Navy Nuclear Weapons
Welcome to the Navy Nuclear Weapons Association Guest Book
On a whim I searched Google maps today for the house in Albuquerque, NM that I lived in from roughly 1949 to 1952, and that search led me on an interesting and reflective journey. My father was a mustang. During WWII he was a chief yeoman [YNC] assigned to a flag staff in the SW Pacific. During his time in SWPAC, he was commissioned as an 1100 line officer. In 1949 he received orders to the Naval Administrative Unit [NAU] at Sandia Base.
I never really knew exactly what my father’s NAU job entailed other than perhaps providing administrative support for naval personnel assigned special weapons activities. After my search for my ABQ home was successful this morning, I impulsively I Googled “Naval Administrative Unit, Sandia Base, Albuquerque, NM” and discovered LCDR Mike Snyder’s jewel of analysis of NSWU Travel Order #58 dtd 24 March 1950.
No, my father was not one of the naval officers ordered to the NORVA area for approximately 12 days of TDY, but the letter gave me a tiny peek into my father’s hitherto unknown life. During our family’s ABQ years, my father embraced small arms marksmanship under the tutelage of a Marine officer attached to the unit. I went with my father out on the east mesa to practice while he honed his skills with a HiStandard .22 or a .22 model of the 1911 45. After my father retired, he trained as a gunsmith and was a licensed firearms dealer. In case I was forced to eject over the skies over North Vietnam, I carried the model 1911 .45 he bought as a dealer. It has been too many years to be certain, but I seem to recall that the marine’s name was 1st Lt. Glick, and I think he was also commissioned from the enlisted ranks in WWII.
In he past I never doubted that my father’s love of marksmanship was rooted in his love of firearms, but Mr. Snyder’s travel order investigation makes me wonder if my father’s devotion to becoming an expert marksman with the 1911 was perhaps because of a collateral duty dealing with armed security for NSWU teams and their equipment.
It wasn’t until I was in my 40’s that my mother told me that she suspected that my father’s fatal encounter with cancer at 49 (my second year in college) was due to his presence at test shots at Frenchman’s Flats in Nevada. With a high school education, he certainly was not a technician or nuclear physicist so it is a bit of a mystery why he would be present for the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Perhaps it was a perk for a NAU admin guy? Based on the eclectic personnel roster of SWU [Special Weapons Unit] included Sandia Base travel order #58, it is reasonable to assume that the raison d’être of the 1950s NAU is to provide the special weapons teams with whatever they needed to carry out their mission.
While I’d like to learn more about the role of Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club in Albuquerque, it would be Herculean task to dig out sufficient details to tell the story of the NAU of 1950s, even if the records of the NAU for that era have been declassified. Oh well.
I never really knew exactly what my father’s NAU job entailed other than perhaps providing administrative support for naval personnel assigned special weapons activities. After my search for my ABQ home was successful this morning, I impulsively I Googled “Naval Administrative Unit, Sandia Base, Albuquerque, NM” and discovered LCDR Mike Snyder’s jewel of analysis of NSWU Travel Order #58 dtd 24 March 1950.
No, my father was not one of the naval officers ordered to the NORVA area for approximately 12 days of TDY, but the letter gave me a tiny peek into my father’s hitherto unknown life. During our family’s ABQ years, my father embraced small arms marksmanship under the tutelage of a Marine officer attached to the unit. I went with my father out on the east mesa to practice while he honed his skills with a HiStandard .22 or a .22 model of the 1911 45. After my father retired, he trained as a gunsmith and was a licensed firearms dealer. In case I was forced to eject over the skies over North Vietnam, I carried the model 1911 .45 he bought as a dealer. It has been too many years to be certain, but I seem to recall that the marine’s name was 1st Lt. Glick, and I think he was also commissioned from the enlisted ranks in WWII.
In he past I never doubted that my father’s love of marksmanship was rooted in his love of firearms, but Mr. Snyder’s travel order investigation makes me wonder if my father’s devotion to becoming an expert marksman with the 1911 was perhaps because of a collateral duty dealing with armed security for NSWU teams and their equipment.
It wasn’t until I was in my 40’s that my mother told me that she suspected that my father’s fatal encounter with cancer at 49 (my second year in college) was due to his presence at test shots at Frenchman’s Flats in Nevada. With a high school education, he certainly was not a technician or nuclear physicist so it is a bit of a mystery why he would be present for the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Perhaps it was a perk for a NAU admin guy? Based on the eclectic personnel roster of SWU [Special Weapons Unit] included Sandia Base travel order #58, it is reasonable to assume that the raison d’être of the 1950s NAU is to provide the special weapons teams with whatever they needed to carry out their mission.
While I’d like to learn more about the role of Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club in Albuquerque, it would be Herculean task to dig out sufficient details to tell the story of the NAU of 1950s, even if the records of the NAU for that era have been declassified. Oh well.