At 1143, the CIC officer said to the radar operator, “How about Sugar One? Have you got him on your screen yet?”
“Nossir,” said radar. “We’ve been scanning that bearing for the past two minutes. He hasn’t showed yet.”
At 1147 the CIC officer called Fly One and told the Air Boss, “We’re getting worried about Sugar One. He’s five minutes overdue on our screen now.”
The Air Boss phoned an order down to Air Ops to stand by for a possible search mission and then passed the news from CIC to the Captain.
“When is he due overhead?’* asked the Captain.
“In half an hour, at 1218,” said the Air Boss.
“All right,” said the skipper; “if you haven’t got him in sight by then, scrub your scheduled ops and go into a full-scale search.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said the Air Boss. “We’re laying it on now,” he added smugly.
At 1205 word went out from Air Ops to all ready-rooms, “Scrub afternoon schedule. Sugar One is missing. Details coming soon for all-hands search. Stand by.”
A quick radio check with the BINGO fields showed that they knew nothing of Sugar One. By 1300, fifty planes had taken oft to sweep an area to the east one hundred miles each side of Willy’s track home.
Fifty planes is a formidable search armada. One U-2 flying over Russia brings back more detailed dope on missile sites than the cloak and dagger boys can dig up in a couple of years. You might think that it would be able to spot a floating beer bottle adrift in the Med. But an eyeball search from a jet airplane is a lot different from studying high-powered photos with a magnifying glass. The boys were looking for two tiny rafts. Even with dye markers and flashing mirrors it’s easy to miss them from the cockpit of a highspeed jet. And in this case, there were no rafts, anyway.
Several search planes passed near LCU 1124. But they had no reason to suspect she might have their friends aboard. Fatso and his boys waved frantically as the planes went by, but all ships wave at low flying aircraft. And jet planes can’t take time out to circle and quiz every little spit kit they see on a thousand-mile flight. So all planes came back to the America with no news of the missing birdmen.
By 1600 when the last planes were back in the landing pattern a high-level conference was going on in Flag Plot. The Captain, the Admiral, and his staff were gathered around the chart table studying what to do.
“What do you make of it, Captain,” asked the Admiral.
“I think he’s in the water at least two hundred miles east of us, sir,” said the Captain. “We followed him by radar out to two hundred and fifty miles on his outbound leg, and everything was normal. That’s the last we saw or heard of him. He’s not at any of the BINGO fields. There was no MAYDAY. If he lost his radios he could have navigated back by DR certainly to within fifty miles of us, where we would have seen him on radar. Whatever happened to him happened suddenly, and he had to eject. The fact that our first search didn’t find him doesn’t prove anything. It’s easy to miss a rubber boat on the water ... There’s no use looking for him at night, but I want to keep combing the area until dark and start in again at first light in the morning.”
“Okay,” said the Admiral. “Now, Captain, I’m going to go all out on this. As you know, NATO has just put out an Air Sea Rescue plan designed to cover just such a case its this. It brings all NATO naval and air forces in the Med into the picture. It hasn’t been used yet, and this is a good time to try it out. I’m going to hit the panic button and ask ComSixthFleet to sound the general alarm.”
“Aye aye, Sir - that’s fine,” said the Captain.
The Admiral wrote the following dispatch:
FROM: COM CAR DIV FOUR TO: COMMANDER SIXTH FLEET
URGENT
PLANE MISSING IN EASTERN MED. REQUEST NATO AIR SEA RESCUE PLAN BE EXECUTED.
Ten minutes later an orderly brought the following reply to Flag Plot:
FROM: COMMANDER NAVAL FORCES SOUTHERN EUROPE TO: ALL NATO COMMANDS
URGENT
EXECUTE MY AIR SEA RESCUE PLAN NO. A-l-66. COM CAR DIV 4 IN AMERICA IS DESIGNATED OPERATIONAL COMMANDER.
“Hunh,” observed the Chief of Staff as he read it. “They dump it right back in our lap.”
“That’s what they should do,” said the Admiral. “But they give us a lot of horsepower when they do it. Now - let’s cut up the eastern Med into areas and assign them to everybody who can help us ... and Captain,” he said to the skipper of the America, “I’m turning this task group over to you. You do as you like with it. I’ll take care of coordinating all the international stuff.”
“Aye aye sir,” said the skipper. “I’ll keep my air search going till dark. I’ll run east all night and lay it on again at dawn. Meantime, I want to pull all our destroyers on a search line and have them sweep ahead of us. I’ll put them ten miles apart, and we can cover a stretch of ocean about one hundred and twenty miles by two hundred during the night.”
“Okay,” said the Admiral. Then turning to his Chief of Stuff he said, “Get out one general dispatch to all NATO commands giving them all the dope we have on this thing. Then we will need about a dozen detailed dispatches to the various commands telling each one specifically what we want them to do.”
“Aye aye, sir ... we’re already working on them,” said the COS.
Soon dispatches were cracking out to all corners of the Med to the British, French, Italian, Greek, and Turkish navies. All RAF and U.S. Air Force bases were cut in on the operation too, as well as the many commercial airlines that fly over the Med. Another dispatch went out on the distress frequency asking all merchant ships to keep their eyes open for the downed flyers.
As he released the last dispatch the Admiral remarked, “By gawd, we ought to have the boys spotted by morning with all this talent on the job.”
That turned out to be the big trouble that night - too much talent. There were too many eager beavers, and they found too much. From that time on, that night was known in the Sixth Fleet as “The Night of the Gremlins.” Before it was over, it seemed that every piece of flotsam and jetsam in the Med had been sighted by somebody and reported as “aircraft wreckage.” Merchant ships reported flares, rockets, and lights on the water blinking SOS all the way from Gib to Istanbul. Airline pilots reported many mysterious lights on the water below. Ham radio operators picked up MAYDAYS - probably sent out by other screwball hams. Air force planes dropped flares, which generated a deluge of reports from merchant ships about seeing airplanes explode and fall in flames.
Soon after dark a report came in from a giant Greek tanker. “Have sighted your two flyers flashing a light from a small boat. Am maneuvering to pick them up.”
“Well I guess that’s it, sir,” said the Staff Duty Officer. “Should we get out a dispatch calling off this all-hands search, sir?”
“Hell, no!” said the Admiral: “Not yet. I’ve been through this sort of thing before. Ask that Greek for his position.”
Soon the Greek’s position came in. “Hah!” said the Admiral as they plotted it. “Fifty miles east of Gib. That can’t possibly be our boys.”
An hour later another message came in from the Greek. “Cannot find your boat in darkness. Am proceeding.”
(Actually the sighting was a couple of Arabs in a skiff, smuggling opium from Morocco to Spain. They had shown a light to avoid being run down. But they weren’t about to be rescued! While the giant tanker was stopping and lowering a boat, they made off in the darkness.)
By midnight the chart in Flag Plot was peppered all over with “sightings” from Gib to Suez and some even well up in the Aegean.
Finally came the dawn, the gremlins went to bed, and left the searchers all gaping at an empty sea.
On LCU 1124, Willy and Joe spent most of the afternoon asleep. You have quite a letdown after a high altitude bailout (no pun!), and besides, Fatso gave both of them a stiff snifter of medicinal whiskey right after they got aboard. They both took a good nap.
When they were up and aro
und again, Satchmo said to Willy, “Just what would you gentlemen like for dinner this evening, suh?”
Willy was feeling pretty sharp again by now so he said, with tongue in cheek, “Oh - I dunno. I guess Alaskan King crab would be nice.”
This sally got a good laugh from all hands in the messroom except Satchmo.
“Yes, SIR,” said Satchmo. “And just how do you like your king crabs? Boiled with lemon butter - or deviled - or a-la Newburg?”
“Well now,” said Willy, going along with what was obviously a gag, “I guess boiled would be all right.”
“Yessir,” said Satchmo. “We serve dinner at six.”
A little later Satchmo got Fatso aside on the bridge and said, “Cap’n - you know that deep-freeze locker we got aboard in Malta for the Commodore?”
“Sure. I remember,” said Fatso. “What about it?”
“Well, they is a nice mess of Alaskan King crabs in there. Enough to feed all ten of us. Would it be all right if I serve them tonight?”
“Well now,” said Fatso with a grin, “I should think it would be. After all, they won’t keep forever. I always say ‘give rescued aviators whatever they want for dinner.’ I think the Commodore would go along with that, too.”
So that evening Satchmo served up boiled Alaskan King crab with lemon butter sauce, just as if he did it every day. The eyes of the two flyers popped at this treat. Everyone else had been tipped off, so their only comments were “What the hell? Alaskan King crab AGAIN?”
Willy and Blueberry were duly impressed.
Next morning soon after sunrise groups of planes eastbound passed overhead.
“I guess they must of noticed we didn’t get back on time,” observed Willy.
Half an hour later they met the line of destroyers fifty miles ahead of America.
“I’ll betcha the ship is following right behind them, Cap’n,” said Willy. “We’ll prob’ly pick her up dead ahead in another hour or so. Why don’t you just keep going and surprise them by going alongside and saying you got passengers for them?”
“The Admiral might not think it was funny,” said Fatso. “Webfoot. Get on the blinker light, and tell that tin can we got the two flyers off the America aboard ... Besides, for various reasons,” he added, “We would just as soon keep out of the public eye. We can put you on one of these tin cans and go on about our business without making any whoop-de-do about it.”
Evidently the destroyer skipper felt the same way about it. He came boiling over as he was relaying the good news to the America, ready to take the flyers aboard.
But the Admiral didn’t see it that way. The first thing he did was to crack out a message calling off the search. Then he said, “By gawd, it’s funny how things work out. Here we’ve had all the NATO Navies and Air Forces scouring the whole Med. You’d think they’d be able to find a kid’s sailboat. But a little spit kit of an LCU does the job for us! Tell the destroyers to leave the flyers aboard the LCU and escort her back to us. And tell the Captain of the America I want her welcomed in kings’ style when she comes alongside.”
So the twelve destroyers escorted LCU 1124 back to America. As they were forming a circular screen around her Willy remarked to Fatso, “This is like getting a police escort up Fifth Avenue, Cap’n. I’ll bet you’ll remember this a long time.”
“I’m afraid maybe I will,” said Fatso.
When America hove up over the horizon, the destroyers scurried off to take their regular stations. As they joined the formation, Webfoot put his glass on the Russian destroyer that was tagging along as usual. “Say,” he said, “we’ve seen that guy before. Isn’t that the SOB that almost run us down on the way to Crete? ... the Vosnik?”
“It sure is,” said Fatso, focusing his binoculars on her. Then he let out a snort. “Hah! That signal we sent about her to the Russian Admiral sure worked. She’s got a new skipper already.”
“How do you figure that, Cap’n?” asked Scuttlebutt.
“Take a look at the skipper on the bridge,” said Fatso, handing him the glasses. “There’s a big lanky three-striper up there now. The other guy was a little bit of a short fat fart.”
Flying from the America’s yardarms on both sides was a “Well Done” signal addressed to the LCU. As soon as Jughaid could read it, the corresponding flags shot up to the yardarm. But instead of executing as soon as the little ship acknowledged, the America kept it two-blocked on the yardarm for the whole task group to see and admire.
Fatso brought his ship smartly alongside port side to under the crane just aft of the island. It seemed that the giant carrier could have hoisted the little one aboard bodily had they wished. The America’s crew manned the rail as they came alongside to cheer their returning shipmates, and the band sounded off with When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Dangling from the America’s crane was a deluxe sedan chair with a tasseled sunshade, fancy cushions, a small vase of flowers on one arm, an ash tray on the other, and a gilded thunder mug underneath.
As Blueberry was going up in the chair’s second trip the staff Duty Officer yelled down through a megaphone, “Commanding Officer report on board to the Admiral.”
“Well - here goes the old ball game,” observed Fatso again to Scuttlebutt. “You better be ready to take over this bucket. I may wind up in the brig.”
Moments later, Fatso was escorted into Flag Plot, getting a big hello from the Admiral and Captain.
“What’s your name, Cap’n?” asked the Admiral.
“Gioninni, Boatswain’s Mate First Class, sir,” said Fatso.
“Well - my hearty congratulations,” said the Admiral. “You did a grand job, and I’m going to see that you get proper credit for it.”
“Aw - heck, SIR,” said Fatso. “Anybody coulda done it.”
“We had everybody and his brother out trying to do it - but you’re the one who did,” said the Admiral. “What ship do you belong to?”
“USS Alamo, sir.”
“Alamo? She’s an LSD, I suppose - with the amphibious force, HQ at Naples?”
“Er ... she’s in the amphibious force, yessir,” said Fatso.
Turning to the COS the Admiral said, “I want you to send a dispatch to Commander Amphibious Force and recommend Gioninni here for a medal.”
“Yessir,” said the COS. “Commendation ribbon?”
“No. He deserves more than that. Make it a Bronze Star.”
“We wuz just very lucky, sir,” said Fatso.
“So what?” said the Admiral. “Lot of people get medals for being lucky, and lots of others get hung for being unlucky. It evens up in the end. That’s just the way life is on this earth.”
“Yessir,” said Fatso. “But if you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather have you just send a letter to the Alamo, sir.”
“You’re too damn modest about it, young man,” said the Admiral. “We had the biggest Air Sea Rescue operation ever seen in the Med going on for the last twenty-four hours - but you found our boys for us.” Then, addressing the COS, he said, “Let’s not deal with small boys on this. Don’t send that dispatch to the Amphibious Force - send it right to ComSixthFleet.”
“Holy cow,” muttered Fatso. “Thank you, sir,” he said dubiously.
Soon Fatso was back aboard LCU 1124 and she cast off from the big ship and set course for Naples.
While he had been hobnobbing with the Admiral, the America’s crane had delivered the traditional ransom for rescued aviators - fifty gallons of ice cream per head. Then they had thrown in a dozen cases of cigarettes, several gross of Coca Cola, a sack full of the latest magazines and newspapers, and a color TV set.
“Boy oh boy!” remarked Scuttlebutt, as the last cargo net came down, “Any aviator who goes swimming or sailing anywheres near this bucket from now on is gonna get rescued whether he wants to or not!”
Chapter Nineteen
Lost Sheep Returns
At Command Sixth Fleet’s briefing that morning there were happy smiles on all faces. The news had just come in from Am
erica that their stray sheep had been found.
“Well,” said the Admiral, when this was announced; “our new NATO Air Sea Rescue set-up really produced quick results. Didn’t it?”
“Not exactly, sir,” said the COS. “It was one of our own amphibious craft that found them - an LCU.”
“Well - it was a good drill for everybody, anyway. And it oughta make our young aviators feel pretty good too. They ditch five hundred miles from the ship without even bothering to tell us where. We have ‘em back aboard within twenty-four hours. That’s damn good work.”
“Com Car Div Four has recommended the skipper of the craft that found them for a medal,” said the COS.
“Okay. Why not? We had everybody in the whole Med looking for our boys. A little spit kit of an LCU finds them. He deserves a medal.”
“Shall I just pass this on to Commander Amphibious Force and tell him to award it?”
“Hell no. I’ll do it myself. What’s the name of this young officer?”
“The skipper isn’t an officer. He’s a Boatswain’s Mate ... Grovino, or something like that. I haven’t got the dispatch handy right now, but ...”
“Well, his name doesn’t matter. But if he’s a sailor it’s all the more reason to make a fuss over it. I’ll pin his medal on him myself.”
“Aye aye, sir. His craft is en route to Naples now. I’ll bring him up to see you as soon as he gets in.”
That afternoon on LCU 1124, Webfoot came into the messroom with a broad grin and a message blank in his hand.
“Just intercepted this dispatch from America to ComSixthFleet,” he said. “They’re gonna give you a medal - Bronze Star.”
“Yeah?” said Fatso. “I was afraid of that.”
“What the hell? Cap’n,” said Scuttlebutt. “Ain’t you pleased about it? Lots of guys in Vietnam have to get half a dozen Purple Hearts before they get a Bronze Star.”
“I already got a medal,” said Fatso. “And for a Bronze Star plus fifteen cents you can get a cuppa coffee. The one thing in the world we don’t need right now is a lot of publicity.”
Cap'n Fatso Page 19
