DATE: Thursday, May 8, 1997                 TAG: 9705070694

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: MILITARY

SOURCE: BY KEITH DENNIS 

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

IT'S ALWAYS GREAT TO BE RETURNING TO NORFOLK

Things are picking up as we prepare for homecoming - lots of work to be done before we pull in, readying spaces for turnover back to the ship, painting, cleaning, making lists of who will be going on which leave.

We pulled into Palma, Majorca, last Thursday morning for our last port visit this cruise. Palma is one of my favorite places: cosmopolitan, a popular holiday spot for Scandinavians, Germans and the British, and the home of terrific bargains on leather and pearls. I've been there twice, the last time 10 years ago, and have looked forward to heading back.

Just two weeks, and we'll be back in Norfolk. Always seems to have gone by quickly when it's over, but it sure drags in the meantime. I'm allowing myself to indulge in a little daydreaming about how good it'll feel to be back home, drinking a beer in the garage and seeing my wife and the boys.

Pulling up to the pier after six months at sea is always exciting, an event I never fail to savor. I've always been amazed at how precise the scheduling is for pull-in. After a journey of thousands of miles across the Mediterranean and Atlantic, this 1,100-foot, 94,000-ton behemoth glides right up to a pier at an exact hour set a month in advance. How do they do that? I'll tell you: We hustle until the night before, then just sit out of sight off the Virginia coast.

Lucky pilots and air crew are selected to depart the day before in a massive ``fly off,'' leaving behind the envious sailors who ride the ship into port. The planes are bound for naval air stations around the country - Norfolk, Oceana in Virginia Beach, the Florida fields, Whidbey Island, Wash.

Once all 80-odd aircraft are airborne, the various squadrons assemble overhead for a final formation flight over the ship - a farewell to their home for the past 178 days.

Back on board, homecoming eve infects everyone with ``channel fever,'' and sleep is a commodity that interests no one but the most seasoned sailor. Even then, it's a fitful slumber.

The squadrons clear out their spaces and stage all the gear down the middle of three massive hangar bays. From the mezzanine of Hangar Bay One, the sailors look like ants scurrying from their holes, depositing seabags and personal effects in carefully arranged piles. The atmosphere is charged with excitement. Music blares from boom boxes, different styles overlapping and blending.

Toward morning, sailors change into the service dress whites, Marines into their Class ``Alphas.'' As the morning lengthens, both uniforms begin to outnumber the assortment of camouflage BDUs, dungarees and khakis that have dominated the ship for months. Very few complain about ``working party'' assignments. Any activity is a relief from the waiting.

Petty officers supervising work details know better than to expect to control their charges once land is sighted. As preparations for arrival are completed, the crew will first trickle to the flight deck, then spill onto the 4 1/2-acre expanse by the hundreds, as word spreads that the marker buoy for the Diamond Shoals Channel is in view.

Mile after mile, the carrier hugs the shoreline, steaming toward the piers jutting into the Elizabeth River at the world's largest naval base. Passing over the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the crew watches staid Fort Monroe stand off the starboard side, then watches as Pier 12 blessedly materializes off the port bow, crowded with a mass of humanity eager to greet the crew and straining for a glimpse of a loved one on the rails in crisp ``Crackerjacks.''

The wait grows intense. Shot lines are fired from the ship and plunk onto the pier. Line handlers dash from their protective positions to scoop the bolo and haul in the hawsers that will secure the ship to its resting place. All too slowly, cranes crouched on the pier lift the brows to the elevators.

New fathers nervously wait to be let off first to meet children they've seen in snapshots and videos, but never held. Best-laid plans to keep everyone moving off the brow invariably prove futile: Hugging couples, ringed by children, parents and friends choke the way to the parking lot.

It's a special day.

It's the best day there is.

I can't wait. MEMO: Senior Chief Petty Officer Keith Dennis is an aircraft maintenance

specialist attached to the Seahawks of VAW-126, an E-2C Hawkeye squadron

based at Norfolk Naval Air Station and now deployed aboard the carrier

Theodore Roosevelt.

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