Got out of the Navy in 74. Went to work for the city as an electrician. Work for them for about a year then went to construction electrician. For about five years, went back to the city as electoral inspector. Went to the fire department as a fire inspector. Work for them for about a year. City manager asked me to come back as the Chief Electrical Inspector. I said okay. Work as the Chief Electrical Inspector for about 18 years. Retired from the city with 20 years service. I taught night school at the junior-college for about 18 of those 20 years. When I retired I opened my own business, as Electrical Consultant and Teacher of the National Electric Code. I now work for the state I teach a Continuing Ed class. All electricians in the state of Texas have to have four hours of Continuing Ed. That is what I teach now, usually in the month of January February March just about every Saturday for four hours. I also have a houseboat out on the lake that I go to Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. I usually catch enough catfish to feed myself and grandson when he comes.
Other Comments:
AIRCREW FOREVER
"FOR ONCE YOU HAVE TASTED FLIGHT,
YOU WILL FOREVER WALK THE EARTH
WITH YOUR EYES TURNED SKYWARD.
FOR THERE YOU HAVE BEEN,
AND THERE YOU WILL ALWAYS
LONG TO RETURN"
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519
Worst Moment A VS 31 aircraft was shooting touch an goes at night Double 00 landed amongst five helicopters. I was crewman on the mail plane. We call it a TF we were respoting the TF. We had planned to take it down below, and we started to go aft. I looked up and could see an aircraft coming in. There was a helicopter with its blade just over the white line on the angle. That was all I could see it was so dark out. I thought that they would wave it off, but it kept coming the next thing I knew the wave off light came on. The aircraft hit the first helicopter and nosed over. I could see the tractor and a guy in it and the topside of the aircraft. I turned to run my aircraft hit me and knocked me up the deck the guy that was sitting on the tractor had to run underneath the aircraft. They later found him on the starboard side of the ship in the catwalk saying 68 days to go 68 days to go. They had to pry him off the post. He was holding onto. I'm not sure. But what I heard was The aircraft coming in was given the ok by ILS I believe the aircraft coming in was on an approach to the ship. They asked Pry Fly what the color of the deck was the phone talker looked out the window and saw the green beacon on and told them so. They continue to bring the aircraft in. The LSO was just getting into the net. From what I hear the LSO phone talker push the wave off button. From what I understand three things went wrong, ILS crew got the wrong information from the phone talker. Pry Fly did not know the aircraft was coming in. The LSO officer should have been on the platform sooner. The green light was on, because the helicopters had just landed. To continue on with the story. After my aircraft hit me. I looked up and the TF was hanging over the side. I ran to the aircraft and told the my guys to get out. There were three on the aircraft. I turned and went to the aircraft that crashed I heard the pilot groaning and went to him and told Ezzel to get medical help. Prior disconnected the battery, and Winberry threw the smoke floats over the side. I unstraped, the pilot their was a tube that was dripping hydraulic fluid right on his face. After I had him all unbuckled. I waited for the medic to arrive as soon as he came. We pulled him out of the aircraft and put them on a gurney I was soaked from my head to my toes in fuel. What I had planned on doing if I saw any fire, I was going to grabbed him and run. Luckily, there was no fire, if there was a fire. We were all gone. When I got on the elevator number two with the pilot and copilot. I started shaking. When I got down to sickbed. They gave me some GI Gin and got me out of my flight suit, because it was soak in gas. Well I guess that is all for now.Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:17 PM From: "Frederick R Miller, USN Retired" View contact details To: "Bob Eno" Bob, Received this via the USS Bennington Association. Fred
I just had to pass on this story from one of our USS Wasp ( CVS 18 ) buddies, though.
Unbelievably the two pilots aboard VS-31's 00 survived!!
Back in 1997, an issue of the WASPIRIT (USS Wasp) newsletter, the question was posed if anyone remember the crash on Mothers' Day 1961 that nearly sent the Wasp up in flames.
"I remember the crash on the flight deck.
I was the pilot in command of S2F #00 I was the sailor That pulled them out,Bob Eno
The crash occurred because of confusion on the flight deck and slipped communications all along the line. Most will remember that 1960's was the time of the missile build-up in Cuba . WASP and our Air Group played on the first team in the game against the Russian ships. That night in May we set up an exercise to show our intelligence people that we could operate in the dark and in bad weather. We were to practice CCAs; carrier controlled approaches by radar. Our plane, #00**, was first' up and we were told to make an approach and wave off 14 mile astern. Don was in the left seat to gain CCA practice. We launched at dusk.
**Fate at work. #00 is the Air Group Commander's plane. He should have been flying but he was called to observe these exercises. I was Scheduling Officer and couldn't get anyone else to take the flight on such short notice, so I took it. That put us first in the pattens to land.
Later, on deck, the helicopter launch takes place but one helo goes down and returns. The replacement stand-by helo fires up. Don and I begin our CCA approach. In another part of Air Operations, the pressure builds to get the stand-by helo airborne. Questions fly about the status of the deck. 'Green deck for helos' shot back in response several times, eventually gets shortened to simply 'green deck.' The controller handling our approach overhears 'green deck' and relays to us the news every young pilot wants to hear; "You have a green deck, cleared for touch and go." I slap Don on the shoulder. "You take the touch and go, I'll take the final." It's now after 2000 and dark. Don grins and settles in to chalk up a night landing. Life is good.
Most shipmates know the deck is not lighted at night except for the small row of dustpan lights down the centerline. The pilots' attention is on the parabolic landing mirror that displays the plane's position on the glide slope, a sort of visual Landing Signal Officer. Don is holding glide path and the S2F approaches the fantail. No LSOs are on duty, but a young sailor at the LSO station sees what's about to happen. He takes the initiative and hits the wave-off button. Don and I are startled and both throw full power to the big engines.
But we're already on the deck and already plowing and grinding a path through all the recovered helicopters. We start to flip forward, but just about amidships we hit the tractor towing the TF- COD plane. The grinding stops. It's dark and it's very quiet. I smell fuel and then taste it. lean hear the wind and Don making small motions. "You OK?" I ask. "Yeah," he says, "but I think we're on fire. My legs are burning." I tell him I don't think so, because I can begin to make out outlines and I don't see any flickering. We talk some more and it occurs to me that while we are having this conversation no one has come near the plane. I reach to take off my helmet, fail, and tell Don that I know my left arm is broken. I reach around with my right arm, loosen the clasp, pull off the helmet and lob it out onto the deck. I hear it 'whock whock whock' on the wooden deck and then a voice. "Jesus! There's somebody alive in there!" A very big sailor produces a very big knife and begins to cut me out.
I can only repeat what I was told about the events that happened next. The crew quickly recognized the threat from the nearly full load of ruptured aviation fuel that was by now streaming in the deck gutters and down the side of the ship. All that training paid off as hoses unraveled, hatches locked shut and the crew went to work to restore the ship for its mission. I'm sure many shipmates have stories about what they did in the next two hours. With one spark, the Wasp would have gone up, engulfed in flames.
I was taken below and attended to. My skipper came down to see me. He told me that a call had gone out for blood donors and that the line of volunteers snaked all around the hangar deck. A decision was made that I had to be flown ashore for treatment. The wreckage and fuel was going to make any launch tough, and this would have to be a night deck launch off the short leg of the angle. My squadron mate Jesse Markham volunteered to fly. The TF COD was down so work was needed to tear out a back seat in an S2F to make room for the stretcher. I was told that a large contingent of the crew lined up in a barrage of fire hoses and played water across the deck so that risk of fire would be minimized.
We launched. Our Flight Surgeon, Dr. Sullivan had the great job of kneeling over me during the flight and making sure the transfusions kept flowing. May thunderstorms formed and the bumpy ride made his job even harder. We landed at Norfolk and a waiting ambulance drove me to the Portsmouth Hospital . The hospital was brand new and the driver had a problem finding the entrance. I teased him about it to put him at ease. I was rolled down a naked hallway, passed under a big white light and went unconscious for three weeks. I may have spellings wrong, but the Wasp's CO was Captain Konstantine Karabaris, Commander Joe Cady led the Air Group, and Commander Josh Sherman commanded squadron VS 31.
I have lots of funny stories about my hospital stay, and insufficient words to describe how special was my treatment at Portsmouth and then Philadelphia , but that's another tale.
When I recall the whole incident, I really don't remember any pain or regret or sadness. What I always feel is humble and that a whole ship and air group of the U.S. Navy went to so much trouble and took such risks just for me. It would have been a lot safer for everyone to decide against launching a plane from a fuel-soaked angled deck, but that's not how the Wasp chose to play it.
I'll be forever thankful.
_____________________________________________________ A footnote:
Hard as it may be to believe, the accident is not the first thing I think of when I think of the Wasp. What I think of first is a February night in 1959, in port in Boston . An airline flight crew came aboard hoping for a tour. It was time for the evening meal and I asked them to join us. One member of the crew was a beautiful redhead. Commander Frank Greatchus (sp) the ship's Engineering Officer sitting across from us, strongly urged me to look twice. I did. Her name was Odessa and we have been married for 38 years this past August.
While I"m not the only shipmate to have an accident aboard, I may be the only one who met his wife on the Wasp.
The query in the WASPIRIT newsletter shocked me. I was deeply touched that shipmates not only remembered but also cared enough, after all these years, to find out what happened to me.
Well, I'm fine! My co-pilot, Don Rogers, broke both his legs and he is doing well. I did sustain some damage - all kinds of broken bones and an amputation of my left leg - but my health is perfect. I've never missed a day's work and I fly fish in some rivers that would knock down a horse. I have a wonderful wife and three fascinating, grown children."
LTjg Carl D "Pete" PETERSON ( Odessa ) PO Box 5045 , Brookfield , CT 06804
(203) 775-0655 cdflyfish@att.net
DON ROGERS' COMMENTS
"Gordy, Thanks for the email and the opportunity to comment on the crash.
Pete suffered much greater injuries than I did. I had both legs broken (left femur and right tibia/fibia) but with the aid of some most helpful flight surgeons, I was back flying within six months and never lost any flight pay. After regaining full flight status in 1962, I went on to a typical career, two VP squadrons (18 and 26), a couple of staffs, training command instructor, and XO of NAF Misawa, Japan , retiring after 23 years as a CDR.
CDR Donald "Don" ROGERS (Jenny ) 1243 Winter Springs Lane , Cordova , TN 38016
(901) 755-8997 Drogers74@comcast.net
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Other Memories Took her from Cuba to the Congo Went across the equater on that trip