Was I at any time frightened while flying? Just a couple of times.
Once while at Los Alamitos I was flying wing on Bugs Dunagan
in a rather lose, relaxed manner and a little wide of his wing
tip. All of a sudden a couple of planes made an overhead pass
on us. One of the planes, I'll swear, went between Dunagan's
plane and mine. I'm sure the "Nut" driving that thing
was not aware of my plane. What was not needed anywhere, especially
flying, was a bunch of "Smart Asses".
Twilight landing aboard the USS Steamer Bay, CVE 87 |
One type of flying that was scary was blind flying. One kind
of flying blind was making a slow pull-out from a dive at high
speed such as a gunnery run. This blindness is the result of
blood draining from your head and eyes causing the temporary
loss of vision. After the dive is completed the blood returns,
your sight returns and all you have to do is locate the horizon
to get your bearings. To avoid trouble while you are in this
sightless condition is to hold the stick in the center with a
little back pressure so that the plane will be coming up out
of the dive when your vision returns. It is a funny sensation
but not particularly dangerous.
Another spooky situation was flying in formation while climbing
or descending through a heavily overcast sky or through a very
dense cloud. You are intent on watching and holding your position
on the plane you are flying wing on when all of a sudden you
cannot see it or any of the other planes in the formation. Immediately
you are on instruments and hoping to God that you don't fly into
each other. The more dense the clouds and the longer your are
blind the greater the chance of a collision. It is a great feeling
to come out the other side and see the other planes at some distance
from you- any distance, just so they are away. This I experienced
many times and every time I was spooked.
Probably one of the most God-awful sensations to happen to you
is to return to the carrier after dark and find the ship blacked
out. If you are fortunate, there will be a little moonlight or
maybe enough twilight to have a dim horizon or maybe a vague
shadow of the ship. If none of these exist you will arrive on
radio and radar. Your approach and landing procedure is accomplished
by communicating with the ship by the radio and radar. Once in
the landing pattern and on the down wind leg you are advised
to make your turn into the cross wind leg and when you are about
thirty degrees off the upwind leg you gain visual contact with
the carrier. Up to this time you have been flying blind. When
you sight the carrier all you see is a stick man. This is the
LSO. His uniform is a flight suit with narrow strip of florescent
cloth down each leg, one strip up the center of his torso and
one out each of his arms. At the end of the arm strips is a round
florescent circle with horizontal narrow strips of this florescent
cloth. All you see are these florescent strips until you are
very near being directly aft of the ship. At this time, if you
are lucky, you will make out the outline of the deck of the ship
by seeing lights spaced down each side of the flight deck. These
lights are small and can only be seen from directly behind and
slightly above the flight deck for security reasons. Don't think
for a second that you are going to land between those lights
on your own. Your visibility and depth perception just aren't
good enough. You place your faith in God and the man with the
paddles. With your faith and his talent you will land safely
aboard. When you feel the plane hit the deck and the cable brings
the plane to stop you breath a deep, deep sigh of relief and
mop the sweat from your brow. I had a few twilight landing but
only one near dark landing. On this one I could barely make out
the outline of the ship. It was close enough to being black.
Thank God there were no more!
It was not the standard practice to fly at night but did happen
occasionally and if you were caught in this situation just pray
that when you arrive at the carrier there is no rain or fog and
the sea is relatively calm.
Many times I was apprehensive but I don't recall being frightened
by any of my experiences. I can hardly believe that these pilots
who flew early in the war were not scared out of their wits when
the best plane the Navy had was the F4F Wildcat. The Wildcat
was no match for the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero either in speed,
in maneuverability or in numbers. The only advantage the Wildcat
had going for it was it's protective armament and the ability
to take a lot of punishment. As a result the Navy losses were
running fairly high. And as the old saying goes: "necessity
is the mother of invention". The inventor who came along
at this time was Commander John Thatch. Commander Thatch developed
a defensive maneuver that made it possible for fighter pilots
to meet the Japanese in combat and survive with considerably
fewer losses. This maneuver was named after Commander Thatch
and was called the "Thatch Weave".
The gist of this maneuver was to be applied when the Navy planes
were attacked by a superior force of Japanese planes. If a section
of two planes or a division of three or four planes was attacked,
the planes would split into two sections and fly parallel courses
to each other about a half mile apart. The pilots of the planes
on the left would keep a visual observation of the area above,
beyond, below from twelve o'clock ahead to six o'clock behind
on the right side of their course. The section on the right would
keep a visual observation of the opposite half of the area. In
this manner the entire sky is under complete observation. |
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