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WEBSITE INFORMATION
Don't forget that you can get updated information about upcoming
GPS events and a review of past luncheons at our website which is
at www.gpsana.org. We are now taking most of the printed version
of the OP-Plan and displaying it electronically. Again, we are trying
to have the site updated by the 25th of each month. If you wish
to be notified electronically when it is updated with new information,
please contact Tim Brown at timb53@hotmail.com.
Tim Brown,
GPS Assistant Membership Officer, Recruiting
WWII Naval Aviation
Experiences of GPS Member
LCDR Brad Hovey, USNR(Ret)
Submitted by Andy Gilcrest
I am pleased
to report that I finally have my first WWII video interview ready
for distribution. Brad Hovey has had a most interesting life. Born
and raised in China(his father represented an American oil company)
until he was in high school, Brad joined the Navy in early 1942
after a short stint at UCLA. He was commissioned and winged in Nov.
1942 and transferred to Air Group 4 aboard the USS Ranger in the
Atlantic which at that time was assigned to the British Fleet. As
a Dauntlas Dive Bomber(SBD) pilot, his duties included helping to
keep the remnants of the German battleship fleet bottled up in the
Norwegian Fiords, escorting Churchill to a North American Conference,
and supporting various anti-submarine actions.
Air Group 4
was transferred to the Pacific Fleet in early 1944 and Brad was
checked out in the Helldiver(SB2C) bomber. A few months later he
was converted to a fighter pilot flying Hellcats(F6F''s). Air Group
4 was then assigned to the USS Bunker Hill for two weeks in November
1944 and Brad participated on missions in the Philippines. Air Group
4 was then transferred to the USS Essex in the same month and Brad
participated on missions in the Philippines, French Indo China(Vietnam),
China, Formosa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Japan. Brad was rotated to
the States in March of 1945 and assigned as a Corsair(F4U) instructor
and expected to be eventually assigned to a Fighter Squadron that
was training for the scheduled invasion of the main island of Japan
in April 1946. The atomic bomb shortened the war and he was released
from active duty in December of 1945. He joined a Reserve Squadron
flying Hellcats out of NAS Alameda and later out of NAS Oakland
while he attended U.C. Berkeley. He then had a post war career of
working for the oil industry in the Far East.
His experiences
were quite varied including support of eight different types of
missions,
shooting down a zero, involvement in a midair, and experiencing
a barrier landing due to a faulty hook. He participated in several
missions in Japan early in 1945 including escorting a surfaced submarine
outside Tokyo Bay that was standing by to rescue downed airmen.
Brad has an excellent memory and describes his experiences in detail
in a dispassionate manner. The interview was wide ranging and covers
many details of everyday life during that period that you are not
likely to find in books. The video tape is two hours long including
approximately 50 still pictures and information charts interspersed
with Brad's commentary. There are also eight charts of relevant
details that are provided with the VHS tape.
I plan to interview
other GPS Navy or Marine flyers that saw action in WWII. The tapes
are
available for $10 with approximately 90% of the funds collected
donated to worthy aviation related causes. For tapes sold to Association
of Naval Aviation(ANA) members, the donated funds will be split
between GPS-ANA and Junior ROTC Flight Familiarization Programs
that I am working with. If the tapes have to be mailed, there is
an additional charge of $5 for S & H. Copies of the tapes will
be donated to the Library of Congress WWII Project and to the State
of California WWII archives.
In addition
to the WWII tape, I have the following other aviation related products
available for distribution:
ANA field trip to the USS Constellation for a day sailing trip
ANA field trip to Fort Irwin
2003 Tailhook Convention and Reno Air Races
Unusual and/or spectacular aviation photos
Air Force Weapons Demo combined with the ANA Field trip to Nellis
Since I will
not be able to show these products at the meeting due to my Operations
Officer duties, starting in April I will have a sign-up list at
the rear of the room on the large table for anyone interested in
purchasing a particular product. I would then bring them to the
next meeting for distribution either before or after the meeting.
In handling it in this manner, I would also avoid the necessity
of maintaining an inventory of the products.
Happy Easter
LESS TIME IN THE SKY
Some aviators see trouble with
more time in simulators
By David Brown
and William H. McMichael
Times Staff Writers
Navy Times 8 Mar 04
Aviators should
expect to spend less time in real cockpits and more in computerized
ones, in a new cost-cutting move that will shift flight training
toward an increased reliance on simulators. In an effort to be more
like "our colleagues in the Air Force," naval aviators
should be "more disciplined" and fly less when simulator
time is just as good as the real thing, said Vice Adm. Charles Moore
Jr., head of fleet readiness and logistics for the chief of naval
operations.
"We're
going to fly more in the simulators and fly less in the aircraft,"
Moore said. "We'll
deliver more combat readiness, and we'll have spent less money."
Moore's comments,
during a Feb. 24 breakfast meeting with reporters, drew a mixed
response from aviators just returning from a deployment to the Persian
Gulf. "I don't think a simulator can depict exactly what you
want as much as a real flight could," said Lt. Joe Ruzicka,
an F-14 Tomcat radar intercept officer with the "Grim Reaper?
of Fighter Squadron 101. "So from a training standpoint, it
would probably be a little bit of a degrade. A simulator is very
canned. The system always works."
Another aviator
said dealing with weapons is the hardest part of the job, and one
that can be done in a simulator.
'The way the
fleet's shaping up, with the transition from the Tomcat to the Super
Hornet
happening and with the new simulation technology you can get a lot
of value out of a simulator now cornpared to what the older generation,
a lot of us, are used to," said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Gordon, a Tomcat
pilot assigned to Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk.
A naval aviation
official said the service needs to wait until-the new simulators
are on line
before it quantifies what efficiencies will be gained and how much
the flying-hour program will need to be cut.
SIMULATOR TIME
COUNTS
Moore said Navy
officials want to count time spent in the simulator toward overall
readiness. "Our data indicate that we will have a more effective,
a more ready aircrew, and we will spend less dollars doing it,"
he said.
Under Sea Enterprise,
the Navy's drive to apply business practices to the fleet, Moore
said the service was spending too much money for flying hours that
weren't necessarily needed. As the "Gray Eagle" - the
Navy's most senior active-duty aviator - Moore said he's amassed
5,500 flight hours, which is way more than he needed.
"That's
a lot of flight time for a tactical aviator, and I can tell you
with no hesitation that not
every one of those hours contributed to readiness," he said.
There are a lot of operational hours being wasted, and they aren't
delivering any more readiness."
Under its Simulator
Master Plan, the Navy buys simulators or adds on to existing ones
for
carrier aircraft, helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft. The
first simulator suite to be purchased under the master plan, the
F/A-18C 360-degree visual trainer, will be ready at Naval Air Station
Lemoore, Calif, in June.
Moore said he
wants to use the technology eventually to eliminate field carrier
landing
practices, in which pilots land on spots on a runway to simulate
a carrier landing.
"We would
have the technology in our aircraft and our simulators such that
we take the
carrier landing out of the problem," said Moore, who has logged
more than 1,000 carrier
landings. "We would significantly reduce our investment that
we need in delivering that
readiness."
He said pilots
eating up excessive flying hours now are cutting into what can be
spent on naval aviation's future, and that the fleet is spending
millions of dollars on what is essentially training overkill.
"It's ridiculous
to invest a lot of money to have somebody 'carrier qualified' and
ready to go in the next five minutes," he said. "We have
no prospect, based on our intelligence and the view of the world
we live in, of having to go to war in the next five minutes."
Moore said pilots
will support the simulation plan because they have the big picture
in mind.
"The naval
aviators I know are, first and foremost, interested in mission accomplishment,"
he said, explaining that money saved now can be used to buy future
aircraft.
"These
people are smart and they understand that. We haven't had any negative
disgruntlement to these types of concepts."
WEIGHING THE
TRADE-OFFS
Aviators said
simulators have a lot to offer, but that a balance needs to be struck
between computers and the real thing."We use simulators now
for a lot of training that we do, and we blend it together with
the real operational flying," said Capt. Tom Keeley, commanding
officer of Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., and formerly an A-6 Intruder
pilot.
'The balance
has always been an interesting thing to try to figure out. Obviously,
it costs more money to fly a jet aircraft than it does a simulator.
But there are just some things that you need to do in ifight that
really can't be simulated."
Carrier landings,
Gordon said, can be effectively replicated in the simulator.
"Some would
argue that (a carrier landing is) harder to do in the simulator
than it is in the
airplane, because you don't have all that seat-of-the-pants feeling
that you get in the jet," he said. "The small corrections
the airplane makes, you can feel them in the airplane, and you can't
feel them in the simulator."
Gordon said
he understands the cost pressure Navy leadership is under and the
need to cut flying hours to pay for other things.
"Naval
aviation leadership has to decide where the limited resources are
going to be spent," he said. "You look at the F-14: It's
an airplane that's approaching the end. of its life. There's got
to be a replacement. So the money has to come from somewhere. It's
all a trade-off."
For the maintainers,
fewer flying hours means less time fixing jets. Senior Chief Aviation
Ordnanceman (AW/SW) Gary Howorka said that hurts their readiness.
"When we're
fixing jets, that's the best training a sailor can get with airplanes,"
said Howorka, who works on the staff of Carrier Air Wing 1, just
back from a cruise aboard the carrier Enterprise. "[Airplanes]
weren't made to sit around and lay idle. That's probably when they
break the most."
If Navy jets
are flown less frequently, he said, "What are we going to do?
It'd be a total waste of manpower just to sit around, come to work
and do nothing. When we're flying, we've got people working. And
we're doing what we're doing best, and that's putting the iron in
the sky."
But Lt. Brian
Burns, assistant maintenance officer for VF-1O1, saw a plus side.
"It'd give them more time to study for advancement, different
things like that," he said. "We'd be teaching our people.
That would allow us more time for training."
THE CASE OF THE MISSING SECTION
A true story of the Korean War
by GPS Member
Shelby M. Forrest
Howie Hean's
chronicle in a recent edition of the MCAA Yellowsheet on VMF 312
operations in Korea gave an excellent portrayal of events involving
the squadron from June, 1950 until June of 1951. Through no fault
of his own, nor intent, he did leave out one thing that was, of
course, unimportant so far as the outcome of the war was concerned.
It was important, however, to the two pilots involved. And since
I was one of the concerned pilots, I feel compelled to bring it
tothe attention of war historians for their edification, and to
jog the memory of squadron buddies, who have no doubt long forgotten
the incident--if they recalled it at all.
On that fateful
spring day of April 20, 1951, a division of four checkerboard Corsairs
was launched from the deck of the USS Bataan.
The division
leader was Capt. Phil DeLong, and flying on his wing was Lt. Harold
Daigh. I was leading the second section, with Lt. Bob Howard flying
on my wing as "Tail-End Charlie". The entry in my logbook
for that day, that flight, was"recon-Kaesong". It was
to be a routine reconnaissance flight, and the four planes were
loaded for 'bear'--or, to be more accurate, for Communist targets
of opportunity-- or for any assigned action for which our ordnance
was required.
As I recall,
it was a bright, sunny day, and it was rather quiet as we cruised
along in a northerly direction. Suddenly, the silence was broken
by a message from the radio, requesting our current position. This
was submitted by Capt. DeLong, who was directed to immediately dispatch
the second section to provide escort for a rescue helicopter. One
of our pilots had been shot down and had bailed out successfully
in a not-too-friendly area. We later learned that the pilot was
one of our squadron mates from the Checkerboard Squadron, Lt. Bill
Godby.
Our two plane
section, which I referred to in the title of this article as "The
Missing Section", turned
to the assigned heading, and we were on our way to meet the rescue
helicopter and escort it to the scene.
When we had
been on our assigned heading for but a few minutes, an excited voice
broke the silence with a chilling message. I recognized the voice
of Harold "Digger" Daigh, who proclaimed loudly, "We
are being attacked by Yaks--attacked by four Yaks.
I immediately
came on the air and inquired, "Where are you , Digger. Where
are you.?"
His classic
reply I recall clearly to this day. "Over here," he said.
Over here."
I motioned to
Bob, and we quickly turned, standing the wings on end, and heading
for "over here", wherever that was. My jubilation was
short lived, however, as a voice ordered me in no uncertain terms,
"Maintain your course to intercept helicopter. I repeat, maintain
your course." So I did what all good Marines should do, (and
what they had better do). I obeyed orders. I complied, albeit reluctantly.
Needless to say, that was one of the toughest orders I have ever
had to obey.
Of course, I
realized that was the only option. A pilot had been shot down. A
helicopter was on its way to rescue him. The enemy was present in
noticeable numbers, and two Corsairs were in the vicinity ready
to protect the helicopter during the rescue attempt. That was the
scenario. As it turned out, Phil and Digger didn't need our help,
(although we would like to think they did). They had things well
under control. Even though encumbered by an ordnance load they did
not have time to dump, they managed to dispose of four enemy planes-four
Russian Yaks. We were disappointed, of course. As Marine fighter
pilots, we itched to get involved in air to air, plane to plane
combat. We all hoped for such an opportunity. But we were not to
get that opportunity during the two months we would continue to
face Communist forces in Korea. But we continued
to do what was needed of us. That's what makes it all worth while.
Oh well, we
were consoled by the fact that Bill Godby was picked up by the helicopter
and returned to the carrier safely. Who knows? Maybe we helped save
'Ole Bill's" butt. We like to think so, anyway.
FROM YOUR MEMBERSHIP OFFICER
FRAN PIERI
By the time
you get this OP-Plan, the end of March will soon be here. It's time
for all of you to start thinking about who you will be bringing,
as a guest, to the next luncheon. The luncheon is in approxamently
two weeks from now on April 8th. Sooooo; now is the time to find
out if your friend will be available on that day. Remember; when
you sign up five (5) new members each year, you become an "ACE"
and will be awarded one year FREE membership in ANA. The Ray Pett
"let me buy you a drink" contest still has $150.00, and
should be much more by the end of the year. I know some of you live
far from the Elks Lodge. Car pooling may help some of you who are
unable to drive long distances. Check the LOG BOOK and see if there
is someone who is able to drive you. Four (4) new gents have joined
our Gramps Squadron in March. They are; Mr. Walt Smith, Mr. Chuck
Van Arman, Mr. J. H. Ferguson and Mr.Walt Bohl."Welcome Aboard"
guys. Thanks to their sponsors Roger Schaufele, Bob Fauteaux and
Byron Calomiris.
Keep the blue
side up. I will see you again on April 8th. FRAN PIERI
GRAMPS WELCOMES
ALL PEOPLE WHO LOVE NAVAL AVIATION
'THEY'RE NOT BOATS, THEY'RE SHIPS, SIR'
Submariner named
CO of Truman carrier group
Looks like
this submariner's about to see some daylight.
For the first
time in more than three decades, a career submariner has been given
command of a carrier group. The Navy announced Feb. 24 that Rear
Admiral Michael Tracy, director of submarine warfare, will command
the Norfolk-based Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group. The Harry
S. Truman has just finished up a yard period.
Tracy's assignment
is a nod toward the growing role of submarines in strike group operations,
officials said, and he was the right man for the job.
"Mike Tracy
is an exceptional naval officer and war fighter," Chief of
Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark said in a written statement. "His
experiences and talent will bring new and valuable perspective to
operating carrier battle groups, and the men and women of the Harry
S. Truman Carrier Strike Group will greatly benefit from his leadership."
The last submariner
to head a battle group was Adm. Harry Train, who commanded the John
F. Kennedy Carrier Battle Group from 1971 to 1972. Train, now retired,
served aboard both submarines and destroyers and went on to become
commander in chief of Atlantic Command.
Tracy served
aboard the submarines Thomas A. Edison, Nathaniel Greene and Albuquerque,
and commanded Newport News. His other command assignments include
Submarine Squadron Eight, Submarine Group Two and Navy Region Northeast.
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