Shipmates,
The effort to catch up to real time continues…but first! Everyone please welcome aboard Tony Callea!
Admin Note: As this effort evolves, I think I will continue to tweak the way I present some of the information. For instance, starting today I am going to try highlighting in red any mention of aircraft crashes. My motive is not ghoulish but rather to provide a visual reminder in order to give some perspective regarding how often bad things happened back then. I have read through the War Diary and all the Air Wing After Action Reports once so far and, even though in my day Naval Aviation was dangerous, our safety record was remarkable. I was not really prepared for the number of aircraft crashes, both operational and combat-related, that Princeton and her accompanying Task Group carriers suffered.
11 JAN 44
I am traveling at the moment, so it seems a good opportunity to provide a taste of what the actual War Diary looks like. I will only add a couple comments and let you digest the actual log entries for 11 January as written.
If my experience is any indication, there was an actual written logbook on the bridge that very likely looked similar to this...
… in which the OOD (Officer of the Deck, in today’s Navy referred to as and pronounced “Oh Oh Dee") or his subordinate watchstanders would hand write significant entries. These would then be typed by the duty Yeoman into the official log:
As you read the entry for 11 January 44 please be mindful of a few things…
- As mentioned yesterday, training is routine right up to the point that it is not
- Flying airplanes onto and from ships is dangerous, even if one is experienced and the “ace of the base."
- Flying airplanes onto and from ships is exponentially more dangerous if you are inexperienced or poorly trained
- The scale and scope of the overall training effort, both for the Ship and the Air Wing, is colossal, as evidenced by the seemingly relentless pace that is pursued throughout the day ... Underway at 0818, train, train, train some more, secure from exercise at 2105. Steam in open waters throughout the night, repeat.
RIP Ensign E.P. EUBANK, A-V(N), USNR.
Note the inaccurate information in the shorter clipping (“killed in action”) and the lack of information in the second. No mention of the fact that Ensign Eubank perished in a training accident or the location, but perhaps the implication that he died in combat “in the South Pacific." Totally understandable because all this information — especially ship’s movement or location — was highly classified. In fact, his memorial marker at the State Capitol in Texas doesn’t list birth or death dates. Also, his Rank in the ship log is listed as Ensign, on his Texas marker as Lieutenant and at the National Cemetery of the Pacific as Lieutenant (Junior Grade). In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter.
The next time I visit Honolulu and the spectacular National Cemetery of the Pacific, known as “the Punchbowl” for it’s location in an extinct volcano cone, I will look for him on the Wall of the Missing.
Despite the accident, there was a World War on, and things to be done.
Consider the timeline:
1315 ship turns into the wind to conduct flight operations
1323 flight operations suspended after aircraft crashes into the ship’s superstructure
1328 ship turns back into the wind
1335 increases speed
1345 commenced flight operations
Within 5 minutes of losing a pilot, the serious injury to his two enlisted crewmen, and significant damage to the ship, Princeton was turning back into the wind and preparing to press on. Indeed, within 30 minutes, flight operations had resumed.
Ensign/LT(jg)/LT Eubank’s crash reminded me, as does so much of Dad’s time in Princeton, of my own time in the Navy and of a story probably worth sharing.
A little less than 44 years later, about halfway to the Hawaii Operating Area (OPAREA) and only a few days into my first cruise — 5 December 1988 to be exact — my first ever "blue water ops*" flight was changed from a “routine” training flight into an actual Search and Rescue mission.
I kept a journal back then…
…and thought I would revisit my thoughts at the time:
MONDAY 5 DECEMBER, 1988
2714.26N, 13847.37W, 2231, Heading 235°
1 DAY TRAP (2.6), OK 3, A-6E, SAR, 1st Blue Water Hop
Today was a sad day. At 0522 the phone rang in our stateroom and Bart answered. We were needed in the ready room to brief for a SAR effort which would launch at approximately 0730. Bart asked the duty officer if this was an exercise and was told that it wasn’t. One of the EA-6Bs from VAQ-139 had participated in a war-at-sea exercise against the USS Lake Champlain late the night before and had not returned to the ship. It was presumed to have crashed at sea. It’s hard to explain what was going through my mind at this point but to be perfectly honest my first thought was “who was it?” and my second thought was relief that it wasn't me. My next was of my parents—surely it would be covered on television and in the newspapers. Would the papers get the type aircraft correct? Doubtful. The correct squadron? Iffy. The number of crewmembers the aircraft carried? There are countless mistakes or inaccuracies that could be made and which could lead loved ones at home to think the worst. I quickly found myself hoping they would just happen to not read the paper or see the news reporting the accident. Oh well, nothing I can do until we get to Hawaii. Just hope the papers get it right. Back to the job at hand.
The skipper briefed us on the situation and detailed our individual search sectors, etc. As I left the ready room I heard someone mention that John "Skates" Wilcox was the pilot of the missing Prowler. I didn't know John real well but was close enough to call him by his callsign. It wasn't until I sat down to write this that I remembered a funny incident in which he played the major part. He was an LSO† and I had gone out to the platform with one of our LSO's, Bruce “Chewey” Bull. After the recovery was complete, the three of us were shooting the shit when it was mentioned that I was an LSO in training. Skates said, "Hey, have you been measured for your pickle yet?” I replied that no, I hadn't. He grabbed the "pickle" (the switch LSOs hold which controls the cut and waveoff lights. It is a hand-held switch made of bakelite ceramic with a metal ring covering a trigger type switch. It is attached to about 20 feet of electrical cord about the circumference of a penny) and strung it out horizontally across my chest, measuring me from fingertip to fingertip. Then vertically from head to toe. I'm kind of looking around thinking to myself "what the fuck is this guy doing?" when he tells me to stick my arm out in front of me so he could measure my forward reach. I complied as he stretched the pickle from my shoulder to my extended hand. He furrowed his brow as though busy completing mental calculations, nodded his headed up and down in satisfaction and let go of the pickle which he watched swing down and smack me right in the family jewels! As I doubled over he started walking away and said, over his shoulder, "Perfect fit!" Talk about being had! All I could do was laugh.
As Bart and I sat there on deck, engines humming while waiting for our inertial alignment to complete, I pictured four guys bobbing up and down in the water and imagined them hoping beyond hope that someone was looking for them. Deep down however, I knew that they were most likely gone forever. It happens all the time. Airplanes just disappear—lost at sea—no signs anywhere. No beepers, no wreckage and no last second transmissions. They just flew into the water. If they had experienced an emergency of some sort they would probably have been able to get out a mayday call before being forced to eject. There were several other planes airborne as they were all returning from the strike at the same time. None of them heard or saw a thing.
After launching we took up the vector we had received from the E-2 and began our search. Wow. Trying to find a guy a couple thousand feet below in the waves and swells would indeed be like picking the needle from amongst the hay. In my mind I couldn't help but reverse roles and picture myself down there among the waves. How desperately I would be listening for the beautiful noise of a jet looking for me! My eyes searched the ocean's surface intently with this in mind. How great it would be to find them! I've read a lot of books about Vietnam POWs and have learned that quite often rescues can be attributed to nothing more than pure chance. So as hopeless as it seemed there was no doubt in my mind that we were doing the right thing.
Bart and I were about 200 miles from the boat when we heard John “CHUD” Sylvester and Brian “Dead" Newmeyer say over the radio that they thought they had seen something. We continued for another 50 miles when the E-2 instructed us to hold our position. Even though we were holding over a spot we had already checked, I kept scanning the surface. By this time it was apparent that CHUD and Dead had located the wreckage and the Hawkeye gave us a new sector to search. Not more than two minutes into our vector I glanced across Bart and in the sea below I saw a white object on the water. I kept my eye on it waiting for it to disappear, thinking it was a wave breaking. When it didn't I immediately overbanked so I could keep it in view and dove at it. We made one low pass and I told Bart "Hey, that's a parachute! No shit, tell the E-2!" He did and we set up a port orbit over it while I talked Bart's eyes onto it. He concurred that it sure did look like a chute. He even checked it with his binoculars which he had brought along. It was clear as day. White, puffy folds of material floating on and just under the surface trailing shroud lines which slowly disappeared as they descended into the water. An S-3, Sawbuck 703, was vectored to our position as well as an SH-60 helicopter from one of the smallboys. As we orbited overhead we talked both of them onto the chute and then turned back to the boat as we were running low on gas. As we did this the SH-60 was hovering directly over our chute. His next transmission was that it appeared to be some type of insulation material. No way! The S-3 chimed in that it was undoubtedly a parachute and they took several pictures of it which were developed on the boat later in the afternoon. After returning to the ship we began to slowly put all the pieces together. Later in the afternoon the USS Lake Champlain picked up our parachute and said it was a large fishing net which they simply tossed back into the water. We all were taken up to the bridge where Connie's CO, Capt. Zerr, had us explain exactly what each of us had seen. From what information I could glean after observing the various charts and eavesdropping on conversations the search had been directed around the debris CHUD and Dead had spotted. Admiral Carlsen ordered the search to continue until dark whereupon I gathered it would be called off. Skates had a 1 year old kid. The Prowler had a crew of four. It will be tough on all concerned but they will survive somehow. The investigation will continue and come up with a cause to satisfy the safety bureaucrats. The truth, however, is that nobody will ever know the exact cause. It could be any number of things. What we do know is that some brave dudes were lost at sea doing something they loved.
Even though my 2 years of flight school and Intruder training had already included the loss of multiple friends and even more acquaintances, there is one memory about this particular event that lingers. Even these several decades later I feel an unease that, after just a single rising and setting of the sun, the search was called off and we continued west. I have always considered this particular hop my true "welcome to the fleet”moment. Only three days into my first deployment and we were already leaving 4 shipmates behind.
After all, there was a Cold War on, and things to be done.
RIP LT John L. “Skates” Wilcox, LT Brad Jacobs, LT Scott Threkeld, and LCDR Don M. Holderby
* "blue water" is Naval Aviation vernacular for flying at sea with no land divert available
† Landing Signal Officer:
Dad rode USS Independence with me from Pearl Harbor to San Diego in June of 1989. Here we are on the LSO Platform. A wonderful memory.
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