User talk:Wgthompson

USS Lapon (SSN-661)

 * "Wwoods Thanks for your recent cleanup of my revisions to the Lapon history. The indexing, etc. was a big help. I was an officer on Lapon from pre-commissioning (1966) through mid 1970. There are several small errors I would propose correcting. I believe the statement, "She spent most of 1968 going through training programs and cruising along the East Coast of the United States. Into 1969, she prepared for a Mediterranean Sea deployment with the Sixth Fleet," appeared in one of the PR pamphets published later in Lapon's career. In fact, we spent most of our time training along the East Coast every year. In the latter part of 1968, Lapon deployed on special operations (not in the Med), earning a Meritorious Unit Commendation. To my knowledge, no plans were made to visit the Med during my tour of duty. So, unless you have information to the contrary, I propose eliminating those sentences. Also, I have some trouble with 31 August 2004 as the date the ship ceased to exist. I have seen this date used before, but have been unable to verify what it actually means. Can you help? Again, on behalf of the rest of the crew, thanks. Bill"

By all means fix any errors you see. Also, if you could expand the itemized list into paragraphs, that'd be nice. That sentence came from DANFS, but that article is so short I can easily believe it's just wrong. Maybe copied from some other ship's history by mistake?

In checking Navsource.org for pictures, I noticed a "commemorative postal cover marking the completion of scrapping of the Tautog (SSN-639) & Lapon (SSN-661) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. 31 August 200[4]", so I used that. But the NVR says "Status: Disposed of by submarine recycling Date status changed: 11/30/2004" so maybe that's a better date? —wwoods 18:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)