Highlights of 20+ Years in the U.S. Navy
Part 5: Navy Memories
CDR Davis
This is the fifth in a series of articles by AOPA Member Norm Davis. In this installment CDR Davis continues relating some of his memories dating back to when he was a pilot with the US Navy.
By Norm Davis, CDR USN
One incident occurred soon after returning from our second Mediterranean deployment. We were involved in an airshow at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. The skipper decided it would be impressive if one of our Skyraiders had vegetable die-colored water in the drop tanks - to be dumped as the aircraft flew in front of the crowd a la Blue Angel (aerobatic team) smoke. He wanted blue dye in one tank and red in the other. As Maintenance Officer, I was opposed to the idea and said so, but to no avail. It became, "Aye, aye, sir, and three bags full."
Water in fuel tanks is a no-no, because they need to be thoroughly purged and dried before carrying fuel again. The deed was done; the water was dumped during the airs how. It was less than spectacular, since, even with the dye, it looked like clear water from the ground; and my troops were left with the job of purging the tanks.
The sequel to this incident occurred after I was cleared to make my way to the University of Mississippi to study for a BA in languages. I planned a cross country flight to Memphis, Tennessee to meet a friend and then drive to Oxford, Mississippi in search of a house for my family for the next two years. On a Saturday morning, I took off in lowering weather on an instrument flight plan. Climb out was uneventful and I set course after leveling off in the goo. Soon after switching to a drop tank the engine started to run rough and cut out. Switching back to the main tank helped but the engine continued to run rough. Declaring an emergency, I started a descent and turned back towards NAS Oceana, requesting a Ground Controlled Approach. The engine ran even rougher when throttle was reduced, so I requested a 180-knot GCA, planning to slow down and drop the gear when I had the 13,000-ft runway in sight. The GCA controllers were very good. I broke clear at about 900 feet AMSL with the runway straight ahead. All went as planned and I landed safely, shutting the engine down on the runway and getting a tow in to the hangar. The verdict was "water in the fuel". I had been assigned the aircraft with the "purged" tanks.
One of the final duties I had before leaving VA 65 was to establish our squadron's maintenance department aboard the newly-commissioned nuclear carrier USS Enterprise. The squadron also participated in an airwing/ship work up cruise off the east coast of the USA.
Fresh water was often tightly rationed aboard a carrier. To conserve water, sailors were told to "wet down, soap down and rinse down" when taking showers. Rarely were we able to use freshwater to wash down aircraft on the flight deck as the salt spray accumulated. To solve the problem we would fly through rain showers. This technique was also used to avoid radar detection when on low level training missions.
A low level attack mission was planned to fly from the carrier in to South Carolina and then up the Appalachian Trail to simulate an attack on the historic Fort Ticonderoga at the head of Lake George just below the Canadian border. Launch was at dawn and there were some big thunderstorm build-ups between the ship and the coast. We were testing the US radar defenses, so flights were flown individually at 20 feet AMSL. I spotted a heavy rain shower on track and climbed to 200 feet while penetrating it on course. The rain became extremely heavy and black and I became apprehensive. I looked back over my shoulder to see a bright area, so I turned about 135 degrees to the right and flew out. In the clear, I looked back to see that I had been on my way into a waterspout! The rest of the flight was "uneventful" and I landed back aboard about 9 hours later.
Eventually, Annette, our two children, Guy and Tania, and I moved into a mortgaged house in Oxford, Mississippi. It was pleasant; the campus was a traditional southern campus and the courses were reasonably interesting. We were there, however, during the federal integration of The Mississippi University with its first black student, James Meredith. It was a time of chaos and there were army helicopters and federal marshals all over the place to protect Meredith against the wrath of the local red necks. The campus smelled of tear gas. As military students, we were advised not to wear our uniforms and to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
While at university, pilot students were required to maintain proficiency by driving to NAS Memphis, Tennessee and flying aircraft assigned to the air station operations department. We (the US Navy pilots) teamed up and flew together in T-28s, SNBs and a DC-3. The NAS even made arrangements for me to introduce university students to flight in a T-34B. I was even tasked to fly a DC-3 with the NAS Memphis basketball team to Key West, Florida for a competition game. One pilot I often flew with was a helicopter pilot who had flown often at low level around Memphis. His experience was put to good use one really nasty night when we returned from a long crosscountry flight in a T-28 to make an instrument approach to minimum altitude - we broke clear well short of the runway, and he picked out landmarks to follow to a safe landing.
After leaving university, orders were received to VA-122 at NAS Lemoore, California, as a flight instructor. I was assigned to the instrument training department, flying T-28 Trojans. I also flew ADs as an instrument chase pilot. Since the AD is single seat, instructors flew close formation on students as they flew on instruments. To make the training more realistic and to take advantage of the traffic clear skies over central California, arrangements were made with the air traffic control center to develop a system of training routes and procedures to train pilots in emergency procedures over those routes.
By 1965, pilots completing their training at VA-122 were joining squadrons in combat. The squadrons were experiencing losses to modern surface-to-air missiles. ADs were soon reassigned to search and rescue flying to rescue downed pilots and for action in areas that did not present a missile threat. In anticipation of orders to a squadron in combat, I became a replacement pilot and took a refresher course in dive bombing, sea survival, and SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). Upon completion of the training, I expected to be ordered to one of the squadrons "on the line". When my orders did come, they were not to a squadron but to the USS Enterprise as ordnance officer.
Loading an Aircraft
Enterprise was en route to the South China Sea, but called briefly to Wellington, New Zealand. I made arrangements for Annette and our three children to go home to her folks on the farm in Redan, Southland. We parted when I boarded a C-141 at Travis AFB for a flight to Midway and then Clark AFB in Luzon, Philippines. At Clark, I caught a flight to NAS Cubi Point, where the Enterprise was moored. I had ten days, during combat flight operations, in which to become acquainted with the responsibilities of Ordnance Officer.
The man I relieved was an ordnance specialist and pilot who had orders to an A-4 Skyhawk squadron, as executive officer. He was brilliant, but his filing system was a pile of papers on the top of his desk. Only he knew where the important documents were. As well as following close to his shoulder for the duration of the lO-day turnover, I had to set up a filing system and read every piece of paper. It was well worth doing, for I was "in the can" when he left.
The ship had magazines full of l0,000-plus bombs of all sizes, plus missiles, fuses, flares and small arms ammunition. There were 180 men in my division and they moved, stored, inventoried, broke out, built up and delivered ordnance to the flight deck from the bowels of the ship. It was necessary to be constantly on the move throughout the ship, supervising ordnance movement and observing strike planning so that information about ordnance movements to support the planned strikes could be provided in time to strike up, build up and deliver the ordnance to aircraft three times a day when launching "Alpha Strikes" over North Vietnam involving more than 35 aircraft at a time.
Once flight operations were completed for the day or night, the carrier would go alongside an ammunition ship from which we ordered bombs to replace ones that had been used. This operation also had to be supervised. Many of the men handling the ordnance were not trained ordnance personnel. All enlisted men and petty officers had to pitch in as working parties to move the crates of bombs and tail fins as they came aboard.
During combat operations, it was not unusual to go for three days with little or no sleep - then "crash" at any time of the day or night for about 4 hours to then awaken and go again. What I found particularly annoying when I was trying to catch 40 winks was that the phone would ring and the admiral's aide would be requesting information to answer some question or other that could have waited until the planning group was back in session. There were also times when all of the ordnance to meet a planned strike would be built up and ready for load, only to get a cancellation with a complete change to the ordnance load. I would then have to step in and convince the strike operations planners - all senior to me, e.g. CAG, Ship's Operations Officer, Admiral - that there was no way that the load could be changed without causing a complete bottle neck and causing the strike to be delayed or cancelled.
There were some old World War 2 chemical long delay fuses in storage. These were highly unstable and worked on the principal that once activated a chemical would slowly decay the fuse train so that a pin could then be released that set off the fuse to detonate the bomb. The time frame for this to happen was anytime from a few minutes to 36 hours! The nasty bit about this fuse was that, once installed in the bomb, any jarring or bump could start the chemicals working. So, if these types of fuses were to be used, one had to be damned sure they got to their target as soon as possible. The strike planners decided that a particular target was an ideal one on which to use these fuses. They wanted to deny an area to the enemy for at least 36 hours by having bombs explode randomly. So ... they ordered several bombs to be long delay fused. There was one more problem with these fuses. Once installed they could not be extracted, for they were designed to explode the bomb if someone tried to remove them before they activated. Once these bombs were loaded and fused, we were committed to use them. I warned the strike planners of these facts and they decided to go ahead.
Well, the worst happened: Once the bombs were loaded and ready, "higher authority" cancelled the strike. The ship's ordnance disposal specialists were faced with the dangerous task of downloading and getting rid of these bombs over the side. To do this, ropes had to be attached to the loading lugs of the bombs that had been carefully downloaded and placed in bomb trucks. The ship's captain was advised that the ship had to come dead in the water so that the bombs could be lowered 80 feet from the flight deck to the sea surface and then be released straight down without any current to bump them against the side. The captain was not happy, but he did as I requested, requiring me to report to him with all of the details of the fiasco. Bringing an aircraft carrier to a full stop places it in serious jeopardy - it is a sitting duck. The exercise was accomplished without incident, thankfully.
Hong Kong is a great city for "R&R". Enterprise arrived after spending a few days in the Philippines (to avoid political confrontation, no ship could go directly to Hong Kong from a war zone). I went ashore, booked a hotel room, got a 6-pack of beer, and placed a call to Annette in New Zealand. While waiting for the call to go through, I heard some activity out in the hallway and went to investigate. A Qantas crew was finding their rooms. I introduced myself and asked if they happened to know a Captain Connolly (remember the flight to Canton island?) To my surprise, they said yes they knew him - he was the captain of that particular crew! We had a few beers and caught up on old times. Then I went back to my room and fell asleep. As if in a dream, I heard the phone ring and answered it. I don't recall much of the conversation with Annette, but she tells me I sounded disoriented. I then went back to sleep and woke up three days later.
When the Enterprise completed her first combat tour, she was scheduled to go to the Shipyard for a restricted availability for some running repairs. I took leave and flew to New Zealand to spend some time with my family and then Annette accompanied me back to California while the children stayed with their grandparents on the farm in Southland. While the ship was in work, the days were long and demanding and there was little time to be spent together. Soon Annette had to return to the children and I had to return to the South China Sea with my ship.
The USS Oriskany had experienced a fire that killed several ship's crew and air wing pilots. The fire was fueled by white phosphorus parachute flares that had been stored in a space near the operations spaces. Flares do not need oxygen to bum, they will expand in an available space as they bum and generate temperatures high enough to melt steel. There had to be a better way to store such material outside of the ship's hull. During our second deployment, when we stopped in Hawaii, the ordnance disposal men went to a materials dump to see if they could find some lockers to be used to store flares, which could be jettisoned in the event of fire. They found some lockers and brought them back to the ship. I approached the ship's engineer and proposed that we devise a method to attach the lockers outboard of the flight deck with attachments similar to those used to attach lifeboats. He suggested that I write a ship "alt" and submit it through the ship's captain for approval. He provided a document to use as a guide. The ship alt was submitted and approved within days. The lockers were in place and loaded with flares before we reached the Philippines. A directive also went out to install these lockers in all carriers. A few years later, when Enterprise had the horrific flight deck accident and fire, these lockers were jettisoned to keep the flares from igniting and contributing further to the fire.
Although I was ship's company, I was still expected to maintain my flying skills. This was done by flying the ships COD (carrier on board delivery) aircraft, a twin engine C-l to and from the ship with mail and technicians. Several flights were made into Da Nang, Ton son Nhut, Qui Nhon, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Once, taking off from Da Nang, my crewman noted oil streaming from the starboard engine and notified me in time for me to feather the propeller and shut the engine down. I then had to make an emergency landing directly back on the runway.
While Enterprise was off the line and in port at Cubic Bay, I heard that the guided missile frigate, USS Bainbridge, was making a run to Perth, Australia - to return in time to accompany the carrier back to the line. I requested that I be allowed to join Bainbridge, and was given a set of temporary duty orders for the duration of the trip. The frigate's captain welcomed me aboard and gave me opportunity to "con" the ship for a good portion of the trip. It was quite a thrill. Annette flew from New Zealand to Perth and met me on arrival. We had a few days together before heading back to the war.
Some of the pilots with whom I had flown in earlier squadrons were shot down and taken prisoner. One in particular, Red McDaniel, was captured and spent seven years in the Hanoi Hilton. He and I had been squadron mates in VA 65 aboard Intrepid. After providing the bomb load for his A-6 Intruder, I went to Strike Ops to listen to his mission. His aircraft was hit south of Hanoi in the Red River Valley. He and his BN ejected safely and landed on opposite sides of a mountain. They evaded overnight, but were captured the next morning. Red never was able to determine the fate of his BN, but has since learned that he was sent to Russia to be interrogated about the aircraft weapons systems. To this day he has been attempting to determine the fate of his crewman.