MISSION PREFLIGHT
On the morning of the twentieth, there was the unwelcome rap on the stateroom door and the call, “5:45, Sir.” I answered with “Roger.” My roommate, Jim Kinsella, the squadron CO, groaned and rolled over. He had a later launch time and was going to sleep in until 0730. I put on my flight gear, less helmet and anti-G torso harness, and arrived for an à la carte breakfast of eggs and bacon in the ship’s wardroom at 0630. Our ready room was just forward of the ship’s wardroom, and the pilots straggled in with cups of coffee in hand, but all were in their seats and ready for the 0700 briefing.
First the aerologist went over the weather situation in the Sea of Japan and the central Korean peninsula, and we heard that the conditions were not at all favorable for what we were expected to accomplish. It was typical summer weather for Korea, with unstable masses of moist air resulting in low cloud layers from three hundred to one thousand feet with large cumulus buildups on top, particularly in the mountainous terrain. It was not bad enough for a weather abort, but the chances were that the weather in the objective area would be inadequate for close support. It would be prudent to anticipate the possibility of a weather divert to a secondary target.
Next followed the second part of the briefing, given by the squadron intelligence officer, a bright young lieutenant who summarized the tactical situation on the ground, with the locations, as best we knew, of the friendly front lines and the general disposition of the Chinese forces. There had been some sharp fighting during the night, and the Chinese had again broken through the ROK lines on the eastern side of the peninsula, posing repeated threats to the right flank of the adjacent U.S. army group. The Chinese had not disengaged with daylight, and U.S. and ROK forces were flooding the TACC with requests for close support. All four of the Task Force 77 carriers at Point Oboe were committing the maximum number of their available sorties to CAS assignments. I dogeared my charts of the areas north and east of Chorwon and the Iron Triangle, in case we were diverted to a secondary target. Those chart sections covered the front lines where most of the Chinese attacks were now taking place.
The final part of our briefing covered several new Chinese flak positions in the Iron Triangle, the current emergency procedures, the day’s rescue call signs, and the availability of a rescue helicopter on a tank landing ship (LST) operating off of the coast just south of Wonsan.
Although we went through the ritual of the preflight briefings twice a day, before every combat mission, all of the pilots for good reason paid special attention and demanded of the intelligence officers the most upto-date information. There was nothing peremptory about these sessions, even after three weeks on the line.
At 0740, primary flight control called over the squawk box directing the pilots to man aircraft. We picked up our helmets, pistols, lifejackets, and book bags containing navigation charts and filed out of the ready room for the short ladder leading up to the hangar deck. We crossed the hangar deck as a group. Six pilots were assigned to the flight, including the two spare pilots who would be available in case one of the primary aircraft was mechanically grounded before the launch, and we walked out on the deck-edge elevator. Normally, aircrews were supposed to wait for an aircraft to be placed on the elevator to catch a ride up to the flight deck, but by now the elevator operators were resigned to the pilots’ determination to ride free. So our flight, plus other flight-deck personnel and ordnancemen with boxes of fuses for aircraft arming, rode up to the flight deck on the deck-edge aircraft elevator. Our assigned planes were located just forward of the island, convenient to the catapults. We would be the first to launch.
My plane was parked on the starboard catapult, and after a careful inspection of the aircraft and an even more detailed inspection of the bombs and the integrity of their arming wires, I climbed in and the plane captain passed up my chart bag and helmet. Then the plane captain, an eighteen-year-old sailor with six months of carrier warfare experience behind him, helped me buckle up my seatbelt and harness while I attended to making the radio, oxygen, and G-suit connections. For both of us, the timing had become instinctive, and just as we completed our cockpit check, the flight deck bullhorn announced, “Pilots start your engines. All personnel stand clear of prop wash and jet blast.” With a growing roar the two dozen aircraft scheduled for this deck-load launch fired up their power plants.
I could feel the ship noticeably heel as it turned into the wind. This was an indication that the Boxer was making maximum speed, a sure sign that the winds were light. I felt better about having dropped the two HVARs. As the carrier settled down on a straight course — easy for me to tell by looking out my cockpit down the track of the catapult — the catapult officer stepped into my view and began rapidly twirling the first two fingers of his right hand. This was my signal to go to full power. I eased the throttle up and jammed it against the forward stop, waiting for the rpm indicator to hit 100. I gave the needle two seconds against the 100 percent peg before saluting the catapult officer with my left hand and pushing my helmeted head back against the headrest. Bang!
The catapult, an old H4B model having a shorter stroke than the newer catapults on the later carriers, had to accelerate more rapidly, and the cat shot was so abrupt that the first thing I was conscious of, after raising my hand in the salute, was that I was airborne off the forward rounddown of the carrier deck. I instinctively checked my altitude, which looked good, and the plane’s flight attitude, which was correct. With my left hand I reached over and flipped up the wheel lever to retract the landing gear. The plane was so sensitive at this juncture that it was necessary to concentrate on not applying any forward pressure on the stick while leaning forward to reach the wheel controls. The plane was just a couple of knots above stalling speed with less than one hundred feet of altitude. In about ten seconds the plane’s speed had increased to 190 knots, and I hit the flaps-up switch and could feel the plane accelerate as I maintained 100 percent power and the flaps came up. I checked my flight instruments and eased back on the stick. I was immediately in the soup. The ceiling was about three hundred feet. Now, flying on instruments at zero visibility, I maintained 100 percent power but held the aircraft’s speed at about 230 knots for an optimum rate of climb. In less than ten seconds I had popped through on top of the cloud layer (an experience that never ceased to excite me). Below the overcast it had been misty and dreary with a sprinkling of rain; on top of the clouds, a July sun was blazing in a brilliantly blue sky.
But now was not the time for aesthetic contemplation. I switched from the launch frequency to the ship’s traffic control to report I was airborne and rendezvousing my flight. When I got to five thousand feet, I leveled off and reduced power to maintain 250 knots and checked the clock so that exactly three minutes after takeoff I would make a 180-degree turn to the left. By then the last of the planes in my flight had become airborne — the launch interval was thirty seconds per plane — and would see me as I headed toward them so they could make an easy rendezvous.