He Commands a One-Man Navy That Goes Everywhere, but Never Ventures Out to Sea

Bruce A. Richardson is a Navy chief petty officer who has command of the battleship Nevada, the cruiser Los Angeles and the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Long Beach. Now he’s building an aircraft carrier, and the unlikely home port for the massive model ships is a dry tunnel which runs under Seal Beach Boulevard and stretches through the Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach, where Richardson is stationed.

“We take the ships to at least 100 parades a year,” said Richardson, a quartermaster who lives in Garden Grove. “They get a lot of attention from young people who may someday think about a career in the Navy.”

The ships are towed by trucks to the parades and such other activities as career days at schools, shopping malls “or to just about any clean cut American type program,” said Richardson, a 19-year veteran.

The cruiser Los Angeles is 45 feet long, the Nevada is 38 feet and the missile cruiser Long Beach 30 feet.

The ships are hardly seaworthy, but the huge models are accurate representations of the real ones. The original Nevada was struck by a torpedo and beached following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It was later repaired and sent into action.

The model of the Nevada had its beginnings as a Japanese battleship for the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora,” which depicted the days just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

After the movie was completed, the superstructure of the model was removed and fitted with the likeness of the Nevada as a gift from the film company. Richardson, who has been caretaker of the ships for 12 years, says he’s starting to see young men in the service who once were schoolchildren watching the parades.

“It takes time to get the message across about the Navy,” said Richardson, who is attached to the Los Angeles Navy Recruiting District, which includes 51 recruiting officers.

“If they ask me about Navy life, I tell them they can be someone,” said Richardson, a one-time lumber camp worker and later builder of luxury yachts in Newport Beach. “There’s opportunity for everyone who wants to join.”

Beside youngsters, adults who once served aboard the ships are curious spectators. “It’s as if they want to perpetuate something that was very close to them,” said Richardson, who attended Costa Mesa High School and Orange Coast College. “We get some real good public response.”

The first Fullerton Police Charity Golf Classic will be held Jan. 26 at Los Coyotes Country Club in Buena Park, and wouldn’t you know the cops will begin the 10 a.m. tournament with a shotgun start.

“No pun intended,” said police spokesman Sgt. Bud Lathrop. (A shotgun start is where players tee off on every hole at the same time.)

Tustin Marine Corps Air Station fireman Ron Vernengo has for years been collecting fire box keys, fire helmets, fire extinguishers and other memorabilia and at times puts it all on display for Fire Prevention Week.

“You buy one, get two and then you’ve got to have three,” he said of his growing collection. “Before you know it, you don’t have anywhere to put them.”

To the rescue came Joseph Anderson, the air station’s fire chief who provided display space in a classroom and then asked other firefighters to chip in some of the fire memorabilia they had collected, figuring he could show it at public fire prevention programs.

“Once the word was out, it had almost an avalanche effect,” he said.

No doubt, he’s now looking for a larger classroom.

Libraries have always been good to Elizabeth J. Schultz, 74, of Anaheim, especially when she was growing up. “It was the first place my parents

took me when I could read,” said Schultz

a one-time children’s librarian in Orange and more recently a member of the Anaheim Public Library Board. She retired after 32 years on the board, and the City Council gave her a resolution of appreciation at one of its meetings where the packed audience gave her a standing ovation.

Said Schultz: “It really overwhelmed me.”

Acknowledgments--Craig Broscow, a junior at Cypress High School, won $1,000 for a Bill of Rights speech he wrote and presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Science and Industry. The Cypress High speech department he represented also received a $1,000 award.