USS TIDEWATER at D & S Piers
Norfolk VA - 1964

photo courtesy Bill Cook, ET2 USS Tidewater 1962-1965

estroyer & Submarine Piers was her home in Norfolk. The crew included a professional staff in the mess hall, laundry facilities, dentists, doctors, electronics technicians, electricians, pipefitters, mechinists and other repair facilities of just about every major variety. The Tidewater crew worked on over 30 destroyers each year, doing the major repairs to keep them seaworthy and battle-ready between dry dock assignments in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. It was home to between 520 to 560 crew.

Says Bill Cook, who took this photo, "I purposely wanted this picture show the Tidewater large in the foreground, because looking at her from this vantage point required a lot of rubbernecking up and down to take it all in. I think it's almost like being there."