VC12 & VAW12 Newsletter October 2006
Website: www.vc12vaw12.org
All the old newsletters;
for members list: www.vc12vaw12.org/members/members.html
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: 256 SE 2nd Av. Hillsboro, OR 97123
503-628-2229 home; Office 503-648-4171; FAX 503-648-4172 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 1700 members. There are a lot of people we have 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 $27.50 each post paid. This is a book written by Roger Smith about squadron flying. His address is 256 SE 2nd Av Hillsboro, OR 97123. 80 color photos and some others. Naval history, sea stories, personal reminiscence.
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) 256 SE 2nd Av. Hillsboro, OR 97123
We have a new supply now. There was a delay in February while we waited for our new supply to come in. NFO wings are still available at $50.
The 2006 Reunion held at Herndon, VA near Dulles Airport and the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Museum was a rousing success. We had no hurricane this year, unlike the past two. It was our 9th annual get together. Some of the regulars and a number of new faces attended. We had 43 members and 35 guests for a total of 78 persons. Ed Seykowski, our chairman was master of ceremonies with his usual aplomb. David M. North, recently retired editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology gave a rousing talk about the many aircraft he had flown and covered in his career. Larry Martin and Dick Bray formed a team that made the event run smoothly. Kudos to them both.
Two days were devoted to touring in Washington’s many memorials and the spectacular Udvar Hazy Museum of aviation where we had a private tour. The business meeting adopted an organizational plan for the group constructed by Speed Ritzman and elected Dick Bray as our new Chairman. He is the third in a succession of former enlisted ATs who have chaired this squadron reunion group. Roger Smith remains Secretary Treasurer and membership chairman for the organization. He will also line up next year’s meeting which will be the first weekend in September after the Labor Day weekend at John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks, Nevada (near Reno) as an adjunct to Tailhook’s annual meeting. Sept 6-9, 2007. Details below. Make reservations early or you will be sleeping elsewhere. The hotel fills up. I paid the hotel $97 per night this past year at Tailhook. You can make your reservation before the official notice comes out in December.
We tentatively penciled in Charleston, SC for 2008.
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
Members present:
John Adkins, Dick Bray, Jim Campi, Ray Coller, Lee Edmonston, Dick Frederick, Ray Friss, Glenn Fulton, Pat Gaffney, Mike Getler, Judge Dick Greenwood, Gerry Groh, Ed Harmon, Bob Howard, Dave Lamb, Chief Robert Lehman (an LDS bishop who gave the blessing at dinner), Gordon Leisch, Ralph Magnus, Larry Martin, Walt Miesse, Dar Miner, Tom Mobley, Frank Pollifrone, Bob Reutenauer, Reg Richardson, Speed Ritzman, Ed Seykowski, Ron Schmidt, Joe Schneider, Ron Schneider, Ben Schweining, Ed Sellman, Frank Sequeira, Bob Sherman, Dr Flip Shoemaker, Larry Short, Dr Roger Smith, Charles Soderlund (who made a special effort to come!), Bill Speaker, Herb Thompson, Jim Victor, Paul Watkins, and Marshall Younts.
Registered also Monte Horner, Gerry Prowell, William Webb
Governor Jodi Rell and Lou, who had graced our last 3 meetings, stayed home to campaign for re-election and we all wish her well. Our first chairman, Bob Marvin, was not well enough to travel this year. Good wishes to him and Rose.
If you have an e-mailed copy of the photo we had made before the banquet here are the names:
Rear row: Fulton, Miesse, Gaffney, Frederick, Miner, Shoemaker, Groh, Short, Schmidt, and Yount (Some uncertainty about the order of the last 2 names)
Middle row: Bray, Reutenauer, Magnus, R. Schneider, Schweining, Ritzman, Lehman, Smith, Seykowski, Richardson, Pollifrone, Lamb, and Adkins
Front row: Mobley, Victor, Sequeira, Sherman, North, Speaker, Friss, Getler, Campi, Harmon, Sellman, and Martin
Thompson was taking pictures. Coller out of picture middle row to the left. (Seen in Thompson’s photo)
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. The Association is confident of success. 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)
VC-12 VAW-12 Reunion September 6-9 2007
John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks, NEVADA (A mile from the Reno airport.)
Reservations 1-800-648-1177. Tell them you are with Tailhook to get the rate for the convention.
It has 1600 rooms and they will all be reserved for that weekend before midsummer
The Air Races are the following weekend. You can stay on.
Make your reservation with the hotel and then with us additionally by contacting Dick Bray
Rbray1@rochester.rr.com or leighbray@hotmail.com or 585-576-0595 765 Hosmer Rd Churchville, NY 14428
We will make no charge this year, but the registration with Tailhook will cover the charges we usually have to charge for. We will likely have a small charge for incidentals to stock the ready room. Our treasury will cover administrative costs.
To participate in the Tailhook events you need to register with Tailhook
thookassn@aol.com 1-800-322-4665
Sign up for the Bug Roach event Friday night and the banquet Saturday night and anything else you choose to do. They do trips to Lake Tahoe and Top Gun at NAS Fallon and golf. Virginia City is a tour you shouldn’t miss if you’ve never seen the silver mines that financed the Civil War.
Bug Roach was a charismatic LCDR LSO who was killed in an airplane accident. They have this jam packed event named for him where you patrol all over the convention floor eating and drinking and seeing the displays for several hours. You can play navy games like virtual carrier landings, virtual LSO work, and see all the latest technology being served up to the new navy and talk to dozens of active duty guys there in their flight suits. You can wear your old flight jacket. There are lots of colorful flight jackets on display and lots of pretty girls being squired about by the active duty guys. There is no sexual misbehavior since 1991.
New Chairman’s message
As your new Chairman of the VC-12/VAW-12 organization I want to say that it is a privilege to be able to try and carry on the leadership provided by Ed Seykowski for the past many years and to Bob Marvin prior to that. Leave it to the old AT’s to maybe chew off more then they should. In addition it should be noted that Karen Seykowski has added much to our success as well during Ed’s tenure. I certainly don’t posses the master of ceremonies capabilities or name retention skills of Ed but stick with me and I will see if we all can’t carry on a great organization. I am sure I will be calling on the Past Chairman and others in the organization to help us go forward.
Speaking of help, it is important that we all endeavor to locate shipmates that we served with in order to have our organization grow and prosper. Roger Smith does a fantastic job locating past shipmates but it is up to us to try and contact them personally to invite them to come and share our good times at the annual reunions. If each one of us contacts just one or two old shipmates and encourages them to attend we could expand our reunions greatly.
Our reunion for 2007 is to be held west of the Mississippi River for the first time, although we have tried to be near the river in Biloxi last year. This is an opportunity for all our west coast shipmates to join us in Reno without having to travel across the country.
Hope to see you all in Reno. Dick Bray (aka Smiley)
VAW-11
VAW-11 will hold its next reunion October 9-12, 2008 in San Diego. The date is firm.
But it’s 2 years away. They are on an every 3 years cycle. They include all VAW people including the active duty guys now. They naturally are predominately a West Coast membership. There is some small overlap with our people. We are entirely welcome to attend.
Models:
I have been asked where to get a good model of the Airplane we flew. The best seems to be Edward H. Biltmore’s EHB Precision Modelworks. They had a booth at Tailhook this year and their displays were exceptional. They are pricey though. They will customize paint and decorate to match photos you send them of what your airplane looked like.
www.warplanes.com & www.pacificaircraft.com or 800-950-9944 for a catalogue.
Hats and jackets:
Our former reunion planner, Military Locator and Reunion Services, Inc may still have some VAW-12 hats, shirts and jackets Military Locator and Reunion Services, Inc PO Drawer 11399 Hickory, NC 28603 dinaMLRS@charterinternet.com 828-256-6008
Stories: Hawaiian Waters, 1958, Operational Readiness Exercise. Upon reaching the flight deck for launch, an AD Skyraider pilot saw his aircraft on the number one catapult with a twin-engine AJ Savage on number two and another AJ parked behind his AD-5W. The Savage bombers weighed more than 50,000 pounds, the airborne early warning Skyraiders about 20,000 pounds. The pilot immediately sensed trouble because the carrier had hydraulic catapults, compared to the more modern steam cats, and they could not be quickly adjusted for differing weights. The common practice was to catapult aircraft in descending order of the required forces on carriers with hydraulic cats. Moreover, higher authority had directed that ADs had to be catapulted rather than make deck runs. The pilot and his two-man crew got set for launch and strapped in tightly. The pilot had warned his crew, “This is gonna be the cat shot from hell!” The ship turned into the wind, the pilot went to full power and was about to salute, signaling he was ready to go, when the catapult officer gave him the throttle-back signal. With power reduced, the pilot was then signaled to raise the flaps. He was confused because he had never heard of a plane being launched from a carrier with the flaps up. The ship then turned out of the wind and slowed down, which reduced the pilot’s fears, thinking now the launch had been delayed. The carrier turned 180 degrees, continued to slow down and maintain just enough speed to hold her downwind course. Wind across the deck had changed from a 30-knot headwind to a 10-knot tailwind. The pilot then realized all of the maneuvering was on behalf of a safer cat shot for his AD-5W, since the cats had been set for the heavy AJ to launch into a 30-knot headwind. Nonetheless, as the pilot advanced power for launch he wondered if the Skyraider would hold together while absorbing such anticipated force. He knew from experience that a hydraulic cat shot was like being rifled into the air with black powder, because it consists of a horrendous, instantaneous slam in the back, rather than a smooth accelerating push. It was not uncommon for pilots to lose peripheral vision in a conical manner, with the resulting tunnel vision restricting the ability to scan instrument gauges for precious seconds, much less fly the aircraft. In this case, the crew was on the receiving end of a swift and definitive kick in their backsides, and the pilot and crew lost all vision for a brief time. Fortunately, the aircraft held together and was flung fast enough that the crew regained their senses while safely airborne. They were in pain from the shot, and even after an hour of flying their lower backs were aching. The “Able Dog” and this crew endured a force nearly three times normally required. No other aircraft were catapulted out of proper sequence during the remainder of the exercise. Grampaw Pettibone says: Nothin’ like a swift kick to get the blood goin’ and the eyes goin’ out! This boot in the behind is another example of why Naval Aviators have to be tough. Ole Gramps would prefer a good old deck run. Gramps thanks Skyraider pilot Harry Hamilton for this story. Naval Aviation News March–April 2003
From Jack Sauter:
I attended the first VC-12 reunion at Newport in 1997. A few of us took a drive to the old NAS and found Seaplane Hangar 2 looking the same as we left it. There was chain link fence surrounding the building with signs warning us away--US Government facility etc. One of the former ATs who drove over with me said, "Hell, I didn't come all this way to look at the outside of the hangar". We checked out the fence and found a loosely chained door that we squeezed through. There wasn't a soul in sight. The experience was eerie. It reminded me of the opening of 12 O'Clock High where the old major returns to his abandoned B-17 base in England years after the war.
Except for the lack of aircraft, the interior looked exactly the way it did in 1954 when I left the squadron. Same bilious green paint. Even the smell was the same. I even found the indentation made by a .45 slug some nervous watch guard fired into a staircase back in 1951.
Electric Boat--General Dynamics was using the hangar for storage, but it was completely bare at the time of our visit. We drove around the surviving remnants of our once "home away from home," trying to recall where this building or that building stood, --the geedunk stand, the gym, the movie theater etc. But it became too painful, like revisiting the ruins of your old school or home.
A year later I stopped by on my way to Maine to show my son what remained of Quonset. He was very impressed. He helped edit my book and there were many pages describing the base.
Thanks too, for plugging my book. I still receive an occasional order from VC-12. I'm down to fifty books out of 3,900 printed. I bought the last of McFarland's remainders (about 1,200) about five years ago when it went out of print. SAILORS had a good run for a first book by an unknown author. Thought about publishing a revised second edition, but got too tied up in other books and the association.
From ADC Bob Tharp RET. USN: Humorous incident
There was this ADRC, can't remember his real name, but everyone called him Chief Frenchie, maybe someone will remember this and come up with his name. Well anyway, we had this bad pigeon problem in the hangar at Quonset. It seems that CAPT. J.C. Lawrence had called for a personnel inspection. There we were standing in ranks at attention, and here comes J.C. (as we called him), he is about two steps away from Chief Frenchie when one of the pigeons from above let go! The pigeon poop hit the brim of Frenchie's hat and dripped down to his shoes. When J.C. got to him, with chuckle, he dismissed Frenchie from ranks. After the inspection, in the Power Plants shop, we all had a good laugh, naturally at Frenchie's expense.
(Alas, George H. LaForcade ADRC Essex det of 1961 died MA 5/24/2001-ed)
The Pea Coat
You remember them- Those ton and a half monsters that took the annual production of thirty-five sheep to make. They were thick black rascals with black plastic buttons the size of poker chips. The issue coats that drove shore duty chief petty officers stark raving nuts if they caught you with the collar turned up or your hands in your pockets. "Hey, you rubber sock, get those gahdam hands outta them damn pockets! Didn't they issue you black leather gloves?" So, you took your hands out of your pockets and risked digital frostbite rather than face whatever the Navy had in store for violators of the 'No Gahdam Hands In Peacoat Pockets' policy. There's probably a special barracks in Hell full of old E-3s caught hitchhiking in sub-zero weather with hands in peacoat pockets. As for those leather gloves, one glove always went missing. "Son, where in the hell are the gloves we issued you?" We? I don't remember this nasty, ugly bastard being at Great Lakes when the 'jocks and socks' petty officers were throwing my initial issue seabag at me and yelling, "Move it!!" As for the gloves, once you inadvertently leave one glove on a night table or on the seat of a Greyhound bus, the remaining glove is only useful if a tank rolls over the hand that fit the lost glove. In the days long ago, a navy spec. peacoat weighed about the same as a flat car load of cinder blocks. When it rained, it absorbed water until your spine warped, your shins cracked and your ankles split. Five minutes standing in the rain waiting on a bus and you felt like you were piggy-backing the statue of liberty. When a peacoat got wet, it smelled a lot like sheep dip. It had that wet wool smell, times three. It weighed three and a half tons and smelled like 'Mary had a little lamb's' gym shorts. You know how heavy a late '50s peacoat was? Well, they had little metal chains sewn in the back of the collar to hang them up by. Like diluted navy coffee, sexual sensitivity instruction, comfortable air-conditioned topside security bungalows, patent leather plastic-looking shoes and wearing raghats configured to look like bidet bowls, the peacoat spec. has been watered down to the point you could hang them up with dental floss. In the old days, peacoat buttons and grocery cart wheels were interchangeable parts. The gear issued by the U.S. Navy was tough as hell, bluejacket-tested clothing with the durability of rhino hide and construction equipment tires. Peacoats came with wide, heavy collars. In a cold, hard wind, you could turn that wide collar up to cover your neck and it was like poking your head in a tank turret. The things were warm, but I never thought they were long enough. Standing out in the wind in those 'big-legged britches' (bell bottoms), the wind whistled up your cuffs and took away body warmth like a thief. But, they were perfect to pull over you for a blanket when sleeping on a bus or a bus terminal bench. Every sailor remembers stretching out on one of those oak bus station pews with his raghat over his face, his head up against his AWOL bag and covered with his peacoat. There was always some 'SP' who had not fully evolved from apehood, who poked you with his billy bat and said, "Hey, YOU!! Get up! Waddya think yer doin? You wanna sleep, get a gahdam room!" Peacoats were lined with quilted satin or rayon. I never realized it at the time, but sleeping on bus seats and station benches would be the closest I would ever get to sleeping on satin sheets. Early in my naval career, a career-hardened (lifer) first class gunner's mate told me to put my ID and liberty card in the inside pocket of my peacoat. Put the sonuvabitches in that gahdam inside pocket and pin the damn thing closed with a diaper pin. Then, take your heavy folding money and put it in your sock. If you do that, learn to never take your socks off in a cathouse. Them damn dockside pickpockets pat 'cha down for a lumpy wallet and they can relieve you of said wallet so fast you'll never know you've been snookered. Only a dumbass idiot will clam-fold his wallet and tuck it in his thirteen button bellbottoms. Every kid above the age of six in Italy knows how to lift a wallet an idiot pokes in his pants. Those little bastards learned to pick sailor's pockets in kindergarten. Rolling bluejackets is the national sport in Italy. In Washington DC, they have a wonderful marble and granite plaza honoring the United States Navy. Every man or woman who served this nation in a naval uniform, owes it to himself or herself to visit this memorial and take their families. It honors all naval service and any red-blooded American bluejacket or officer will feel the gentle warmth of pride his or her service is honored within this truly magical place. The focal point of this memorial is a bronze statue of a lone American sailor. No crow on his sleeve tells you that he is non-rated. And, there are further indications that suggest maybe, once upon a time, the sculpturer himself may have once been an E-3 raghat. The lad has his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets. I'm sure the Goddess of the Main Induction nearly wets her panties laughing at the old, crusty chiefs standing there with veins popping out on their old, wrinkled necks, muttering, "Look at that idiot sonuvabitch standing there with his collar up and his gahdam hands in his pockets. In my day, I would have ripped that jerk a new one!" Ah, the satisfied glow of E-3 revenge. Peacoats. One of God's better inventions. -Anonymous, from an e-mail from Bullet Bob Nettles.