Ronald Rejician sent this email regarding his duty during Operation Dominic.
From: GRUNGEY@aol.com
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999
Subject: Re: avets
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Wow! I was on the USS UTE at Johnson Island, saw one of the blasts from the
main deck, we hung around a while, then went to christmas island for clean up
and R&R.
Great site.
By the way, am registered at the PA. Veterans Admin as an atomic vet.
Thanx for the flash back.
Ronald A. Rejician
Currently living in pennsylvania, lehigh valley.
By the way, I would like the place where I can get my military records.
Thanx.
We left Pearl on the USS UTE-ATF-76 and headed for Operation Dominic at Johnston Island. The captain said we'd be pretty close to the Equator so he made a run for it. The Salts (Shellbacks) were realy spooking us with what they were going to do with us. Preparations were being made and we were sweaing it. Ultimately SOPA called us off the run and we had to head directly for Johnston Island.
We had some kind of big cubicle on the fantail with "engineering/measuring" stuff in it, along with some of what we would call Dweebs/Nerds etc today.
The ship was running battle readiness drills all the way down there, except the shipfitters I think. They were making a salt water washdown system with pipe and sprinklers. We anchored at the blast site? I don't know how close, but we saw the column of vapor, it was pinkish inside. Then the ocean got bright like diamonds them immediately it got very smooth. Following that was a very large b-a-n-g! We imagined it to be the shock wave hitting the ship, then the sprinkler system went off. That was that. We hung around, I think a couple of days, then went to Christmas Island. It was simply swimming in some ponds and lagoons.
The Navy gave me 2 documents, ID'd me as an engineer kind of, "Know Ye By All, blah blah with his engineering skill etc. Spring and Summer of "62"
I have 2 documents, one of them color, one black and white with a huge mushroom cloud in the background. I'm working on getting a better graphics package for my computer/scanner. If I can make it work, I'll try and send you copies. They are pretty impressive, to me any how.
I was an engineman, probably 3rd or second class then. I was 20 years old at the time.
Thank you for your reply and interest. Keep up the excellent work.
Ronald A. Rejician
USS UTE-ATF-76
Email: GRUNGEY@aol.com
Keith Whittle
August 13, 1999
[ Operation Dominic 1 ]