Friends for life: John Ohlsson and Chuck Van Deventer, “then.”
COARSEGOLD — Former Navy man and area resident John Zingrich wanted to reconnect with shipmates on the USS John R. Perry, a destroyer escort ship that then-Naval Petty Officer Zingrich sailed on for two years in 1967 – 68 during the Vietnam era. To do this, he created a website and now, his fellow shipmates are posting pictures and memories, and catching up after nearly half a century. Literally and figuratively, their service took place during a time in their lives when boys became men.
Click on images to enlarge.
Zingrich’s carefully built website includes “then and now” photos of the sailors he served with, along with lists of those living and to honor the dead, fascinating archival images and memorabilia, a monthly trivia contest, and even recounts the fate of the ship after it was decommissioned by the Navy and finally disassembled for scrap.
Ohlsson and Van Deventer, now.
Built in the late 1950s, a destroyer escort like the USS John R. Perry (JRP) was designed to flank the outer perimeter of a fleet, protecting the aircraft carrier. During the time Zingrich worked as an engineman in the machine shop, the ship was special ops and sailed on its own. Petty Officer Zingrich was 18 when he stepped aboard the JRP for the first time, and 20 when his service aboard the ship was done.
“We had operations around the Hawaiian islands, as well as a six month cruise from Japan to the Philippines and into the Indian Ocean,” Zingrich explains, “and all the way as far as Mauritius, Diego Garcia and Mozambique. The return trip included two stops in Australia and a one-day stop in Pago Pago American Samoa.”
It’s all well-documented with first person accounts, reference sources, and links on the website Zingrich built, www.USSJohnRPerry.org.
John Zingrich began looking for old friends 15 years ago and used technology to his advantage.
“I didn’t know anything about websites when I started,” says Zingrich, the son of a career Navy man. “I got a Go Daddy account and tried it out, looking for friends and shipmates, and pretty soon I was finding so many. Every friend wanted me to find more and, it has gotten bigger and bigger. It’s now in the third year.”
The search for shipmates originally began about 15 years ago when Zingrich first discovered he could use the internet to find lost friends from around the country.
“Initially the plan was to find a handful of shipmates and get reacquainted,” he says. “Working from memory I searched online records for a person, in the vicinity of where they lived when we served together aboard ship. By 2011 I had located about 15 shipmates and, as time passed, I found a number of search sites, then honed my search skills to simplify searches.”
Naval Petty Officer 3rd Class John Zingrich, ca. 1967.
As shipmates were located, Zingrich says they asked him to find others, so he just kept going. As the list of found friends grew, he considered the possibility of making a website. Now, shipmates are finding him. About 170 men served on the USS John Perry during this time in history, and Zingrich plans to maintain the website in order that as many as possible are located and reconnected. It’s great, he says, to be able to provide this clearing house after all these years, and he’s very happy to help the process.
“A private list of names and contact information is kept and only shared with valid shipmates,” the Coarsegold resident points out, “and new pages are added to the website as the need arises.”
The JRP Band playing in an Olongopo (Philippines) bar while the house band was on break. L-R Wayne White, Zingrich on drums, John Harvey, Gary Dalgleish
After leaving the Navy, Zingrich, had a long career with the phone company that began as PT&T (Pacific Telephone and Telegraph) and wound up as AT&T. Now married to wife Kathy, he has grown children and a granddaughter who is currently in the Navy and will go into active duty early next year.
As for the USS John R. Perry, it was home ported at Pearl Harbor back in the days when Zingrich was aboard, he notes, and every time the ship came back into port after a tour, the crew dropped a lei over the bow as they were pulling in, to say “welcome home!”
Now the vessel’s shipmates have another home they’re welcomed to. This one is on the world wide web, in the form of Zingrich’s all-encompassing website. There is no cost for anything associated with the site, and it contains no ads. The search for shipmates is ongoing and the page is open for public view.
To see more of this phenomenal collection of photographs and read about the ship and its men, go to USS John R. Perry website by John Zingrich.
www.USSJohnPerry.org
Heavy seas.
USS John R. Perry underway in the Pacific Ocean (Wikipedia).
TJ Watkins and Donald C. “Smitty” Smith in the ship’s main control room.
Ed Weismann and Dave Grossman (Dave Grossman)
Returning to Pearl Harbor from Indian Ocean cruise (John Zingrich).
Back in port with a “welcome home” lei on the bow.
Family and friends gather to greet sailors returning from the Indian Ocean cruise.
Jim Sly, Harold “Smokey” Pool, Wally “Dusty” Rhodes, Mike West. A weekend camping on Waimea Bay: “It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.”
Friends for life, the later years: John Ohlsson, Chuck Van Deventer now. (John Ohlsson) – See “then” photo in article above.
Then and now.
The Luttrell brothers served together on the ship for four years, along with the Benzon twins, and father and son, the Millers.
