Service Life
sorta
HS-15 : working on the SH-3H (with the LN-66 RADAR).
Joined HS-15 in Feb of '73 as an AT-3 maintenance man. It was an interesting time indeed. Lt. Roy Resavage was the division officer for Avionics. I ran into him again in Jacksonville, Fl while he was serving as HS-1's CO and I was at the Helo Wing.
We were stationed in Lakehurst, NJ and sailing on the USS Guam (LPH-9) out of Norfolk, VA. We operated in either the Bermuda Triangle or the North Atlantic doing sea control experiments. Essentially we hunted submarines working with the Marine Harriers. (Gotta tell ya, they had some astoundingly good pilots in those days. Still do.) Things that I remember from then still give me the heebie-jeebies. I was witness to one on deck crash {One fatality, the yellow shirt director} (Hu-ke too, as I call the SH-2 helo) and one near crash of a Harrier on take-off. (above mentioned Marine pilots) All kinds of interesting things happen on that boat. Buzzy learning to play the flute. <Jethro Tull influence> Louis and I sitting on a tow bar watching a joint roll down the flight deck. Nearly puking every time I went down to berthing due to the protein fire fighting foam station at the bottom of the ladder well. The only ports I remember pulling in were Ft. Lauderdale and Lisbon, Portugal and in and out of Norfolk a bunch. The first time we were out long enough for us to get "Sea Pay" it bumped me into a higher tax bracket and I lost a couple of bucks out of my paycheck. While at Lakehurst I'd walked to town (only a couple of miles to the town of Lakehurst) if I wanted something not on base. The nearest town of any size was Toms River which had a music store and a movie theater. It was about 10 miles from base so a full day to walk there and back, but it was cool. One time I had to dodge a drunk (I presume) driver who came off the road towards me and didn't swerve back to the road until I went into the woods. I saw the movie "Paper Moon" there as well as hit a garage sale where I found and bought a box of comic books that had issues dating back to the 50's and early 60's. Nothing of extreme value but interesting still. Also bought a bike to shorten the time it took to get there and back. Left it behind when the squadron moved to Jacksonville, Fla. We worked out of hanger 2. It was a standard blimp/seaplane hanger, as was hanger 3. Hanger 1 was a different story. You could open the doors all the way and literally fly in and out with a helo. This was being used as AIMD and ABM school. (Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department and Aviation Boatswain Mate 'A' School (now at NATTC Pensacola, FL). One end was used as a regular hanger for small planes and helicopters and the other end had been made into a full size replica flight deck. Back in the day they said the Hindenburg (Zeppelin) stuck out both ends. And yes, this is the airfield of the infamous crash. No, I wasn't there at the time. Hanger 3 was the site where they stored the remains of two Blue Angel F-4 Phantoms after they crashed nearby. I think this was the next to last F-4 incident before the Blues switched to the A-4 Skyhawk aircraft.
Think I'll pub this and pick it up again later......
aircraft.
