NAS Kingsville, TX

Can you say South Texas? Rattlesnakes, Prickly Pear, and Santa Gertrudis cattle. The King Ranch and Padre Island. Tony Joe White* and "Polk Salad Annie".

On November 5, 1967 - 42 years ago today - I reported for duty at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Kingsville, TX. I was an Air Controlman Airman (ACAN) fresh out of Air Traffic Control "A" School at NAS Glynco, GA. I'd been in the Navy since the previous March, finished boot camp in June, and been mugged on Jacksonville Beach, FL in July. I had an early pick among classmates from available duty stations - but none of the "Prime" duty stations was available (Barbers Point, HI, North Island, CA, or Pensacola FL). I followed the conventional wisdom and passed up sea duty on a carrier, briefly considered Argentia, Newfoundland, and Keflavik, Iceland (also considered sea duty - there must be a reason for that) and settled on Kingsville because it was only 200 miles from home (there was nothing available near Asheville, NC).

 

Kingsville was a good place to start out, with plenty of local traffic - three oversized training squadrons (VT-21, VT-22, and VT-23 flying Grumman TF-9J Cougars), and regular visits from wandering Air Force birds to keep things interesting. It was here, on one of my first trips to the control tower, that I saw a flight of two T-38's from San Antonio (Kelly or Randolf AFB) in a surprise break at midfield for runway 35 between numbers three and four of a flight of four Cougars in the break for runway 13 (the duty runway). Apparently, none of the pilots even saw their opponents in the traffic pattern, and everyone in the tower was struck dumb. For my part, I was so traumatized by the event I fairly jumped at the offer to attend GCA school and spent the next seven years in Radar, where you didn't have to watch actual airplanes.

*In 1964, Tony Joe White's band played an uninterrupted engagement of eight months, six nights a week, in a Kingsville club. I have to assume the club was The Inferno. He was still coming back regularly when I left Kingsville in November 1969, and always packed the house.