One of those Days

Came the day in question which, as I recall, was a goodone for flying, we duly launched and my section leader and I commenced our briefed detail which was strafing using a smoke float as a target. We were flying Mk 5 Fireflies which were armed with four 20mm cannon.

On completion of the detail, I formed up and we commenced the run back to the ship. In accordance with our SOPs, we dropped our hooks so each could check the other, there being no visual indication in the cockpit that the hook was down. To my surprise, my section leader gave me a thumbs down so I pulled the hook release knob again, but still no affirmative . . .

I gave the knob several more really hefty tugs but it was fairly obvious that the hook was not going to release. I then got my observer to reach up under the panels on the side of his cockpit to feel for the control wires which ran down the side of the aircraft but again no luck.

My adrenilin was starting to pump at this stage because no hook usually meant that you had to land into the barrier, or at worst, ditch. The barrier consisted of a number of steel wire nets strung across the deck, abeam the island, which were there to catch any aircraft that missed the arrester wires. Although the crew normally escaped injury, the aircraft was usually fairly badly bent. In any case, nobody of sound mind likes to fly an aircraft into a steel barrier at 90kts, knowing that they will stop in about three metres!

However, by sheer good fortune, although we were in the middle of the Pacific, we were within diversion range of Guam. My section leader led me to the airfield and then returned to the ship wishing me good luck as he departed. We didn’t know the tower frequency and as our radios were crystal controlled in those days, I doubt that I would have had it anyway.

As I flew over the airfield I noted that it had a pair of parallel runways, something I had heard of but never seen. I took a punt and landed on the left hand strip, only to have my brakes fail on the landing rollout! I wasn’t too fussed at this latest turn of events as the old Firefly was reasonably contollable with just rudder, providing you didn’t try and turn too sharply, and left yourself plenty of space to stop. The trick was to keep the speed down and to use short sharp bursts of power.

A “follow me” vehicle soon appeared and slowly led me to a dispersal area on one of the many flight lines. In true United States military fashion, maintenance personnel were soon swarming all over the aircraft trying to find the cause of the problem. It didn’t take them long to find that the hook cable had jumped off a pulley behind the observer’s cockpit. I then asked them whether they could do anything about the brakes but when I told them that they were pneumatic, they fell about saying something to the effect that Orville had scrapped that system on the Mk2 Wright Flyer in favour of hydraulics! To my eternal shame, I didn’t know where the air charging point was, (I know now, the starboard wheel well!) but as it turned out, it didn’t matter as their fittings weren’t compatible with those of the aircraft anyway.

By this stage we were chatting in friendly fashion and when they heard that we were on our way to Korea, they couldn’t hold back from commenting on the rather outdated Firefly. One comment I recall was “Your’e not going to fight them damn Commies in that darn thing!”

Now we have all heard the old chestnut about the verbal message being passed back down the line of “send reinforcements, we are going to advance” being received as “send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”. Well at about the time that it was decided that nothing could be done about my brakes, a message was received to the effect that I was to “return to the ship, regardless of hook or brakes”. I knew that the Captain would be getting a little impatient about the delay I had caused as we had a fairly tight schedule, but I didn’t think that even as a Sub Lieutenant I was expendable.

A comment was then made by one my American hosts to the effect that “you Aussies sure play it hard”, and I was cleared to go.

Once again I laborously taxied out and, after a bit of a hassle as to which runway I was to use, I took off thinking that this had to be the end of my woes. Not so however, no sooner were we airborne than my observer yelled at me over the intercom that the battery was boiling. Now you could always tell a Firefly observer by the battery acid burns on the lower part of his flying suit as the battery was located between his legs. The electrics in the Firefly were controlled by a ground/flight switch, so the only way to fix the problem was to turn it off, which meant we had no radios or intercom.

Weneverthless got back to the ship and I executed quite a reasonable landing only to have my hook bounce over all but the second last wire. With no brakes there was nothing I could do but grit my teeth and pray that we would not hit the arrester barrier, which could happen if there was not much wind over the deck and you pulled the wire to its full extent. ‘

My luck finally came good at this point as we stopped with the spinnerjust over the top wire of the barrier. Not having had a barrier I was thankful to have my record still unbroken.

As I shut the aircraft down, I looked up to the bridge to see the Captain beckoning me. As I climbed the internal ladders, I wondered what I was in for as he wasn’t known for his sense of humour. To my surprise he appeared quite affable and asked me how it had gone. I plucked up courage and immediately enquired whether I had really been meant to return to the ship, regardless of hook or brakes. He said it was the first he had heard of it and enquired of his staff as to who had sent the message. A humourous little charade then took place as the query went down the line as to who was responsible. It stopped short of the ship’s cat but I decided not to press my luck and when dismissed by the Captain, retired to my cabin to ruminate on the fortunes of the day and to hope that I never had another one like that one!