There are a number of web sites out there that give general information about the Tunny. Just do a web search on the name and you'll find them. One of the best ones is Tom Jordan's site. Rather than try to recreate one of those sites, I'll concentrate on personal impressions, and the kind of information that doesn't make it to the other sites.

If you run into some terminology that you don't understand, check out my submarine vocabulary list.

Tunny (which is another name for a tuna) was my third boat. I was finishing my advanced electronics school in San Diego and tried to give my detailer my list of preferences. Unfortunately, our detailer was a jerk and would deliberately not talk to any of us. We had to fill out the standard form with our preferences and take our chances.

The standard form allows you fill out you three top choices for home port, your three chices for ship type, and then state which was more important. At the time my choices were 1- A 688 class fast attck boat in San Diego, 2- Any other boat in San Diego, and 3-Any ballistic missile sub anywhere. What I ended up with was a 637 class fast attack in Bremerton Washington undergoing an overhaul, and headed to Pearl Harbor when done. This is very typical of the way the military works.

I reported to the Tunny at the Pugeot Souond Naval Shipyard. They were undergoing a refueling overhaul, and were just getting to the point where the engine room was being put back together and started up. That meant that I'd missed the extended lull in work activity and was there when things got busy again.