Night Flying
Night Flying
A Short Story
By B.E. Smith
The USS Bon Homme Richard, CVA 31, was operating just west of Okinawa on-station with the 7th Fleet in pursuit of United States efforts in what was known as the Cold War. Lt. Manley was the Operations Officer of All Weather Attack Squadron 35 (VAAW 35) flying AD 5 Skyraider aircraft. Lt. Mike Crawford, was the Operations Officer of Attack Squadron 195, a sister attack organization, assigned to the Bonnie Dick, flying AD 6 aircraft. The ship had been deployed to the Western Pacific, called WestPac, since it left NAS Alameda in November 1958.
Naval Intelligence Officers aboard the carrier had delivered a special briefing to the attack pilots and their crews just a week before.
“The Cold War is getting hotter. Russia and China are more belligerent than ever and we are asking every pilot on board to re-study all targets and to sharpen your readiness for possible initiation of actual war.”
Lt. Manley and his group of four other pilots had a special mission—deliver a nuclear weapon on pre-selected targets and approach that delivery from 100 feet of altitude to avoid radar detection by the enemy—flying under the radar.
After the intelligence briefing, pilots began to fly more frequently, especially at night. On 12 February, Lt. Manley scheduled himself for a low-level flight with Lt. Crawford, VA 195 Operations Officer. They thought of themselves as the best pilots in each group and they wanted to fly together to show the others how it was done.
Manley was scheduled to lead the two hours fight over the ocean at night. Protocol required that for practice pilots use 500 feet as the minimum altitude. Manley wanted to use 100 feet.
“That’s what we would have to use for altitude on a real-life nuclear weapon delivery.”
Crawford agreed.
At 1800 it was dark in early February, just west of Okinawa. The horizon for pilots was hard to see and tonight it will be necessary to fly partly on instruments and partly visual. That is pretty hazardous.
Manley was first using the carrier’s catapult. He climbed to 2500 feet as briefed and set up a counterclockwise rendezvous circle over the carrier, call sign Rocket. One minute later, Crawford, in another AD Skyraider, Call sign Rocket 730, flashed his landing lights on the CAT indicating to the CAT Officer that he was ready for takeoff. Two seconds later he was flying, climbing to 2500 feet to rendezvous with Rocket 840.
The two planes joined up in a formation and 840 started a descent to 100 feet. Rocket 730 flew in a two-plane formation. But tonight instead of being stepped-down on the right hand wing of Rocket 840, Crawford took a stepped-up position, a measure of safety for flying at 100 feet at night. Manley reached 100 feet and began to level out and establish cruise speed of 180 knots for the two-hour flight.
As 840 reached 100 feet and 180 knots, he and his navigator, P/O 1c Greg McIver, could barely see any horizon. They could see a few whitecaps on the ocean. Manley thought that it was one of the darkest nights he could remember.
After about five minutes of flight, Manley looked over at McIver’s navigation board which was being lighted by a flashlight held by McIver. Suddenly water started to splash on the windshield.
“Is it rain? Check the altimeter,” thought Manley.
By then, it was too late. Rocket 840 was flying into the ocean. Thankfully, 730 was stepped up and he could see Manley and crew as they crashed head-on into the South China Sea.
“How are you doing, Buddy?’ McIver said over the intercom to Manley. The plane came to a violent and traumatic stop. When it hit the water, it plowed forward about 200 feet and turned nose down as it started sinking rapidly to the ocean floor.
Manley hit the hydraulic lever to open the canopy on his side of the plane. McIver could not get his canopy to open and Tom Mason, the PO 3/c radar operator had the same problem. The plane was sinking fast due to its initial momentum.
Manley remembers his Dempsey dumpster training from Basic Flight Training. In this device, students go down a slide into a swimming pool in a simulated aircraft cockpit with control stick and other somewhat realistic devices. When under water, the student is required to open a canopy, extricate himself from the simulated cockpit and swim to the surface of the pool for a needed breath of air. Life guards are monitoring the exercise. Manley repeated that procedure and as Rocket 840 quickly dove towards the ocean floor, Manley pushed himself out of the cockpit, pulled the two lanyards on his Mae West, and headed for the surface.
He got a breath of air and floated on the surface buoyed by his life vest. The sky and the ocean were dark. He pulled his revolver loaded with tracers and fired one tracer bullet in the air. No sign of his two crew members but Manley could see the outline of the rescue destroyer a couple of miles away.
The officer of the deck spotted the tracer bullet.
“All engines full, right full rudder,” he called as he turned towards the source of the tracer.
“Man overboard, Man overboard, starboard side,” the boatswain’s mate broadcast on the ship’s 1MC.
“Standby to recover men in the water, I’ve got the conn; rudder amidships,” the commanding officer commanded as he arrived on the bridge.
“Prepare the lifeboat for rescue operations; man the searchlights,” ordered the Skipper as he assumed command of the ship from the Officer of the Deck.
Another tracer bullet went up from the ocean about one mile dead ahead.
Manley could see the destroyer heading for him as he floated in the dark ocean. He held his pistol ready to fire another round but for now, he thought the destroyer commander had him in sight.
Meanwhile, Rocket 730 has witnessed 840 crashing into the ocean at 180 knots. He pulled up to 500 feet.
“Crash, crash, crash” he calls on Emergency Guard Channel, UHF 243.0.
“Rocket 840 has crashed into the ocean, three men on board. One survivor has fired tracer bullets. No one else is visible.”
“Rocket 730, this is North star. We are rescue destroyer and have one survivor in sight. We estimate on site in 3 minutes or less. Please notify us if you see any other survivors.”
“North star, this is Rocket 730, Roger, I can see your searchlight on the survivor. I will notify you if I spot any other survivors.”
Rocket 730 sets up a circular holding pattern at 500 feet over the survivor.
Back on Rocket, the word comes down to me and Dick Beckham in the ward room as we are finishing dinner.
“Lt. Manley and crew have crashed into the ocean. One survivor has been spotted but not rescued so far,” reported a messenger from the VA 195 ready room.
Dick and I bolted up to Vulcher’s Row where we had a bird’s eye view of what was taking place. Just after we got topside, we saw another tracer bullet pierce the night sky about five miles off the port bow.
“It looks like at least one survivor is in the water. I wonder if there is just one, who it is,” I said.
Beckham and I waited on Vulcher’s Row watching the destroyer as it approached the location of the survivor. Several other pilots and air crewmen joined us to see who, if any, would be rescued.
“Rocket, this is North star. We have the pilot Lt. Manley on board our lifeboat. He has some injuries but appears to be in satisfactory condition.”
“North star, this is Rocket. Roger, if Lt. Manley is in condition for transfer, we are sending the helicopter to pick him up and transport him back to our sickbay.”
“Rocket, this is North star. Roger, Manley is in condition for transfer. We are standing by to transfer him to rescue helicopter.”
“Rocket Rescue, this is Rocket, proceed to North star to pick up Lt. Manley, pilot of Rocket 840 and return him to Rocket.”
Word of Manley’s rescue filtered up to Vulcher’s Row.
“Great, Manley made it out. I wonder if McIver and Mason made it out. No signals so far. The longer it goes, the less chance they have.”
The rescue helicopter picked up Lt. Manley who could walk to board the helicopter and delivered him to the flight deck of Rocket. The flight surgeon and his crew met the helicopter on the deck and put him on a gurney for transport to sickbay.
Dick and I headed down to the ready room to see if we could get any additional information. Crawford continued to circle the crash scene for another hour but did not see any signs of survivors.
“Rocket 730, this is Rocket. You are cleared for landing.”
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