The most impressive weapon on the A-7 Corsair II that I flew with the Arizona Air National Guard was the Gatling Gun. It was an internally mounted 20mm cannon that had 6 barrels that rotated and had two rates of fire that were selected by a switch on the instrument panel. Low was 4000 rounds per minute and High was 6000 rounds per minute. For our training rides we only loaded the gun with 125 rounds and tried to make 5 short bursts. To do this, you put the pipper on the target and gave a very brief squeeze of the trigger. A common error our students would do at first was squeezing the trigger until they heard the gun fire and letting it go. If you did that at high rate, you would have fired 40 to 50 rounds! The gun was rotating so fast that it would eject roughly 5 unfired shells back into the collection bin before it stopped spinning.

I made these four photos in HUE Vietnam 1968, Anthony P. Gawrys I was just 20 yrs old in the making. I was involved in Art when I was 3yrs old and drew all kinds of cartoon characters perfectly.

I started my photography career in 1967 during my service days. I was on special detachment to Okinawa from HUE Vietnam 1968. While in Oki. I bought a brand new Minolta SRT 101 35mm film camera with a 58mm f1.4 lens.

In photo 1, I picked up the little boy and sat him on the Honda motorcycle. I focused my camera, composed, took one shot and walked away.

Photo 3, shows a man hauling his load. Notice he's smoking a cigarette, that's not a Marlboro, it's a joint!

Photo 4, shows girls disembarking from the perfume river.

My Food photography hadn't started yet, we have to wait 40 years longer! CIAO, AP

As noted in the previous at sea day photos (https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-667900-1.html ), we cruised up the River Thames at night, arriving at our berth in Greenwich around 1 AM on this, our final full day of the cruise. We disembarked from the Viking Star the following morning for a two-day extension in London before our return flight home. As you can see, we had beautiful and warm weather, with temperatures in the low 80 F range. This was our second visit to London; our first being in July 1973 when the weather was almost identical. There are 6 parts to our day in Greenwich, ending with two sets from a small group tour of the Tower of London in the evening.

Greenwich is an area of South East London, England, centred 5.5 miles (8.9 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross. It is within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, to which it lends its name. Historically it was in the county of Kent for hundreds of years, then the County of London from 1889 to 1965.

Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. The town became the site of a royal palace, the Palace of Placentia from the 15th century, and was the birthplace of many Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was demolished to be replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained a military education establishment until 1998 when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public; other buildings are used by University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

The town became a popular resort in the 18th century and many grand houses were built there, such as Vanbrugh Castle (1717) established on Maze Hill, next to the park. From the Georgian period estates of houses were constructed above the town centre. The maritime connections of Greenwich were celebrated in the 20th century, with the siting of the Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV next to the river front, and the National Maritime Museum in the former buildings of the Royal Hospital School in 1934.

We were berthed at a floating dock in the river and had to take a shuttle boat to and from the ship. The photos in this set were taken from the ship between 11:22 and 11:51 AM. You can see the Greenwich Pier Passenger Dock where we got off to go into Greenwich at the far right of the first photo. The Old Royal Naval College is just past the pier. The boat in the second and third photo is the Bert Prior, a general cargo vessel. Central London is in the background of the third photo.

Adjacent to the Greenwich Pier in the fourth photo is the Cutty Sark, a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development, which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.

The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steamships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display.

Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet. She is one of only three remaining original composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) clipper ships from the nineteenth century in part or whole, the others being the City of Adelaide, which arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia on 3 February 2014 for preservation, and the beached skeleton of Ambassador of 1869 near Punta Arenas, Chile.

The ship has been damaged by fire twice in recent years, first on 21 May 2007 while undergoing conservation. She was restored and was reopened to the public on 25 April 2012. On 19 October 2014 she was damaged in a smaller fire.

Cutty Sark whisky derives its name from the ship. An image of the clipper appears on the label, and the maker formerly sponsored the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Race. The ship also inspired the name of the Saunders Roe Cutty Sark flying boat.

The preceding is from Wikipedia; more information can be found in the article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutty_Sark

The next photo is looking up the river toward Central London. The next photo shows the roof of the O2; see photo number 5 in my previous post.

We decided to wander around the ship on our final day onboard and part of that is shown in the next three photos. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my favorite part of the ship was the Explorer’s Lounge. There are two: a lower lounge on deck 7 and a smaller upper one above it on deck 8 near the bow. The first of these photos is looking aft into the library area of the upper lounge, the other looking forward. You can see the Cutty Sark in this photo. The final photo of these three is of the Sun Deck Lounge, with some of the exercise equipment and the putting greens. This is on deck 9 (the uppermost deck) above the Upper Explorer’s Lounge.

The final photo in this set is a closer photo of Central London. This was taken with my 18-135 lens at 135 mm; we were about 4 miles from Westminster Abbey.

After our final lunch on the ship, my wife decided to relax on the ship. I ventured off into Greenwich, the photos of which will be in the next 3 sets.