This morning, as I might have mentioned, was much taken up with the attempt to fashion a perfect spreadsheet to capture several thousand flight hours, landings and and instrument approaches. Dreary work up front made filling in the blanks a little less tedious on the back end. But I started at around 0645 this morning and by 1500 – having worked through lunch without realizing it – I was only up to April, 1985.
This is going to take a little while.
Log books contain a great deal of data, and when it comes to manipulating data there is nothing to improve upon automated systems. I have signed to “Certify a Correct Record” whatever it was Yeoman Apprentice Wishes E. Were-Ellswear calculated more often than I should have done. It appears that “error carried forward” did not entirely vanish upon graduation from college.
But there’s something about a physical logbook, sitting on your desk. You will have so many times looked at it over the course of a career. Scrutinizing its pages as though they contained some hidden mystery – legends of experience, competence, potential. You will have watched it grow with a quiet but increasing pride. Watch it spill over from first one book, to two. Eventually four for me, three of them wrapped in a naugahide binder, my last one loose. Plus the civilian log book, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of that one.
Twenty-odd years. Over four thousand hours. Black ink for day flights, red ink for night. Green for combat.
Going through entries from 24 years ago I almost felt as though I was peeking into someone else’s life. There’s the name of my first instructor, LT Doug Seward, through my first seven familiarization flights. He had been an A-6 pilot as I recollect and I considered myself lucky to have him – it was a rarity to find a jet guy teaching primary.
I busted his chops a bit in a good-natured way at my “tie-cutting” – the celebration of one’s first solo – for his oft-expressed dreams of flying for the airlines. I wished I hadn’t later – he was a good egg, and trying for an extension at the training squadron. Needed to build his hours I guess, or else the majors weren’t hiring just then. The helo and prop instructors all guffawed, but he turned right red at the moment. The politics of all of that was well beyond my ken back in 1983.
On to T-2′s in Meridian and the pages spoke to me again. Of nervousness wearing a harness and 02 mask, strapped into an ejection seat, under an instrument “bag,” unable to see outside but feeling in my inner ear the acceleration as we took off into a wet February morning. Compared to the T-34, the T-2 at first seemed like a lot of airplane. I smile at the thought now, but what you know is what you know.
There too was Pitt’s name, in the “Remarks” box. Just like it always has been. A true gentleman, a graduate of Virginia, an inspirational pilot and instructor. He was seven kinds of fun and a wonderful golfer to boot. His wife was breathtakingly beautiful and clever, and he was leaving the training squadron soon to fly Tomcats in Oceana – that had always been his dream. On his last night on this earth he asked me if I wanted to join him – he was flying as a night chase for student solos. I almost said yes, but didn’t – I had earned my wings by then and had been kept behind as an instructor. Flying with an actual pilot rather than a cone-headed student was reckoned good clean fun in basic jets. But although I was always a flight hour hound in those days, I asked to beg off regretfully. I had already flown three times and I was tired, and eager to be home.
When the phone rang that night to tell me that he had been killed I couldn’t believe it. Turned out later that the elevator boost pack had taken an uncommanded hard-over. The mishap board surmised that Pitt had probably been pinned to the canopy, unable to reach his ejection handles. It took eleven seconds to go from 17,500 feet to the unyielding Mississippi clay. Wasn’t a whole lot left to put away by the time the fire was out, a fact that was eventually wrestled out of me by his grieving widow – I was the casualty assistance calls officer for his case, and she “wanted to see the body.” Some jobs are harder than others.
I used to wonder whether I might have saved him that night, when he asked me to jump in the back. Whether I might have made a difference.
Sometimes I wonder that still.
Then there were those first arrested landings in the T-2 aboard the USS Lexington. I remember how impossibly damned small she looked from overhead holding. I rechecked my altimeter twice, thinking we must have been higher, but no: 2000 feet overhead and she looked not much bigger than a jon boat. Two touch and go’s later I was starting to feel comfortable – this wasn’t so hard. Then there was that first arrested landing, and after that all was a blur. You’ve heard about the “controlled crash” aspect of carrier landings? In CQ you do it over and over again. With kick-you-in-the-bollocks cat shots to liven things up in between.
Two touch and go’s and the first trap. That’s all I remember. I had not quite 160 flight hours by that time.
I remember how the advanced jet training squadron seemed somehow cooler, more professional. Everyone seemed a great deal more serious, and the A-4 Skyhawk was a high performance machine. Great fun to fly, but demanding too. She’d kill you, if you let her. Not personal. Just business.
And it was harder. We weren’t playing at pilot anymore – an instrument check was a valid Navy license to fly in the goo, and the standards were rigorous. Bust a minimum descent altitude on an instrument approach by it didn’t matter how much and you were done, that failure went into your training record as a “down”. Twenty-five percent of any given class, having been winnowed along the way to getting to advanced jets would disqual at the ship in A-4′s, also leading to a down.
If you got two downs anywhere in the syllabus it was time to look for new work. Up until this point we had been learning how to fly. The advanced jet instructors would walk with us on our first steps towards learning how to kill.
It was a thousand years ago. It was yesterday.
And speaking of yesterday, occasional reader Marty sends along this training film for my favorite historical machine: The F4U Corsair. Twenty-one minutes long and I wish it had been longer.
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1056703518162002454[/googlevideo]
God, what a beautiful airplane. Get a load of that power-off stall. If that didn’t grab the transition student’s attention in the landing pattern, then he was in the wrong business. A problem that would undoubtedly rectify itself. I watched with pure joy as that big engine took the pilot over the top at 210 knots. Dayum.
Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, here’s a plausible argument stating that the F4U wasn’t merely beautiful and deadly, but that it was the highest expression of the art form – a title I had thought reserved for the P-51 Mustang. You’ve got to love the way the author closes:
Finally there is an area in which the P-51 cannot compete at all. The F4U was designed to operate from an aircraft carrier. What this provides for is a utility that is unmatched by the better land based fighters of WWII. The ability to operate at sea or from shore can never be over-valued.
Obvious advantage: F4U-4
You bet.
“There too was Pitt’s name…. On his last night on this earth he asked me if I wanted to join him. When the phone rang that night to tell me that he had been killed I couldn’t believe it.”
I felt like that when I saw the names of the T-39 sabreliner crew which went down in Georgia in early 2006 and realized one of the SNFO’s was a friend from primary. Realizing if I was still in the pipeline it could have been me strapping on that aircraft.
My humble respects to you, sir. Thank you for another snapshot of your metamorphasis into a Warrior. Jet and all. Prayers the repose of Mr Pitt and all who have lost their lives in training for the defense 0f our Nation. And for their families.
I remember my first cat and my second trap.
When the cat fired, every dial in the cockpit became a cylinder moving back towards me. Weirdest illusion I’ve ever had.
I remember my second trap because I forgot to lock my harness. [Don Adams]Missed the instrument panel by that much![/Don Adams]
Cap’n, have you kept in contact with any of your instructors?
Lex,
Thanks for another peek into something most of us will never know.
Lex,
What a joy to relive the birth of a warrior. I, too, remember a primary flight instructor taken by a mechanical failure. Capt James, USMC, killed in the Ospry that crashed into the Patomic. He was arguably the best of us all.
Lex, you may move on to other things but you will always carry these challenges and accomplishments with you. Stand tall, Sir, you have earned it!
Some of us live vicariously through your words, Lex. I cannot offer consolation — that has to come from others who have experienced the same, and friend there are darned few who have experienced what you and your cadre have. That itself might be some consolation, that having lived what few men will have ever tasted you’ve surpassed us all and if the days are fewer they burned exceedingly bright, but it’s not really… The light that burns bright can possibly burn brighter, but is extinguished too early to know for certain.
Today I merely hope to live a life free of regrets.
On the F4U, I consider it to be the greatest piston-engined fighter ever built. It didn’t have the legs of the Mustang once the horse was given the Rolls Royce, it didn’t have the speed, and goodness knows it was well-liked by the Marines and those chaps are a bunch of ruffians who can’t be trusted to appreciate the genteel and refined aspects of life.
But she had horsepower, she had speed, she responded to the touch like a nymphomaniac on spanish fly, and that radial could fly you home with a cylinder shot off and spewing oil over the windscreen. The one thing she didn’t have was finesse, she was a bruiser not a boxer.
The Japanese supposedly called it “Whistling Death,” the whistle through the wing-root oil radiators being a signature. The respect of my enemies gives me honor.
Fight her fight and she’d become the terror of the Pacific. The lesson to be learned is to always ignore the wishes of the enemy and go with what the lady likes to do.
That’s a pretty good recipe for a marriage, come to think of it.
– Max
Captain,
I too, like Max, live vicariously through your words. I won’t try to match the eloquent words of the previous posters. It’s not in me. A simple thank you for this abbreviated look into a career that any man should be proud of will have to suffice.
Not unlike leafing through 20 year old LES’s…
“Good Lord, we didn’t make that much back then..!”
And the little indicators of our misdeeds:
“Yep, there went E-3 to E-2; NOT a good day…”
But the cryptic achronyms do bring to mind the wonderful memories too, eh?
…Like the advance pay right before Padia Beach, eh?
re- “It was a thousand years ago. It was yesterday”
Significant memories though bittersweet. I remember them boost off practice approaches and ,ahem, being close to busting MDAs under the hood. Methinks Lex, as you go through all them books you’re gonna find more stories to delight and enlighten.
Makes me want to dust off mine just to take a peek. Maybe another day. I’m too old and “respectful” to make a living off actually flying anymore. Seems like a dream now.Though when I see those jets in the break 5 or 6 times a day out the minders…Lucky kids!
b2
And yet your Life is more than is captured in your logbook, CAPT Lex. Imagine the entries which appear in other young Men’s logbooks bearing your signature, touching their histories. Of course, there are the entries which never get written, but are long remembered in the wardrooms and households of those who served with you. And in the memories of your lovely wife and children.
And just think, you ain’t even halfway done, sir. There’s a whole lot more things to do, things to see, people to meet, lives to improve, wisdom to impart,… and Guinness to be drunk.
Were you to write a book about it all, no one would believe it. And none shall completely understand it except those who have “slipped the surly bonds of Earth and reached out and touched the Face of God”, such as yourself.
Good Man, Good Family, Good Life, Good Friendship. All are yours to cherish, Sir. Press on.
Subsunk
Lex,
When I read what you wrote about what happened to Pitt I felt like I had been kicked in the balls. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for you. As was said above; only you and others that have been through it can know what it’s like.
What I will say is thank you. Thank you Sir, for your brave and selfless service to this country. Thank you for your words that you put on this page. Thank you for sharing with us experiences that we can only imagine.
May God continue to bless you, your family, and the men and women who stand on the walls ready to defend this country.
Jim C
Do you still have the belly-button-high white trunks and ping pong paddles from when you were an LSO? I couldn’t help but laugh at the end of the video at the shirtless, suntanned body-builder standing on the flight line without one lick of PPE, let alone clothing, on.
~Ens Tim
I’m going through my late father’s logbooks right now. Lots and lots of F4U entries. And AD, and SNB, and R4D, and SNJ, and A-6A. Bits and pieces of F6F, F8F, TBM, TV-2, T-28 and some other oddballs.
By the time I was able to understand and remember these things, he was pretty much done flying ( the only time I really remember seeing him fly was in the left seat of an H-46. Had to get flight pay somehow!)
Living thru your words – well put Max and so true. It’s what keeps us all (if I may take the liberty) coming here for more more more.
I also echo Jim C. – in my thanks to you Lex, and the thousands like you, who dedicated their lives to something greater than they are. Rare indeed.
gawd, I love the way you write…..
I second the idea of a book.
Your story about Pitt brought up several memories that had not surfaced for sometime. Thanks for helping refresh my memory of them.
I found you (along w/ Op-FOR and Information Dissemination) when my son deployed w/ the 22nd MEU (HMM-261) and will read you as long as you write, ESPECIALLY if it’s a damned BOOK!
Lex, you have that exquisite ability to draw a reader in, to feel the emotions, to want to know more. Tain’t easy to do that, y’know. But you got it…in spades.
I humbly suggest that Byron has perfectly articulated why you are such a wonderful writer.
I…I…articulated?…why, I would have thought at my age, I could no longer do such a thing…
Cap’n,
When you doff the uniform for the last time, be thinkin’ about a book. You have the story-tellers gift, you can’t help it. You have the experience, the logbooks, and the skill. I’d buy a copy, and some for my friends.
God bless you, and thank you for your service!
Cheers!
ChrisP
Lex,
Thank you very much for such a moving entry.
The wife and I went to the 11:00 service at the Academy in Annapolis for the first time this morning. Good sermon, but a beautiful service. Reminded me that as a civilian, there’s quite a bit I don’t know… and, frankly, isn’t within my right to know.
Saw lots of young faces, and a few old ones…
We sang a hymn to the armed forces…
Moved me greatly, and I sang it with pride.
And I saw young men and women, and old men and women, sing it not only with pride, but with the voice of their entire life…
And I thought of a certain San Diego blogger who shares his stories and his life,
And made me appreciate that the gap between a civilian and a servant sometimes cannot be measured…
But other times its just a pint.
And here’s one civilian who offers that pint to all who serve, and who serve all…
Thanks.
Lex? Just got to thinking about your age, just a little older than myself perhaps. This infatuation with the F4U didn’t start with the 7pm broadcast of Black Sheep Squadron, back around the mid-70′s did it?
Because it had a number of things going for it. Six Corsairs flying around, it was based on the story of a MoH recipient, and the Washington Post hated it. I mean, with that much going for it a show like that could impress a young kid. Make him want to fly, or join the senior service. Be, you know, a credit to his country.
Yeah, subsersive stuff. I understand it’s available on DVD these days.
There was another show, came on around 10:30pm that same evening, called “World War 2: GI Diary.” Sadly, I’ve not seen it available on DVD. The same stories voiced-over in the soldiers own words, supported by combat footage. Moving stuff. Made a young farm boy want to join the Senior Service, to fly or shoot the big guns or pilot the boat.
Yeah, subversise stuff, seeing our folks doing their job. Stuff like that can cause volunteerism.
– Max
You know, I don’t think so. I remember the series, but I was never much into TV. Made models back in the day. Battleships. Submarines. Airplanes.
The F4U just had a lot going on. And then I saw one flying near Milton, Florida back when I was in primary. The owner had it just barely going, and you could hear each prop blade cut the air. It was holding so much back.
‘A was a good bird.
Amazon has Ba Ba Black Sheep available. History Channel aired the series with interviews/reactions from the show’s actors and veterans of the Squadron. Don’t get your hopes up too much…the show was utter camp.
But the scenes of the Corsairs in the air…priceless.
If you go to History Channel’s site, search ‘corsair’. They’ve got an episode from Battle Stations dedicated to the Bent Wing Bird.
Blackhawk? Don’t kill my nostalgic buzz, man — the real joy of long-term memory is that we forget the stupid parts. Like how campy the TV was. Like the 60′s, but I digress…
– Max