The Captain was on an inspection trip of the deployed VAN Teams, cross-decking and taking his turn on the Flight Schedule. He was a World War Two Tailhooker, SBD's and the SB2C's ("The Beast"). He always wore his lucky cloth helmet that had brought him to this point.

Most of our launches were deck launches, so we usually steamed past the Air Boss. The order came down that all pilots and crewmen would wear hard-hats. Up to this time there were other pilots still opting for the cloth helmet. It was the skippers flight and he had his lucky cloth helmet on, taxied forward, full power, salute and off he went.

Upon recovery he was summoned to the Air Boss who proceeded to tell him that if he intended flying anymore, he had better have his hard hat on the next time. The next time came around real soon, the Captain lined up, hard hat showing, max-power, up came the hand - off came the hard hat and there was the cloth helmet, the salute and launch.

It was the last flight with our Team as he was cross-decking to the next Team for inspection. PS - Prior to his last launch, the Captain came to me and asked me to strip his hard hat so that the cloth helmet would fit inside. He and the Air Boss were old shipmates and this was to be a "Gotcha".