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
Cell: 585-576-0595
leighbray@hotmail.com
Past Chairman: Edward Seykowski 607 N 70 E
edseykow@juno.com FAX 219-462-2168
Treasurer, Scribe, & Membership
Chairman for dues:
Roger
G. Smith, MD Office: 256 SE 2nd Av.
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
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
from the back seat of an AD3W operating
off 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
Purchase from the author for $15. plus postage. CAPT James A. Mulligan 912
20 WAS EASY by Harry Mead is
available for $8.95 plus postage by writing to
the author at
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
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
spectacular
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
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
Past reunions:
1997
1999
2000
2001
2002
After which we started to really
build membership
2003
2004
hurricane retreat #1
2005
hurricane retreat #2
2006
Members present:
John Adkins, Dick Bray, Jim Campi, Ray Coller, Lee Edmonston, Dick
Frederick, Ray Friss,
Glenn Fulton, Pat Gaffney, Mike Getler, Judge Dick
(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:
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-
Diego; Hornet-Oakland; Oriskany-sunk for a reef off
Projected Forrestal-Baltimore;
Ranger –
VC-12 VAW-12
John Ascuaga’s
Nugget in
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
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
at NAS Fallon and golf.
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
first time, although we have tried to be
near the river in
This is an opportunity for all our
west coast shipmates to join us in
without having to travel across the country.
Hope to see you all in
VAW-11
VAW-11 will hold its next reunion
October 9-12, 2008 in
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.