(Continued from ASSOCIATION, page 1)

and all other interested parties are encouraged to join by sending your check made to Chopper Association, c/o

Bob Stamper
11301 Sandpine
Riverview, FL. 33569

Be sure to include your name and address, Tel #, Email address, Yrs aboard and rate/rank.  Please note if you initially qualified aboard Chopper as well.

If you're not sure if you have already joined, look at the mailing label.  If it says COMPLIMENTARY COPY, you have not yet joined.

As much as we'd like to, we just cannot afford to send the newsletter to non-Chopper association members, so we hope you'll rejoin the Chopper crew.

Other sources of information about Chopper and future reunions will include notices in various veteran related magazines and Internet veteran related sites.  For those with email, periodic notices will be sent in addition to information provided by this newsletter.

ROCKET SHIP!

Did you know that Chopper was one of the first three U.S. submarines equipped to launch rockets?  USS Barb actually made use of rockets launched from temporary tubes on her decks.  Chivo and Chopper were equipped for the same purpose but the war ended before they could be put to use.

It's probably a good thing because, according to Jim Parrish (who was a crewman at that time)  in practice runs, the rockets proved to be wildly erratic and more a danger to the boat than any enemy.

My First Skipper and
Angles and Dangles
by CAPT Robert T. Styer, USN(Ret.)

Captain Enders Huey was my first submarine skipper (USS CHOPPER (SS 342) in 1951. I reported to CHOPPER at the Electric Boat Company Shipyard where CHOPPER was undergoing overhaul. Captain Huey had a beef with the Bureau of Personnel over the policy that the time requirement for an officer to be eligible for Qualification in Submarines, which was one year, could not include time in a shipyard.

He believed that was a perfect time for young

(Continued on page 4)

(Continued from CHOPPER HISTORY - 1940s; page 6)

USS CHOPPER underwent a shipyard overhaul in San Francisco CA, November 1948 and in March 1949, departed for a new training assignment to Commander Submarine Squadron Four in Key West , Florida, via the Panama Canal. She reported for duty in April 1949 and remained in the Key West area until September 1950

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