Goodwill Missions
Opportune performed missions of international goodwill and mercy on her first European cruise (April–June 1960). She escorted two Iranian ships to the entrance of the Mediterranean, then sailed directly to Agadir, Morocco, where she delivered 50 tons of clothing donated by the Navy for victims of the recent earthquake. Princess Lasla Aisha, sister of the King of Morocco, came on board to thank Opportune for her aid.
A second European cruise (May–June 1961) represented a major contribution to the strengthening of the Navy’s power to keep peace. Opportune’s captain, Lt. Comdr. Thomas F. Byrnes, Jr., took command of a task group which included four Navy and two civilian tugs. The assignment: tow to the Polaris Submarine Base at Holy Loch, Scotland, four large sections of AFDB–7, an enormous floating drydock. The 4,400-mile passage began at Mayport, Florida, and took 32 days at sea at an average speed of 5.9 knots. This difficult mission accomplished, Opportune visited Belfast, Northern Ireland, before returning to Norfolk 23 June.
Read more about this topic: USS Opportune (ARS-41)
Famous quotes containing the words goodwill and/or missions:
“Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practises. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)