Former Commanding Officer
My name is John W. Gissendanner and I live in South
Carolina. Back in 1963, I was a YN3 on the staff of Commander Cruiser-Destroyer
Flotilla SEVEN. In the summer of ‘63, we were stationed at the Naval Base,
Subic Bay, PI. Then-Commander Provost was one of the officers on staff.
Commander Provost had been passed over a couple of times for Captain and he was
going to have to retire, much to his regret. One Saturday afternoon, the
Commander came by the office to check on radio traffic for promotion info.
When the duty radioman pulled a message showing that Commander Provost had been
selected for Captain, you would have thought that we all had been promoted. The
memory of that celebration, even after almost fifty years, still brings a smile.
CCDF-7 had a small reunion in January 2009 in San Diego and a lot of the guys
remember how happy we were for Bill Provost.
As well as I remember, Commander Provost was next assigned to a radar or radio
station in Guam. Do any of you guys remember if this is correct? If this gets
to any of Captain Provost’s family, I would like to communicate with them. He
was one of our favorite officers-a good man and a good friend to all of us
whitehats.
John W. Gissendanner, USN (1960-64)
gissendannerj@bellsouth.net