U.S.S. ABBOT  •  DD 629

Abbot 1957-1958

John Alford, a chief petty officer aboard Abbot on the late 1950s, used a 16mm camera with color film to record the 1958 Mediterranean cruise and a large NATO exercise.

The NATO footage is apparently of Operation Strikeback in September 1957. This was a massive exercise involving more than 200 warships and 650 aircraft from six nations, a show of international force to the Soviet Union.

“The NATO exercise had the largest concentrations of ships since World War II,” John wrote in a letter. “You will see a helicopter bringing Ensign George Mullen aboard.”

“An aircraft came over several times while were were at anchor at Annapolis prior to the Med deployment,” he said. “I got some slow motion shots, too.”

Several of John’s other Cold War stories are posted in the Memories section.

The film is not in chronological order, so footage of the aircraft carriers Saratoga (CV 60) and Intrepid (CV 11) taken during the NATO exercise are mixed with Mediterranean scenes. All of the film was shot aboard Abbot or during an Abbot port-of-call.

Film

This video copy of the 16mm original color film was made in 2010. We have edited some 30 minutes of raw footage to a little less than nine minutes, balanced the color and improved the contrast in several scenes. The two edited versions are identical except for frame size. Apple Quicktime or compatible software is needed to view either version.

A full 30-minute unedited version is also provided, without captions or color correction.

The still photos at the bottom of this page were taken from the master video and were individually color balanced as much as possible. Scratches on the original film were not removed.

Choose a video:

MOV Large [250MB]. Silent, 9 minutes

iTunes/iPod or for slow Internet [60MB]. Silent, 9 minutes

MOV complete unedited version [350MB]. Silent, 30 minutes

Stills

USS Abbot 1957-1958

Abbot at sea	Abbot at sea	Barcelona, Spain	Cannes, France
Cannes, France	Cannes, France	Barcelona, Spain	Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona, Spain	Montserrat, Spain	Barcelona, Spain	Abbot at sea
Abbot at sea	Destroyer tender Cascade (AD-16) Possibly Newport, R.I.	Saratoga (CV 60)	Saratoga (CV 60)
John Alford in London	Kingston, Jamaica	Kingston, Jamaica	Kingston, Jamaica

About the video formats

Abbot videos are offered in several Quicktime-compatible formats.

Quicktime MOV or MP4 Large/Medium: Large frame and high-quality sound, for newer computers on high-speed Internet connections. Suitable for downloading.

MP4 Small: Small frame, similar to the iTunes/iPod format, but included for older computers or those on slow Internet connections.

iTunes/iPod: Formatted for small screens and requires Quicktime 7 or newer to play. Although intended to be played in video-enabled iPods or on iTunes software, it is also fine for viewing on line.

iPhone/Mobile Phone: A few of the videos are in 3GP format, which is designed for play on newer cellular telephones that have multimedia (also known as 3G) capabilities. We offer no technical advice about getting files onto a mobile device, but each video has been tested on a 3G phone. Turns an expensive mobile device into a real tin can!

For slower Internet connections, try downloading the videos before viewing. A download link is provided for each film under the video display frame. PC users can right-click the link to save the file to the hard drive; Mac users can press the Option key while clicking on the link.

If you have iTunes 7 (or newer) or a video-capable iPod — or if you know how to use RSS software — you can download all Abbot videos at once and get automatic notification of any new videos. We have easy-to-follow instructions.