The carriers operated in formation about four thousand yards apart on an axis ninety degrees to the wind. A cruiser or battleship was stationed between them as fleet guide, and the destroyers formed a bent line screen on the wind line axis. During actual flight operations, the guide shifted to the carrier operating aircraft and a destroyer would detach from the screen to take up plane guard position one thousand yards in the carrier’s wake. Usually the carriers launched and recovered aircraft together (the senior captain had the guide, but the junior carrier had all the leeway needed to keep the proper relative wind over its deck). Often the carriers would alternate launch and recovery times, one going every forty-five minutes. Then the entire task force guided on the operating CVA. This system of carrier task force operations was a holdover from World War II, and it was expensive in terms of fuel. The escorting ships were required to maintain station in the formation even when the carriers accelerated to thirty knots to launch or recover aircraft.
It was important that the carriers not stray too far from Point Oboe. Returning pilots based their navigation, and their fuel state, on their carrier being at or near Oboe. In June 1953 three F9F-2s from VF-653 off the USS Boxer ditched in the vicinity of TF 77 from fuel exhaustion. Not only had the task force moved far to the east chasing a light easterly breeze, but a flight deck mishap had delayed the launch and, hence, the recovery. When the Panthers returned to the carriers, there was no deck ready to receive them.
LOGISTICS AND CARRIER LANDINGS
After three days of flying, TF 77 would take the fourth day off for replenishment, retiring fifty miles to the east to rendezvous with the underway replenishment group (URG). The URG consisted of fleet oilers, ammunition ships, and general stores ships. On this day off from flying, the air groups worked on aircraft, the ship’s crew loaded ammunition and stores, and the flight-deck crew repaired their equipment. It was not a “rope-yarn Sunday” or holiday routine.
The air group pilots did get a break. Drinking any alcohol on board ship is prohibited by Navy regulations, but there is one exception: Alcohol may be prescribed for medicinal purposes. At 1700 on the eve of a replenishment day, the air group flight surgeon went to each of the four squadron ready rooms (each squadron also hosted a detachment of specialized aircraft such as photo planes or night fighters) and provided one bottle of bourbon and one bottle of scotch to each. The pilots relaxed with the medicinal alcohol, ate popcorn, and watched old movies on a 16mm projector. Some got pretty stewed, but never outside the ready room.
All resupply of fuel, ammunition, support parts, personnel, and provisions was transferred at sea from URG ships. Virtually no logistic support was supplied during the carrier’s port visits to Yokosuka or Sasebo, both former Imperial Japanese navy fleet bases. Nonflyable aircraft were transferred in port and offloaded onto barges, which then moved the duds to the nearest naval station for repair and reassignment to a fleet squadron. It is an interesting bit of folklore that the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was planned in a private dining room at the Officers’ Club of the Sasebo Naval Base. In 1950 Sasebo had been turned over to the U.S. Navy, and the Japanese club became an allied officers’ mess. That private dining room was a favorite for ship and squadron parties.
By 1950, carriers were completing the sometimes difficult transition of changing their flight deck procedures and air operation to accommodate jet aircraft. By 1951, there were two jet squadrons regularly assigned to each fleet carrier — the Essex and subsequent carriers. With its full air group complement of about seventy aircraft embarked, planes filled the carrier’s hangar deck and a third of the flight deck. The flight deck was equipped with six to eight arresting wires stretched taut across the after half. At the center of the flight deck were the crash barriers, which, like the arresting wires, were rigged perpendicular to the carrier’s fore and aft axis.
Their purpose was to stop a landing aircraft from crashing into the pack in the case when a tailhook failed to catch a wire. “Pack” was the term applied to the dense mass of closely parked aircraft on the flight deck that had just landed on this recovery cycle and been taxied up to the forward end of the flight deck for rearming and refueling. If an aircraft that had just landed had a mechanical problem that needed to be fixed before the next flight, the pilot signaled a thumbs-down to the yellow-shirted plane director on the flight deck as the plane taxied out of the arresting-gear area. This plane was immediately shunted aside to the deck-edge elevator and taken down to the hangar deck, where the squadron maintenance crews were standing by to make repairs and get the plane ready for the next launch.
If there were no gripes on the aircraft that had to be fixed before its next flight, the pilot signaled thumbs-up and was directed to taxi into the pack for fueling and rearming for the next mission. All the planes in the pack were surrounded by gasoline hoses, bomb carts, missile gurneys, and the electric power carts for starting aircraft. Purple-shirted fuel gangs pumped gasoline; red-jerseyed ordnancemen hung bombs and rockets, plugged in pigtails, and installed fuses; green shirts topped off the pilots’ oxygen bottles and made minor repairs; and brown-shirted plane captains inspected their assigned plane from nose-tip to tail-cone to ensure that the aircraft was ready for the next flight, checking for loose access panels, low tires, leaking oleos, popped rivets, or unreported flak damage. All of this was going on as thirty-five knots of relative wind whistled over the deck, with crosscurrents of prop wash and jet blast. Just aft of the pack was the constant roar of engines as the arrested planes jammed on full power to blast clear of the landing area quickly so the next plane could land.
A landing interval of thirty seconds was the fleet standard. Toward the end of a deployment an experienced carrier and its air group would get the interval down to twenty-five seconds. Proper interval was the pilot’s responsibility, one of the more difficult judgments in the carrier pilot’s inventory of special skills. Too short an interval will not allow the aircraft ahead to clear the landing area and the approaching pilot must be waved off and take his place at the end of the circle of landing aircraft and go around again. A wave-off extends the recovery time and adds to the average interval. Dragging out the carrier’s recovery time will reduce the time available for refueling and rearming. When those functions are rushed, mistakes become more likely.
A pilot will be waved off for a poor landing approach as well as for a fouled deck. About halfway through the final landing approach, the pilot is committed. Major corrections in altitude, speed, or lineup cannot be applied in the last ten seconds without excessive last-second maneuvering, which usually results in a bad landing. It is the function of the landing signal officer on the aft end of the flight deck to indicate to the approaching pilot any deviations from the optimum approach. The LSO does not literally control the plane; the pilot must fly his own pass. But the LSO’s signals are intended to keep the plane from getting into dangerous altitudes close to landing. If it appears the pilot is exceeding the allowable envelope of speed and altitude, the LSO will wave him off, sending the plane around for another try. Wave-offs not only slow down the recovery but also add to the pilot’s tension factor. Every wave-off wastes an inordinate amount of the limited fuel remaining. Especially in jets, this creates a potentially dangerous situation. High power at low altitude imposes a very high rate of fuel consumption on a jet, and seldom can a pilot return to the ship after a combat hop with enough fuel for more than two or three landing passes.