Short in the groove

Do you remember the old days when you wondered whether or not you had film in the camera; what kind was it; did you have enough of it? Then, did you have the cash to buy film at Eckerd's; did you have the time - or the opportunity? This next bunch of pictures was taken with whatever film I had on hand. The first and last pictures were taken with a Nikon I considered buying. I suspect that's why it had black and white film. The others were taken with my Minolta, the second and third picture on infrared film I had carried in my camera bag since I was on Adak in 1970. I just figured it was time to shoot it and see what it did.


Having launched all those airplanes in the last post, I thought I'd better recover some in this one. The Phantom about touch down is "short in the groove" and you can see the next Phantom a mile or so in trail. I'm always surprised when I look at these pictures and remember how much smoke a Phantom left behind. Today's turbofan engines are virtually smokeless; not so the Phantom's J-79s. In a typical recovery we landed the Phantoms and Crusaders first because of their fuel states. They'd be followed by the A-7s, the A-6s, then whoever else was out there. Last aboard was always the Angel, which spent the recovery milling about smartly in a Delta pattern a mile or two aft and starboard of the ship and the landing aircraft. There was usually a plane guard destroyer a couple of miles aft of the carrier during flight ops that could assist with search and rescue duties if a plane went in the water or someone from the flight deck went overboard.


A carrier group is composed of the carrier and several support ships of various kinds. The lovely ship above was USS Luce (DLG-7), a guided missile frigate, and part of the carrier's ASW (antisubmarine warfare) screen. At any given time there might be a cruiser, an oiler, a supply ship, or almost anything else steaming with us within the screen. The Luce, like the Roosevelt, has since been "turned into razor blades" - scrapped. One of my adventures in Athens involved my waking up aboard Luce early one morning, and having to figure out where I was, how I had gotten there, where "there" was, and how to get back to Athens and my own ship - before muster at 0800. But that's another story. . .


Well, we've been at sea now for a while and it's time for a resupply operation, in this case referred to as a "vertrep" or vertical replenishment. That obviously refers to the fact that we're using helicopters to deliver some or all of the supplies. If helicopters were not used, the operation would be an "unrep" or underway replenishment. If it was a combination of the two, it would be referred to as a vertrep. The helo above is from one of the support ships. Where the ship's name usually appears, on the landing gear sponson, this bird has "Rapid Transit Auth."

As far as I can tell, the infrared film simply filtered out all the red from the light and perhaps blurred the horizon somewhat if it happens to register temperatures. I only had the one roll of film, so I don't need to worry about that anymore.


This vertrep shot may or may not have been taken the same day as the previous picture. This CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, one of several involved in the vertrep, is from USS Sylvania (AFS-2). The ship steaming next to us, transferring stores via high lines as well as the helicopters, is USS Arcturus (AF-52). On the horizon to the right of the helo is an oiler, probably USS Caloosahatche (AO-98). When Arcturus is finished, she'll break away and Caloosahatche will slide into position, probably with a destroyer on her starboard side, and start transferring fuel oil to both ships. Much of the time while this is going on, the ship's band is playing music for the edification of our support ships. Usually they stick to John Philip Sousa and other marches or, if they're transferring personnel by highline and bosun's chair as portrayed in "The Bridges of Toko-ri", they'll play something like "The Magnificent Man on the Flying Trapeze".


In all the pictures I've shown so far, the weather has been terrific and the seas fair. This wasn't always the case. Shortly before I came aboard Roosevelt in 1972, she ran into some notably heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay, off the west coast of France. Returning to the States on my final cruise we encountered several days of rain, wind, and very heavy seas. The picture above is a poor "restoration" of one of several slides I took from Pri-Fly but it gives an idea of the heavy seas, if not the rain and wind. The flight deck, after all, is about 65 ft above the water line. It should be interesting to note the Phantoms on the port and starboard catapults with the JBDs (jet blast deflectors) raised behind them. Believe it or not, they are in "alert status" - in spite of the storm - because a Russian Bear-D had passed Iceland southbound. It was a "game" we played with the Russians all during the Cold War; they'd try to overfly our carriers with their bombers and we'd launch fighters to intercept and divert the bombers, the implication being that we'd splash their Bear if they pushed the routine confrontation too far.

Meanwhile, back to the storm: Before it was all over we lost several communications antennae and many feet of deck edge catwalks ripped off on both sides of the bow. We had chest-high salt water flooding in the ship's store and the catapult control room on the O-2 level, and cracks in the hull in Secondary Conn through which you could see the horizon. At some point Rosey turned south to launch one of the Angels into the storm to find the rescue and salvage ship USS Edenton (ATS-1) . The helo would successfully medevac one of their seamen with an appendicitis back to Roosevelt.

With the appendicitis on board we resumed our westerly course and on 11 March 1974, at the height of our trial, a panel of the forward hangar bay door (14 tons or so) was lifted out of its track by a wave. It "walked" inboard some distance into the hangar bay, smashing parked planes together as it went. By the time I saw it, damage control teams had welded it in place (to the overhead) using I-beams and angle iron, leaving the wrecked airplanes where they were. Three sailors, who had been checking tiedown chains on the airplanes in the hanger bay, had been seriously injured by airplanes mashed by the wandering hangar bay door. All three were treated in the ship's dispensary but ADRC Robert W. Rhodes of VAW-121, following several hours of surgery, died at sea of his injuries.


Not much to say about this handsome devil. The picture was taken by the guy who was trying to sell me the Nikon. The picture was okay but I declined the deal on the camera. I later loaned him $350, unaware that anyone transferring at the end of a cruise probably had his orders in hand by the time we tied up in Mayport. As you might have expected, he beat me out of the money. I didn't pursue it and considered it a lesson learned. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be. . ." said Polonius.

As cruisebook editor, when we arrived in port, I was sent to TAD to the publisher in Norfolk to finish up the book. When I returned to the ship I was sent to NATTC Glynco for AC"B" School, then on to dryer - though no less interesting - duty at NAS Lemoore.