Cruise Books
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:22 am
Moss, My squadron was VMF (aw) 115. It was an all weather night fighter squadron. We were NOT deployed on a carrier. We took our F4D-1s to North Island Naval Air Station and they were loaded on the flight deck of the USS Windham Bay, a jeep carrier made by putting a flight deck on a Kaiser Ship Hull. I took us 17 days to arrive at Kizarazoo, Japan. Where they were off loaded, the cosmoline removed and we flew them to Atsugi Naval Air Station where we flew locally until the Quemoy, Matsu shelling began and we were deployed to Ping Tung, Taiwan. We flew our F4Ds from Japan to Taiwan stopping to refuel at Iwakuni in southern Japan and Kadena AFB in Okinawa. We had no air to air refueling probes on the F4D. I eventually made that round trip several times, once or twice solo. The Communists Chinese were shelling these two off shore islands on alternate nights and we stood strip alert and capped the re-supply airdrops on Quemoy and Matsu. They used C-119 Flying Boxcars for that. The Chinese Nationalist Pilots were flying F-86s. They had thousand of hours in type many with US Airforce wings having been trained at Nellis AFB. In the daytime they flew sotris over Mainland China. Their tactics were to go in a 4 plane division and pretend that they were bullet proof. The Chinese Communists would send up a division of Migs with an Eastern European or Russian leader and 3 inexperienced Chinese. The Migs would make a run on the F-86s and miss. The F-86s would then roll in behind them and pickle a Sidewinder missle up their tail pipe. During the time we were there they shot down 85 Migs and lost only one F-86 when a young Lt. fired his missle too close to the Mig and flew through the exploding Mig and knocked himself down.
I found a picture of Blue Flight with me in the Baseball Cap with the M. You can barely see the end of my knife sticking up in my life vest just below my left shoulder. You can also see the knives on some of the other pilots. I was co-editor of our cruise book and ended up with two copies. They will make nice souvineers for one of my 5 children or 12 grandchildren. Thanks for your ideas.
Semper Fi,
Don Franklin
[email protected] (Send me an E-mail and I'll send you some photos from the Cruise Book. I need my son to help me shrink them so they are accepted here.
I found a picture of Blue Flight with me in the Baseball Cap with the M. You can barely see the end of my knife sticking up in my life vest just below my left shoulder. You can also see the knives on some of the other pilots. I was co-editor of our cruise book and ended up with two copies. They will make nice souvineers for one of my 5 children or 12 grandchildren. Thanks for your ideas.
Semper Fi,
Don Franklin
[email protected] (Send me an E-mail and I'll send you some photos from the Cruise Book. I need my son to help me shrink them so they are accepted here.
