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Carrier Daze
Tales from the USS Oriskany and USS Lake Champlain
By Dick Maltzman iUniverse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Dick Maltzman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-3438-4
CHAPTER 1
TAKING WING
Let me be perfectly clear, I am no hero. I look both ways before crossing streets. In the time I will be talking about I also had an abysmal fear of heights, and generally didn't take chances in life. I considered myself at that time, and still do today, to be one of those safe and sane people. I would never think of driving if I was drunk, and in the days of which I am speaking religiously stopped at five scotches if I was behind the wheel. And at that time I viewed flying in an airplane as only slightly less dangerous than ski jumping.
Now today one might wonder how anyone could fear flying, but the scene is not today—this is the 1950s, not that long after the end of the Second World War, and an age when the only planes that flew with a jet engine were military. Commercial aviation might not have been in its infancy, but it certainly was barely out of short pants, and no one in my family had ever considered flying anyplace if they could help it. My parents traveled incessantly, but went by ship if they couldn't get there by car or train.
In the spring of my freshman year at Stanford I heard that I had passed the competitive exam to become a "Regular" midshipman in the NROTC, the initials for the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. I saw this as a great opportunity, not because I wanted to fight for my country or wear a swash-buckling uniform, but for the simple reason that I really didn't want to fight anyone just then. I much preferred Stanford to a foxhole in Korea. In 1951 there was something called a police action taking place on the Korean Peninsula that looked a lot like a war to my naive view of world geopolitics. And in 1951 there was also something called the draft, which called up young men of military age to fight in that police action. As you have probably surmised by now, I was of military age at the time of which I am writing, and the NROTC came complete with a four-year deferment.
Then there was the money. The NROTC at that time had, and they may still have today, something called the Holloway Plan that paid much of a Regular NROTC midshipman's college expenses (tuition, books and $50 a month in the 1950s) in a program designed to augment Annapolis and provide a larger pool of Regular (as distinguished from Reserve) Naval Officers for the U. S. Navy. The only hitch was that as a "Regular" NROTC midshipman I would have to serve three years of active duty and five years in the Navy Reserve after graduation and go on three summer cruises, during which I would be paid as a seaman apprentice. There was also a similar program for "Contract" NROTC midshipman, who didn't get any help with collage expenses or a monthly stipend during the school year, served only two years of active duty (but six years in the Reserve) and went on only one summer cruise, during which they were also paid as a seaman apprentice. As a Regular midshipman I would be commissioned on graduation from Stanford as a regular naval officer. A Contract midshipman would be commissioned as a reserve officer.
It also seemed to me a lot more civilized to defend one's country from the comfort of a ship surrounded by water than from a foxhole filled with water. But probably the most significant aspect of my desire to accept the NROTC appointment was my fear of flying. If God had meant me to fly, I believed I would have been born with wings and covered with feathers. I had no intention of ever voluntarily setting foot on an airplane, and what I liked about the Navy was that it went places by sea in things they called ships. While I couldn't fly, I could swim.
Thus it was that as a Stanford freshman I found myself in the early spring of 1951 being interviewed for a Holloway Plan NROTC scholarship by the Commandant of the Stanford NROTC program, a Marine Colonel. After listening to his pitch about what a great career the Navy had to offer to regular naval officers, I asked if I would have to fly if I became a naval officer.
"Of course not," the Colonel responded, "You don't have to fly in the Navy unless you want to."
So I signed up and became a Regular NROTC midshipman.
Of course, the colonel lied!
Or perhaps he didn't understand my question. He might have thought I meant, "fly" like being a Naval aviator, but I meant fly like getting on an airplane to go someplace.
The true depth of my perception of the colonel's apparent perfidy became obvious to me on my second summer cruise. They sent me not to sea, but to Corpus Christie, Texas, for three weeks of naval air indoctrination. When that was over, they then had the audacity to fly me and my fellow midshipmen in Navy transports from Corpus Christie, Texas, to Little Creek, Virginia, for three weeks of Marine Corps indoctrination.
The first thing they made each midshipman do at Corpus Christie was to go up in an SNJ, a single engine two-seater training plane with two open cockpits, one behind the other. The pilot sat in the front cockpit, the passenger (me) in the back cockpit. It looked to me like a remnant from World War I, not World War II. They required everyone to take at least one flight in the SNJ. If you didn't like it after that, you could refuse to go up again or trade your future flights with other midshipmen more "gung-ho" for flying, but one flight was mandatory for everyone, even someone like me who considered myself immune from flying based on a Marine Colonel's perceived promise.
Unfortunately, the Marine Colonel wasn't there at Corpus Christie to back up my story, and the people in command there demanded that I take at least that one flight. As that choice seemed slightly better than the draft notice I was sure I would receive if I refused completely, I took my first flight.
The pilot assigned to me was a friendly guy, who wanted to show me everything that the plane could do. It could do loop-the-loops. It could do power dives. It could do spins.
And I showed the pilot what I could do. I could throw up, and did. Repeatedly!
When I finally landed, I was greeted by the news that one of the other planes that had gone up with us that afternoon had lost a wing doing a loop-the-loop, and both the instructor and the midshipman in the plane were killed. I opted not to take any more flights.
* * *
When my three weeks of air indoctrination finished, it was time to fly to Little Creek, Virginia. My first experience had only amplified my fear of flying, and as the big day grew closer I grew ever more nervous. I told anyone who would listen about the nice Marine Colonel back in San Francisco who assured him that in the Navy you didn't have to fly unless you wanted to—and I didn't want to. I offered to go by train at my own expense, or by bus, or hitchhike—anything but fly. They were sympathetic but emphatic; I had to fly. They were also callus enough to assure me that I would love the flying experience once I got used to it.
On the day of my departure from Corpus Cristi, they lined up all of the midshipmen by platoons in a big hanger. The platoons were lined up for boarding alphabetically by the schools represented in each platoon, and the schools were assigned to platoons in general alphabetic order with two schools to a platoon.
My platoon consisted of midshipmen from Stanford and USC. At the exit to the tarmac was a lieutenant with a clipboard. By some strange mischance, which will be described later, I happened to be the platoon leader for the combined Stanford/USC contingent for the Corpus Christie portion of our cruise. When it was our turn, the lieutenant with the clipboard directed me to take my platoon to the third aircraft parked on the left. The third aircraft parked on the left was an R4Q, a Navy transport affectionately known as "the flying boxcar," and less affectionately as the "flying coffin," or just plain "aw fuck you" as a play on its R4Q official Navy designator. The Air Force used them, too, and called them the C-120. It was built by Hughes Aircraft out of plywood and looked something like a giant (and fat) P-38 left over from the Second World War, with two large booms coming back from the engines which supported the tail structure while the cargo and passenger superstructure hung there in between supported by its high wing.
When I learned that I was going to have to fly, I read up on everything I could find on the different types of planes that the Navy flew to transport people or things. In the course of this research I discovered that the R4Q/C-120 had the worst accident record of any plane then flying, thus the nickname "flying coffin."
The next plane past the R4Q to which the Stanford/USC platoon was assigned was a DC-4, not the newest plane but at least one that commercial airlines still used in the 1950's. Furthermore, the DC-4 had the range to fly non-stop to Little Creek; the R4Q did not and had to stop at Pensacola for refueling. I had also discovered in my research that takeoffs and landings were the most dangerous part of air travel. Therefore, one of each seemed a hell of a lot better than two of each.
So as platoon leader I marched my platoon right past the R4Q to which we were assigned and right onto the DC-4 parked next to it. I figured, rightly, as it happened, that the lieutenant would assume that I was an idiot who couldn't handle simple instructions, or couldn't count, but rather than chase after us would probably just assign another platoon to the still empty R4Q.
I was more right than I had any reason to be. After we landed in Little Creek we discovered that an R4Q had crashed on takeoff from Pensacola, and all but one of the 48 midshipmen aboard had been killed. It contained the University of Utah and University of Texas midshipmen, who had been behind my platoon waiting to board in Corpus Cristi. I, of course, don't know which platoon actually went into the R4Q I had skirted in favor of the DC-4, but I have thanked God ever since that it wasn't mine.
* * *
Thus ended my confrontation with airplanes—at least for a while. When I was commissioned an ensign after completing four years of NROTC—by this time I had already completed two years of law school at Stanford—I received orders to report to the 12th Naval District for further transportation to the Western Pacific, there to report to my first duty station, the USS Oriskany (CVA-34). The Oriskany was an Essex class attack carrier, and was affectionately known to its crew as the "O-Boat." While it was designated "CVA 34" and many of the higher numbered CVAs were commissioned before the end of World War II, the Oriskany had not been completed by VJ Day and at the war's end had been mothballed. At the advent of the Korean War she was rushed back into commission with a number of improvements, which were later incorporated in all of the Essex class carriers, and she saw extensive duty in Korea.
Thus it was that shortly after graduation and being sworn in as an ensign in the Regular Navy I reported to the 12th Naval District offices in the Federal Building in San Francisco, where they gave me enough shots to protect me from everything except bullets, a bus ticket to Travis Air Force Base, and a ticket for a MATS, or Military Air Transport Service, flight to Japan.
Of course, I demurred. I advised them of that wonderful Marine Colonel who had assured me that I would never have to fly if I joined the Navy. They, of course, assured him that the good Colonel never meant that I wouldn't have to fly MATS. I offered to go by ship, but they insisted I go by air.
"What type of planes does MATS fly?" I asked.
"The latest super constellations or DC-6B's." I was assured.
"Is MATS safe?" I enquired.
"MATS is run by the Air Force. It has the finest safety record of any airline aloft, civilian or military," they lied.
I actually had several weeks before I had to leave for Travis to make sure my shots took affect. I filled that time with a round of parties to say farewell to my Stanford friends and my then girl friend, who just happened to be an admiral's daughter. Her father was in charge of all the Naval air forces for the Hawaiian Islands and, when she wasn't at Stanford, she lived with her parents on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.
The night before my impending departure we were up partying much of the night. The next morning I took her to the Navy's Mars flying boat at Alameda and saw her off to Hawaii and I embarked on a bus for Travis Air Force Base. There I turned in my ticket and a copy of my orders and spent the rest of the day waiting nervously for a flight, my stomach churning like a washing machine while I stared at the wall clock ticking ever so slowly toward flight time
At about six that night they called my flight and I lined up to board with the other passengers. My legs were shaking I was so nervous. Past the airman taking tickets I could see the silver super constellation parked on the tarmac that was hopefully going to take me to Japan. As I moved up the line, I was getting more and more nervous. This was not just a flight; this was a flight half way around the world.
Then, just as I almost reached the door, they were calling my name over the public address system. They wanted an Ensign Richard Maltzman to report to something called the "Courier Desk," and immediately. And they were emphasizing that "immediately." I was saved! As I was the only Ensign Richard Maltzman that I knew of, they had to be referring to me! I looked around at the other poor souls boarding that flight, and I was sure they were doomed. After my experience at Corpus Christie, I was sure that they would not make it to Japan on that plane. This was like the R4Q I had walked past in favor of the DC-4. I literally skipped out of line and ran to find this "Courier Desk" to which I had been directed by divine intervention.
At the Courier Desk an Air Force major of diminutive size with red curly hair and a bushy red handlebar mustache greeted me. The major advised me that I was the junior officer on that Constellation flight to Japan and had been drafted to be a courier officer to escort fifty-two crates of cryptographic equipment to an admiral in Japan.
"On what kind of airplane will I be flying?" I asked.
"The latest Douglas cargo plane," the major responded.
"Ah," I thought, "It must be the latest DC-6B with a cargo configuration." A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The major gave me a 45-calibre pistol, which I had not the slightest idea how to use, and an Air Force sergeant, complete with a sub-machine gun, which I later discovered the sergeant didn't know how to use, either. The major then proceeded to take me out a back door into a hanger to show me my cargo, reminding me as we went that there was an annual softball game at Leavenworth Penitentiary between the disbursement officers with sticky fingers and the courier officers that lost boxes of crypto gear. I informed the major that I hated softball and had no skill at the sport, but the major seemed neither amused nor reassured.
The fifty-two crates were olive green, and stacked up on a flat bed trailer being pulled by a jeep. The major and I counted the crates and checked off the serial numbers and I signed for them. Then the major directed me to get in the jeep with the sergeant and a driver and the four of us drove out onto the tarmac, pulling the fifty-two olive green crates behind us.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Carrier Daze by Dick Maltzman. Copyright © 2014 Dick Maltzman. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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