitts: so you mentioned what was it?
Richardson: shellbacks
Pitts: yea shellbacks
Richardson: shellbacks are for when you cross the equator, you become a shellback, normal
people, and navy guys are little people, pollywogs. When you cross the equator it is a big
ceremony for your ship. Everybody that have crossed the equator before, they dress up, one of
them is going to be King Neptune, they put grease all over his belly. The pollywogs on board,
they have to go through a ritual, I doubt they do it anymore, because there are women on
board….
Pitts: oh
Richardson: you wear nothing but your underwear, and that is it, and you crawl around the
whole deck.
Pitts: around the perimeter of the ship?
Richardson: yes, around the whole deck of the ship, on your hands and knees, and they squirt
you with sea water and hit you and slap you and all this stuff. They had what they call, I don’t
know how to spell this Trey, but what they call shilalies.
Pitts: shilalies?
Richardson: It was a piece of fire hose; you know how rough fire hose is?
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�Pitts: yes, yes I do
Richardson: It was pieces of fire hose about three feet long, and rap one end of it and bind it, so
they could get a handle on it. And for weeks at a time shellbacks, the ones suppose to whoop
your rear, would soak it in sea water, and dry it, soak it and dry it.
Pitts: so that just made it harder.
Richardson: hard as a rock, as your crawling around there, they would hit you, it hurts, there not
permanently damage you, they do all this, they put a life raft on the fan tail, that’s the rear of the
ship, and fill it full of garbage from the kitchen, fill it , and water, and they collapse it, it’s got a
roof on, and you got to go in one end and come up the other, with something in your mouth, it
was terrible.
Pitts: didn’t matter what it was, just something.
Richardson: just something, didn’t matter if it was a carrot, sardine, something, it was terrible.
Remember you are on the equator, so what’s the temperature like?
Pitts: up in the 100s probably?
Richardson: pretty ripe, all this stuff was pretty ripe.
Pitts: so when you said they were on the equator, they would actually anchor right on the
equator?
Richardson: No you couldn’t anchor, there ain’t no way!
Pitts: oh yea!
Richardson: Your there around it.
Pitts: they would just stay on it, pretty much orbit it
Richardson: yea
Pitts: I don’t know why I said anchor
Richardson: but anyway, everyone squirts you and hits you, and all this stuff, then the fat belly
dude, with all the grease on his belly, you got to come you to him, state your case as to why you
should be a shellback, then they grab your head and rub it in his ol greasy belly, and then you
become a shell back. Then you’ve got king Neptune, usually the oldest shellback, that stands
there with his what do you call it..
Pitts: trident?
Richardson: trident, whatever, it was cool, every ship goes through it, I have seen it on the
military channel, an aircraft carrier, it was cool, it was December 7th, 1971, I will never forget it.
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�But you got a big certificate, I got it hanging on my wall.
Pitts: so when you went through the trash, what did you come up with?
Richardson: I don’t remember, I believe it was a sardine, dead fish or something
Pitts: more or less It just smelled bad so you wanted to get out huh?
Richardson: oh yea you wanted out of there! Anyway we had to cut short from that instead of
going on to Australia, and head for the South China Sea.
Pitts: To relieve your sister ship?
Richardson: Yea
Pitts: so when was your last tour of duty?
Richardson: My last trip to Vietnam I would say in 1972.
Pitts: two years before you got out, and that was when you was a boiler technician?
Richardson: yea I was boiler technician at that point.
Pitts: Well I guess, so when you got out, did you retire?
Richardson: No I got married while I was in the Navy; I met a gal over there in Pearl Harbor,
she was, not Hawaiian, she was a Navy brat, she was raised there, so that was why I got out, I got
out in 1974, to start another life.
Pitts: ok
Richardson: I wish I would have brought my uniform with me.
Pitts: yea, what medals did you receive?
Richardson: I got my service medal, everyone gets those, then I have a Vietnam service medal,
a good conduct medal, basically that is it. Since we were not involved in hand to hand, we did
not get any of those, we were support, we did our job, the ship got awards, so, no medal of
honor.
Pitts: You mentioned the shellbacks, so what else sticks in your memory?
Richardson: things I will never forget, going through the Panama Canal, after we had went
through, the Panama Canal, we were going to go to stop for a little R and R in Arco Poco, we
didn’t, our ship broke down, we were dead in the water, If you look out at the ocean there in the
south Pacific, it looks like glass, it looks calm, but it wasn’t real slow moves, our ships rolled
side to side and you thought it would tip over, the moves were so drastic.
Pitts: did anyone get sick?
Richardson: oh yea people got sick all the time, I never did, a fuel pump went out in our fire
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�room, You got two fire rooms one boiler each in them, I was in the aft fire room, we busted our
rears, it took ours, literally hours, took about twenty hours or so, that stopped our R and R into
Arco Poco, we went in to San Diego, were talking about 1969, beautiful city. When your out on
the open sea, you just think this place is vast, one of our duties was escorting aircraft carriers,
and planes would take off 24/7, at night it was an awesome sight, they would come back in at
night.
Pitts: One thing I meant to ask you was, I know during WWII, ships were limited on how much
light they could give off, did they do the same thing during nahm?
Richardson: oh yes, we were in reach of land, I guess you could say, we could not open any
hatch leading to the outside, no smoking on deck, none of that, you could go forward to aft
inside and never go outside, you had to be secure. And you always training, when you were not
on duty, they did a lot of training, lot of damage control.
Pitts: so they basically ran scenarios.
Richardson: yea, over and over, so you could be automatic if anything happened.
Pitts: did they do any weapons training?
Richardson: Yea oh yea, when we were out in the middle of the pacific, when you are out there
doing nothing, your are training, damage control safety or you were weapons training small
arms, 45 automatic, M 16, we did not get to do a lot of that, and I loved that.
Pitts: so all other training was basically, everyone was a fireman.
Richardson: yea, got a lot of gunpowder on board, armament, and that was what happed when
we did get hit, it blew up the front gun torrent, pretty major. Another thing when you go to
foreign countries, at least then, I don’t know how it is now I haven’t been to a foreign country
since 1974 or so, for instance we would go into Sewage Bay, in the Philippines, and there was a
bridge there we had to cross from the base to town, we would cross this bridge, but You thank
God for America, when you are in these foreign countries, we had a name for this river, but I’m
not going to repeat it, these little kids were swimming in this river, and they would holler up at
you to throw in a dime or something, and they would dive down and get it, and all the sewage in
the world ran into this river, it was terrible. Went to Hong Kong, made several trips to Hong
Kong, the city itself, it was like New York, beautiful. We toured this city and you would see
signs that let you know that it was Red China and not to got there, at the time England controlled
Hong Kong, There was a grave yard, and what they would do is they would bury someone, and
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�in a few years dig theme up an bury someone else in that hole. There was no room you were on
an island, big apartments, looked like outside of Washington D.C, thousands of people living
there. Every country I went to had its good and bad side.
Pitts: I guess this was during R and R?
Richardson: oh yea, we were not there for very long, reloaded with food, supplies and stuff like
that, and another thing I remember was refueling at sea, it was an amazing thing to see, cause
again everyone had a job, you job may be no more than to stay out of the way.
Pitts: that was your job.
Richardson: that was your job, and you better do, don’t want to get in the way, very dangerous,
because you were side by side with a ship, nothing ever happened, I never say anything bad
happen, planes taking off at night was just one of the most awesome things. Pearl Harbor itself,
beautiful, where we docked, when we were home, was right across from the Arizona memorial,
the whole island was full of memorials, would I do it again, in a heartbeat!
7
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/75af38983675344eb90a2a1fc5184cf9.mp3
ee77a7ce4aa75037f25189bb029303f7
Dublin Core
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Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
File size
49 KB
30.3 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Navy
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pitts; Trey
Richardson; Larry
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Pitts, Trey
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Richardson, Larry
Interview Date
10/11/2012
Number of pages
7
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:26:33
Date digitized
2/9/2015
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alphanumeric code
43375089912d4c8d3e89b74dbdafcf65
ee77a7ce4aa75037f25189bb029303f7
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Leah McManus
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Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
Resolution
300
Rights
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Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used.
Source
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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5018_Richardson_Larry_20121011_transcript_M
5018_Richardson_Larry_20121011_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Larry Richardson [October 11, 2012]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
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English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pitts, Trey
Richardson, Larry
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Description
An account of the resource
Larry Richardson served in the Navy 1968-74 aboard the USS Keppler. He was an E5 2nd class when he left the army and was a working as a boiler technician, making the steam that would allow the engine to run. His ship came and left out of Pearl Harbor.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richardson, Larry
Veterans
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
1968-74
boiler technician
E5
Larry Richardson
Navy
Pearl Harbor
USS Keppler
Viet Cong
Vietnam