My Carrier War (20 page)

A sense of calm swept over me. All the hours of field carrier landing practice (FCLP), my trust in the LSO and perfect flying conditions, gave me all the confidence I needed. The plane that had taken off ahead of me was off to my left. He was on the downwind leg of his approach, ready to turn toward the carrier for his first landing. Lowering my landing gear and my tail hook, I made a 180-degree turn to the left. Reducing power and losing altitude, I stopped my turn. The plane was now level at 200 feet. My plane was flying the downwind leg of my approach, with the carrier about 400 yards to my left. My landing flaps were lowered, and when the plane was abreast of the stern of the carrier, I began an easy turn toward the carrier. My altitude was only 100 feet above the ocean, air speed 78 knots. Rolling out of my turn, the plane was directly astern of the carrier on final approach for my first landing.

Suddenly, the LSO came into view out of the left side of my cockpit. He was giving me a high signal! Ease off a little power, lower the nose. There’s a Roger! Air speed right on. There’s my cut. Cut the throttle—ease back on the control stick—the flight deck came rushing up at me. The plane hit hard, caught a wire and threw me forward against my seat belt. I was aboard! Only five more to go.

My pilot log book has an entry for December 21. “One point seven hours of flight time. Purpose: Carrier Qualifying on Chenango; Six landings.” I made it! I was a Navy carrier pilot.

After my sixth landing, I switched places with another pilot, helped him get the chute on and hook up his radio, and then I headed for the ready room. It was apparent that carrier quals were going to proceed until all the torpecker pilots were qualified. After grabbing a cup of coffee in the ready room, I slumped down into a chair. I felt drained—mentally I was still flying that plane, 100 feet over the ocean.

Jesus, a couple of times I got too slow. The damn airplane was shaking...it almost quit flying! The LSO sure can’t complain that I was too fast! That last landing was a bitch. I was too fast and the plane floated up the deck after the cut. Lucky I caught a wire. I stopped damn quick—damn! Six landings one after the other are too many! I sure feel good though...I did it!

When the announcement came over the squawk box, “Secure flight operations,” all the TBF pilots were in the ready room. The last plane had landed, and we were all waiting for the LSO. We had all qualified, but we knew our LSO would have a few choice words for each of us. He walked into the ready room, the signal paddles still in his hand. He started with me.

“Berg! What’s this signal mean?” He moved the paddles rapidly back and forth out in front of his body at waist level.

I stood. “Sir, it means I was slow. But Sir, you always tell me I’m too fast on my approach. I was just following orders, Sir!”

He just stood there looking at all of us. “OK, guys, you all did good. You answered my signals, and I saved your butts. I got you all qualified, and Berg, you buy the first round of beer when we get to Panama. Don’t you ever scare me like that again. You were too damn slow! God himself must have been holding your plane in the air. That’s it. Let’s go to lunch.”

Following lunch, most of the squadron pilots wandered back to the ready room. We were still talking about our approaches and landings, trading information, sharing some tips on carrier approaches, asking about how best to respond to the LSO’s signals, helping one another. It was part of being a squadron pilot.

Our bull session was interrupted by the ship’s intercom. “Now hear this! All torpedo squadron pilots report to the ready room.”

In a few moments, the remainder of our pilots came in, along with the operations officer, Lieutenant Bill Shyrock, and our air intelligence officer, Lieutenant Joe Anson. Lieutenant Shyrock opened the meeting congratulating all of us on qualifying aboard.

“Fellas,” Lieutenant Shyrock continued, “perhaps some of you have noticed that the ship is now constantly changing course and speed. There’s a damn good reason for this—German submarines! A carrier is most vulnerable when it maintains a steady course and speed. That’s when it becomes an easy target for a sub. The ship’s captain expects you pilots to launch and recover in the minimum of time. Believe me, he hates keeping the ship into the wind on a steady course while a pilot messes up an approach and gets a wave off. He really gets upset if the same pilot gets a second wave off!” He paused for emphasis and then continued, “Before I turn this meeting over to Lieutenant Anson, who will brief you on the German and Japanese submarine situation, there’s one more point I must make.”

Landing signal officer (LSO) waving an aircraft aboard with a Roger Pass signal.

I was watching Bill Shyrock. He was over six feet tall, blond, and looked like he could play football as a pass-catching end. What surprised me was that he was usually very relaxed around us junior pilots. Right now, it appeared that he hated what he was going to say. He seemed to take a deep breath. “Gentlemen, as of this moment you will maintain radio silence on all flights from the carrier. The ship will also maintain radio silence. The risk of enemy submarines homing in on radio transmissions is too great a risk to the ship. Visual flag signals from the bridge will be used to control aircraft recoveries. Gentlemen, your navigation plotting board, the ship’s YE, the carrier’s homing beacon, and your skill as a pilot will keep you alive. Any questions?” (A ship’s YE system was Morse code letters that identified itself as belonging to that ship. Each carrier would have different Morse code letters.)

There was one question from the back of the room. “Sir, what if we have an engine failure—have to land in the water? Can we transmit our position to the ship?”

“Yes, if it were me, I’d transmit. The ship’s captain would have to make a decision. Does sending one of the accompanying destroyers to your last position hazard the position of the carrier? I don’t know what his decision would be. Anything else? OK, Lieutenant Anson, take over.”

As Joe Anson started his briefing on the submarine problem, my thoughts drifted.

Radio silence. No transmissions. It’s tough to understand. A pilot’s life possibly being traded for the carrier being hit by a torpedo. Be sure that the plane’s engine is operating properly. Can’t risk an engine failure. Watch my navigation. No mistakes. Got to stay concentrating on the wind direction...a wind change could blow the plane off course. Wonder when I’ll get my first flight off the ship. Jesus! Radio silence. The captain has to do it; can’t risk the carrier ...what’s Anson saying?

I began to listen as Anson continued the briefing. “Fellas, this sub danger is real. The Germans have sunk over a hundred merchant ships in 1942 alone. These losses have occurred all along the East Coast as well as in the Gulf of Mexico. We have to expect that German subs will join the Japanese in the Pacific. We are finding ways to cut our losses. We are using a convoy system here in the Atlantic, rather than having single ships sailing alone. By doing so, we can concentrate our defenses against the subs. The best defense we have will be our own planes, our TBFs armed with depth charges. Currently, long-range patrol planes from bases in Florida are flying antisub patrols in our area. Their mission is to keep any sub from getting a visual sighting on us using their periscope. The very presence of aircraft in our area is a real deterrent to a sub commander. Any questions?”

“Joe, how in the hell can that periscope be spotted if the sub has it extended?” someone asked.

“Well, if the sea is fairly calm and wind force is under twelve knots, the periscope will cause a ‘feather’ of white as it moves through the water. A higher wind speed makes it more difficult to see the feather. Of course higher wind conditions give the sub commander a problem too. It cuts his visibility through the periscope. Any more questions?”

Bill Shyrock now stood. “As of tomorrow at 0600, we take over our own antisub patrols. The land-based patrol planes mentioned earlier will no longer protect us. He paused and looked at me. “Norm, your first off at 0600—briefing at 0500.” He named three other pilots also flying the early flight. “Just a word about the ship’s YE. I mentioned before that it can save your life. It will get you back to the ship. I’m sure you all remember how to use it, but let me review how it works. The ship does have one of the first experimental radars aboard. However, even if the ship has your plane on radar, with radio silence in effect, the ship won’t contact you. The radar can’t help you, the YE will.”

Bill drew a circle on the blackboard. He then drew a series of lines from the center of the circle to the outside of the circle. He divided the circle into a series of roughly 15-degree pieces so that it looked like a pie ready to be cut. Next he inserted a different letter of the Morse code into each piece. The drawing now had a series of dots and dashes in each segment. He turned back to us.

“Now guys, imagine the ship at the center of the circle. The YE is nothing more than a radio transmitter mounted on the ship. It continually broadcasts a series of Morse code signals, a different letter in each segment. The range is about 30 miles at sea level. The range increases with your plane’s altitude. OK, so far?

“Let’s pretend you’re flying the inbound leg of an antisub search. Your navigation plan indicates you’re about 40 miles from the ship. You’re flying at 1,000 feet. You flip the switch on your YE receiver—compass heading is 070 degrees. You hear ‘dit da, dit da’ on the YE—Morse code for A. You hold your heading. Now you begin to hear a different Morse code signal. You check the YE chart on your navigation board. It has all the Morse code letters entered on the chart. You begin to hear an S. You’re drifting off to the right from the A quadrant to the S quadrant. You adjust your heading by turning a few degrees to the left until you get a solid A again. Now you’re on the correct bearing for the ship. After a few minutes, you see the ship. Home again!

“One more important point. The sequence of the Morse code letters is changed each day. This prevents an enemy ship from getting a radio fix on the ship. If you don’t have the correct codes for the day on the YE chart, all you will hear is a series of meaningless Morse code letters. Believe me guys, that’s all you’ll get if you don’t change the code on the YE chart each time you’re on the flight schedule. That’s all for today. See you all in the ward room for dinner.”

The pilots drifted off, some to their bunks for a nap, others to the ward room for a bridge game. I went to the ship library to check it out. It was going to be a long cruise! I hoped there would be some recent books aboard. There was not much to fill the time other than flying or getting ready to fly. Of course, we didn’t fly every day. The antisub flights were shared with pilots from the dive-bombing squadron too. There were occasions as well when the weather prevented flight operations. Low visibility, rain or high winds would cancel flight operations.

Sometimes there were evening movies on the hangar deck, but the choice was limited. With no exercise equipment on board, most of us would jog on the flight deck to get some exercise. Most of our time, however, was taken up in bull sessions about flying. Flying was our life, and we spent a lot of time talking about it.

I turned in early that night. I wanted to get some rest before that 0600 launch in the morning. I was not anticipating any problem with the navigation. The squadron executive officer had been holding refresher sessions with all of us. I felt very confident that my navigation planning would get me home. As I lay there in my bunk, though, a tiny, nagging issue remained.

Radio silence. I would be out of touch with the ship for the entire flight. No matter how good my navigation was, I still might have engine trouble. I might fly into bad weather or the YE might fail. What if the wind changes and I don’t see it? God! Two or three hours flying over that big, lonely ocean with no land within flying range. Just the carrier. It’s going to seem like a damn long flight. To hell with it! Get some sleep, Norm.

I got to the ready room right at 0500 after coffee and rolls in the ward room. The other three pilots were already there. We got all the info we needed to do our navigation from the information on the blackboard. The four search sectors, all ahead of the ship, covered a 180-degree arc. The outbound leg was 75 miles for all the sectors. We copied the YE information onto our navigation boards. All we needed now was a weather report from the ship’s aerology department, and the ship’s course and its speed for the next two hours. The ship’s navigator came up on the intercom from the bridge with information on the planned course and speed of the ship. We all plotted this information onto our navigation plotting boards. Then came the weather: Scattered clouds, visibility twelve miles, wind three to five knots from the southeast.

The wind is sure no factor in the navigation planning I thought, as I began laying out my compass headings and flight time for each leg of my flight. I had just finished entering the figures when the ship’s catapult officer came into the ready room.