"I have one ambition," Lt. Comdr. D.C. Davis, Executive of the Neshoba, says.

"I want to sit in the Cliff House over-looking the Golden Gate, sip Martinis, and watch the Navy ships come and go."

And, it appears, Mr. Davis will have his ambition come true. He anticipates that this is the last trip he will make before reverting to his civilian status and his job running a mortgage business in San Francisco.

According to a story by Rudolph Elie, Jr. of the Boston Herald, "The executive officer is universally admired on shipboard. He is' also liked. This is too much for the men to understand, for nobody ever heard of both the skipper and the exec being acceptable all around by everybody."

The exec, the working boss of the ship, sets "the tone of the wardroom, and this tone of correct but easy informality, of fellowship, of 'Let's get the damn job done and go home' is reflected throughout the ship."

Mr. Davis, Elie says, "looks pretty much like Esquire thinks a Naval officer ought to." He figures "the Neshoba isn't all a boys' camp, and that everybody knows what has to be done and how to do it."

Mr. Davis is a young-looking but graying man with a decidely landlubber attitude toward life. He had no sea experience before his sea duty with the Navy-"unless you want to call my shipping out on a coastwise freighter sea experience, and that was just the kid urge for adventure."

The exec joined the Navy reserve in 1940 and was called to active duty in August 1941 as a lieutenant Og.) in the intelligence section of 12th Naval District. Volunteering for sea duty, he was assigned as a gunnery officer on an attack transport. He participated in the invasions of the Marshalls, Gilberts (Tarawa), and Marianas and finally with the Neshoba in the invasion of Okinawa 6 months ago.

He came to this ship as a lieutenant commander, immediately assuming duties as executive officer when the Neshoba was commissioned at Richmond, California, in 1944.

Now, the commander, who was educated at the University of California, and who attended law school in San Francisco, is going back to his home and the fog.

"Fog." he says, "I love the stuff. And if anybody doesn't like it. well - - - ."