VC-12/VAW-12 Newsletter

VC12 & VAW12 Newsletter September 2007

Website: www.vc12vaw12.org

All the old newsletters;

for members list: www.vc12vaw12.org/members/members.html

Contact me for rosters of the detachments you were on. We are continually adding to this database. (rgs@coho.net)

Chairman: Richard Bray 765 Hosmer Rd Churchville, NY 14428 585-538-4252 Cell: 585-576-0595 leighbray@hotmail.com

Past Chairman: Edward Seykowski 607 N 70 E Valparaiso, IN 46383 219-462-3636 edseykow@juno.com FAX 219-462-2168

Treasurer, Scribe, & Membership Chairman for dues:

Roger G. Smith, MD Office: 561 SE Oak St Hillsboro, OR 97123

Home: 34464 SW Firdale Rd Cornelius, OR 97113 503-628-2229 home; FAX 503-693-9109; Cell 503-407-8436 rgs@coho.net

Dues are $10 a year for those who get the newsletter by post. New year starts at the reunion. Send in your dues now or e-mail me for a status report on your account.

Many who get the newsletter by e-mail offer dues and we are grateful. We send e-mail newsletter to all who wish to see it regardless.

We are nearly 1800 members. There are a lot of people we have still not found.

We have listed groups by detachments. Send me your request and I'll share your detachment list with you so you can contact the guys you want to meet at reunion. Tell us who you remember and let us help you find him/them. We have too many new contacts since the reunion to list them all. We have many incomplete detachment rosters. Send for yours and help me complete the lists. I call a lot of guys who have no interest, but if their old buddies call them, that may be a different matter. Our membership continues to grow. We have found people through the Navy Memorial Foundation and Military.Com.

People who send me old newsletters from the squadron and old orders, social notes, watch bills, cruise book lists and rapid recall bills have been very helpful.

Every once in a while I find a new member referred from a member who recalls where his old buddy is now.

Surprisingly few men that I have heard of have taken the roster of their cruise and made calls to old friends. That is another way to improve the list. Many of those rosters have names with incomplete addresses. Studying them may yield clues to where they may be now—wives names, birthdates or birth years, hometowns etc may be very helpful in finding men with more common names.

VAW-12 Books at the VAW Store

We have copies of GUPPY PILOT at $30. each post paid. This is a book written by Roger Smith about squadron flying. His address is 561 SE Oak St Hillsboro, OR 97123. 80 color photos and some others. Naval history, sea stories, personal reminiscence.

(postage went up)

We do not have copies of SAILORS IN THE SKY by Jack Sauter, but inscribed copies can be purchased from him directly for $19.95 at 235 Robby Lane, New Hyde Park, NY 11040. This is an enlisted aircrewman’s view of the Korean War from the back seat of an AD3W operating off the Lake Champlain. Jack is the president and editor of the magazine for that ship’s reunion group to this day

HANOI COMMITMENT the story of 7 years a prisoner of the North Viets. Purchase from the author for $15. plus postage. CAPT James A. Mulligan 912 Five Points Rd Virginia Beach, VA 23454-2642

20 WAS EASY by Harry Mead is available for $8.95 plus postage by writing to the author at 38 N Alder Drive, Orlando, FL 32807-5030. There is a chapter about VAW-12

VAW-12 Patches on sale for $5 for dues paying members and $8 for those not paying dues. Write to editor (Roger Smith) at Hillsboro, OR 97123 (see above)

NFO wings are still available at $50.

2007 Reunion

.Was held in conjunction with Tailhook ’07 the second weekend in September. We attracted some west coast members, but were a smaller group than has been our wont.

Dick Bray will continue as Chairman. Dr Smith will continue as treasurer, scribe and membership chairman. Larry Martin, Speed Ritzman, Dick Frederick and now Bob Reutenauer constitute a steering committee.

Activities at the reunion were unique opportunities to see and hear about the modern navy and its projections of personnel, strategies and equipment for the future. Some folks went to Virginia City, Top Gun at NAS Fallon and Lake Tahoe resorts. Bens Liquor store offered booze at half the price it is at home in Portland. We had an inspirational talk from Gene Cernan a tailhooker and astronaut, about his trip to the moon. If you didn’t come, you missed a treat.

We will reunion in Charleston, SC Monday-Thursday September 22-26, 2008 at the Holiday Inn at Patriots Point

250 Jonnie Dodds Blvd Mt Pleasant, SC 29464 843-884-6000

Contact Dick Bray at leighbray@hotmail.com or rbray1@rochester.rr.com 585-538-4252 (home) or 585-576-0595 (cell)

Past reunions:

1997 Newport 26 members; 17 guests total 43

1999 Pensacola 29 21 50

2000 Norfolk 21 14 35

2001 Charleston 16 11 27

2002 Newport 31 21 52 After which we started to really build membership

2003 Annapolis 40 26 66

2004 Gettysburg 43 21 74 hurricane retreat #1

2005 Fort Walton 43 29 72 hurricane retreat #2

2006 Washington 46 35 81

2007 Reno 23 14 37

Members present:

CDR Lee Bausch, Dick & Joyce Bray, CAPT Bill Campbell, LCDR Dick & Nelleke Cooper, Harold Davidson & Judy Heston, LCDR Lee Edmonston, CDR Dick & Patty Frederick, CAPT Niles “Whitey” Gooding, Judge Dick & Carol Greenwood, CAPT Harold Griffith, LCDR Tom Hampton, CDR Hilary Gates “Zeke” Kunkler, Larry Martin, Ernie & Diane McCall, Dar Miner and Charlene Cunningham, Frank & Diane Pollifrone, CDR John A. Redden, Bob and Kris Reutenauer, CDR Joe & Judy Schneider, Ben Schweining, Dr Roger & Joan Smith, Paul Watkins, and Marshall Younts & Annie Boothe .

Guests: LCDR George Bickford, Tom Stevenson (Dr Smith’s friends from Portland) CAPT Deke Forbes, former commandant of the US Naval Academy (Capt Gooding’s guest)

Last year Chief Lehman reported that the Saratoga Association had raised the 7 million dollars required to restore the ship so it can be moved to Quonset Point to be a museum carrier and needs yet more now for continued operating expenses. This year we learned that the whole ten million is pledged or in the bank and restoration of the Saratoga is about to begin. Where are the Museum carriers?

Intrepid-New York; Yorktown-Charleston; Lexington-Corpus Christi; Midway-San Diego; Hornet-Oakland; Oriskany-sunk for a reef off Pensacola

Projected Forrestal-Baltimore; Ranger –Portland (unlikely, but still possible)

Here in VA, the VAW community is dealing as best it can with a fatal accident. About a week ago, the RAG (VAW-120) was conducting night carqual on the Truman. About 11:00pm, and not long after a night cat shot, the E2C flew into the water upwind of the ship. There was a nugget in the left seat, an instructor pilot in the right seat and one instructor NFO in the back. No apparent mechanical issues – it looks like a spatial disorientation thing. The NFO was married with a 2 year old son. The two pilots were single. This is the first accident in the history of the RAG and was particularly depressing coming at the start of the annual Hawkeye Week run-up to last night’s Hawkeye Ball. During my days on active duty, I had two tours in VAW-120; the first as an instructor pilot and later as the squadron C.O. Andy Murphy August, 2007

Communication: The Association of Naval Aviation magazine for this past summer had an incorrect mention of our squadron, which I have called to the editor’s attention:

Dear CAPT Rausa,

Your excellent magazine, Wings of Gold, which I read enthusiastically on the day it arrives, contains a misunderstanding which many people have made.

I do the VC-12/VAW-12 newsletter and collect members who served with us, and I have to fend off former Fighting Omars who are not us.

As far as I know, there have been 3 separate squadrons in the navy designated VC-12. The first, as you note, was established in 1943 and served aboard USS Card hunting Uboats. I know some of those guys. Their leader is still active.

Macchia, Joseph J. 11212 W Carmelita Dr Arizona City, AZ 85223 520-466-5922 jomack@cybertrails.com (e-mail has now failed) Coordinator for earlier VC-12 1943-46 USS Card

Next came us. VAW-2 established July 6 1948; redesignated VC-12 October 1 1948; redesignated VAW-12 July 2 1956. In 1948 VAW-1 on the West Coast and VAW-2 at NAS Norfolk on the East Coast, were formed to replace the FAETU's (Fleet Aviation Electronics Training Units) VAW-12 was Established as Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron TWO (VAW-2) at NAS Norfolk, Virginia, on 6 July 1948. Within a year, VAW-2 was re-designated Composite Squadron Twelve (VC-12) and relocated to Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where the TBM-3W was replaced with the AD-3W SKYRAIDER. In 1956 the squadron was re-designated VAW-12. It was no longer a composite squadron, having lost its anti-submarine mission to the VS squadrons and was entirely and Airborne early warning mission. The WF-1 (later designated the WF-2) was developed in 1954 and later and was redesignated as the E-1B when deployed with us in 1959-60. See <http://www.anft.net/f-14/grumman-s2a.htm> for details, although that page erroneously lists the E-1 as Tracker, it should be Tracer.

In 1962 the Squadron, equipped with WF-1 and 2, moved back to Norfolk, and VAAW-33 which had moved to Quonset from Atlantic City in 1959 took over our AD5s. In 1966 the squadron divided into 6 new squadrons based on the detachments then at sea. The Trader led in turn to another Tracker derivative, the "WF-1 Tracer" airborne early-warning (AEW) variant, which first flew in March 1957. The production version, the "WF-2", went into operational service in February 1958, serving with Squadrons VAW-11 and VAW-12. It was known as "Willie Fudd" by crews, in reference to its designation code, and sometimes as "Stoof with a Roof". The Tracer featured a large fiberglass honeycomb dorsal "saucer" radome with dimensions of 6.1 by 9.14 meters (20 by 30 feet) to accommodate the antenna for its Heseltine APS-82 search radar, and a new tail unit with three fins to compensate for the wake interference of the radome. As the radome blocked the wings from folding upward, they were redesigned to fold backward along the fuselage in classic Grumman fashion. The Tracer had a crew of four, including pilot, copilot, and two radar operators. A total of 89 Tracers were built. In 1966 both squadrons were so big and administratively unwieldy that they were broken up into separate squadrons which are the current VAW squadrons of the fleet. In late 1966, when the Navy introduced the E-2A, VAW-11 was the first to start transitioning. It split into VAW-111 to provide E-1B detachments while some detachments were transitioning to the E-2. VAW-12 existed until 1 Apr 67 when VAW-121 was formed to continue providing E-1B detachments and the new E-2A squadrons started to form at NAS Norfolk.
In 1998 a dozen former enlisted men, organized by Bob Marvin, who had kept together from the 1953-5 era and who had flown as radar operators on the AD3W and AD4W met in Portsmouth, RI to form the reunion group. Their focal point was the book, Sailors In The Sky, written (and very well written, indeed) by one of them, Jack Sauter. A year later a larger gathering in Pensacola included some pilots and commissioned air controllers through another book contact with the author of Guppy Pilot, reviewed on the Able Dog Website. The reunion roster has grown to include all eras of the squadron and the mailing list is some 1700 names.

The detachment of our VC-12 which served on CV-31 in 1953 was but one of several detachments the squadron sent to carriers over the years. It should not be included in your summary of the history of VC-12/VFC-12 as you did on page 29 of the summer 2007 edition.

The Fighting Omars founded in 1973 were a yet third distinctive squadron originally called VC-12 and soon VFC-12. They are your story for this edition.

Tailwinds and following seas, Roger G. Smith

With respect to the introduction of the WF, Capt John Lavra told us this tale.

I flew ASW missions in WWII as an Enlisted combat Aircrewman, PBY's, PBM's out of Corpus Christi Got my Aviator wings Oct 1947 Flew combat, two Korean tours with VA-55, San Diego Shot down twice by ground fire First time crash landed in friendly territory, no injuries Second time, bailed out 32 miles behind the lines, burned to a crisp; rescued by Navy Helo piloted by an AP, Chief WEST, listed in the Enlisted Aviation Pilot Hall of Fame, Pens FL Flew logistics flights in an' out of DaNang and Chu-Lai, 'Nam

Had the Fleet Intro Program on the Willy Fudd (WF-2) while at VAW-12, at NAS Pax River Took the first WF-2 Det to sea in INDEPENDENCE; Med cruise '60-'61 Ended up flyin' A4's an' last tour was XO, NAS Oceana Ret 1 Nov '70

James Harvey was supposed to be our O-in-C, but he had to go in the hospital for an operation just before we left; so I became O-in-C There was some rumbling because a Reserve Officer was taking charge of the first multi-engine Det to go to sea. I was the O-in-C of VAW-12's Det at Pax Riv for the FLEET INTRODUCTION PROGRAM for the WF-2

A young JG or LT by the name of Larry O'TOOLE gave us the name of WILLY FUDD; in fact they put out a paper "FUDD NEWS" or something like that MATTA was our PR OFF and a very enterprising one. Our ball caps were, FUDD BOSS (mine), FUDD DRIVER, FUDD CONTROLLER Our maint pers wore FUDD FIXERS. The ship's CO hats were: FUDD PUSHERS. One of CVG 7's Fighter Squads had their A/C painted on the nose with a Boxer's gloved fist an' the words "FUDDS FIST." MATTA had a bulletin board put up in the ready room with a "WILLY FUDD SAYS" thing damn near every day. Example--WILLY FUDD says WHERE THERE's LIFE, THERE's FUDD; OUR BEER is FUDDWIESER, FUDD unto others before they FUDD unto YOU.

The door to the ready room was always swinging as folks were peering in to see what was on the board. I don't think the skipper of the BIG I ever missed a day.

LT(jg) Edmond K. Matta, Medford, NJ NAOC Independence 1960 died in 2001. Ed Matta was instrumental in naming the plane the "Willy Fudd" Captain J.C. Lawrence, skipper of VAW-12 in Quonset Point, hated the name and forbade the use of it. He came to visit the Independence on a work up cruise. When he approached Ready Two he almost had a stroke. Ed Matta had put a sign on the ready room door which read, "Ready Room Two Farm of the Fabulous Fudds" But ComSecondFleet said to the skipper, "We're sure glad to have your Fudds aboard J.C.!" The name stuck.

Our member, Fred Novinger, now a retired TWA pilot in Indiana was the subject of a story published in the magazine, Logbook recently. Look it up.

Novinger, Fred B. Jr. 17855 Horizon Way Laurenceburg, IN 47025 812-537-3142 fnovinger@comcast.net Midway 1953; TWA pilot (Logbook Vol 8; No 1 2007) Judith