Thabnks for telling and sharing your story and you fathers.guys, I'd like to share my second uncle's story here. He retired from DL ship yard 2013. May be it's not a proper thread, moderators please feel free to move it.
My father's whole family are Dalian native and they still live there, except himself. My father went to Beijing for college and finally became a professor specialized in railway system automatic control and retired there.
My father is the big brother, his second younger brother was sent to the countryside as a teenager just like everybody else in the cities of his generation. He worked hard in the village and got elected as village leader, similar with president Xi.
Then he was recommended to the navy. He served on a type 6625 torpedo boat as a gunner, then promoted to "volunteered personal", means petty officer. Finally he was in charge of everything that can shoot on the boat except the torpedo tubes, including the rifles (still a petty officer). He's a natural born swimmer so he's also a member of water polo team of North fleet. Got beaten every single time by South and East
Their role in the combat was suicide pack attack to USSR ships in yellow sea, to buy chance for subs. So they drill for this attack. He generally enjoyed his life in navy because he felt the country treated them better than most people at the time, except the drills, plus he couldn't serve on a better ship.
If the drill was during the day, they sail out at dawn, maneuver formations, then attack and out at top speed. When attack, they fire all the dummy torpedoes (not training torpedoes) as fast as possible and continue the rush to the target and fire with light machine guns attached to the 25mms and 14.5 mms. They were also trained a lot to shoot ASW helos by 25mms and 14.5mms.
Maybe because the navy had not enough funding, they often only had fuel just enough to finish the drill. Then they were tugged back by other boats who supported the drill. The boat was light, had no power, everybody all washed up in the bumping slowly moving boat. Back to the base, they check and secure the boat, eat on the boat, then do maintenance. Finally the boat's whole crew discuss and conclude the drill together, then they sleep in the boat. Next morning before dawn, the crews of whole squadron run a 5 kilo up hill. On top of the hill, they often oath under the rising sun, officers conclude the drill and give speech to lift the moral. My uncle said you will believe anything they told you under that environment and physical condition
They had good relationship with submariners. My uncle even applied a transfer to submarine, but got rejected. After nine years of service, he was told the country needs him else where and offered him a job in DL shipyard. He wanted to refuse at first because he still hoped to serve on a better ship and promote to officer (it's possible at the time). Then he was told you can build better ships for the navy and of course, how good was the job. In fact it's like the country was cutting the force of his type but didn't want to lose the good service men to nowhere.
Therefore he retired from navy with several minor citations and went to the shipyard. But in the end he never took part in any ship built for the navy
His job in the ship yard was monitoring various small parts and equipment for specific ships. Make sure the right thing was acquired, put in the right place, delivered to the right ship at right time in right condition. He did this for more than 30 years.
When the Vayag overhaul began, he was already promoted to a high position in his unit, so he won't have chance in the project. He volunteered a demotion to join the project but got rejected. He volunteered again, this time the administration guy told him this project is for people to go up the ladder, not going down. So he understood there will be more carriers built in the near future in his yard, and gave up.
After retirement, he moved to a place close to his old base in Lvshun, and walks up to that hill almost everyday. He's very satisfied how the navy is doing today.
Some specific comments on the navy from him:
We should sell all the 022s to Iran
054A is super good, they are capable of a lot of things and (should be) cheap to operate.
Old submariners told him their new torpedo is fantastic (the direct translation is "Cow p*ssy")
Navy should have more funding. Yes, he said navy is doing very good but still should have more funding.
From his own judgement, China will build CVNs and DL yard will build the first one. He refused to tell me his reasons
My father was US Navy in World War II, and then after the war becae an engineer and worked 48 years for a company that designed aiircraft and weapons systems for the Navy.
I bet the two of them (my father and yours) would have been friends. My father passed away in 2004.
Anyhow my point is...despuite governments and politicans, people are pretty much the same everywhere...the good ones. And they take pride in the work they do and work hard at it.
Anyhow, thanks.
I have taken the same path in terms of engineering and design as my father, and loved it to this day though I am retired now myself.
God's speed to you.
