Sweep down in the morning was a challenge.  This is a shot of the Forecastle with two sailors using brooms on the snow.  Did somebody say shovels? Some of these guys never saw snow before.  The storms would dump some snow on you but it was dry and mostly just blew away . . . unless you were underway and naturally we had to do so on numerous occasions.  We once had 100 Marines aboard and took them to the other side of the island to search for a couple of  lost dependent hikers.  We were all packed in like sardines.  We also rescued a fishing boat that lost its prop. Vicious weather with huge swells and the tiny boat (maybe an 80 footer) would rise up higher than Lipan and at times it looked like she would land on our fantail.  Then she'd fall away as we were on the rise and drop past us like a bathtub toy going down the drain.  And then there was the monthly visit to the Island of Atka 90 miles east of Adak.

This is Lipan tied up at the pre WW II pier that was still being used in the tiny fishing village in Kobacoff Bay on the Island of Atka.  The inhabitants, Aleut Indians, were the sole occupants of a small corner of the island and, in fact, Atka is the furthest-western civilian-populated island in the Aleutian Chain.  It is also the most isolated civilian population (there are only 102 villagers today and 45% of them are unemployed).   The pier was T-shaped and we were parallel to the top of the T with a long walk into the shoreline.  The last thirty feet or so of the pier were blown out to limit its military use. During WW II the Japanese occupied the nearby islands of Attu and Kiska.

The residents would come out to greet us in their speed boats as we pulled into the harbor monthly.  We had a U.S. Government "Goodwill" Representative aboard and he'd deliver and pickup the mail and see if there were any needs of the Aleuts.  We'd also transport people to and from Adak, where there was an airfield, if they had to leave the village for some reason.  One time we took out a woman who was 7 months pregnant to be sure that she could get to a hospital to give birth. The rustic little village was the home of some very rugged people.