My plane, a Skyraider with number 13 on the nose rolled into position on the windswept flight deck of the attack carrier USS Yorktown. This famous ship, "The Fighting Lady" of World War II had been brought from the mothball fleet and had taken her place in the Navy's Peace Line Patrol off the coast of South Korea. The armistice had been in effect a couple of months.
This was a nice sunny morning in September, 1953, and the "Lady" was making routine training launches. The sleek new swept-wing Cougar jets and their better known, combat tested predecessors, the Panthers, already had been catapulted from her bows and were mere specks in the sky.
The "prop" planes, the Skyraiders, were lining up to go. These are the "heavies" the single engine attack planes that won their place in the oriental sun by carrying a greater bomb load in the Korean conflict than did the well known Flying Fortress in World War ll.
With the shooting stopped in Korea, this was only a training hop, carrying practice bombs. Behind me in the bulky fuselage sat my two crewmen, Jim Ash of Longview, Texas and Ronald Cammans of Salt Lake City, Utah.
The raider squatted, idling with her brakes on, opposite the carriers "island" the superstructure jutting up on one side of the broad flight deck. Up there on top the Air Officer controls the activity on the flight deck below.
He spoke into a microphone, and the launching officer on the deck heard the familiar signal "launch props." He raised his arm, hand overhead with fingers pointing skyward.
I moved my hand to the throttle automatically, as I had done so many times since I first begun to fly in 1942, waiting for the signal to "rev up" I kept my eye on the launching officer
His upraised hand began to move in a circle, faster and faster, and I shoved the throttle gradually forward. My engine checks soon showed I had increased from idle to full power. Above the thundering roar of the 2900 horsepower engine, I felt the usual and familiar bone-jarring vibration as the plane groaned and strained against her brakes The twirling hand flashed downward, and I immediately released the brakes. The quivering plane leaped forward down the flight deck into the artificial gale created by the Yorktown's dash at high speed into sea wind. The
steady roar increased as the plane began her run forward. Those observing from the carrier's superstructure and flight deck turned their faces from number 13, back to the next plane in line.
Then they heard the skip in the rolling rhythm of thunder up front, and quickly looked back toward the bow and our plane. The transparent arc of flashing propeller blades clouded up, indicating trouble. The rhythm of sound was broken by lapses of short silence and the props seemed to jerk around their circular path, rather than spin smoothly.
It's hard to say what happened at that particular moment, but I knew my engine was dying out on me. I guess
every carrier pilot fears that more than anything else, loss of power on take off. On a land airstrip you might have enough room to coast down or find a nice convenient ditch to settle in without too much damage. But from a carrier, you either go up or down-way down, This was it.
Skyraider 13 was halfway down the flight deck now heading for the bow and the onrushing blue water beyond.
Those watching said they could see me trying to bring the engine back to life, for that was one answer to our situation. I couldn't use my brakes now without flipping over or turning around.
The tail of the plane that had lifted as we began to take off, settled back on the deck. That meant trouble. I had the throttle pushed forward in hopes the engine would pick up again-I was doing a lot of hoping. The blasting gale coming over the bow and down the long flight deck served to slow us down. It might be, I thought, if the engine doesn't catch on, enough force to stop us. But we weighed close to 20,000 pounds, and we had been moving pretty fast to start with.
I looked out now to check our position. We were still rolling slowly into the wind and there were just a few yards left between our plane and emptiness. If I continued forward, two possibilities were presented. First, immediately below the forward edge of the flight deck were two jutting gun platforms, and someone might be down there. There was the ammunition there too, and with our plane carrying over 300 gallons of high octane gas, we couldn't mix with that. If we were moving fast enough to actually "fly" off the bow-and I luckily decided that we weren't-we might clear the gun tubs, but then would fall in the "taboo" of all ditching spots-under the sharp bow of the speeding carrier. We'd be ground to bits either in the initial collision with the ship or, if e survived that by, the four massive spinning propellers that would suck us in as we pummeled aft toward the stern.
To my right, I could see the strained faces of the flight deck crew, crouched in the catwalk, the open passageway
alongside the flight deck. Below them were more guns and more ammunition. Only on the extreme end of the flight deck forward on my right was there an open spot, if I had to fall into the sea.
I touched my right brake lightly and those watching saw number 13 swerve a little to the right. We were now heading for the only possible spot where we could go over the side, if we had to, without damage to the carrier or endangering more lives than our own. It also gave us the longest distance in which to get stopped, if that was possible. When the plane's nose lined up with this last chance spot on the corner of the deck there was nothing to do but sweat it out. And I began to sweat.
I guess I had realized by now that we were not going to stop, so I automatically reached for the control which would collapse the wheels when we left the deck. I doubted if it would do much good under the circumstances, but you learn early in carrier flying that in case of having to ditch, don't hit with your wheels down. If you do, you wind up flipped over on your back, and strapped tightly in your seat upside down under water isn't a very favorable position. This wasn't going to exactly be a ditching, but I was ready to make like it would be anyway. All was done that could be done.
Slowly, sickeningly slowly, the Skyraider drifted almost reluctantly it seemed, those last few feet. I felt the bump as the wheels left the deck edge. I collapsed them.
She fell straight down on her nose-a six-story plunge. I watched a white capped wave loom larger until we smashed into it in a shattering crash and were covered by spume and spray as the bow wave clapped over us. When it cleared and I could see again, the plane was half under, nose down slightly. The engine had broken off upon impact, which was like hitting the side of a building at 40 miles per hour.
As we hit I felt a blow to my back. There was no pain, but when I tried to move my left leg and it wouldn't move, I figured I was in trouble. The plane would sink in a minute and I had to get out. As the water cleared, I reached to unbuckle the safety straps which had kept me from being tossed about like loose cargo. I wondered how Ash and Cammans were making out behind me in the compartment.
We were so close to the ship that we were under the rod antenna masts that are lowered outboard during flight operations. The Yorktown was sweeping by. In the Rear compartment, Cammans reached over and yanked the control lever which jettisoned
the door beside him. Ash was alright, he pulled himself up into the door to jump into the white sea.
He told me later he saw me standing up in the cockpit and thought I was okay, only I wasn't standing. I had pushed myself up with my arms as neither leg would work. The head-on crash
into the sea had done something to my back and my legs seemed to be paralyzed. I tried to crawl out just using my arms, but my parachute straps were pulling me down so I had to flop back and get them clear. Cammans now was under the elevated tail section and tried to turn and paddle backwards toward the sinking plane. The inflated lifejacket and the swirling sea made that almost impossible.
An oncoming wave broke over my head as I was getting my straps off. At the same time, Ash
crawled out the door, already level with the sea and paddled away.
The wave receded from the cockpit and visible for the last time, Number 13 shimmered on the wing, now under water.
Cammans was paddling backwards toward me. Yellow-green dye marker was spreading on the boiling sea. Caught in the backwash from the carrier's starboard side and the oncoming waves, the Skyraider was settling quickly, nose down. The incoming cold sea water helped float me from the cockpit and I began to pull my way out again.
I didn't pass out, I don't think I did anyway, and now I could feel sort of lifted by the water all around me. I felt this was the time to get out whether my legs were going to help me or not.
Only thirty seconds had elapsed since the crash and the plane was already half under water, the tail lifting as the jiggered nose sank lower and lower beneath the waves. The Yorktown's
"Guardian Angel" as the rescue helicopter is affection ally called by the airmen was already over us.
I floated free, inflating my lifejacket as I got clear of the water filled cockpit. Above me, the copter lowered its life ring down. Beyond the destroyer USS Floyd B Parks was winging over behind the carrier, making ready to rescue Ash and Cammans.
The sling from the "angel" was closer now. I reached and missed then got it on the second try and pulled myself into its welcome embrace.
As the sinking plane was swept past the stern of her mother ship. I was lifted free of the waters of the Sea of Japan to begin a long voyage which would eventually take me home.
The first stage would be back to the flight deck of the Fighting Lady. I told the helicopter crew not to roll me inside as my back was already fouled up.
Hanging halfway out of the plastic bubble of the rescue helicopter, I came back to the deck of the carrier to just about the spot I had left a few minutes before. Now I was wet as a fish and pretty shaken up. The copter crew led by Lieutenant Commander R.I. Harold of Columbus Ohio had done their job well. Quick efficient hands disengaged me from the life ring and I was soon in a stretcher heading below to sick bay.
A stern in the white wake, the Park's hove alongside my two crewmen and took them aboard.
This was the teamwork that means so much to all Navy airmen. Five minutes after the crash the three of us had been picked up and were below decks being checked over for damages. That�s pretty fast work anywhere.
Ash and Cammans were transferred back to the Yorktown on the "high line" On the return trip of the caboose that brought the airmen home , twenty gallons of ice cream went back to the crew of the Park's as a "thank you."
In the meantime I was getting the works, Lieutenant R.F.C. MacPherson of the Navy Medical
Corps diagnosed my case as a severe spinal cord injury and quickly decided I would need a specially made "humpbacked" bed to support my back.
Within a couple of hours, the odd looking bed was ready. It stuck my back up and my feet down, and I got strapped in that way, to remain on this camel's back until more complete studies could be made of my injury ashore. In a few days Task Force 77, of which Yorktown was the flag ship, would re-supply at sea, and the Doc told me that I was scheduled to take another ride, this time by "high line" from ship to ship. The ammunition supply ship USS Mt Baker was to take me to Yokuska Naval Base and the Naval Hospital there was dispatched the details of my case.
I had watched many transfers at sea, and it's a rather routine operation-a line stretched from one ship to another with pulleys which take things back and forth under the line. But in the hump bed I guess my transfer became quite a challenge to the deck crew. They made a welded steel frame into which my bed would fit. I would ride in this cradle all strapped down so I wouldn't get any sudden jar or shock in case we bumped the side of the ship. I never did get a clear-cut answer on whether or not this contraption would sink if the line broke, but I figured I was in pretty good hands, and those sailors wrapped enough life jackets around my "carriage" to make most anything float.
The transfer day arrived. Task Force 77 lined up along side those sea going service stations called the "supply train" and took aboard a new load of oil, food, ammunition and the ever welcome mail. Then in the afternoon it was my time for my high line transfer.
The Docs took me up in a sling-the way they hoist plane engines up and down---from the sick bay up to the hangar deck. Then I was shifted over to a bomb cart and pulled up to the hangar deck about amidships, where the deck crew had rigged up stout lines from the carrier to the Mt Baker cruising alongside.
The signal was given to rig up "the cargo", me being the cargo this time, and the steel frame I was enclosed in was hoisted up beneath the line and made fast. The ships yawed a little out of line and the pulleys squeaked as the line was pulled taut, then gathered back in as the ships got back in position. I was moved out over the side of the Yorktown. I couldn't see anything but straight up, so when I looked up and saw the blue sky I knew I was over the water, between the two ships. The Mt. Baker was a hundred feet away and in between was nothing but the foaming sea. The ships held steady and I moved out easily over the side, across the open water and was gently brought to rest on the cargo deck of the ship that was to take me to Japan
Dr "Mac" as Lieutenant MacPherson is called by his shipmates, was right there. He took care of everything on the trip to the Naval Hospital at Yokuska, Japan.
After some exploratory treatments and consultations the Medical Staff of the Navy's primary medical installment in the Far East occupies the former Imperial Japanese Naval Hospital there at Yokuska, decided that I should head to the States
So by air I headed home, this time in a Military Air Transport Service evacuation plane, stopping briefly at Midway Island, and spending one night in Hawaii.
I arrived at the Navy's Oak Knoll hospital near Oakland, at the end of October, 1953. After
treatments had been recommended for the back injury, I was really transferred "home" this time to the San Diego Naval Hospital right across the bay from Coronado. From my bed I could hear the planes coming and going and I could visualize the activity over there at my old "home Port."
I guess I did a lot of thinking about whether or not I'd ever fly from over there again, but mostly just before Christmas, I found myself wondering about the gang on the Fighting lady, and wishing they could be back home for the holidays. I thought about how cold it would be on the flight deck in the Sea of Japan in December.
So the holidays came and went, treatment followed treatment and I went before a medical survey board to see if I was going to stay in the Navy or going to go. In the Spring it was decided that I was going to go.
I was retired from the Navy-on April Fool's day, too-and now I'm all fixed up with braces and trying to learn to walk again. Here at the Veterans Administration hospital at Long Beach, California they teach guys to walk who don't even have any legs, so I guess I ought to make out all right. I can already travel about 400 feet a day in my "walking gear" and crutches.
The Yorktown came back to the coast recently, and the old gang looked me up. They tell me things are going on just like I remember it. They also tell me that an old number still appears in the line up when my squadron hits the deck. They're quite a crowd that old squadron. They say
The old number on a new Skyraider is number 13.
