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Welcome Aboard!
If you
ever served aboard the USS enry WHenry W. Tucker DD/DDR 875,
this is your website. We hope
that the site will help you reconnect with your shipmates and bring you to
a reunion. Enjoy!
The USS Henry W. Tucker was in
commission in the US Navy from 1945 to 1973 and saw service in World War
II, the Korean Conflict, the “Cold War” and Vietnam. Through much of her career she was a
DDR (Radar Picket Ship) and was involved in many activities, such as the
atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, the NASA Apollo program, and the U-2
flights. in 1973, she was
decommissioned and sold to the Brazilian Navy and became the Marcilio Dias D25. She was in commission in Brazil
from 1973 to 1992. After nearly
50 years continuous service, she was decommissioned and was sunk in target
practice by a torpedo of Brazilian design fired from a submarine of
Brazilian design, which was an historic event. One of her officers sent us a
newspaper article and photos of the sinking. To see the photos and a translation,
please click here. Thanks to Mike McDermott (LTJG, 68-69) for translating the article from
Portuguese to English. Click on
“history” at the top of any page to view the history.
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Newsletters
The
April 2010 newsletter is now on
the website. Please click here to view the newsletter and all
previous newsletters.
The newsletter
was originally posted on April 13 and has been revised as of April 14. On page one, the year of the reunion
was incorrect. This is the only
change.
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Crew Information
The
Crew Pages have been updated
as
of April 9, 2010.
Please
click on “her crew” at the top of any page to access the crew
pages. Please contact Bob Miller (MM3, 62-65) if
you find errors in your listing.
If this is your first visit to the site and you are a crew member,
please contact Bob, our Crew Locator, so you can be added to the database
and mailing list and begin receiving newsletters. There is now a crew page for Marcilio Dias shipmates. If you served aboard the Marcilio
Dias, please contact Bob with your name, email address, your rate or rank
and the years you were aboard.
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History
HWT History in Book Form
Update: April 9, 2010
Gary
O’Neil received a shipment of books from the printer. Unfortunately, he found several
errors by the printer. The
printer has arranged to pick the books up and they will be reprinted. As soon as the new shipment arrives,
Gary will
let everyone know.
Gary O'Neil has the history ready for printing as a book in
full color. We are asking everyone to please let us know if you are
interested in purchasing a book. Prices are expected to be in the
$20-$25 range. This does not include shipping due to unknown weights
and postage. USPS Media Mail
will be used for the lowest postage rate. If you are interested,
please contact Bill Siler (jwsilerbtc@earthlink.net,
or 540-483-5727) or Gary O'Neil (goneil@new.rr.com).
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The History
files have been updated
as of October 27, 2009.
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Many
shipmates have contributed to the history of the ship and Gary O’Neil (FTR3, 63-66) has
done a fantastic job compiling the information and verifying accuracy. The history is separated into
five-year segments. There are
also segments on the Marcilio Dias, statistics of the ship, medals the ship
earned, the plankowners’ list, and the history of Henry Warren
Tucker, for whom the ship was named.
Click on “History”
at the top of any page to access these documents. Please visit often as it is updated
on a regular basis. If you
would like to contribute to the history project, please email Gary. Copies of the history are available
on CD. Please contact Gary
to order a CD.
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Pictures
Tom Byrne (RM2, 60-62) has created pages
for photographs on the site. He
has created an index to make them easy to find. Please click on
“pictures” at the top of any page. If you have photos that you would
like to contribute, please contact Tom.
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Cruise Books
Bob Miller is in the
process of having cruise books reproduced on CD. If you would be interested in
getting a CD of the cruise book from your time aboard ship, please click here for Bob’s letter about the cruise
books and to see images of the cover of the books.
If you
would like to order a cruise book CD, please email Bob.
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Ship’s Store
Please
check out the Ship’s
Store for baseball caps, jackets and shirts.
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Veteran Information
High Priority!!!
TRICARE
and TRICARE for Life (government health insurance for active duty and
retired military personnel) will NOT
be affected by the recently passed Health Care Bill. No benefits will be lost. Larry May sent this link from
Military.com which explains.
http://www.military.com/military-report/beneficiaries-vets-shielded-from-health-reform
Please
visit the Veteran Information
page for information that is of interest to all veterans.
RAO Bulletins, newsletters full of useful
veterans’ information will be linked from this page. These are compiled by James Tichacek USN (Ret) who does
an excellent job of collecting information and getting it out to a wide
audience of veterans. We thank
Jim for giving permission to post his bulletins.
There
is a link to a page of documents on Agent Orange Exposure and other health
issues which were contributed by Jim Alvarez (GMG1, 69-70).
If you
need a replacement DD 214 Form
(needed to apply for VA benefits), there is a link to the form and
instruction sheet.
Please
visit this page often. If you
know of any information and/or benefits for veterans that could be included
in this section of the site, please contact Pat Siler.
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Website Information
Our webmaster is Pat
Siler, wife of James W. “Bill” Siler, Jr. (BT3,
62-64). Pat also writes the USS
Henry W. Tucker Newsletter. Please email Pat with any
information for the website or newsletter. If you receive your newsletter
via US Mail and have an email address, please send your email address to
Pat Siler. With postage costs
increasing every year, we try to send as many out via email as possible to
save money.
Facebook Group
If you are on Facebook, we have a group page for
shipmates. Type USS Henry W.
Tucker in the search box at the top of any page and then click on the name
of the ship. On the left-hand side
of the page click on Join Group and you’re in. If you’re not on Facebook, we
invite you to join. Go to http://www.facebook.com
and follow the instructions to join.
The original website was created by Terry
Williams (SK3, 69-71). We all owe a debt of gratitude to
Terry. If he hadn't created this site in 1997, there would be no reunions
and most of us would be still wondering whatever happened to the ship and
our shipmates.
The current “second generation” of the website was
created in 2003 by Kevin B. Skislock, son of the late John F. Skislock (SN1/c,
45-47). Thanks to Kevin for
creating this wonderful site.
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This website is neither authorized,
endorsed by, nor approved by the United States Department of the Navy. The sole purpose of this site is to
reunite former shipmates, provide reunion information and is a collection
of their memories.
This page was updated: 14-Apr-10
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USS
Henry W. Tucker
DD 875
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