I was only attached to VAW-12 for one year but I had a few memorable experiences. First was the Cuban Blockade in October of '62 aboard the USS Independence. Then a few trips with Det-9 aboard the USS Essex. My most significant memory however was the August 1963 crash of a Fudd from the Enterprise.
I'll work on these stories as I get time. In the mean time, please email me any stories you may have.
Thanks - Bill Howell
Date last updated: 10/10/03
After a year in the Navy, I finally got to go to sea. We boarded the Independence at Norfolk on 10 Oct 62 with the understanding that we were headed to the Brooklyn Navy Yards for the weekend. I planned a weekend trip home from there. Two days later, I woke up to 90 degree weather and soon found out that it was not Brooklyn in October. It was Mayport, Florida and we were simply told that the plans had changed. Two days later, with the fighter squadrons aboard, we hastily pulled out and headed south. It was another two days before we were told where we were going. We got an abbreviated version of the Cuban Missile Crisis and I'm sure the folks at home knew more than we did. {more later}
In March of 63, I was assigned to Det-9 aboard the USS Essex for a two week cruise in the North Atlantic. A few days before we were due back, I got a telegram from my father saying that my grandfather had died. It was expected and I had gone to see him on my last leave. Still, I felt really bad and wanted to somehow get home for his funeral. I didn't make it but I came pretty close.
The Chaplain said I was free to go on emergency leave if I could find a way off the ship. We were still 100 miles off shore. My office was in the same compartment as the ship's mail plane pilot and I knew I could get a ride with him in the Grumman C-1 COD. I had experienced several catapult shots before but I was really apprehensive about this one. The passenger seats in the C-1 face backwards, so the G-forces of the launch throw you backwards into the shoulder harness rather than into the seat back. I survived that without loosing my lunch and he flew me to Quonset Point where I thought I could hitch-hike down Route 95 from there. In those days it was easy (and safe) to get a ride if you were wearing a uniform. After he dropped me off at the tower, I got a ride much sooner than I expected. A Lockheed Constellation radar training ship was just starting up on the ramp. On a hunch, I ran up to the tower to ask where the "Connie" was going. When they said "LaGuardia", I asked the tower guys if they could get me a ride. They stopped the plane on the taxiway and I climbed aboard via a rope ladder that the crew dropped for me. They didn't have an extra seat but allowed me to sit on the floor using a cargo strap for a seat belt. We landed at LaGuardia and my next surprise was that I was on the wrong side of the airport. The Navy only used the "military" side of the airport and it was a long way around. I knew I was running out of time so I took a chance and simply walked across the busy New York runway. Fortunately I didn't get caught or arrested and managed to get a commercial flight home with Mohawk Airlines. I missed the funeral, but after hitch-hiking home from the North Atlantic, I knew Gramp would appreciate the effort.
This is something that has haunted me for years. I finally wrote to the Naval Safety Center and asked for a copy of the accident report. The Navy called it a "Mishap", but the truth is, two men died and three were very seriously injured. Reading the report proved to be more difficult than I imagined it would be. I was looking for the fate of the detachment's storekeeper, Richard L. Rosonowski. I knew he survived the accident but I thought the report would tell me if he died later. It didn't. I heard in 1963 that they lost an engine during launch and crashed into the sea. I presumed it had happened all at once. What the report outlined was the agonizing 24 minutes from launch to ditching, while the ship attempted to clear the deck for landing and the crew desperately tried to re-start the lost engine. It gave me a sick feeling to read the minute by minute description of their attempts to survive. The reason for my morbid interest is because if I had gone on that cruise, I would have been in the fifth seat instead of Rosonowski. Every time a plane flew with an empty seat and if I wasn't working, I would suit up and fly with them. I was asked to fly to the Mediterranean to replace him but only had two weeks to go on active duty and was not interested in extending.
Accident Report (pdf)
Note: The complete report was several dozen pages, but the Naval
Safety Center sent me only 19 pages. I will eventually get them all
transcribed here, but for now have only the two pages describing the events just
before the accident.