01/15/12 : Come join the USS Brewton Group on Facebook.

03/04/11 : A video of the Fong Yang FFG-933 (Ex USS Brewton FF-1086) in port in Taiwan. She's still as pretty as she ever was.

01/19/10 : Via John Harris: It is with great sadness that I inform you that Captain John W. Kinnier, USN Ret., former CO of the Brewton, passed away on Sunday, January 16, 2011 of natural causes at his home in Loch Raven, Maryland. Visitation will take place at the Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, 6500 York Road, Baltimore Maryland, 21212, on Thursday, January 20, 2011 from 2:00PM-4:00PM and 7:00PM-9:00PM. The Funeral will be held at the Govans Presbyterian Church, 5828 York Road, Baltimore Maryland, 21212, on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 11:00AM. Interment at Arlington National Cemetery is expected to take place some time in May. Details will be forthcoming.

01/05/10 : Absolutely amazing. The guestbook was online for 1 HOUR and got 5 spam posts. I don't have time to keep cleaning that up. Guestbook is now viewable but not signable (as it has been for a couple of years now).

01/05/10 : Guestbook is online.

01/04/10 : Shipmate listing and registration is back online. Guestbook and bulletin boards are still dead.

12/22/10 : The page is coming back to life... slowly. Please be patient.

07/14/10 : Shipmates, the USS Brewton page is temporarily offline. Recently a hacker found a way to insert malicious code into the website, and it was shut down by our internet provider until it can be cleaned and made secure again. This will not be quick process. We have many thousands of images and pages that will need to be restored from backups, and many sections of program code that will need to be reviewed and updated. I will do this as time allows. It may be a month or it may be a year, but rest assured the USS Brewton website WILL BE BACK. In the meantime, if you need contact information for a shipmate, please let me know and I will send it to you. Thanks for your patience.

06/17/10 : Shipmate listings are back online and all caught up. Sorry for the down time!

06/04/10 : The shipmate listing pages are broken. The hosting company that serves the website appears to have made changes to their system that caused this. I will be out of town until the week after next, but I will get this resolved as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience. Mark.

12/17/08 : Dave Conley (MM 84-86) has a MASSIVE display of lights up this year. Check out this interview with his local news channel. Nice work Dave!

11/15/08 : I've been forced to change email addresses due to a move, and unfortunately all of my pending mail was deleted. If you filled out the shipmate registration form in the last few weeks, it was not received. Please send it again.

03/01/08 : Mike McCain and a few of us are getting together in Nashville, August 15-17. This should be a fun weekend get-away, and anyone who wants to come is welcome. Contact me or Mike if you're interested in coming. See you there!

01/01/08 : Happy New Year shipmates. Amazing how time flies. It's been 36 years since BREWTON's commissioning, and 16 years since her decommissioning. January 11, 2008 marks the 38th anniversary of the death of LTJG John Brewton. Good men deserve to be remembered. Thank you, Sir.

07/26/07 : Posted a great picture of the USS Brewton in Hong Kong Harbor December 25, 1980 from Lieutenant Mike Mohn, Navigator USS Rathburne FF-1057 in photo gallery #2 (Photo #272). Thanks Mike!

06/18/07 : Sometimes people update their email addresses and phone numbers after a long time. Shipmates may have tried to reach people at the old information, and don't know that it's been updated since then. To fix this, and help you spot new additions, the shipmate listing has been changed so that anyone who's information has been updated within the last year will have a little picture show up next to their name like this: . Thanks to Donald Green for reminding me that this needed to get done. Let me know what you think.

03/10/07 : The USS BREWTON website is celebrating it's 10th year on the internet. The site was first posted in 1997. Time sure flies! A lot has happened over the years, but one thing has not changed. USS BREWTON sailors are stil the finest people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Thank you for your support! Mark

11/10/06 : Visible signs of progress have been detected on the Westpac 80-81 cruise book.

09/29/06 : Received scans of the first five pages of the Westpac 80-81 cruise book from Bud Humphries (EM2 80-82) tonight. These were the only pages that had been damaged beyond repair from the copy that we recently scanned. Thank you Bud! We'll get to work updating these, and continuing work on the rest of the book ASAP.

06/24/06 : Posted a huge batch of pictures from Rick Heaslet, and another great one from James Lowry in photo gallery #2 (Photos #223-271). Rick (RM3 73-75) was onboard the BREWTON during her first Westpac, and got some great shots of the events. Don't miss these! James (YN3 82-86) recently represented BREWTON and the US Navy in a Memorial Day parade - and carrying the colors, no less.

05/09/06 : Sorry for the lack of updates on the new cruise book. I've been busy helping out with my high school reunion. It should be done in a couple of weeks and I'll get back to the site updates.

03/24/06 : Jeff Thompson (STG2 80-82) loaned me his copy of the Westpac/Southpac 1980-81 cruise book. It's all been scanned in, and we'll start work on posting it to the website. Unfortunately the years were rough on this copy, and it suffered some. But it's nothing that a little digital computer trickery can't fix up. Here's a picture of the original cover, and another of the restored cover. Nearly all of the content inside is perfectly fine, with the exception of the first three pages. Does anyone have another copy of this book? If so, I would really appreciate it if you could scan in the first three pages and send them to me. No promises about when this will be finished. It's a big one, at 115 pages long.

02/21/06 : Posted a very nice picture of the BREWTON passing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Franciso, 1984, carrying the remains of the Vietnam war unknown soldier. You can see it in photo gallery #2 (Photo #222). Photo was submitted by Larry Groce, USN veteran from Vietnam. Thank you Larry! .

02/03/06 : The family and I took a vacation to Hawaii in Jan. While we were there, I looked up my former boss, STG2 David Flad. Here's a picture of the two of us. I think Dave weathered the storm of time with fewer losses than I did. I'm (STGSN Mark Lookabaugh) the one wearing the stupid touristy Hawaiian shirt. Ah well. I'm from Oklahoma, so I don't know any better. :) The other highlights of the trip were seeing the Arizona memorial, touring the battleship Missouri, and almost being arrested by military police for trying to get a picture of the Pearl Harbor Naval Station sign at the front gate. Photos on (or near) military bases are a big no-no these days.

12/04/05 : Posted a picture of a USS BREWTON Plank Owner zippo lighter to photo gallery #2 (Photo #221).

11/26/05 : Here's a real treat! K.H. Chen (Fong Yang FFG-933 1993-1994) has sent over a huge batch of nice pictures taken just last month of the ship in service with the Taiwanese navy. You can see them here. Thank you Chen!

10/13/05 : Sorry about the downtime the last few days. Apparently I've been forgetting to pay the web hosting bill recently. Everything is back up now. Did I mention that I gratefully accept donations to help cover the cost of all this? :-)

10/13/05 : Westpac 1976 Cruise Book has been completed.

10/03/05 : Westpac 1976 Cruise Book is complete through page 59 of 79.

09/18/05 : Posted several new photos from Eric Anderson to Photo Gallery #2 (219-220). These are from 1973. Thanks Eric!

09/05/05 : Westpac 1976 Cruise Book is complete through page 45 of 79.

08/29/05 : Westpac 1976 Cruise Book is complete through page 31 of 79.

08/21/05 : The Westpac 1984 cruise book is currently offline. The shipmate that created and hosted this cruise book was the same one that hosted the movie files, and who was hit by the recent hurricanes in Florida. Unfortunately I never received a backup copy of these files from him, so this may have to be reconstructed from scratch. All the other Brewton website data is regularly backed up to removable hard disks, and to CD-ROM.

08/18/05 : Three more pictures posted to Photo Gallery 2 (photos 216-218). These show a few USS Brewton plaques I've collected over the years.

08/17/05 : Posted several new pictures to Photo Gallery 2 (photos 208-215). These are scans of some USS Brewton memorabilia, including a belt buckle, patches, postal covers, and zippo lighters.

08/14/05 : Westpac 1976 Cruise Book is complete through page 20 of 79.

08/06/05 : A shipmate recently sent me a note inquiring when the 1976 cruise book would be finished. I was embarrassed to realize that there hasn't been any progress on that in more than a year. It's time to correct that. Work is now active on this again. 7 of 79 pages are currently done.

07/17/05 : The USS Brewton Movies are back on line after an extended absence. The shipmate who used to host these files was hit hard by the recent hurricanes in Florida. The internet provider that hosts the USS Brewton website (dreamhost.com) stepped up and has granted us a large amount of storage space so that we can continue to serve these files up. If you're looking for good quality web hosting, please thank them by giving them a try.

09/23/04 : New wallpaper posted to the downloads section.

08/01/04 : Posted a new batch of photos (#199-207) from Paul Martell in the Brewton Photo Gallery.

06/06/04 : Westpac-IO 1982 Cruise Book has been completed.

06/04/04 : Here's an interesting article from the Taipei Times newspaper about the current state of the Knox Class ships in service with Taiwan. Apparently they aren't doing very well, which is probably to be expected since they're about 35 years old. Looks like it's only a matter of time before they go to that big shipyard in the sky.

05/30/04 : Check out this new photo (photo #198) of the Fong Yang (ex USS Brewton) in port in Taiwan next to a pair of other Knox class ships.

05/17/04 : All website services should now be fully restored. Please let me know if you find any broken links or services that aren't operating. Kudos to the dreamhost technical staff for resolving issues quickly and with actual technical knowledge (something that had been SORELY lacking at dot5hosting).

05/16/04 : The shipmate listing is now back up and running. The message board is next, although several of the most recent messages from the board were lost when dot5hosting melted down. C'est la vie (That's life).

05/13/04 : Yahoo is gone. I won't bore you with the details. Site is now up on DreamHost. Keep your fingers crossed...

05/12/04 : Please bear with me while the website services are restored. The shipmate registry, message board, and guestbook will need a bit more tinkering before they are running properly again. Until then, you may want to waste some time playing Video Poker.

05/11/04 : As you have probably noticed, the site has been down for several weeks while I moved over to a new host. The service and reliability at Dot5Hosting had become simply horrible. According to Alertra Website Monitoring the page was offline more than 10% of the time, and at one point was down for three days straight! If you'd like to read a funny encounter with the Dot5Hosting tech support staff, then click here. You can't make up stuff this pathetic. In any case, we're now back online hosting at Yahoo. Hopefully we'll have better luck with them.

05/10/04 : After more work than I care to think about, I've finally finished my Master's Degree in Computer Science. That means there will be more time free to update the page and get the rest of the cruise books done. No excuses now! First up is to finish the 1982 book, then 1976 is next.

12/24/03 : Merry Christmas to everyone, and especially to our shipmates on station in the Middle East and around the world. May you and your families have joy and happiness this holiday.

09/20/03 : Hopefully all the issues have been worked out with dot 5. My email is back up, and I once again can update the website. yipee! ;-) While I do have to give credit to dot5 for eventually solving the problem (after I spelled out for them what it was), I don't appreciate spending several hours on the phone just to convince someone that I'm not an idiot. God bless those poor tech support guys, but they just don't have a clue. This is the last chance for dot5. Another mess up like this, and ussbrewton.com will be moving on.

09/05/03 : Because of technical difficulties with the website, the most recent message board posts have been lost (about 10). Also, any messages sent from the website forms did not go through. Please resend anything that you submitted from Wednesday, Sept. 3 through Friday, Sept. 5. The website itself has been up and down the last few days. Sorry for the inconvenience! Hopefully our provider will get things straightened out ASAP. My e-mail is still down at the moment, so messages will bounce till that gets resolved.

07/11/03 : The USS BREWTON decomissioning book has been posted to the publications page. A text version will be posted soon to enable searching on the information in the book.

07/07/03 : Thanks to Walt Silva (LTJG 90-92) we now have a copy of the Decommissioning Ceremony booklet to post. It will have a permanent home in the publications section. Until that goes online you can view it here: [page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] Thank you Walt!

06/05/03 : The shipmate database system is finally finished, and I caught up with three weeks of updates in under 10 minutes. 8-) The extra time will go into finishing the cruise books that I am sorely behind on.

06/01/03 : The new shipmate information system is online, and the old pages have been removed. Use the links below, or from the main page to see the new shipmate information listings. If any of you have been using throwaway email addresses on this page because of the junk mail, you may want to consider updating to your real address. From this point on, I won't ever post shipmate email addresses without some form of "challenge" that an automated program can't pass. Please try the system out, and let me know of any problems you find. Unfortunately, the add/update portion of the system isn't running yet, so the updates to information will be on hold for just a few more days. Thanks for your patience everyone!

05/31/03 : Recently I've received several letters from shipmates mentioning the large amount of junk email they have been getting due to having the email addresses posted on the website. I'd noticed this myself in the past, but just never took time to find a fix. Another persistent problem is the difficulty involved in updating the shipmate web pages manually every time someone registers or changes an address (about 5 times a day, believe it or not!). I think I've found a way to kill two birds with one stone. I've loaded the shipmate data into an SQL database, and have begun writing PHP scripts to replace the static web pages. Basically, the idea is that when a shipmate updates information, we will simply update the database, and all the different web pages will take care of themselves by getting the information from the database. The emails will be still be available, but you will need to type in a password to get to them. This should stop the automated programs from harvesting the addresses for advertisers. This should be on line in a couple of days. You can see the working draft of the PHP shipmate pages HERE (by name) and HERE (by date). None of the links work yet, but you can see how it will look.

This is also the reason that the shipmate updates have been delayed. I apologize to everyone who is waiting to get info posted. I have all of it saved, and it will be uploaded soon.

05/25/03 : Posted a picture of one of the two known USS BREWTON trading cards to Photo Gallery #2 (photo #195). This is #14 from the Desert Storm Troops series published by Spectra Star in 1991. Thanks to oscodapete for sending this in!

05/20/03 : Check out the new USS BREWTON gear available HERE. Lots of interesting goodies with the USS BREWTON crest or photo. There are t-shirts, golf shirts, boxer shorts, mugs, beer steins, coasters, mousepads, clocks, frisbees, caps, and more. What in the world would you do with a USS BREWTON lunchbox???? I don't know, but if you want to order one, go there. :-)

04/19/03 : Shipmate registration is back online. We're now using NMS FormMail which is supposed to be secure against spammer attacks. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

04/17/03 : The shipmate registration form is down. It was disabled because spammers were abusing the perl programming script that it uses in order to send advertising. This is similar to the problem we had last year with spammers posting messages to the boards automatically. I'll have to write a different perl script to handle the forms, and until then this feature will have to remain broken. If you know someone that thinks sending mass email is a great idea to make money, please slap them in the head for me.

03/31/03 : God bless everyone serving in Iraq. May you be able to come home soon.

03/30/03 : Marty Sigwing is starting work on a set of USS BREWTON blueprints. He has a lot of experience with drafting software, so the results should be spectacular. The goal is to provide a resource for modelers and historians, and perhaps eventually render the BREWTON in full 3-D. We may even be able to set up a virtual walkaround. This kind of thing takes a while, so look for something in about 6 months to a year. It will definitely be worth the wait! Thanks Marty.

03/08/03 : Posted three new photos to the Brewton Photo Gallery (photos #192-194). These are very rare pics from Westpac 1973. Thanks to PC Moran for sending these in.

03/08/03 : E-mail addresses are now available to shipmates. If you would like to have yourname@ussbrewton.com forwarded to your existing email account, just email me and let me know the name you would like, and what email address to forward it to.

03/08/03 : We're back! ussbrewton.com is now located at Dot 5 Hosting. So far the support looks good, and there is even a phone number! It may take a while to "unbreak" things after the move. If you see something that isn't working properly please let me know

02/28/03 : USSBREWTON.COM will be going offline again for a bit. The programs that run the message board, shipmate registration, and the guestbook keep getting shut off by our hosting service (www.simonweb.com). I have no idea why they're doing it, and they won't respond to any of my emails. The last straw was when I tried to call them and found out that their old number had been disconnected, and that there wasn't a new one listed anywhere. It may be common practice these days for big companies to keep their customers from contacting them directly to save on costs, but I won't do business that way. If they won't let me talk to them, then I won't let them have any more of my money. Don't know exactly when it will go down, or for how long, but I will try to have it back up again ASAP.

01/06/03 : Having looked around the web a bit at other ship sites, I've come to the conclusion that the USS Brewton page is way overdue for a full facelift. The main page is too long, too cluttered, and it's getting harder to find things in an organized way. So stand by for heavy rolls! If you have problems navigating the new site, or just hate the way it looks, you can still use the old main page here. This will take a while to get squared away, so please bear with me while things are broken. If you really like the changes, or think they absolutely suck, please let me know. All we have to work with is the feedback you give. It's YOUR site. We want you to be proud of it.

01/05/03 : Westpac 82 cruise book is at page 65 of 112.

12/16/02 : Posted Rick O'Dell's shellback card from 1975 to Photo Gallery #2 (photo #191).

12/14/02 : John Sabatini has finished work on his huge USS Brewton scratchbuilt model. Words can't really describe this thing. You have to see it to believe it! He's been working on this for years now. The level of detail is just insane. According to John, "I think I'll just go ahead and smash a bottle of champaign over my head to christen it... :)

12/05/02 : A problem with the Shipmate Registration form has been corrected. The form was giving an error and not submitting correctly. Thanks to Joe Haren for taking time to point out the problem. Since the site has grown so large, I often don't catch problems for a long time unless someone lets me know about them. Thank you Joe!

11/18/02 : Posted a new USS Brewton wallpaper to the Download Section. This picture is a classic one. It's a port bow view of the ship with the crew manning the rails in dress whites, and was probably taken in the mid-to-late seventies.

11/08/02 : Attention Mark Dunderdale! The updated e-mail address you gave ( mdunderdale@state.ma.us) is being bounced back as 'User Unknown'. Please send in a corrected one as soon as you can.

10/21/02 : It seems that Jamie7AZ@aol.com isn't very happy about the respect that we show America on this site. Jamie has been sending me lots of notes like this one over the last couple of days:

Apparently Jamie thinks that everyone should hate the United States because we are all evil. It's amazing how someone this ignorant could figure out how to use a computer at all, much less send e-mail. Perhaps we should all donate a couple of bucks so Jamie can buy herself a ticket somewhere nicer. Don't go away mad Jamie. Just go away.

10/11/02 : Posted scans of the article about the USS Brewton in Sea Classics Magazine from June 1988 on the Odds and Ends page. The text of the article has been posted for a while and most of the pictures can be found on the site in other places, but it is interesting to read the article in its original form.

10/09/02 : Webcounter stats show our site is getting about One Thousand Five Hundred visits per month! Who knew? You can't tell from looking at the message board. Come on shipmates, don't be shy! Let us know what's going on with you.

10/08/02 : Posted deck plan for the knox class frigates here. Looking at this may bring back some memories. Anybody else ever go "moonwalking" in the forward chain locker during high seas?

10/07/02 : Posted a list of all the USS Brewton Commanding Officers here. This list comes from the Decommissioning Ceremony book, courtesy of Cristi Smith. Hope to have the entire booklet posted sometime after the Westpac 82 book and westpac 76 books are done.

10/04/02 : A large size model of the Knox class is finally available from Iron Shipwright models. This is 1:350 scale (about 18 inches long) and very detailed. You can see pictures of a completed kit here, here, here, and here. This is a resin kit and fairly expensive, at about $165. I'm told that resin kits are expensive because the mold can only be used a certain number of times before it's no good, and must be redone. You can read reviews of the kit here, and here. To order, visit Iron Shipwright. If anyone out there is a professional model builder, I'd be interested in quotes on what it would cost to have this kit built out at museum quality. E-mail me for for more info.

09/12/02 : One of our shipmates has passed on. Barry May (MM1 1982-1987) left this earth after a brave fight with cancer on August 11, 2002. He is survived by his wife Sharon and their two daughters, ages 11 and 13. Barry influenced the lives of many people during his time aboard the USS Brewton, and many more afterwards. Please remember his family in your prayers. You will be missed Barry.

09/10/02 : New Brewton desktop wallpaper posted in the downloads section.

09/09/02 : The new guestbook system is up and running. You can see it by clicking here. The old messages have been archived in a separate area. This is a fairly complicated system, so there may be some bugs to work out. Please let me know if you experience any problems at all.

09/07/02 : Bought a much faster scanner this weekend, and installed HTML editing software to make the cruise book conversions go faster. Westpac 1982 is on page 30 of 112, and is going much faster and easier than before. Should be done within a few weeks. PS... We have a lead on a 1976 cruise book. If it pans out, that one will be the next to go up. As far as I know, that is the last cruise book that we don't have posted yet. If someone knows of another one, please email me.

09/06/02 : Some of you have noticed that the guest book is broken a lot these days. The company that hosts the free one we use is unreliable, to say the least. Because that data is too important to leave in the hands of an outside company, we'll be installing a new local guestbook program. I have archived all the data from the current book. If possible, I'll put it into the new program. If not, then there will be a link to the old entries, just like on the message board.

09/01/02 : John Sabatini is nearly done with his huge USS Brewton scratchbuilt model. Here is an update from John:

Final paint and touch-up's should be done by the end of next month.... like I said, this is getting down to the stupid level as far as detail goes. It's funny, the darn thing is so big, I can only work on one side at a time, so the Stbd. side is completed except for riggings (J-davit, Sig flags, HF long wires, sea painter for whaleboat), port side starting when I get done with all that and the helo nets on the stbd side - that's why the Gig is in drydock. :) Again, I'm getting a friend of mine who is a pro photographer to shoot it for me before I put it in the glass case... figure I should be done by Halloween or so, will send those pics when I get them.

08/28/02 : Matt Kelly found a great place to get USS Brewton mugs. Go to www.milart.com and click on "custom crests" then search for USS Brewton. There are three designs available. One of them is the WA division logo. Thanks for the pointer Matt!

07/08/02 : Today is the 30th anniversary of USS BREWTON's commissioning on July 8, 1972.

07/04/02 : Happy Fourth of July. Westpac 1982 Cruise Book is at page 20 of 112. Sorry for the slow progress. It will be done this summer, guaranteed.

07/02/92 : Today is the 10th anniversary of USS BREWTON's decommissioning on July 2, 1992. If you have pictures or other information about the event, please contact us.

03/23/02 : Visible signs of progress have been detected on the Westpac/IO 1982 Cruise Book.

02/24/02 : Posted 60 new pictures from Gunther Hochleitner and Todd "Taz" Maloney to photo gallery #2. Thanks for sending these in!

02/17/02 : A search tool is now available on the main page courtesy of Google. Try it, you'll like it! The idea for this came from Erasmo "Doc Rio" Riojas. If you want to know more about Navy SEALs, his home page is a great place to start.

01/11/02 : Wood Display Plaques are now available in the Ship's Store. These plaques are handmade by Kieth Machowicz, and look fantastic. They can be customized with the years that you served on the Brewton. Cost is $25.00 + $5.00 shipping. Click Here to order.

01/11/02 : There are now 368 shipmates listed in the Shipmates Online section.