Contributed by CAPT Tom Golder (A Lifetime VP-45 Association Member)

Tragedy

While I was at VP-30 at Pax River, the squadron I was ordered to (VP-45) had lost an airplane with all the crew aboard.  The plane, LN-9, was returning to Argentia in bad weather and lost all three generators. Without electrical power, and at low altitude, they flew into the water just off the end of the runway.

When it was learned that the problem was loss of electrical power, LCDR Dick Zeisel, a senior instructor at VP-30, put me in the P-3A simulator, and reconstructed the accident flight. I knew what was coming, but without hydraulic pressure from loss of generators, the controls froze on the GCA and I crashed—just like the real flight.  I was embarrassed that I couldn’t do better; but, at a VP-45 reunion thirty years later, Dick told me that he tested about ten students in the VP-30 simulator, and seven of them crashed. Dick eventually made captain, and was instrumental in the Naval Air Systems Command’s development of an auxiliary power unit for the P-3 that could be cranked up in emergencies to supply essential electrical power to the plane.

VP-45 NAS Jacksonville

Patrol Squadron 45 (VP-45) had recently transferred from flying seaplanes in Bermuda to flying P-3 Orions in Jacksonville, Florida. I was assigned the billet of Training Officer, in the Ops department.

It was fun to be back flying in an operational squadron. The squadron was scheduled to deploy to Argentia, Newfoundland, in July, and actually had planes taxiing out to depart when they were suddenly recalled to the hangar. The war in Vietnam was heating up, and West Coast VP assets were being diverted from their normal deployment sites to the Western Pacific. The East Coast’s maritime patrol assets had to fill in at Adak, Alaska…and that was us. One week later, our entire squadron headed west. By this time, I was a senior lieutenant, flying as plane commander on Crew Four.

1966: Deployed to the Naval Station Adak

On our first flight into Adak via Moffett, we flew right up the western coast of Canada. From 18,000 feet, the scenery below was magnificent. Little did I know that 30 years later I would cruise that same inland waterway on Regent Cruise Lines, and see that spectacular scenery up close.

Before we left Jacksonville, I dug up a small pine tree and put it in a large coffee can. I brought it with me, motivated by a World War II expression that originated with GIs stationed in Adak: “There’s a girl behind every tree.” The only problem was there were no trees on Adak. There was a sign on the outskirts of the base that read, “You are now entering and leaving the Adak National Forest.” My tree lived for a while in the duty office in Adak, but soon died because guys kept putting their cigarette butts in the pot.

Anyway, we were the last crew to arrive in Adak, and the GCA approach was at minimum ceiling in summer sea fog.  I flew a good GCA approach. I was thinking ahead that if we didn’t make it in, I would have to fly a wave off procedure, and there was a big 4,000-foot mountain, not far off to our right. We were lucky to spot the runway right at minimums. I bet my heretofore dubious crew was thinking, maybe this guy CAN get us into places with bad weather.

We became highly proficient instrument pilots in Adak. Our proximity to the mountains and the adverse weather, especially the wind, kept us on our toes. The only other airplanes to fly into Adak belonged to Reeves Aleutian Airways and Air Alaska. Reeves had a daily flight, while Air Alaska had one flight a week. Reeves brought our mail. I don’t think they missed a flight the whole 6 months we were deployed.

I remember returning to Adak in the soup on one of our patrols. As we flew down the GCA glide path, the clouds below us became broken; and there was a Reeves DC-7 about 50 feet off the water, heading into Adak. They flew in every kind of weather; but then, so did we.  So the Reeves plane approached with the wind about 50 knots across the instrument runway. It flew level along the runway, wing down, top rudder, to the intersection of the cross runway (which was into the wind), and did a sharp turn into the wind and landed immediately on the second half of the runway. Those guys could really fly.

There were hundreds of old WWII Quonset huts on the hills surrounding the base. Base personnel were allowed to “lay claim” to any one of the huts, and fix it up as a getaway vacation cottage. Some were pretty nice.

Note: In the photo to the right, then LT Golder (the author and standing center) is flanked by LT C.D. Parker (left) and the skipper, CDR Dave Hume (right).

There were families stationed on Adak, and early in September the word came out that the school teachers were arriving on an Air Alaska flight. This was a big event, since all the Department of Defense teachers were single.  We all went down to the terminal to greet the ladies. There may have even been some sort of ragtag band there.  When the new school teachers came down the roll-away stairs they looked like a scraggly group of misfits. All the young bachelors were shaking their heads and making nasty comments. We gave them names like “Big Red” - a tall red-headed gal - and “White Alice” - a pale blonde named for the huge over-the-horizon radar array on top of a mountain off the end of runway 23.

They moved into the BOQ; and it wasn’t long before they were mixing at our club parties and chatting with us during our wardroom meals. “Big Red” even tagged me with the nickname “Iron Duke,” because of my complaining about the unmilitary behavior of the group of officers and enlisted men who had transitioned from “P” Boats in Bermuda to P-3s in Jacksonville, when the squadron moved there just before I joined it. The teachers were a fun group and it was nice to have them around. After the deployment, I learned that a junior officer had married one of them.

There have always been a large number of Russian submarines stationed at Vladivostok; and during the Cold War, we were constantly tracking their movements around the North Pacific. At times, we got close to the Kamchatka Peninsula. We were supposed to stay 50 miles outside the perimeter of this Russian territory, but sometimes we breached this artificial barrier while chasing a Russian submarine.

A secret safety net, a special U.S. Air Force over-the-horizon radar system, tracked our flight routes and monitored Soviet air force MIG activities, to warn us if the Russians were sending planes after us.  Before each patrol, I received a sealed envelope. I gave this envelope to our radioman, who would open it after we took off and note the four alphabetic letters on the sheet of paper. He would then monitor the Sky King network. At any given time, a broadcast on this network could sound like this: “Sky King, Sky King, this is Harmon, this is Harmon. Do not answer, do not answer, KILO, ROMEO, OSCAR, CHARLIE; I say again KILO, ROMEO, OSCAR, CHARLIE.” (Harmon was an Air Force base in the far north of Canada.) If these letters corresponded to the letters in our envelope, it meant we were to take evasive action immediately—MIGs are on their way to your location.

We received this warning only once while on patrol. When our radioman told me over the intercom that we had a match, I immediately added power and headed east for the nearest fog bank. We were only 100 feet above the water, so I didn’t think the MIGs would drop down that low. As we were scrambling away, I noticed that Master Chief Smith, our flight engineer, was easing the throttles up, speeding our evasive maneuver. We never saw the MIGs. Later, I reconstructed our flight path and found that we had come within 17 miles of the Russian mainland.

December 15, 1966: My Aviator’s Logbook shows a flight from Adak to San Diego, California, and there is a story that goes with that flight.  We were scheduled to transport a nuclear depth bomb (MK-101 LULU) - a very rudimentary weapon - to the mainland for a quality control inspection. The 1950s era bomb weighed 1,200 pounds and had a yield of about 11 kilotons. We didn’t know it at the time, or we had forgotten the specifications, but the arming system would only perform when it reached a certain depth in the ocean.

Before daybreak, we were assembled in the hangar to load the weapon onto one of the right wing’s pylons. A very intricate checklist was followed to secure the bomb to the aircraft. The last step was to remove the locking pin, so that the weapon could be jettisoned in case of an emergency. When the pin was pulled, we watched in horror as the bomb dropped to the hangar deck.  This particular hangar had strange greenish lighting, which amplified the eerie, pale green expressions on the faces of the crew. Everyone was in a state of shock from the expectation of an explosion. It was deathly quiet for at least a full minute. Finally, someone said, “Holy shit.”

One of the old timers pointed to a nearby standard issue, four-drawer file cabinet and said, “See that file cabinet, we’ll have to fill that up with all the paperwork from this accident.” It turned out that we were not at fault. Both the checklist and the weapons rack were deemed defective, and we were absolved of all blame.  However, not to miss the opportunity for off-island liberty, we blithely reloaded the broken bomb, locked it to the pylon, and continued onward to San Diego. Never in a thousand years would that reload and transport happen in this day and age. God was on the hangar deck with us mortal humans that morning. I felt so relieved, I even brought LCDR Jimmy Jones and his wife a 10-pound block of frozen Alaskan king crab meat from the cannery ship moored in nearby Finger Bay.

Adak weather: The next incident took place near the end of our deployment. Naval historians can look up the exact date, but it was winter in the Aleutians, and Mister Bill, better known locally as “Williewaw,” was working hard, battering the naval air station with 50-knot winds and dumping ice, snow, sleet, and anything else he could muster up on the runway, taxiways, and ramps around the hangars. Most of the aircraft parking areas were covered with 2 to 3 inches of pure ice; and on top of that, snow was accumulating rapidly.

This wasn’t the best of times to be tooling up to Adak, but several visiting P-3s were inbound from the Lower 48 to observe the change of command ceremony for Commander Dave Hume, who was being relieved by Commander James H. Chapman (“JHC”…for “Jesus H. Christ!”).  Luckily, the wind’s path paralleled the runway; but the clouds were low, requiring the command duty officer to be in the tower for weather at or near minimums. I was the CDO that day, thanks to my good friend LCDR Brad Bradley, the flight officer. Let me explain:

Brad had each of our twelve flight crew’s future and destiny plotted on a device of his own making: a 2-foot high chart with dates across the top and flight crews down the side. It was a conglomeration of glued-together graph sheets on a drafting table, with indices that could be rolled back and forth from handles on either side.

As precisely as possible, each flight crew went through a scheduling routine of squadron duty (when the PPC would be the CDO, the PP2P the SDO, and right on down the line); Ready Alert duty (when the crew would stand-by all day and night in case a flap arose); a routine patrol day (when the crew would fly an out-and-back 8-hour ASW {Airborne Shipping Watch} patrol; and a training day (where the crew would try to keep up with the ground training requirements imposed by COMNAVHIGHERAUTH).

Brad’s scroll was legendary, and there wasn’t a crew member in the squadron, from the PPC right on down, who didn’t, at one time or another, come waltzing into the operations office to view his future, or to argue with Brad that he and his crewmates were somehow getting shafted or not getting a good trip somewhere off the island. Brad could always argue them down. I bet he still has those scrolls somewhere in his house. If his house was burning down, you would probably see him running out of the garage clutching those darned rolls of paper.

One day, several weeks prior to the change of command, I was pointing out to Brad that by giving Crew 4 the duty, he had shafted us out of the party that was sure to follow. Brad, however, allowed that, to the contrary, he was actually doing us a favor in that we would not have to get suited up in our dress canvas for the ceremony; and for that, the crew would be eternally grateful. With that, he rolled the scroll onward to ponder some other future event.

Anyway, there I was in the tower when “Big Al” Jensen broke out of the overcast, right at minimums, with about 90 knots of ground speed, thanks to the 50 knots coming from the other direction. He slid his bird down Runway 23 in a cloud of reversed snow, and then bumped, slipped, and skidded the plane onto the apron. "Big Al" was never one to miss a party. One of his passengers was a Navy captain sporting a full length leather flight coat (you couldn’t call it a jacket) with a big fur collar. He captured the awe and admiration of the junior officers for quite a while. No one in our generation had seen one of those flight coats, other than in pictures of some ancient arctic exploration in Approach magazine.

LCDR Dan Peckham was still out on patrol, and the weather was getting worse as darkness rapidly approached. As the ceremony concluded and the festivities began at the BOQ, we had everything in the barn or securely chained down - except for LN-6, which finally broke out of the howling gloom, landed, and taxied to the ramp. The wind had increased to about 60 knots by the time we slapped on the two wing tie-downs. LT Gerry Livingstone (the line officer), a few linemen, and I—all decked out in our "Adak Minks" (full-length, Korean War vintage, foul weather gear with a built-in hood)—frantically searched in the black ice and snow for a pad eye sunk in the concrete to secure the nose gear.

Gerry swore that a pad eye should be right near the nose gear tires, but we sure couldn’t find the darn thing. Suddenly, to our horror, the nose gear began bouncing up and down on its oleo strut (hydraulic shock absorber), and the aircraft started twisting, walking away with the wind.
I thought, There goes my short, but illustrious, naval career. I’m sure Gerry was thinking the same. How in heck could we explain LN-6 resting over in Finger Bay? Everyone else is at the BOQ partying, and here I am in 60-knots wind with LN-6 twisting around on the wing tie-downs, headed for who knows where.

Thank goodness, someone (I don’t remember who) had the smarts to look at the spot where the nose wheel tires had been before the plane began breaking away. Lo and behold, there was the elusive pad eye. After some furious chipping of the ice, we snagged the wandering airplane with a nose gear tie-down.

Afterward, I went up to the "Q" to report all secure on the line. Upon removing my “Adak Mink,” I discovered the back of my aviation winter working greens was soaking wet, right to the base of my neck. To this day, I tell people that it was snow being blown up there by “Mister Williewaw”—but, just maybe it was sweat generated by the possibility of having one of VP-45’s P-3s blown off the ice and into a ditch during my watch. I don’t recall if either the outgoing or incoming skipper knew what happened on the airstrip that day. I sure didn’t break into the party to tell them.

Also near the end of our deployment, Lt Bob Young, a popular officer and a good pilot, received transfer orders, and was departing the squadron on an early morning charter flight.  Someone thought it would be nice if all the officers gathered in the BOQ lobby to see him off, so the word was passed. We were all waiting in the lobby when it was discovered that LT Joe Jones (not his real name) who was not well liked—was not present for the send-off.  LCDR Brad Bradley told Stewards Mate Third Class Milay, who was manning the front desk in the BOQ, to call Lt Jones’ room and tell him to come down to the lobby. It was about 5:30 a.m. and Joe told Milay that he was not going to appear. Now, Joe was a bit overweight - chubby you might say. When Milay reported what LT Jones had said, Brad took the phone and redialed Joe’s room. Imitating Milay’s Filipino accent, Brad said, “Mista Jones, you fat bassa, get your fat ass down here right now!” Jones was on scene in seconds looking for Milay, but we had hidden him in the back office. Brad told Joe that he was the caller; and in light of Brad’s rank, Joe was helpless. Everyone but Joe got a big laugh out of the whole incident.

I was selected for Lieutenant Commander while we were in Adak. It’s a naval tradition to have a wetting-down party when an officer is promoted. I must have had a good time at my party, because I woke up in the middle of the night lying on top of my bed covers, with a cheeseburger on a plate sitting on my chest.

December 18, 1966: During a night patrol out of Adak, we flew along the coast of Kamchatka, keeping about 50 miles off the shoreline. It was near Christmas, and we were in high spirits. We were able to tune our VHF radio to pick up the Russians tracking us with their radars as we flew our route. So, we keyed our mikes on that frequency and sang Hello Dolly to them. We thought it was pretty funny at the time.

Another time, during daylight hours, we came upon a Russian missile tracking vessel, and flew a close-in maneuver to rig the ship (rigging the ship involved a low pass alongside, at 100 feet altitude, to get close-up photos and observe on-board activity). We put the plane on auto pilot then we all ducked down in the cockpit; so that, to anyone on the ship, our plane would appear to be a pilot-less drone. I often wonder what kind of a report they sent back to their bosses.

After an 8-hour patrol, ending at night, we found ourselves facing bad weather all the way up the Aleutian Chain. I decided to land at Shemyea Air Force Base at the western end of the island chain rather than deal with low ceiling and turbulence in the mountains near Adak. The weather at Shemyea was clear.  Shemyea is a small island with a single runway. The only problem was the runway rests about 200 feet above sea level. If there was a crosswind, we could experience wind shear at the end of the runway. Of course, on this particular approach, we had 44 knots of wind from the north, dead abeam on our right wing as we were landing to the west. It was Dave Parker’s turn to land, and I decided to let him attempt it. In hindsight, this was not a wise choice on my part as plane commander; for in a tight situation like this, I should have made the landing. But, I had great confidence in Dave’s skill as a pilot. I thought, He can make just as good a landing as I can, maybe even better.

As we were setting up for the approach, our third pilot/navigator, Roger Marlatt, came up to the cockpit with the NATOPS manual showing us that the landing should not be attempted. The P-3 aircraft was out of the limits for a crosswind landing, and the added danger of wind shear would not help matters. I acknowledged that by simply saying we would be extra careful. I thought we would make one try; and, as we had plenty of fuel, then fly on to Adak.  On our close-in final approach, Dave had a good position and airspeed. Suddenly, BOOM! We hit the wind shear and were instantly thrust downward, craning our necks and looking up at the end of the runway. I know now that our wheels were down amongst the pole-mounted approach lights; but, mercifully, we somehow missed them.

Everyone in the cockpit cried out in unison, “Power!” We simultaneously jammed up the throttles, and were instantly looking back down at the runway. We eased power and Dave held the crosswind correction—right wing down, top rudder—and planted the plane on the runway. (The P-3 is a low wing aircraft, and the crosswind restriction is in place to keep the wings’ props,  from hitting the ground in the wing down, top rudder configuration; but, again, we must have missed by inches.)  I said to Dave, “Get on the brakes.” He replied that his legs were trembling so much he was having trouble doing just that. We finally got the plane slowed, and taxied to the barn. God was surely with us on that landing. He and David had determined that it just wasn’t our time.

Back in Jax

January 16, 1967:  On this date, VP-45 departed NAS Moffett Field (south of San Francisco) in the dark, heading to NAS Jacksonville. We were returning from our 6-month deployment to Adak.  My most vivid memory of that long flight is our arrival. After we shut down the engines, our families were allowed to walk out on the ramp as we deplaned. We all hugged and kissed. Susan and the boys remembered me, but Barbara, only a year and a half old, wasn’t sure who I was. Susan had Barbara all gussied up in a little blue Sunday coat. As we all headed back to the parked cars, the most amazing thing happened. Barbara was walking just a few paces ahead of us when, suddenly, she stopped in her tracks, turned around, and ran back to give me a big hug and kiss. Something had stirred Barb’s memory, and she acted on instinct. I always cry when I think of this precious moment.

My logbook shows 6.4 hours command pilot time, 1.7 hours night VFR time, and 0.5 hours actual instrument time, NAS Moffett enroute to NAS Jacksonville.

After flying the entire 6-month deployment as Crew Four, we were broken up and reassigned to other crews that needed our experience and talents.

God was again in the cockpit with us later that same year. We were flying east out of Jacksonville at 500 feet, approaching the Gulf Stream. Crews can visibly pick out the Stream, since there is a vivid change in the color of the ocean.  We were in and out of rainstorms on that particular flight, and ended up in an especially dark and heavy downpour. We began to lose altitude, and I started adding power. The rain got so heavy, I thought we might flame out an engine. I put on more power as our altitude got lower - low enough for the radar altimeter to start to register.

By the time we got down to 100 feet, I had full power on, and Dave Parker was pushing up the power levers, too. We were still descending. All we could do was hold on.  Gradually, the plane started to rise. We flew out of the storm with full power on, climbing fast. Afterward, we noted that no one had thought to pick up a mike and call “Mayday!” We were too engrossed in handling the situation.  It’s my personal theory that this is what happened to some of the planes lost in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Thank God and General Electric Corporation, who manufactured those reliable T56 engines that kept their fires going even when deluged with the water from that storm. A flameout on any one of our four engines most likely would have put us in the drink—a victim of the Bermuda Triangle.

After our return to Jax, I flew with Crew Three, which had great flight engineers. One of them was Petty Officer First Class Joel Pridgeon, who eventually rose through the warrant and commissioned officer ranks. Joel was one of the original P-3 flight engineers trained by Lockheed.  AFCM John Bollinger would go on to instruct the flight engineer position for VP-30 - he knew the P-3 Orion like the back of his hand.  And then there was Petty Officer First Class Al Stramamino. Once, when we were flying the long loop patrol out of Bermuda, we experienced a starter valve failure on the number three engine in Rota, Spain. This meant we couldn’t start that engine with the air pressure wagon found on every air base. We couldn’t wait for the new valve to be flown out to us, since we had operational requirements to meet out of Rota and Lajes.

So, I decided that we would start the engine by running down the runway with three engines full blast and the number three engine in feather. Our plan was to wait until we reached a speed of 100 knots during run and then we would pull out the feather button, thinking the airflow would rotate the prop and engine enough to obtain a start. Then we would apply full reverse to bring the plane to a turn-around speed. It was a risky operation, especially with a full load of fuel; but the runways were two miles long and dry, so we tried it. Al got so excited at the un-feather point, he broke into Italian. I don’t know what he was saying, but I had it under control and got number three started. This non-standard runway start was also uneventful at Lajes, and we accomplished our patrols and returned to Bermuda.

WebMaster Note: Thanks to CAPT Tom Golder for this and two other great "sea stories."