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Reporting to the squadron
Mediterranean / NATO Cruise-'68
Decommissioning - Promotion - Reassignment
Reporting to the squadron
We were all granted 2 weeks Leave plus travel time en route to our first squadron duty assignment. I stopped off to visit my sister in Lakeworth, FL and some friends stationed in Virgina Beach as I headed north and then drove home to the family farm in Massachusetts for a little "R & R" with family and friends before checking in at NAS Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
I was just a little upset that my repeated requests for duty in Viet Nam had been ignored. It was really an interesting study in the strange ways of the "needs of the service". Out of the 12 of us going through the helicopter program at the time, it just happened to work out that 6 of us were single and six were married. All of the married guys had put in for East Coast ASW flying and the single guys had volunteered for combat flying in SE Asia. As it worked out the single guys got the ASW assignments and the married guys got to go to SE Asia.
At the time, I found it just a little irritating that I had joined the Navy to see the world, as it were, and they sent me right back to Narragansett Bay, across from where I had gone to college and was trying to get away from. As it worked out, you really DO get to see the world in the Navy, it is just that you need to be at a Navy Base to start your trip.
Since I was familiar with the area, still had friends in Rhoad Island -and was excited to be on the journey into the next phase of Navy life, I did not spend much Leave time on the farm.
I had driven by the front gate of the base on several occasions on the way to visit friends at the University of Rhode Island prior to joining the Navy, but had never given it much consideration. Also, during college, I had sailed Narragansett Bay on a friend's boat and seen the base off in the distance. The only thing that had caught my eye was the fact that we had occasionally seen a large carrier docked there. It turned out that I was about to spend a good part of the next year aboard U.S.S. Essex (CVS-9), which was home ported at NAS Quonset Point.
It did not take long to realize that this military complex was HUGE! The Naval Air Station was spread out over a very large area, but that was just part of it. Contiguous to, and very large in its own right, was the Davisville Seabee (Navy Construction Battalion) base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Quonset_Point
I then recalled all the stories my Uncle Dinny (Josiah) Bartlett had told us of his World War II adventures as a SeaBee in the South Pacific. He was the namesake of the original Josiah Bartlett, our distant relative who signed the Declaration of Independence and held high office in New Hampshire, when our nation was in its infancy. He had told us all these "stories", but it didn't really sink in until I had become part of the military too.
Uncle Dinny was a teenager (17-18) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and had joined the Navy on December 8th, 1941, spending the war (until he was stricken with Maleria) with the SeaBees. They always came ashore one step behind the U.S. Marines, who fought their way onto the beaches, one Pacific island after the next, on the march to the home islands of Japan. The SeaBees were a tough crew too. They strapped their M-1's over their shoulder, often taking withering enemy fire, as they built the runways, barracks and headquarters buildings for the troops who were to follow after the enemy was subdued.
It was a little bit embarrassing to come to understand that this very large complex had been in my own back yard all along, and had actually been built during WWII, in 1940-41, about 2 years before I was born.
It took some navigating around, but I soon found the hangar in which my squadron was located and checked in with the Duty Officer. It was a typical WWII type hanger, which is so common at most of the Naval Air Stations around the world I have subsequently visited. We were right at the bay's edge, with HS-9 being closest to the water -and our sister squadron, HS-5 across the hanger, on the land side.
The Duty Officer gave me news that I had not given much thought to heretofore. I guess I just assumed that once we got to our final duty station, we would rent a "snake ranch" on the beach, just like any other bunch of red blooded American Navy Pilots. You know, the kind of place where there is an endless supply of cold beer in the fridge and hot babes cycling in and out in copious abundance. At least, that is how we were told it would be.
But, the DO told me that there was sufficient room in the Bachelor Officer's Quarters, so that the base was not signing off on junior officer's orders, that housing allowance would be given for renting housing out "on the economy". For the last two years of our lives, except for the pleasant brief interludes at Ellyson Field and Key West, we had been living in WWII barracks -and I was ready to have a place of my own.
Actually, as it turns out, it was not to be a problem, since there was further news which had not filtered down to the lowly Lt.j.g., nugget aviator population. The U.S.S. Essex, Carrier Air Group (CAG-12) and all the squadrons associated were in the middle of "work ups" for a major Mediterranean / NATO Cruise -and we had arrived just in time to get a little training for the ship and then deploy. We were not going to be here long enough to settle in, so we unpacked our cars, moved our stuff temporarily into the BOQ and tried to catch up with our squadron mates who were already well ahead of us in readying for deployment.
There were four of us, as I recall, going to HS-9 -and others of our friends to HS-5, across the hanger. There was Cothran, Wilsback, Smith and myself, all having come through AOCS and flight training on a parallel track. Cothran and I had been in the Command Choir the whole time, so we were the more senior, since Choir duties had protracted our training by many months -not that we ever complained.
We were thrown right into the deep end of the pool. All the other squadron members had been gearing up for the upcoming cruises for the last several weeks, while we hit the ground running. We were all assigned collateral duties in the squadron and also placed in an aircrew. I was assigned to be co-pilot to a seasoned HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander) LT Joe Reid, who, as a senior LT was nearing the end of his Active Duty commitment. He was a good old country boy from the Mid-West and had been on several cruises, so he knew the ropes and had an easy going way of passing on his experience.
My collateral duties were something else. Being the senior LT j.g., I was put in the Operations Department under an Ops Officer who was nothing short of a nut case. LCDR Charlie "Tuna" was a couple bricks short of a full load and a real pain to work under. I had really wanted to get assigned to the Maintenance Division, but they were assigning collateral duties strictly according to seniority. This was the first case where spending all that extra time in the Training Command because of being in the Choir was working against the program.
I was made Assistant Schedules officer, which as it turns out, was only a temporary billet. It was less than a month later, after barely getting my feet wet, that the Schedules Officer got orders and left suddenly for a tour in Viet Nam. Somehow, I apparently had charmed Charlie "Tuna" to the extent that he thought I could handle a senior LT's billet and he gave me the entire Department to run. Here I was a junior Ltj.g., just barely in the Fleet a month, and I had a Division and 7 men working under me and a very complicated daily flight schedule to put out -and NO Chief to show me the ropes! Fortunately, I had some rated Petty Officers who were pretty sharp and they helped me look good.
It turns out that politics had a big role to play in how my job performance was perceived. Apparently, I had a knack for it, as I quickly figured out who the senior people were who hated night and early morning flying and I scheduled my and other crews to the less desirable flying. My Department Head was one of those who eschewed the more challenging (including Friday afternoon Happy Hours) flying and I soon became his favorite officer in the Department.
The schedule was extremely time definite and had to be out by 1000 hours every morning. I learned that my predicessor had "fought the program" and had come into a lot of criticism by trying to be too conventional. I figured out that it would take being on the job late nights and knowing who the constituency was to get the job done to the satisfaction of most.
This also worked well for me, as I had discovered something VERY exciting almost the first day aboard the Air Station. While driving around, looking for my hangar, I saw several BEAUTIFUL A-1 Skyraiders parked on a flight line that turned out to be only two hangars down from where I would be calling home.
After getting settled in, I asked around and further discovered that this was the home of something I had vaguely heard of when I was in Pensacola. NAS Quonset Point had a very large NARF Rework Facility, which overhauled the SH-3, S-2, the E-1 -AND- the A-1! Ferry pilots would fly in the various models from their assigned squadrons when the particular airframe had reached the preordained time when it was due for a major overhaul.
The NARF facility would strip the airframe down to the bare metal, removing engines and everything else, checking for metal fatigue along the way, overhauling or replacing parts so that the finished product would be as close to new as possible. The process adds years to the life of the airframe and engines and ultimately saves the taxpayers lots of money.
NARF had 4-5 active duty Navy Pilots on staff who would take each aircraft out on test flights after all the work was completed on it and before ferry pilots were sent to pick it up for the return trip to the Fleet squadron which owned it. It turned out that a couple of the "short timer" LT's in my squadron, who were looking for an avenue out of helicopters, had been flying with these test pilots, to build time in different types of aircraft.
After further inquiry, I found that our CO did not have any problem with this extra-curicula flying, as long as it did not interfere with the individual's squadron duties or flying. It took me a New York minute to figure out that this was the way that I was eventually going to break out of the helicopter pipeline into which I had inadvertantly stumbled.
This is the precise reason that being assigned to write the squadron schedule was a blessing in disguise. I did not know it at the time, but due to the fact that my collateral duties were essentially completed for the day by 1000 hours every morning -and the only other concern I had was flying my assigned squadron missions (which I built the schedule for) I quickly made myself known to the cadre of test pilots at NARF. They were very happy to have an extra set of eyes and hands on their test flights and I started building time in the S-2, the E-1 and the A-1.
Work ups for the ship
We had heard when we were in Key West that the squadron we were being assigned to was in the middle of getting ready for a major 'Med' / NATO cruise and that we would be going aboard USS Essex shortly after arriving at our new duty station.
Mini-Crusies
I am trying... VERY hard...to find all photos of these events. I KNOW I have them SOMEPLACE... but the house is all torn up now, in a major remodel and all my 'stuff' is packed away in a POD storage container out in the driveway.
Mediterranean / NATO Cruise-'68
As soon as we entered the Straits of Gibraltar, we began being 'shadowed' by Soviet Destroyers.
Our next stop was very special. It was necessary for our giant boat to steam up the Elbe River for several hours (approx 65 miles) from the North Sea to Hamburg, Germany. The Elbe is a relativly narrow river, especially for a ship our size. We docked in the middle of the city of Hamburg, where we spent the next 11 days, running daily tours of the ship for German visitors and generally having a major Octoberfest in March.
Essex, at berth, in Hamburg, Germany
Shortly after steaming out of Hamburg, the USS Essex was involved in a potentially dangerous 'International Incident', which was never fully reported in the media. For the entire cruise, starting in the Med, we came to expect a "daily flyover" by a Soviet aircraft, usually a 'Bear', as shown in actual photos taken, while standing on the flight deck, with my new, expensive Pentex Spotmatic SLR camera, which I spent nearly a month's pay on in the ship's store.
While in the Med, on occasion, when we were in close contact with another carrier in the area which had fighter aircraft aboard, we would watch the daily 'flyby' with the Bear flown in close formation with one or two F-4 Phantoms escorting. That was pretty neat.
Early on a Sunday morning, my aircraft commander, LT Jimmy Lee, I and our crew launched for a typical 4+ hour flight. There were regular flight ops scheduled shortly, so we usually took off, flew about 10 miles behind the carrier, dropped our sonar in the water and listened for Soviet subs for a while, then proceeded back to the aft of the boat to provide 'plane guard' rescue cover for the launch. Then, once the launch was over, we would then return to the ASW mission until either needed again for 'plane guard' for launch or recovery -or our fuel got low, whichever occured first.
Jimmy was flying, so I was the first one to spot it. It was a pretty hazy morning, the sun was still low in the sky, but, I picked up a strange 'pattern' on the ocean's surface, maybe 3-4 miles out in front of us. "HOLY CRAP"... or words to that effect, was my call out to Jimmy. "That's an airplane and it is SO low that it is shooting off 'rooster tails' off the water's surface!" You can barely make out the Badger in the center of the photo to the left. He was flying from our left to right and was passed us, on a direct line to the boat by the time I had the presence of mind to dig my camera out. Taken about a minute after first spotting it.
In the meantime, Jimmy is on the radio, giving Essex warning that she had 'incoming'. The Badger was SO low, that our radar operators on the boat had not picked it up before we spotted it, about 10 miles out. In the photo on the right, you can just barely make out a 'dot' approaching the carrier, maybe 3-4 miles out. You can, if you have eagle eyes, pick up the wake in the water it was still putting out form the lower left corner of the photo. Had this aircraft had 'hostile' intentions, our carrier would likely have been sunk and our crew would have perished, as we were too far from land and did not have the fuel to make it to safety.
We immediately turned back toward the ship as soon as the Badger had passed us, but at our relative speeds, it took us a few minutes to get back. By that time, the ship had called off the scheduled aircraft launch, announced that there was a Soviet aircraft inbound and hundreds of sailors and officers had crowded up to the flight deck, many of them with cameras, to view the 'show'.
WHAT a 'show' it was! The flight deck was 90' above the water line and the Badger stayed below it until the last moment when he pulled up and flew directly down it. He then dropped back down to just above the water's surface, turned and came back down the port side of the ship. By the time we got back into range to see what was going on, the Badger had made 2-3 low passes. The photo to the left is his 'last pass' before crashing, an approach to the starboard side, mid-ships. We were approaching the boat from aft and watched him on his last pass come directly broadside, pull up to pass over the ship and immediately dropped down again on the port side. He proceeded to fly out perpendicular to the ship's course, about a mile, at wave top altitude. We did not see it, as by that time the ship's superstructure was blocking our view, but it was reported that the pilot dipped his port wing to turn without gaining altitude and his wingtip caught the water, causing the jet to violently cart wheel into the water.The time span between the photo on the left and that on the right was about 30-45 seconds, it happened that fast.
Being the only helo in the air at the time, we flew immediately to the debris field and fire to see if there were any survivors. Since we did not have any rescue divers aboard, the ship launched another helo and we backed off, realizing it would have been difficult for anyone to survive that crash. It turns out, one Badger crewman was barely alive in the water when the ship's rescue launches reached the scene, but succumbed shortly thereafter. They were able to pick pieces of several bodies out of the water and I assume we got them back to the Soviets.
The Admiral must have thought that this accident could lead to a serious international incident, perhaps the Soviet might think we shot their plane down, but at any rate,after giving the order that all film of the incident had to be turned over to our intelligence people, he got on the COD and launched back to London to our Embassy, to talk with the Soviets about it. We, as part of the crew of Essex, never heard another word of this crash. The Admiral must have taken some of the photos confiscated with him to London, as I recall seeing a photo of this Badger, before the crash, on the front page of a London tabloid and that is the ONLY way they could have gotten that photo.
I just recently discovered a 'video' on YouTube of this incident, narrated by a man speaking Russian. I have NO idea how the Russians got hold of a video of that event, as all photos, film and tape was supposed to have been turned in, but, here is a YouTube of 1968 Badger crash. I would LOVE to know what this guy is saying about the event. Probably all lies. As for my photos, we were still airborn when the order came out to turn in all film and I never heard it, directly. I took the film out of my camera, replacing it with fresh and stored the 'evidence' away, not having it developed until months later, for fear of being court martialed for disobeying an order. It has been 43 years now and I am sure this has been declassified, since the damn Russians have a YouTube of it, which HAD to be taken by one of our sailors on the flight deck. It is likely 'confiscated' film, which has been archived for years and years.
On a side note; this event occured on May 25, 1968. A mere 10 or so days later, on June 5, Senator Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. As a LT(j.g.) all of this was WAY above my paygrade, but as soon as we got news of the assassination, our Task Force turned around and made full steam back to our home port in the US, cutting short our cruise by a month or more. We WERE scheduled to put into Oslo, Norway for 11 days, but that was cancelled. Sadly disappointed, we were. We were 'hauling' so fast that we couldn't even cut the boredom with some flight time. It is still a mystery to me why this event(s) would have caused us to cancel the rest of our cruise.
Decommissioning - Promotion - reassignment
I cannot recall when we received the news that this cruise of Essex would be her last, but in conjunction with the decommissioning of this venerable old piece of history, the entire Air Group 12 was also being decommissioned. That meant that the hundreds of officers and men of two S-2 squadrons, one E-1B squadron and our SH-3A squadron would be getting reassigned to other places throughout the Navy. Of course, for many this event was highly unusual, causing consternation and hardship. Some folks had just moved into the area and invested in homes, others had been there for a while and liked it, not wanting to move away. For me, it was a chance to rectify the 'error' I had made in flight training, which resulted in ending up performing a mission and flying a platform I had no burning desire to be involved with.
So, while it was disappointing to not get to experience a part of the cruise I was looking forward to, it was very nice, being back at the base where I saw an opportunity to log some more flight time in aircraft I thought would ultimatly help me get away from helicopters. I got back, a couple days a week, going over to the NARF hanger and begging flying in the S-2, E-1 and A-1 and when it came time to fill out the 'Dream Sheet' that every pilot who was being displaced needed to addressing order for the Pentagon to decide where to send us next, I would be able to point out this valuable experience.
While 'disbanding' was in our squadron's near future, we still had prior commitments as a squadron. Those included Detachments sent out to other aircraft carriers to practice for the Apollo astronaut's ocean recovery. My crew had been informed that we and a couple of other crews were scheduled for that duty some time in the summer after we returned from cruise. That was something to look forward to, as it involved flying down to NAS Jacksonville, Florida and operating off of a carrier just off the coast there. called into the CO's office and advised that my promotion to Lieutenant had come in
Off to ANOTHER new squadron!
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