Compiled and Edited

 by Tinker Tom

Acknowledgments

I stole the story.  What was I to do?  I wasn’t there, so I had to take what others had written and piece the story together.  Since I wasn’t there I wrote it in the third person.  That may make it seem somewhat stiff and impersonal, but it was the only fair thing to do, since I am just a squadron spectator.  I apologize beforehand.

I got a lot from some, a little from many and tried to make it a single coherent piece.  At the end I’ve listed the main sources of information as best I could.  Some are referenced at places in the text.  In many cases the source information was used so blatantly that no number of paragraphs could be listed.  So, in those cases I simply listed the sources as key reference  material.

I need to make special mention of some written sources such as Hal Forrest’s fine write-up, which I used extensively in this text.   Ray Thiele sent me lots of information which shows up in many sections scattered throughout.   Also, John Brewer, the late John Luther, and many others in the squadron contributed fine pieces.   Special mention should also be made to outsiders like Ragnar Ragnarsson of Iceland.  Ragnar has a special interest in all those American flyers who came to Iceland during the war.  He gave me several pieces of information that I’m sure I could not have gotten otherwise.   I also want to thank my son Chris Warnagiris and daughter Kathleen Reynolds for giving the text some necessary editing.   Lastly, I want to thank all squadron members who were kind enough to review drafts, provide suggestions, and supply critical information.

Hopefully, what I’ve written is not too disjointed and somewhat keeps the flavor of the squadron as it came together, matured, and moved on to become many things to many people.  This history is for both those who were part of the squadron and those who want to know them.

https://patrolbombingsquadron.blogspot.com/

Introduction

On February 23, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced off Santa Barbara, California and fired a score of cannon shells into a petroleum complex on the coast.  Damage amounted to only a few hundred dollars, but the audacity of the attack impressed everyone.   Although it was difficult to believe, by sheer coincidence, the submarine had bombarded the mainland of the United States at the precise moment President Roosevelt was speaking to the nation in one of his "fireside chats”.¹

By the summer of 1942 the war had also arrived on America’s Atlantic coast.  Just months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the U-boat (German submarine) network had moved to within a few miles of the U.S. east coast and within the Gulf of Mexico.  Virtually unmolested, U-boats sank allied shipping at will.   U. S. citizens actually stood at many places along the Atlantic shore to watch tankers burn and sink.  This intolerable situation was slowing preparations for a two-front war (Atlantic and Pacific).  Ships, planes, and factories needed the timely delivery of oil if America was to adequately support the rapidly expanding war effort.

Early in 1942 the primary airborne deterrent to this sad situation was the U.S. Navy In-shore patrol squadrons hastily formed upon America’s entry into the war.  For the most part these squadrons were manned by inexperienced pilots fresh from the Naval Air Training Command.  The only aircraft available for the In-shore pilots was the single-engine, two-place plane the Navy called the OS2U Kingfisher.  Pilots had other pet names for the slow, under powered, inadequately armed “Kingfisher.”  Some described it as a three-speed plane: Take-off at ninety-five, cruise at ninety-five, land at ninety-five!  Against a modern German U-boat the OS2U was slightly more than an annoyance.  Despite this handicap young Navy Pilots were determined to fly  “to hell and back” in search of their quarry.   Although enthusiastic, even these young pilots realized they needed a much better aircraft if they were going to go up against combat hardened U-boats.

I. Commissioning and Shakedown

By early 1943 the Navy had taken responsibility for all anti-submarine warfare.  To fulfill this charter a large increase in manpower and better airplanes for the mission were ordered.  Arrangements to train new squadrons to fly new aircraft were quickly made, and by February, a number of men were in training for the build-up and new airplanes were on the way.

The New Airplane

The problem of finding or designing an anti-submarine airplane with appropriate speed, range and armament had originally been addressed by the Navy early in the war.  Their answer was a refinement of an aircraft already being provided to the British and, in very limited numbers, to the U.S. Navy.  It was the Lockheed “Hudson”, or PBO, as the Navy called it,  a military version of the pre-war, twin-engined air commercial transport known as the “Lodestar.”  Since the PBO was under powered, short-ranged, and lacked durability, the Navy and Lockheed (Vega) engineers decided that an even better airplane was needed.  The answer was a plane similar to the PBO, but with many improvements including: more power supplied by two huge Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engines; additional machine guns (including a lower belly tail gun), and beefed up wings and landing gear.  With this arrangement they came up with what was probably the fastest plane in the Navy's air fleet at that time.  This “improved PBO” was the birth of the PV-1, the Vega Ventura (Figure 1).

The Lockheed PV-1 originated in a deal cut in mid -1942, between the Navy and the Army.  Out of necessity, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) was still flying anti-submarine patrols supporting the battle of the Atlantic.  The U.S. Navy was very unhappy about this, since the Navy had always felt that anti-submarine warfare was its responsibility.  In support of this mission, the Navy was anxious to acquire a long-range, land-based heavy maritime reconnaissance and patrol aircraft capable of carrying a substantial bomb load.  However, the

Figure 1.  PV-1 Ventura in Early 1945 Configuration

 Army had always resisted what it perceived as an encroachment by the Navy into its jealously-guarded land-based bomber program, and forced the Navy to rely on float planes such as the PBY Catalina, the PBM Mariner, and the PB4Y Coronado to fulfill the long-range maritime reconnaissance role.   However, the Army needed an aircraft plant to manufacture its next generation heavy bombers, the B-29 Superfortress.  It just so happened that the Navy owned a plant in Renton, Washington, which at that time  (1942), was operated by Boeing for the manufacture of the PBB-1 Sea Ranger flying boat.  The Army proposed that the Navy cancel the Sea Ranger program and turn over the Renton factory to them for B-29 production.  In exchange, the Army  would agree to get out of the anti-submarine warfare business and would  drop its objections to the Navy's operation of land-based bombers.  In support of the Navy's new land-based anti-submarine patrol mission, the Army agreed that the Navy could acquire Navy versions of the B-24 Liberator and the B-25 Mitchell.  In addition, it was proposed that Lockheed would cease all production of B-34/B-37 and Venturas for the Army and would start building a Navy version of the Ventura medium bomber under the designation PV-1 for use in maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare.  The Navy quickly agreed to this arrangement.  Consequently, on  July 7, 1942, the USAAF formally agreed to discontinue procurement of B-34/B-37s, allowing Lockheed Vega to concentrate on the production of the PV-1 for the Navy.² 

In those days new aircraft were developed fast.  The initial prototype PV-1 took off on its maiden flight on November 3, 1942.  No significant problems with the design were noted, so production and subsequent delivery of PV-1s to the Navy began in December of 1942 (see Appendix A).  The PV-1 first entered service with the U.S. Navy on February 1, 1943, with squadron VB-127 at NAS Deland, Florida followed by VB-128 (eventually redesignated VPB-128) and several other new squadrons undergoing formation at that time.  The armament was adequate (later improved to fantastic); the range was good; the aircraft durable and dependable.   The new squadrons now had a fighting tool the U-boats could respect!

Deland

Forming squadrons and training crews to utilize this new tool meant considerable effort on the part of the Navy.  A dozen officers of VS1D1, and a similar number from all other VS (In-shore patrol squadrons) received essentially the same orders in early 1943: to report for squadron formation and training on the new airplane.   Few, if any, Navy pilots had ever flown such a fast,  powerful aircraft.  Indeed, a majority of those early PV-1 pilots had little or no experience in land-based, multi-engine planes of any type.  With less than a year's experience in an operational squadron since completing flight training in the single engine OS2U Kingfisher, most of the pilots had only a vague idea of what lay ahead of  them.

The new “VB” squadrons would be among the first formed specifically for Navy land- based patrol bombers.  As was custom, each of the new squadrons would be commanded by a Lieutenant Commander (Lt. Cmdr.); and a Lieutenant (Lt.) as executive officer; both graduates of the Naval Academy.  The remaining aviators would be drawn almost totally from the existing In-shore patrol squadrons.   Non-pilot officers for various administrative and intelligence functions were the famed “90-day-wonders” from the Navy's WWII officer training corps.  The total complement of officers and enlisted in each squadron averaged only about one hundred men.   As a consequence of their small size, patrol bomber squadrons became tight knit groups.  Each member was known to the rest and all crewmen were dependent on one another to successfully perform their mission.

Squadron VB-128 was a special gathering of crewmen; they were presented with a determined Lt. Cmdr. Charles Westhofen, their future skipper, and told to “Get with it.”   Their immediate mission was to learn to fly multi-engine aircraft and get VB-128 ready for commissioning in just six weeks!   “Westy” was a hard man to satisfy.  He knew pilots had to know their stuff if they were going to fly the PV-1 successfully.   Because of his attitude, he personally trained every pilot that was soon to be designated as a plane commander.   “Westy” had to be satisfied that they all knew their business and performed to his specifications.

The miracles expected would have to be performed in a location conductive to almost perpetual training, which was the reason the training command was set up at Naval Air Station (NAS), Deland, Florida, where beautiful weather is the norm.  Since at that time there were no PV-1s off the assembly line, twin-engined Beechcrafts (SNBs) were used for the essential multi-engine transition from the single engine OS2U.

The sleepy little town of Deland was an experience within itself.  On base, bachelors had no complaints about living conditions; the bachelor officer’s quarters (BOQ) was fine.  On the other hand, married personnel (officers and enlisted) discovered that it was next to impossible to find livable quarters in town.   This was a continuing problem wherever VB-128 was based stateside due to wartime housing shortages.  But, the young families learned to cope.  “There was a war on!” 

Since everyone knew to which squadron they were reporting, organization by the administrative staff began amazingly fast.  VB-128 was commissioned in mid-February 1943.  The weeks together prior to the commissioning helped speed the fledgling bomber crew’s transition into a reasonably effective squadron--on paper.  It was a little like a new eight-cylinder car running on four.  As mentioned, the squadron’s first skipper was Lt. Cmdr. Charles “Chuck” Westhofen and the executive officer (XO) was Lt. Clarence McKeon.  Such names as Lt. Bob Jones (Personnel), Lt. Henry “Hank” Hilton (Administration), Lt.Terry McGaughan (Intelligence), and Lt. Joe Dorrington (Maintenance) were in the forefront of the basic staff.

Daytona Beach

Up until the first PV-1s arrived, the crews continued to train in the lightweight SNBs.  Once the new PV-1's came to Deland all hands gathered around and gawked in awe at a plane with a very sleek fuselage and the biggest engines any of them had ever seen!   Where they had been accustomed to the old single-engine OS2U that could putter along for five plus hours on ninety gallons of gas, they now had an aircraft that used ninety gallons just for taxi, takeoff, and a short climb!  Top speed was approximately three hundred knots (about three hundred and thirteen nine miles per hour).  Besides the internal wing tanks, there were more tanks in the bomb bay and cabin.   For even longer range droppable wing tanks were added.   As a result the PV-1 was appropriately dubbed “the flying gas tank”, an unfortunate label.....

No Navy aircraft at that time had the power and peculiarities offered by the PV- 1.  Its twin engines were each three times as powerful as any aircraft that most of the squadron pilots had ever flown.  Its power and high wing loading made it faster than many fighter planes of the era, but unfortunately these factors helped make the plane rather unforgiving of mistakes. 

At that time, there was no “operational training squadron” organized to train pilots and crewmen.  Since no one at Deland was fully qualified to act as instructor, the big task at hand was to somehow learn to fly the new PV-1 as best they could.  Belated commendation is due the more senior pilots upon whom fell that formidable task.  While finesse and experience in flying the aircraft may have been lacking, these pilots did an admirable job.  It was “On the Job Training” (OJT) at its finest!

Needless to say, the PV-1 put heavy demands upon the meager skills of young pilots.  It also cost the Navy, men and aircraft before competency was the norm.  Primarily it was the speed of transition that forced pilots into too much airplane too soon.  Due to its large load of high-octane gasoline and its critical and unfamiliar weight and balance requirements, resultant crashes of the PV-1 caused many to explode.  In addition to the “flying gas tank” the PV-1 was also known as “the flying coffin”, but for the many who survived, the PV-1 was considered one of the fastest and best planes in the air.

The twelve most senior pilots automatically became Patrol Plane Commanders as soon as they could manage to take off and land.  At the time this honor was about the next thing to being God!  They were one proud lot.  Every member of the squadron was convinced that he now had the personnel and equipment to conquer the world or at the very least, win the war single-handed.

Within weeks after receipt of the squadron’s first PV-1 it took only a short time to reach an operational complement of twelve aircraft.   Few could ever forget their first flight in the new “bird”.  Guys like Lt. j.g. (junior grade)  Gaffey, Al Semrau, and Ensign Ralph Pinkerton zoomed Daytona Beach like it has never been zoomed before or since (fifty feet from the sand at three hundred miles per hour)!

Boca Chica

Things then began to happen in a hurry for VB-128.  For reasons beyond anyone’s knowledge Lt. McKeon, the first XO, was transferred.  Lt. Joseph “Blackie” George, son of Georgia's noted U.S. senator, reported on board as the new XO.  The squadron then received orders to report to NAS, Boca Chica, Florida, for a shakedown cruise.

On April 26, 1943, the squadron departed Deland for Florida's southernmost tip.  Beautiful weather led to an uneventful flight.  But the new base itself was far from beautiful; a former Army Air Force field, it had only recently been taken over by the Navy.  Wooden, tarpaper-covered buildings and isolated, outdoor “heads” were a far cry from what they had been accustomed to.  Beyond the excellent runways there were virtually no facilities at Boca Chica and, certainly no amenities.  On top of that all married couples had to somehow obtain private housing in Key West, a few miles away.  As mentioned, this was no easy task.

Key West was smaller and more confining than Deland.  Walking in a north-south direction, one could go from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in fifteen minutes.  Being so tightly confined as they were in the Key West area, squadron personnel were molded into more of a family there than in any other place that VB-128 was stationed.  They spent about three weeks at Boca Chica.  Every minute of every working day was spent in intensive training--bounce drills, night flying, dropping water-filled bombs, gunnery, navigation, and anything else the skipper could think of that would give them more experience to better perform their mission.  Not surprisingly some pilots even became experts at flying below fifty feet at three hundred knots!

Despite their busy schedule they still managed to become thoroughly familiar with the pleasures of Key West.  Considering the size of the island, which did not take very long.  The white sandy beaches were fantastic.  Key West had some excellent restaurants and eating outside on an open patio was a new experience for many.

After several days of this routine the squadron’s big question was: where do we go from here?  “Scuttlebutt” had them going to Brazil.  U-boats were certainly active there.  Such rumors were so strong that all hands were 1-2-3 ing the tango, rumba, or waltz to the then new tune "Brazil."

Guantanamo Bay     

In the meantime a U-boat had been sighted operating in the area of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The skipper took a contingent of planes to “Gitmo”  to quell this threat.  No sightings were made and the trip proved uneventful except for one off -duty encounter with a small “gremlin”.

Gremlin

One day while at Guantanamo, around lunch time, one aircraft crew was seeking the shelter of shade under the wing of their PV-1 when they spotted what appeared to be a half-starved rat trotting in their direction.  As the animal neared them, they saw that it was a small dog.  "Come here, boy," one of the crew called.  The dog stopped in his tracks and stared.  Noticing the protruding ribs, the young crewman was filled with sympathy and offered the dog his sandwich.

At first the dog seemed reluctant, his brown eyes reflecting fear, but he was so hungry that he couldn't resist.  With his head down and tail between his legs, the little dog inched forward and gobbled down the sandwich.

It took several days and a lot of sandwiches before the dog trusted the men enough to follow them into the mess hall where he indulged in military chow - fresh oranges, boiled eggs, and Spam.  He learned to love the enlisted personnel who gave him their undivided attention.  He tolerated the officers and had no love for civilians!  The dog would study civilians from a distance, but closely monitor them if they approached him.  If they got too close he would bear his teeth and growl.  It was assumed that the dog had been so abused by civilians that he would never forget it, and after investigating to make sure he was a stray, the crew decided to keep him.

When the detachment was ordered back to the squadron, some of the crew couldn't stand the thought of leaving their new friend behind, so they simply smuggled him aboard a PV-1. Shortly after take-off the dog barked when the men had begun playing with him. The pilot asked, "What’s that noise?"  The radioman replied, ''It must be a gremlin, Sir." The dog barked again and the boys had to come clean. They took him into the cockpit where he was enthusiastically welcomed by the rest of the crew.  "Here's your gremlin, Sir," the radioman chuckled, and the name stuck.³

Gremlin was eventually indoctrinated into the U.S. Navy.  Induction papers were signed with a paw print, and he was issued an I.D. card and “dog tag”.   A crewmember donated a dress blue uniform jacket from which a cape was cut and sewn onto a harness.  The uniform bore the insignia "Dog First Class" and Gremlin seemed very proud to wear his uniform.  He was also issued Air Combat Crew Wings and eventually earned several Campaign ribbons, all attached to his uniform. Gremlin soon became the most popular member of the VB-128 and often flew on missions with his human counterparts.

New York

After the detached planes returned from Cuba, out of the clear blue “Key West” sky the squadron received orders to report to NAS, Floyd Bennett Field, NY.  Satisfied as they might have been with Key West or even Cuba, the move to New York was both exciting and urgent.  In truth, the squadron was forced out of Boca Chica by a constant flow of new squadrons all in need of shakedown cruises of their own.

            On May 17, 1943, the sun rose to a cloudless sky just as it does ninety nine percent of the time in Key West and Boca Chica.   The good weather allowed the entire squadron to take off at their designated times.  They were happy for the chance to utilize radio range stations and homing beacons for navigation.  After all, they were instrument qualified, weren't they?   Nonetheless, many squadron pilots recalled that  "Iron Mike" (railroad tracks) and "Cement Charlie" (highways) were used in varying degrees.

Semreau

For most of the squadron the flight was uneventful.  They had good weather all the way, and after a refueling stop at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, NC, the squadron arrived safely in New York.  But, one plane did not arrive.  Lt. j.g. Al Semreau and crew were never seen at Cherry Point or at Floyd Bennett Field.  The squadron hoped and prayed that they had suffered communications problems, landed elsewhere, then had failed to call in.

In New York, the skipper and squadron officers had gathered in the officers' club praying for a miracle and deciding what action was required.  At the time, some of the squadron still had hope, but it did not wash with Elsie (Al’s wife).  She assumed Al had crashed.

  

Unfortunately Elsie had the correct insight.  This was the day of VB-128's first tragedy, and by the next morning it was confirmed.  Al and his crew had crashed not too far from Boca Chica; engine failure was the suspected cause.  VB-128 lost their first aircraft, possibly due to lack of sufficient training "in a powerful new airplane".  One engine quit just after takeoff and the aircraft went into the water, killing all but the copilot.   The PV-1 was capable of flying safely on one engine, but only if the pilot was very familiar with the plane.   Ensign James Digh, picked up from a life raft in critical condition, was the only survivor.  He never returned to the squadron.

II. Floyd Bennett Field

NAS Floyd Bennett Field, New York, (the area immediately south of what is now John F. Kennedy International airport) was to be the new home of VB-128.  At the time, German U-boats were still greater in number up and down the Atlantic coastline (as far south as Brazil) than were the number of planes searching for them!  Control of the shipping lanes was important and the Germans were naturally quite reluctant to relinquish it after having had such a glorious year and a half with little effective opposition.   It was about this time that the German U-boat command decided to mount many more anti-aircraft weapons topside and to remain surfaced in order to combat U.S. airplanes.  

Meanwhile, the squadron’s war preparation activities continued.   When no immediate combat action occurred base personnel at Floyd Bennett soon began referring to the squadron as "the subway patrol”.   This they learned to bear as they trained, trained, and trained some more.  They stayed physically fit by displaying their abilities in softball and volleyball; a few of them even utilized some of the plush golf facilities in the area.  Of course, the officers’ club never suffered for lack of business.

Most married members of the squadron somehow found housing in and around Brooklyn, New York.  The squadron worked on two duty sections of fifty men each, so most were home every other night.  Their spare time was spent patronizing small restaurants on Brooklyn’s  Flatbush Avenue (just north of the base), or on subway rides to Manhattan, where complete dinners in a mid-town restaurant could be had for less than two dollars.  There were movies at the Paramount for a dollar, with intermission entertainment by such notables as Glenn Miller, the Dorsey brothers, and other popular big names of the time, including a young newcomer by the name of Sinatra.  It was also during this period that the French luxury liner Normandie burned and sank at its New York dock while being outfitted as a wartime troop transport.  Some of the ship’s furnishings eventually ended up in the base officers’ club!

Operational

The squadron flew out of Floyd Bennett and patrolled off the New York / New Jersey coasts as far out to sea as their range would permit.  Although they had no U-boat sightings for several weeks, most realized that the presence of VB-128 was responsible for the great reduction of tanker sinkings in the squadron’s patrol area.

Gaffey’s paravane attack

For some time things were uneventful; patrols became routine. Then, Lt. j.g. Gaffey and his crew spotted what appeared to be movement of a U-boat periscope.   Depth charges away!--and a Navy minesweeper's paravane lost a lot of its usefulness.   A paravane was a large metal decoy towed behind a wooden minesweeper.  From altitude it could be mistaken for a U-boat periscope.  Needless to say, Gaffey received no medals for his heroism, but squadron personnel thought the incident funny as hell.

 Social

There were many other events that took place during the squadron’s first tour in New York that are no doubt engraved in the minds of many.  Who can forget when the skipper issued the order that there would be no pool shooting on the crap table after sixteen thirty hours.  Or when Lt. j.g. “Buck” Glasscock, the squadron duty officer was missing for two days with the squadron station wagon.   The reason?  He was just a country boy and got lost in New York City.  No one ever discovered why he was in downtown New York as duty officer.  A very senior lieutenant after a night in Manhattan, thought he was taking the Brooklyn subway only to wake up on a Pennsylvania train in Bridgeport, CT.   A squadron combo was formed with Lt. Ralph “Pink” Pinkerton at the piano, Lt. “Tex” Stirling on the trumpet, and Lt. George Duke on the guitar (Figure 2).  They wrote and sang (among other little ditties):  "Dear ol' Chuck, won't you make me/A glamorous BPC (Bombing Plane Commander) so I can roam the skies".  The entire roster of squadron officers became the choral group with Lt.Terry McGaughan leading  "Baa, Baa, Baa" from his favorite, the Whiffenpoof song.  “Pink”, who played a pretty mean piano, was one of the few men known who could boogie-woogie the hymn "Jesus Lover of My Soul".  Blackie George spun tales of his life as a Georgia forest ranger.   Perhaps very little of it was quality, but everybody had fun.

            Figure 2.  Musicians George Duke, Pink Pinkerton, and “Tex” Sterling

During working hours, their steady patrols, diligent study, training, and attention to detail swiftly molded the squadron into an efficient operating unit.  Having only two duty sections meant that one half of the personnel were on board every night to conduct patrols and cover emergencies. Everything was running smoothly--then BAM!

August 7, 1943

On the morning of August 8, 1943, the squadron learned that Lt. j.g. Ted Cross, Ensign Tom Aylward and crew had been shot down by a German U-boat. Tom and the radioman (Welch) were sighted in the water by a seaplane flying at five thousand feet on their return from an all night patrol.  The seaplane made an open sea landing and brought Tom and seaman Welch to the Norfolk Naval Hospital.  Ted Gross and the rest of the crew were lost.

Unknown to the squadron at the time,  the action against that particular U-boat involved many other players.   It began on August 1, 1943 when a B-17 Flying Fortress, operating out of Mitchel Field, Long Island, spotted a blip on their radar 120 miles off Montauk Point, (Long Island, New York) just before nine o'clock at night.  The B-17 circled the area, but made no further contact, although the pilot was sure they were on the track of a U-boat.

            The next evening August 2, a PBM Mariner (flying boat) came across a long wake, about two hundred miles to the south of the spot where the B-17 had made contact.  It followed the wake and was greeted by tracer bullets from a U-boat deck gun!   The U-boat submerged, and the PBM circled the area.  The action took place about thirty miles from a Gibraltar-Norfolk convoy, but the convoy was unmolested, probably because of the swift action of the flying boat.  

           On August 3, another PBM Mariner spotted what the Navy's Eastern Sea Frontier Tracking Section was sure was the same U-boat, but once again, the U-boat submerged and got away.   On August 5, that particular U-boat (U-566 returning from a successful mine laying operation off of Norfolk, Virginia) was tracking a convoy bound from New York to Key West, and was spotted about ninety miles west of Elizabeth City, New Jersey.  The convoy was escorted by several surface vessels and had an almost constant air screen of bombers.

     

            The surface vessels included the U.S. Coast Guard cutters Pandora and Calypso, the newly built British tug HMFT-22, and the U.S.S. Plymouth, which was converted to a gun boat from W. K. Vanderbilt's old yacht Alva.  Plymouth was on the starboard bow of the convoy, patrolling with her sound gear, when the sonar man made a contact.  Hardly had the Captain of the Plymouth been called and reached the bridge when a torpedo slammed into the side of the Plymouth and blew her in half!  One of the fuel tanks spewed oil and caught fire.  The ship was quickly aflame forward, and almost immediately, she began going down by the head.

          Having sunk the Plymouth, the U-boat moved on, and began edging east, preparatory to going home.  Unknown to the U-566 as it headed east, eleven planes and a blimp, from various Navy squadrons were sent to find and destroy her.

            Early in the morning of August 7, 1943, word was received by VB-128 that this U-boat had been spotted about 300 miles off Norfolk, Virginia.  Lt. j.g.  Frederick C. Cross, USNR, and  his crew were alerted and took off for the position at four thirty in the morning.  Lt. j.g. Cross picked up the enemy by radar at a distance of twelve miles and turned to home in on the target.  Emerging from a cloud, his PV-1 was immediately hit by an anti-aircraft shell from the U-boat.  Cross was mortally wounded and the co-pilot, Lt. j.g. Thomas J. Aylward, Jr., USNR, and the radioman, Welch, James A., AMMR2c, USNR, were less seriously wounded.  Despite his own condition, and with one engine knocked out and smoke filling the cockpit, Lt. j.g. Cross pressed home his attack and dropped his depth charges.  Unfortunately, none were armed and did no damage to the U-boat.^4,5,6

           At this point, the starboard propeller would not feather and was dragging the

PV-1 down.  Cross was forced to make a water landing twenty miles from the U-boat, which he performed skillfully.  The pilot, co-pilot and radioman were able to successfully abandon the plane.  The plane captain and turret gunner, however, were not able to get out before it sank.  Possibly, they had tried to parachute out, but if so, their chutes did not open because the plane was too close to the sea.   Cross died of his wounds while in the water while Lt. j.g. Aylward  and Airman Welch were rescued by a PBM.  After a period of hospitalization, both returned to  active duty, but only Airman Welch returned to the squadron.    Lt. j.g. Cross was awarded the Navy Cross, posthumously, Lt. j.g  Aylward  received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart, and seamen Welch, the Air Medal and Purple Heart.⁷

About five hours later word was received at the base that Lt. j.g. Cross had been shot down, the XO, Lt. Joseph M. George, USNR, took off for the scene of action.  Lt. George  reported to base that he was in the area where the Cross plane had gone down and was searching for it.  His plane was never heard from again.  The next day, Admiral Andrews speculated that it, too, had run afoul of the sharpshooting gunners of the U-boat and had been destroyed so quickly that it could not even get a message away.  The only word ever received from Lt. George’s plane was that he was “on station”.  When no other message came, all ships and stations on the Atlantic Coast were alerted, but search efforts proved fruitless.  No trace was ever found of his plane or its crew.   (Fifty-five years after the incident, the destruction of the second PV-1 by U-566 was confirmed by review of German war records.  See Appendix B)

            

            By this time, the U-boat had gained some visibility at the Eastern Sea Frontier headquarters.  On the big plot board, her estimated location was marked with a Red A.  The hunt for the U-boat now continued in earnest.   Other bombers went out, searched, found nothing, and searched some more.  Less than an hour later, the U-boat was spotted again by another aircraft (a PBM Mariner from VB-126 out of Quonset, Rhode Island).  The U-boat fired a few rounds and then dived.  The Quonset plane lost it in the dark.  The plane found it again, came in, attacked with four depth charges, and forced the U-boat to the surface.  This time, the crew could see smoke coming from the conning tower.   

            Still another plane, a PBM  Mariner (flying boat) from Elizabeth City, came in to bomb, and the U-boat crew manned all three of its guns and began firing.  The plane's depth-firing mechanism misfired on two runs, but finally the pilot manually dropped his bombs, all eight of them, as the U-boat dived.  Once again, the explosion rocked the U-boat, lifted it out of the water, and forced it to remain on the surface.   For half an hour, plane and U-boat fought, without visible effect.  The U-boat then got under way, but she was out of trim down by the stern, and moved slowly off on the surface.  Eventually the U-566 managed to submerge, heading east once more.  That night, the tracking office was busy.  The next day it called up a Gibraltar-New York convoy for help in running down the submarine.

Later, a PBM made contact with the U-boat, found her dead in the water, and tried to lead the destroyer U.S.S.  Lamb to the place, but the plan misfired.   Another PBM Mariner came along, thought it had spotted a U-boat on the water, and fired flares.  The flares turned night into day and illuminated the destroyer.  The U-566 submerged and stayed down.  The destroyer escort U.S.S Lawrence had a contact a few hours later and dropped a series of hedgehog charges, but the U-boat slipped away and headed across the broad Atlantic, successfully reaching its base in Lorient, France.⁸

This was a tragic day for the squadron and proof the "subway patrol" was not the “bowl of cherries” that some people may have believed.  It was ironic to most of the squadron that their first two losses to the enemy came virtually in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

III. Iceland

Despite their loss the squadron was given no time to grieve.  The day after the action of August 7, 1943, VB-128 received orders to move to Reykjavik, Iceland.  The United States had been supplying the Russians for nearly three years via a sea route of convoys that passed within one to two hundred miles of Iceland.   U-boat "wolf packs" operating between Iceland and Scotland were creating havoc with allied shipping on the route to and from Russia.

Quonset

On August 9, 1943 the squadron moved to NAS, Quonset Point, RI, for the installation of aircraft anti- and de-icing equipment.  This was a must for the operations out of Iceland.  The squadron was outfitted with a full complement of aircraft, now painted white (Figure 3), and got ready to head north to their new duty station.

By August 23 their aircraft were ready, the crews briefed, and good-byes said. They departed Quonset for Reykjavik via Goose Bay, Labrador and Greenland.  Their take-offs at Quonset were into a clear sky, but shortly thereafter they were flying over the top of a cirrus layer, a condition that persisted all the way beyond Goose Bay radio range station.  At Goose Bay they broke out of the clouds between one thousand and fifteen hundred feet to see trees, not hundreds or thousands of trees, but thousands of acres  trees.

 
                                       Figure 3.  A PV-1 in “Winter White” Paint

Quonset to Iceland

Refueling stops, such as Goose Bay, were lessons in the logistics of war.  Though relatively isolated themselves, they furnished necessary maintenance, supplies, weather information and flight routing to virtually all military aircraft crossing the Atlantic.  It was at Goose Bay that the squadron learned the real meaning of the word "inexperienced".  They chatted with a new Army Air Force 2nd Lt. plane commander of a B-24.   He had thirteen hours flight time since completing flight training prior to his departure for Europe!   It would be interesting to know what happened to him.

Parent’s Crash

Unfortunately, not all VB-128 planes successfully made it to Labrador.   Pilot Lt. j.g. Claude Parent an copilot Lt. j.g. W. R. “Bud” McNulty had radio trouble and became unsure of their position.  Claude knew his last known location was over the wide mouth of the St. Lawrence River.  He also knew he couldn't keep that airplane in the air forever.  He headed east for a number of miles to be certain he would avoid any mountainous terrain as he began to penetrate the layers of clouds below him in search of an area that might provide a safe place to put the aircraft down.  He was successful in getting the plane below the clouds and over the open sea.  Flying westward, he eventually found the mouth of the river but did not find an airport.  His maps indicated none existed within the range of his remaining fuel supply.  His only chance to save the crew, possibly even the airplane, was to look for a river side beach that just might support a normal landing.  They wisely flew far enough east to be over the sea where they let down to look for an emergency landing site, and they found it--a beautiful sandbar, long and flat on the Natashquan River (a tributary of the St. Lawrence River).  

            No one aboard was injured during the risky landing, but no one knew where they were and it took some time for rescue people to reach them. (The plane was later repaired at the scene and flown out by U.S. Army Air Force pilots.  This story was featured in Colliers Magazine for August 1944).  The crew returned to Quonset, picked up a new aircraft and later joined the squadron in Iceland. 

Greenland

After a day’s delay awaiting good weather and favorable winds, the squadron departed Goose Bay for Bluie West One (BW-1), some fifty miles up a fjord north of the town of Julianehab, Greenland.  Departing Goose Bay in great weather, they soon had to penetrate a narrow band of frontal weather over the Labrador Sea.   Suddenly, as they broke out of the clouds, before them appeared to be the whole of Greenland; every fjord, every crevice, every rock was in clear and perfect focus.   Everybody’s first reaction, was "What a screw up in navigation! We must be an hour early!"  This was their first experience in the ultra clear skies of the Arctic.  It was another two hours before they reached the Greenland coast.  There was no trouble with the navigation; just no one willing to believe you could clearly see an island three hundred miles

away!  Penetration of the fjord was quite an experience in itself.  Mountains, seven thousand feet high, surrounded the waterway and its uphill runway.  They later learned they would be forced to take-off going down hill regardless of the wind.

En route, weather factors gave them an extra day at BW-1.  During this delay, a group of squadron personnel still couldn' t accept the degree of visual deception that occurs so frequently during the clear Arctic days.  They decided to walk closer to a nearby glacier, which appeared to be about five miles away.  They walked nearly four hours and the glacier seemed further away than when they started.  This left them all exhausted.  They were famished, but the usual unappetizing military chow never tasted as good as it did that evening.

On August 28, the squadron departed for Reykjavik, Iceland.  Take-off was both down- hill and downwind--an unwelcome thought.  Take-off was uneventful, but they had to circle several times to gain sufficient altitude to clear the ice cap.  This was an experience most will never forget, not because of the hazards of flight, but because of the wonder of nature that can only be described as fantastic!

On that day weather En route to Reykjavik for VB-128 was clear and air visibility was unlimited (CAVU).  Their  PV-1s  had endless miles of blue sky, and an abundance of North Atlantic white caps.  Eventually the coast of Iceland loomed on the horizon.  Naval Air Facility, Reykjavik appeared to be nestled in downtown and the view from the air made the city look similar to some American cities.   Except that there was a decided shortage of trees, shrubbery, and green lawns.  Volcanic lava, however, was plentiful (See Figure 4).⁹

Figure 4.  Naval Air Facility, Reykjavik in 1943 Iceland Operations

Upon arrival few of VB-128 squadron knew anything about Iceland or its people.  They envisioned arctic landscape - complete with polar bears, Eskimos and igloos.  Instead, to their pleasant surprise, they landed at an airport on the outskirts of a comparatively modern city, inhabited by people very much like those they had left at home.   Although not quite Paradise, Reykjavik was - civilized, cultured and swarming with attractive girls living within walking distance from the Fleet Air Base!

The city of Reykjavik was from ground level interesting and definitely European.  The attitude of a portion of its citizens, however, was noticeably anti-American--even to the point of slinging a Nazi salute from time to time.

In area, Iceland is slightly smaller than the state of Kentucky.  In 1943 its population was only one hundred and twenty four thousand, one-third of which lived in Reykjavik, the country's capital.   The Icelandic population was largely pro-Ally, but consistent with its deeply rooted tradition of neutrality - and having no armed forces of its own - did not desire the presence of any foreign military forces, friendly or not.  This predisposition did not prevent Iceland from being drawn into the war.  Following the German invasion of Norway and Denmark, British forces occupied the country in May 1940. 

“Whoever possesses Iceland holds a pistol permanently pointed at England, America and Canada,” wrote Karl Haushofer, the Nazi geopolitical guru, and a quick glance at the map of the North Atlantic clearly showed the island's strategic location.  The wisdom of the British move to occupy Iceland, soon became apparent when, in the summer of 1940, German advances in Europe dramatically altered the whole shape of the war.  The opening of the European coastline to U-boats constituted a major threat to the Atlantic sea lanes.  Before long, Iceland, which can be likened to a huge aircraft carrier anchored in the middle of the North Atlantic, developed into an important base for Allied air and surface anti-submarine operations.

When British troops landed in Iceland there were no airfields.  Initially, an airfield was constructed at Kaldaðarnes, about forty miles east of Reykjavik. Then, as plans evolved for the ferrying of planes to Britain via Greenland and Iceland a new airfield was constructed on the outskirts of Reykjavik.  Ground was broken in October 1940, and the following summer the airfield was commissioned.  By 1942, it had two four thousand-foot runways, and a third shorter runway suitable for light planes only. 

As early as 1940, the Royal Air Force had a squadron of obsolete single engine Fairey Battle bombers stationed in Iceland.  Shipping coverage and anti-submarine operations from Iceland did not, however, start in earnest until the spring of 1941, with the arrival of a British squadron of four-engine Short Sunderland flying boats and another of twin-engine Lockheed Hudsons.

Iceland's importance as an outpost, in the defense of the Western Hemisphere from German aggression was the primary reason for the agreement reached in 1941 between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to have United States armed forces relieve the British garrison in Iceland.  On July 7, 1941 exactly five months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the first American troops set foot on the island.  One month later, the U.S. Navy's Iceland (Fleet) Air Detachment came into existence with the arrival of PBY-5s and PBM-1s of U.S. Navy squadrons VP-73 and VP-74.  The Air Detachment started operating from Skerjafjörður, adjoining Reykjavik Airfield, was tendered by the U.S.S. Goldsbourough (AVD-5), a converted World War I destroyer.  At first, the crews lived aboard the planes, but shortly after their arrival a camp of army field tents was erected on the beach. In keeping with the primitive conditions these forerunners of Fleet aviation in Iceland had to contend with, the camp was appropriately named “Camp SNAFU”.

Eventually some Nissen huts were obtained from the British and a new camp was constructed on the east side of the airfield - humorously dubbed “Camp Kwitcherbelliakín”. To add further to the eccentricity of the camp's name its entrance was decorated with artificial palm trees made of old tubing wrapped in burlap and leaves made from scrap metal.

It was already realized that Iceland was not a practical place for seaplane operations in winter.   Not until six planes had been lost at their moorings in winter storms however, were the PBMs of VP-74 withdrawn and VP-73 re-equipped with the PBY-5A, thereby becoming the first squadron to receive the new amphibian version of the PBY.  The PBY-5A proved no better and VP-74 left to make way for the land based PV-1s of VB-128.  Of course, VB-128 inherited VP-74's Iceland accommodations.¹⁰

Spartan as the base appeared, quarters and office space consisted of well insulated

Quonset huts complete with wooden decks, automatic oil heaters, and plenty of hot water. Only later did the members of VB-128 realize how lucky they were when they compared their quarters to those of the U.S. Army and their British counter-parts.  They also had Quonset huts, but had to endure dirt floors and coal burning heaters that had to be continuously tended.  VB-128 crews were the envy of the island.

Once on the ground and settled in they found that they were assigned to the Royal Air Force (RAF) base on the immediate outskirts of Reykjavik and would operate under RAF control.  It was their first experience without a U.S. officer (other than their skipper) guiding assignments.   So, to feel more at home, one of the skipper’s first orders was for a complete remodeling of the officers' club at "Camp Kwitcherbelliakin".  This was done post haste in the  decor of the Copacabana of New York--zebra striped seats and all!

With twenty-seven outstanding Filipino mess boys and a galley open twenty-four hours a day the squadron had the cleanest quarters and best food on the island.   Many considered the food to be the best available anywhere throughout the war.  It was not surprising to learn that the cook was a former chef from a swank San Francisco hotel.   As a result, extra weight threatened the welfare of VB-128's pilots, but football, basketball, ice skating and other activities helped to relieve the threat. 

Weather permitting, flying still consisted of all phases of training--bounce drills, gunnery, etc.  In the immediate vicinity of Reykjavik, the weather was often good to acceptable.  In the operating area (the North Atlantic) terrible weather conditions including high winds frequently made patrols very challenging.  It was VB-128's first experience in which five-hour patrols became the routine and where suitable alternate airports were nonexistent.  Soon--because of shorter days--taking off before daylight or landing after dark was an accepted fact and they became accustomed to it.

There were some things they didn’t become accustomed to.  For example, it was a guess as to how many threatened to cook and eat those homing pigeons the British had them carry on every flight.  Speaking of food--flight lunches were another thing.  One time "dear ol' Chuck" (Cmdr. Westhofen) who couldn't understand why all the crews griped about their flight lunches, unexpectedly took another pilot's patrol.  The skipper returned with his lunch uneaten.  He summoned the supply officer and reportedly forced him to eat the entire lunch.  Quality suddenly improved and flight crews got hot soup, to boot (most agreed that it was one of the skipper's better moves). 

With Lt. Claude Parent impatiently waiting back at Quonset for a plane to replace the

PV-1 resting on the Canadian sandbar, and the assignment of two pilots, Lt. j.g.'s Buck Glasscock, and Gaffey, back to the states replacements were needed.  The first replacement crew for VP-128 arrived November 3, 1943 with a new plane after clearance from Quonset as the last twin-engine flight of the winter via the Labrador-Greenland route.  Winter conditions made the trip to dangerous.   Despite the dangerous winter conditions, Army Air Force B-17's and B-24's with four engines continued their direct ferry flights to England, unfortunately many never arrived.

        

Patrol Plane Commander of the new crew was Lt. John Brewer with two years of flight instructing in PBY, PBO, SNB, and PV-1 aircraft.  Lt. j.g. Al Sleight was co-pilot after two years in the RCAF  with final duty in Beaufighters.  Crewmen were “Red” Hammer, radioman, Bill Brady, mechanic and Ed Rutkoski, ordnance.

        

After flying over wrecked Army Air Corps. craft on top of the 9,000 foot Greenland ice pack, climbing over bad weather to a freezing 17,000 feet (with no cabin oxygen) and a dusk landing in snow at Reykjavik, Brewer was introduced to C.O. Westhofen who hinted that he didn't need any "fair weather" pilots (flight instructors) and asked where the "bar-room tan" came from.  With the warmth of this greeting soaking in, the time was ripe for reunion with old friends and former students in the well stocked Officer's Club.

Bookout Crash

Weather played an important part in Icelandic operations, as Lt. Tom Bookout was soon to prove.  While on a routine patrol, Tom and crew returned at the beginning of the only extended weather-enforced shutdown VB-128 experienced while in Iceland.   Fog was down to the deck at the Navy facility, and only a little better than that ten miles south at the AAF base of Keflavik.  Tom was faced with nowhere to go.  Pin-pointing his location by the radio range, Tom hugged the deck low and slow over the Army field until suddenly, spotting asphalt, he chopped everything and put the PV-1 down.  The safe landing suddenly became hazardous as Tom found himself face-to-face with a tanker truck driver who thought taxiways were free of aircraft during foggy conditions.  Tom swerved the plane hard right, went off a ten-foot embankment, and bent up the PV-1, but without injuring anyone.

Army Rivalry

Occasionally inter-service rivalry brought some levity into a day's operation.  A race between the PV-1s and the P-38s stationed at Keflavik was one example.  The P-38 could outrun a PV-1 at low altitude if they started with an altitude advantage.  Most of the P-38 pilots had never seen a PV-1 prior to VB-128's time in the area; all reported being flabbergasted at their speed.

Warnagiris Crack-up

On one of the good weather days, Lt. Tom Warnagiris and crew flew north of the Arctic Circle thereby becoming "Blue Noses".  Tom, on the other hand, didn't always have good weather or good days.  Late in their stay on Iceland’s shores, Tom and Ensign Harold "Jeep" Streeper were set to take off on a patrol.  They had been assigned a runway, and cleared to go, but crews were involved in airfield construction at the time.  Supposedly, all equipment and ground personnel were clear of the runway at the moment Tom’s plane started its takeoff roll.  Not so.  As the aircraft was at a speed that would begin to make it airborne, a tanker truck ventured across the runway.  Tom's only logical choice was to try to hop over the vehicle.  He reached the crossing vehicle just prior to normal lift-off speed and horsed back on the yoke.   He almost succeeded in the “hop”, but the lower portion of the rear fuselage was ripped out by contact with the truck.  Yet, once airborne, he was obligated by the short runway length to remain in the air.  Knowing he had collided with a vehicle, though not immediately aware of the damage, he circled the field and had Ensign Streeper go aft and look.  “Jeep” returned and informed Tom, "The whole lower part of the tail is gone.  Nothing but a big hole remains.”  (They were fortunate the plane's twin rudders were not lost as well.)

 Attack by Bonnell, Parent and Westhoven

U-boats were still quite active in the North Atlantic.  Even though VB-128 was operating at or near maximum range, hunting was better than ever.  On October 3, 1943, pilots Lt. Bob Bonnell and Lt. Claude Parent with copilots Ensign Ray Thiele, and Lt. j.g. Bill McNulty respectively each attacked the same surfaced U-boat (U-305).   Both planes strafed and Bonnell dropped his standard load of depth charges; two fell far short and one "on target" failed to explode.  The fifty caliber guns ( two nose and two in the dorsal turret on each plane) soon played havoc with the German deck crew.   Right after Parent's last strafing run, which cleaned out the conning tower area, he pulled up to port and positioned to drop the Gizmo (a new acoustic homing torpedo) into the swirl behind the diving sub.  The release appeared to OK, the bomb bay doors opened and the plane slowed to about 100 knots.  Parent yelled "Where is it?  Does anyone see it!   Nothing happened.  On removing an inspection plate above the bomb bay they could see the torpedo was still there.   Back at the base they carefully opened the bomb bay doors to find that the release cables, each cut six inches too long!¹¹

The following day things got better.  Heading up a PV-1 crew of five, Squadron Cmdr. Westhofen pilot, and Lt. j.g. John Luther co-pilot, took off on the morning of October 4, 1943 in good weather for a normal anti-submarine sweep.  Cmdr Westhofen, attracted by a wake, sighted a fully surfaced U-boat ten miles dead ahead while flying at an altitude of about 2500 feet.  This U-boat was the very fresh U-279 on its first combat patrol.

The U-279 submerged before an effective attack could be delivered.  To relocate the U-boat Cmdr. Westhofen used gambit tactics, by keeping the PV-1 several miles away from the area for about forty minutes.  On return the area was searched for another twenty minutes, with no results.  Cmdr. Westhofen then left the area for a full hour and on returning again searched along the original course of the submarine.  The U-279 was then caught on the surface, twelve miles from the position where it was first sighted (61-00N, 26-53W).  The sun was directly behind the plane as it approached.

Increasing to full dive speed, the PV-1 attacked, strafing with short bursts at extreme range.  Tracers passing under the plane and puffs of white smoke about twenty five feet in diameter ahead of and to the sides of the plane indicated that the U-boat was firing back.  The PV-1 held its fire until dead on the U-boat conning tower and gun crews.  Three Mark 44 bombs were dropped along the length of the U-boat, exploding directly beneath the hull.  The U-279 was turning to port during the plane’s approach.  Immediately circling for a second attack the PV-1 again strafed with its bow and turret guns.

Coming back from the second strafing run, Commander Westhofen found the U-279 stopped dead in the water, settling slowly, with a large oil slick forming on the starboard side.  Bluish smoke was pouring from the conning tower and some of the crew were abandoning ship.   On this third run the PV-1’s steady fire was held over the entire deck until close range was reached, and all ammunition expended in the PV-1 bow guns.  At this time, small rafts were seen alongside the U-boat.

Circling back a fourth time, Commander Westhofen saw the conning tower disappear and a large black V-shaped mass rise slowly to a height of fifty feet, nearly vertical, and then sink slowly and disappear.  A large oil slick, debris, small rafts, and men in life jackets were seen at this time (see Appendix C) .

The PV-1 suffered significant damage from flak.  The starboard bomb bay door was ruptured and torn along its entire length.  All the radio antennae were carried away.  But no personnel had suffered injuries.  The sinking earned the skipper a Distinguished Flying Cross

( DFC).¹²

By December of 1943 the U-boats had been chased out of  range of the PV-1s and the Navy “brass” considered the weather unsuitable for their type of operations.  Rumors were the squadron was to move to a happier and warmer hunting ground.  VB-128's last operational patrol from Iceland ended in December 1943.¹³

IV. Iceland to San Juan Puerto Rico

        

By this time, the squadron had performed four months of successful "hold-down" anti-sub patrols over the frigid North Atlantic.  This was in a sector where RAF Coastal Command radio bearings frequently pinpointed U-boats calling home each night, and where successful attacks had been carried out by squadron crews.  It was now apparent that the U-boats had moved beyond the range of the PV-1 and crews agreed with the “brass” that flying conditions had become so bad that effective patrols were not possible.  At the end of the month, movement rumors ceased when orders came to move the base to San Juan, Puerto Rico - in the Caribbean tropics!   Most of the squadron in flight status flew to England to prepare for the very indirect flight to Puerto Rico.  The remaining squadron members stayed behind to await transport by ship.

        

As soon as planes were prepared and loaded with spare parts, personnel records, ammunition and personal belongings including their Cuban mascot, Gremlin, they were cleared for departure for San Juan via the winter route - England, Africa and Brazil, the opposite direction to conventional ferry flight routing from the U.S. to European battle zones.   Since almost no war fighting aircraft were going from Europe to North America in 1943 this flight routing provided confusion for the Transport Command flight planners who provided maps, approach pattern films, radio frequencies and procedures for Air Force B-25's, A-20's, B-26's, P-38s, etc.   They had to do it all backwards for VB-128!

        

The last days of December saw the last of VB-128's snow-white aircraft depart NAS Reykiavik (and the RAF Coastal Command) for Prestwick, Wales or where-ever the weather allowed them a landing.  The overnight stop at Valley, Wales was an eye-opener for one crew where the wintertime rigors of life in the RAF were uncomfortably apparent.

        

The last stop in England was Lands End at Newquay prior to the takeoff for Port Lyautey, French Morocco (near Casablanca).  Weather and questionable mechanical problems resulted in an opportunity for an overnight train ride (standing room only) to famed Plymouth on the English Channel.   Daylight brought scenes of tragic bomb destruction and barrage balloons to view for a group of VB-128 sightseers sharing a sparse breakfast served by formally attired waiters in the elite Grand Hotel.

Back at the air field, pilots were well briefed by the Air Transport Command.   Time was still available in the big, resort hotel (one bath per floor), for nervous review of the complex, thousand mile flight plan.   Baker ten’s crew of Brewer, Thiele, Hamner, Brady and Rutkoski, for example, took off at two AM under a solid high cloud layer climbing heavily on the given heading of two hundred and thirty degrees.  The same briefing officer had told each crew the courses and distances and warned of occasional JU-88 (German aircraft) patrols out of France to watch for.  The JU-88 was specifically intended to intercept and destroy anti-submarine aircraft.

Further details of this unique squadron movement were carefully recorded by the skipper’s (Cmdr. Westhoven’s) copilot  Lt. j.g. John Luther.   The following is John’s account. 

According to Lt. j.g. Luther, having received last-minute instructions, Cmdr. Westhofen and crew were in the lead plane at the end of St. Mawgan's wide single runway heading approximately straight North (zero degree) as scheduled at two AM local time.  It was DARK  BLACK.  No moon.  Not one star.  On each edge of the long runway was a string of medium-blue small lights, each about thirty yards from its immediate two neighbors.  To the aircrews  they appeared to be the size of a chicken egg and each was shielded in back so you could see only the half of the "egg" facing you, nothing else was visible.  There were no lights on any plane lined up for take-off.  No landing (or take-off) lights.  No navigational lights (wing-tips, tail, etc.).  Only very dim blue lights above each instrument on the instrument panel immediately before those seated in the cockpit.  For the squadron's twenty one pilots and co-pilots it was a first time experience  a first complete, one hundred percent night take-off----and from an almost completely strange runway and field.  They were apprehensive.   From the skipper John heard:

"Luther!"

"Yes, sir!" (Lt. j.g. John Luther was silently rechecking the "take-off, check-off list").

There! The directional Gyro (compass) is set at "zero" (degrees). "You watch it!”

"Yes, sir!"

"If it goes one degree to the right--yell, 'One-Right’! If two degrees to the left--yell 'Two-Left! '  Get it?"

"Yes, sir,"

"Pass the word back to the crew, "Ready-for-takeoff."

The "skipper" had his left foot planted heavily on the left foot brake and the right foot on the right brake.  Bringing the yoke back slowly, he positively and smartly advanced both throttles to full takeoff power.  The two engines roared and the front of the plane, including the cockpit, vibrated "like mad"!  He took his feet off the brake pedals.  The plane lunged forward into the black abyss!

"One----Left!"

"Zero!"

Bumping down the runway increased.  Soon the bombing plane commander began "nosing the plane" forward by moving the yoke forward.  Their tail was off the ground; they could sense it.  Now they were moving very fast straight ahead down the runway.  Next they were airborne and slowly, slowly gaining altitude.  (In such long transport-type flights PV-1 Venturas were very carefully loaded and balanced to be close to a maximum allowable gross weight of thirty three thousand pounds).

At about five hundred feet altitude, as was standard practice, the lead plane pilot slowly banked his plane into a slightly climbing left turn.  Engine power was decreased some as they straightened out into a gentle climb, wings level, to approximately one thousand feet.  Power was further eased to a standard climbing speed of perhaps one hundred twenty five to one hundred thirty five knots.  All was well.  Flight was still "sluggish" because they were so heavily loaded with fuel, but this was normal for this type of plane under these conditions.   There was no apparent wind turbulence---- it was a smooth, clear, silent, cloudless, black night.   Resting on his flat pad in the small tail tunnel and peering out the "plexiglass" window at the end of the plane, the ordnance man reported over the intercom seeing a few small bright flashes of light, presumably from some engine exhausts on one or two planes closest behind.   There were no other lights, and no word on the open emergency radio channel.  No word was good word.  Still climbing they had now assumed a south west compass heading before eventfully heading due South.

About three thirty AM they were at eight thousand feet, straight-and level, cruising at an indicated airspeed of approximately one hundred and fifty knots.   They concentrated on conserving fuel.  Daylight was brightly visible in the East.  Later at the edge of their visible horizon on the port side from the cockpit there could be seen a long, dirty, clouded line which was presumed to be the Spanish and/or Portuguese Atlantic coastline.  It had to be, but they couldn't actually prove it by seeing any landmarks.   They were told that German fighters had not ventured that far out west in months.  They were ready!

Staying far clear of the Iberian Peninsula they turned left and took a heading to intercept the northwest coast of French Morocco.  It was still a bright, clear, sunny day.  Using detailed regional maps supplied by the British Coastal Command back at Lands End at Newquay they pinpointed their location by observing several unusual outstanding landmarks on the French Moroccan Coast.  The lead plane skipper was great at this, much better than others in the squadron.  His years of flying and extensive experience always paid off on identifying an unknown coastline, mountain range, river, or airfield.  He was truly outstanding.

 After being airborne nearly eight hours they were back on the ground at their assigned airfield near Port Lyautey (Kenitra) , French Morocco.  This was the first step on the African Continent for each of the squadron, as far as anyone knew.  Yes, all ten planes carrying approximately twenty-one officers and twenty-three enlisted men had just completed the longest total squadron flight (in time) since U.S. Navy Patrol Bombing Squadron VB-128 had been formed back in Deland, Florida in April 1943.

Early morning January 2, 1944, the squadron departed Port Lyautey for Marrakech,  the second largest city of Morocco.  The flight duration was short, only a few hours.  It was recalled that this airfield was at a modest elevation, perhaps around four thousand feet.  All other previous squadron landings and takeoffs had been at airfields near the Atlantic Ocean and thus close to sea level.

New Year's Day was a milestone for VB-128.  Their first and only commanding officer to this date had been Cmdr. Charles L. Westhofen, USN.  He formed the squadron and was its leader during the last ten months of 1943.  He was an Annapolis graduate whose permanent address was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the time the squadron knew him.  In May 1943, while the squadron was stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, NY then Lt. Cmdr.  Westhofen assigned officers and men permanently to individual plane crews.  Suffice to say, Cmdr. Westhofen quietly departed the squadron on New Year's Day 1944, for an undisclosed assignment in a geographical area unknown.  Lt. Cmdr. G.E. Marcus Jr., who had joined VB-128 in Iceland in September 1943 as executive officer, immediately succeeded Cmdr. Westhofen as Commanding Officer. 

The fourth leg of the journey to San Juan covered the desolate stretch from Marrakech to Dakar, Senegal on the westernmost coastal point of the African hump opposite the Caribbean destination.  It proved to be a seven and a half hour trip with more new and unusual experiences.  The flight path sliced across the western slope of the Atlas Mountains and then the Sahara Desert.  From eight thousand feet the vistas were the same in every direction-sand, yellowish-brown sand in all directions.  Sand, only sand everywhere.  They saw high hills, high conical mounds, deep irregular valleys of sand, sand, and more sand.  Occasionally a caravan trail could be picked out.   According to the ATC briefers caravans were landmarks to keep in mind in the event of forced landings.

Following their dead reckoning navigation closely they saw ahead a small rectangular wood building painted a dark red color.  Nearby was a very high single metal antenna.  This was a radio station with which the squadron had been briefed repeatedly that they must check in by voice on a certain designated radio frequency.  All about, everywhere, was sand.  Only this one building which from their altitude looked like half-a-shoe-box in size, could be classed "non-sand".

"Radio WXYZ (no one could recall the correct call letters), this is Navy Twin- Engine Aircraft No.33085 reporting in at twelve fifteen PM, local time, at eight thousand feet.  Our heading is two twenty degrees Southwest."

"Understand U.S. Navy Twin-Engine Aircraft etc....

Have your check-in recorded.  What state in the U.S. is home for you?  Good. I'm from Iowa.  One my buddies here is from Nebraska; the other is from Pennsylvania...  Just the three of us.  Get rotated every other month.... Must take this tour for two years.  Only three months more and I'm out of this sandhole....oh, we read a lot....And we talk a lot with everyone passing overhead...  etc... etc.."

What monotonous duty!  Yikes!  Once again the VB-128 air crews were happy to be "above" and not  "below".   Next they were flying through reddish brown sand at seventy eight hundred feet.  They soon reasoned that there was a terrific sandstorm down on the surface because fine sand was rising up to and above them.  They tried to increase their altitude, but had no luck.  Their PV-1s could not go higher under these conditions.  It was cause for concern.  Sand passing through the air-intake manifolds might not get totally filtered before reaching some combustion chambers, the filters could clog, the engines could overheat; who knows what might happen.  No one knew what corrective action to take, if any such action was possible.

 Finally they were through the storm and everything was back to normal.  They landed about as scheduled at Dakar, Senegal.  The landing approach at Dakar took the VB-128 tour group over fascinating grass hut villages,  just like National Geographic, and pilots enjoyed the luxury of landing on an enormous, paved runway with all facilities.  Security was suitably enforced by tall, storybook Senegalese soldiers with pantaloons and red fezzes.  The bad news was that transient aircrews could not leave the base.  Some aircrews stayed an extra day to take advantage of the ample repair services and parts availability for some engine maintenance following the sandstorm experience.  In those days Dakar was a very large busy military aircraft terminal with extensive repair facilities, parts inventories, etc.

At one AM on January 6, 1944, all VB-128 officers were seated on the rear rows of bare wood benches elevated and curved to form a near-semicircular, movie theater type auditorium.   A low ceiling provided protection from occasional rains.  Sides to this huge shelter were open.  The briefing session was already in progress when the officers arrived.  They weren't late.  It soon became apparent why their attention wasn't needed until later in the session.

For the complicated process of daily flight briefings the auditorium was packed with USAAF pilots, co-pilots, bombardiers, navigators, etc.  It was a mass of military air personnel, all seated and facing a long, somewhat narrow platform running the full length of the building.  On stage were perhaps four Majors or Lt. Colonels leading alternately various sections of the day's total briefings about weather,  taxiing directions, takeoff times, destination fields, approaches, special landing instructions,  communications enroute and at destinations, latest anti-aircraft gunfire to be avoided, etc. etc.  The wall behind the officers on stage was totally covered with a series of white-lined blackboards, similar to ruled tablet paper.  Here every individual aircraft scheduled for that morning's takeoff was listed by Plane Number; Plane Type; First Pilot's last name; Scheduled Take-Off Time; Estimated Time of Arrival at Destination; and possibly more. 

The air crews were engrossed.  It would be a good hour before they got to VB-128's ten Navy twin-engine medium bombers and the miscellaneous Army Transport Command  (ATC) cargo planes; all listed under "SOUTH" on a separate board to the right.  There were three blackboards to their left of the VB-128 listings.  They counted seventy-five B-17s and twenty-five B-24s.  All four engine heavy bombers were under the master heading "NORTH".  With the briefings it became apparent the four engine bombers were destined for fields on the edge of North Africa and in Italy.  This was Air Flight and Control professionalism at its best.  The VB-128 aircrews had never seen so many military planes, large ones, parked on one field. Tremendous!

At two AM everyone could hear the first B-17 take off.  They followed like clockwork----about one every minute.  The squadron had some extra time to spend while waiting for the north bound flights to move out.   So, sometime around three thirty AM, a group of squadron officers  walked outside, taking positions along the wood fence to watch the "Big Boys" take off.  There was only one very long, wide runway in use paralleling the fence, but maybe three hundred yards east of them.  Planes were taking off toward the north.  It was early daylight.

This field was surrounded on three sides by tall trees---not unlike the North Florida fields many of the squadron pilots trained on.  Trees were cut and cleared well past the northern end of the runway in use.  Suddenly, one B-24 left the runway, gained perhaps two hundred feet, and started to settle slowly until it finally "pancaked" down on some tall trees and burst into flames.  Thunderous Explosion!   Huge black billows of smoke!   No sirens.   No ambulances or firetrucks left the taxi area.  There may have been emergency equipment and personnel stationed on circuitous roads adjacent to the runway's end and tree clearances, but no one knew for sure.  After the dense black smoke cleared enough to provide safe visibility, the takeoff ritual continued.  It was the largest plane crash squadron members had ever observed with the largest one-crash loss of life.  Generally, a normal B-24 crew totaled twelve.   It was a very depressing way to begin another day of travel.

By five AM, the squadron  lead plane was off and heading toward Roberts Field, Liberia, which is on the African west coast, tucked under the very beginning of "the Big Hump".   Nothing unusual was recalled about this leg of the journey.  After about five hours they were over Roberts Field requesting landing instructions from the tall white control tower.  Rolling to a stop the lead plane turned left into the closest taxi strip as instructed by the tower and followed a jeep whose tailgate held upright a huge large, black lettered white sign "FOLLOW ME."  They followed.

They were now sitting on the Equator, at sea level. It was HOT, HOT, HOT. Everyone perspired profusely.  In less than three weeks all VB-128 flight crews had "dropped" from the Arctic Circle to the Equator. 

Once settled in, but still minding the heat, they were ushered into the main messhall, a very long, wide frame white building, completely screened, floor to ceiling, on all sides----no obstruction to any wisp of breeze trying to pass through.   They sat down on two by ten foot plank benches attached to long picnic tables arranged end-to-end in four rows stretching the full length of the hall.  These were freshly painted, green possibly, and the entire dining room interior appeared spotless and inviting.  Here was a well-managed facility for military transients.  The four or five male teenagers who had moved crew overnight gear from their planes to their sleeping quarters now appeared,  placing tall, heavy, glass pitchers filled with freshly squeezed orange juice before them.  What a treat!  They hadn't tasted orange juice, fresh squeezed at least, in months.  And, it was ice cold, but not diluted by water from melted ice.  It was "the very best".  The heat didn’t seem so bad after all!

They were up early again on January 7,1944. CAVU----ceiling and visibility unlimited.  There was bright sunlight and soft gentle winds.  The squadron was again airborne enroute to Ascension Island, UK.  As it is shown on a world map, Ascension Island has an area of thirty-four square miles, much of it taken up by one long, wide landing strip.  During World War II (WW II) most of the remaining flat ground was covered with aircraft maintenance shops, housing for permanent personnel and transients.  Ascension Island is essentially a huge mountain submerged in the Mid-South Atlantic with the mountain peak being the island.  On a map it appears about nine hundred nautical miles almost directly south from Roberts Field, Liberia.   It’s about eleven hundred nautical miles directly east from Recife on the Brazilian east coast and a eleven hundred sixty five nautical miles east from Natal, Brazil which is a north west of Recife.

All WW II twin-engine combat medium bombers and large twin-engine cargo planes, such as the C-47 and C-46, used Ascension Island as "a stepping stone" to cross the South Atlantic.  The large four-engine B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers crossed non-stop, either way, between Natal or Recife and Dakar, Senegal.  The squadron's PV-1 had to use Ascension Island.  Remember now, all traffic across the North Atlantic in the winter months was very restricted by adverse weather.  In late December 1943, Goose Bay, Labrador was closed----under snow, lots of snow.   Bluie West One on the southwest tip of Greenland was under forty seven feet of snow!  This is why VB-128 could not fly back to the States from Reykjavik, Iceland by reversing the routing used to get to Iceland in August 1943.  The southern route was very long, but it was the only route for twin-engine military aircraft during the northern winters.

Engine Failure

After take-off and several hours at their usual eight thousand feet they were able to begin homing-in on a radio signal from one of the very high transmitting towers on Ascension Island.  All was well. Then: 

"Navy Leader! Navy Leader! This is Warnagiris (Lt. Tom Warnagiris)!   We have lost our port engine.  (their left engine was no longer functioning). We are set up on single-engine.  We figure we are a little beyond the half-way point to Ascension Island.  We think we should continue on to Ascension.  What do you say?"  Lt. j.g. Lee (a stand-in for the Cmdr. Westhofen) in the lead plane looked at the Co-Pilot, John Luther.  John was rechecking his dead reckoning navigation.  He picked up the microphone:

"Warnagiris, this is Navy Leader. We figure we are now fifty to seventy five miles beyond our mid-point.  We agree with you.  Continue on to Ascension Island."

"Roger. Wilco.  We are continuing on to Ascension.  We dropped about five thousand feet.  We are now straight-and-level at about thirty two hundred feet.  We are losing altitude, but very slowly.”

"Twin-engine Navy Plane in trouble.  This is an ATC C-46 Cargo Plane.  We are a little behind you and about eight hundred feet above you.  We see you very clearly.  Do you read us?"

"Yes, Army Cargo C-46.  We read you loud and clear.  Thanks."

"Navy Plane.  This is your C-46.  We have come down to about five hundred feet above you.  We have throttled way back.  We see you very clearly.  We will stay with you all the way to Ascension Island.  Keep up the good work!"

Lt. Warnagiris answered, "Thanks, C-46.  Many thanks.  Please call us about every twenty minutes.  Okay?"

"All right.  Will call you."

The squadron Lead Plane arrived at Ascension Island five point three hours after takeoff from Roberts Field.  Nine other squadron planes arrived within one hour with no problems.   Lt. T.W. Warnagiris (Kingston, PA), pilot, and Lt. j.g.  H.P. "Jeep" Streeper (Cleveland, OH), co-pilot, arrived on a single-engine much later but in daylight.   As is standard practice, all remaining fuel was drained from each fuel tank and combined by Ascension Maintenance.  They estimated only about twelve to fifteen minutes flying time remained.  The Warnagiris crew remained on Ascension Island one week.  They then flew their repaired PV-1 to San Juan, Puerto Rico and rejoined the squadron.

As a final note, Lt. j.g. Luther recorded that several months after the cross Atlantic move the squadron commander Lt. Cmdr. G.E. Marcus, Jr., USN, was notified by the Navy Department that the particular PV-1 Vega Ventura flown by pilots Warnagiris and Streeper on a single engine for four hours and twenty plus minutes en route to Ascension Island had set a new record for single engine performance for that particular type of aircraft.   Since the

PV-1's high wing loading made it tricky to keep in the air on one engine, this was a rather noteworthy achievement.¹³

U.S.S. Albermarle

Remember that all hands in VB-128 were delighted when orders came for the squadron to move to NAS, San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they had real sun and palm trees.   But, the happiness of a few VB-128's members left something to be desired-- for one reason or another some were unable to make the flights via England, Africa, and South America to the new base.   Those squadron members were assigned to travel back to the U. S. aboard the seaplane tender U.S.S. Albermarle (often referred to as the “Able Mabel”).   Unfortunately, their crossing was during one of the more violent storms of the season in the North Atlantic.  Lt. Claude Parent  may or may not be willing to confirm this.  Claude was so sick that the ship's doctor sent breakfast to his stateroom.  Too sick to eat it, Claude willingly gave it to Lt. Terry McGaughan.  Was Terry appreciative??  No.  He chewed Claude out for ordering hot chocolate instead of coffee!

While the flying segment of the squadron was spending Christmas between England and San Juan as described, the shipboard group was somewhere on the storm-tossed Atlantic.  Keep in mind, the Albermarle had been diverted to Iceland to ferry some squadron personnel back to the States and this caused the Albermarle crew to miss Christmas at home.  Nevertheless, all the crew with whom they had contact were perfect gentlemen and treated the VB-128 passengers as first class guests. Considering the circumstances, Christmas 1943 was pretty good.

The Albermarle arrived in Norfolk on New Year's Eve 1943.  The weather was cold as the well known portion of a Siberian well diggers anatomy.  Naturally that did not limit the VB-128 enthusiasm for their mainland return and they attended the New Year's Eve party at the NAS officers' club.  Some tried in vain to contact their wives on Ma Bell's overloaded circuits.  Finally, a member of the Albermarle’s crew recommended they try from aboard ship.  It was then they learned the power a “man-of-war" has on the wartime communications network. Their calls went through immediately!

Meanwhile the harrowing experiences of VB-128's flight segment flying through England, Africa, etc., were extensively told by those who participated.   Stories heard included penetrating the British balloon barrage, dark of the night take-offs to Morocco, Christmas sing-a-longs in Marrakech's fanciest hotel, the desolation of a place called Timbuktu, and others, many harrowing.

As for the “surface types”, they were to take a few days leave, then pick up two new planes for ferrying to San Juan.   They stayed while awaiting delivery and acceptance of the new PV-1s at Quonset Pt.  Within a week they test-hopped and accepted the planes.  On January 17, 1944, the crews departed for San Juan with planned stops at New York, Norfolk, Miami, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Why they made all those stops, no one could recall. Could it be they were liberty oriented??) eventually making it to the land of swaying palms and the tropical climate of San Juan.

V. San Juan

As no serious operational responsibilities befell the squadron, they swam, fished, played volley- and softball, and partied in general.  But, flight wise they once again went strong on training.  On the night of February 4, 1944 Lt. Jesse James was riding herd on a night bounce training drill when a hydraulic line broke.  He swerved off the runway; hit an enlisted barracks with the right wing tip; careened down the side of the building; crossed the street then crashed into the fence surrounding the Officers Club tennis courts.

It so happened that the Officers Club was two stories high with a roof terrace and this lovely evening attracted a lot of officers and their dates for dancing and dining.  Surrounding the bar and lounge was a railing about three feet high looking right down on the tennis court.

When the plane crashed into the ten foot high fence around the tennis court every one rushed to the railing only to look down on a PV‑1 perfectly positioned straddling the tennis net. This was the first time anyone could remember seeing a naval officer throw his drink away!

On January 3, 1944, VB-128 began their first anti-submarine patrols out of Puerto Rico.   Each time the high command instituted searches, VB-128 got all the action.  Reports of submarine sightings received from high flying aircraft transiting the Caribbean were frequent and squadron planes would be ordered aloft just as frequently.  Three or four planes a day for several days were typical, not only from the air station at San Juan, but from the islands of Antigua and St. Lucia, as well.  Over the five-month period of the squadron's presence, none of the flights produced results. VB-128 crews often wondered how the pilot of an airplane flying at eight to ten thousand feet could see a periscope when squadron planes couldn't find them from eight hundred feet.

Being In the semi-tropics was obviously a distinct change from the very harsh climatic conditions found in Iceland, where almost twenty hours of the winter darkness began at two thirty PM and cold daylight began about nine thirty AM.  The bright sun and warm temperatures of the Caribbean brought on swimming, fishing, volleyball, softball and tours of San Juan and Santurce.  There was even time for occasional parties, receptions, etc.  One  reception of note was for a famous mystery visitor.   The skipper and squadron representatives dug out their distinctive Navy whites for a reception with the Puerto Rican governor to entertain a mysterious visitor who turned out to be Eleanor Roosevelt, very gracious and very tall!

New names and faces joined the squadron in San Juan.  Two were older  Navy hands, Lts. William Tepuni and Fred Snyder.  As an Ensign flying a Lockheed PBO out of Newfoundland with VP-82, "Red" Tepuni had made the first successful U-boat attack by a U.S. naval aircraft, sinking the U-656 on March 1, 1942.  He would become VB-128's Executive Officer.  Fred Snyder, a veteran PV-1 pilot from VPB-141, would see duty as squadron operations boss.

As the months passed, Lts. John Crowe, Paul Cypret, J. L. Daily, Everett Mattson and Stan Miller came fresh out of operational training in the Ventura.  Also Lt. j.g. Bob Dougherty and bright young Ensigns Jerry Holt, George "Moe" Sathre and H. L. "Pete" Zwick signed on in San Juan.

Training

During the squadron’s stay in San Juan a minor, but noteworthy training incident occurred to one of these new Ensigns.  It involved a flight piloted by Ensign “Moe”Sathre with Ensign Jerry Holt as Co-Pilot.  Their mission was to determine the ceiling and height of the clouds.  During the mission they were also training their turret gunners with a towed sleeve.  The gunners used live fifty-caliber ammunition so visual sighting of other aircraft in the area was absolutely paramount.  After climbing to operational altitude, they noticed the airport through a hole in the clouds.   Impulsively, Ensign Sathre dove through the hole before it disappeared.   All of a sudden the co-pilot's window blew out.   A crewman rushed forward to the cockpit and reported a gash in the engine cowling and tail assembly.   Pilot Sathre throttled back and landed ever so gingerly, hoping the damage wasn' t as reported.  The skipper was upset.  He had Holt and Sathre write on a blackboard five hundred times "I will not dive a PV-1 at over two hundred fifty knots with the windows open" - and both Sathre and Holt had to wash the oil off a PV-1 in the hanger by hand with gasoline!

At various dates in the spring of 1944 all flight crews and their aircraft left Puerto Rico for installation of air-to-surface rocket launchers at the Boca Chica airfield, Key West, Florida.  The weapons system was primarily designed to be formidable against submarines. Each three-and-a-half inch projectile was capable of penetrating a steel hull.  Rocket training for squadron ordnance-men and pilots was new and exciting.  However, part of the excitement in Key West came from being back in the continental U.S. and that a few of the married personnel found wives and families waiting.  Sadly, the crews were in Key West for only two weeks.

Ensenada Hondo (Roosevelt Roads NAS)

As the month of May unfolded, VB-128's sea bags were packed for another move: From the busy haunts of San Juan to the isolation of Ensenada Hondo eventually know as Roosevelt Roads Naval Station (a large facility at the eastern tip of Puerto Rico, less than thirty-five miles away).   Roosevelt Roads was built by the U.S. for possible use by the British in the event England became overrun by the Nazis following the merciless blitz in 1940-41.  The base had been completed nearly a year earlier and never used.  The long white concrete runways and a huge dry dock almost glittered with cleanliness.  A skeleton crew of USN personnel manned the station left unused until the squadron's arrival.

There were no night flights out of Roosevelt Roads.  It was a situation the crowded city of San Juan rarely experienced.   San Juan  had been directly below the flight path of the usual night time runway of departure.  After nearly five months of noisy PV-1 's, the Navy did something nice for the San Juan-Santurce citizens, but it certainly secluded the squadron. Roosevelt Roads was in the boondocks!

Camaguey Forced Landing

Near the end of May, Lts. Tom Warnagiris and Hal Forrest delivered one of the squadron’s oldest PV-1's to the operational training command on the mainland, then went north to Rhode Island's Quonset Point NAS to be issued a new PV-1.  Beyond the aircraft's fixed equipment were droppable external fuel tanks, one under each wing.  Without a explanation as to "why," the two pilots were warned not to put any fuel in the "drop tanks."  In simple terms: the tanks wouldn't work.  "Okay with us," said the fliers, "we won't need 'em."  After leaving Quonset, the new plane stopped just often enough to add fuel to the standard tanks and arrived back in Puerto Rico by the end of the month.  If there was anything in the aircraft records about equipment being inoperable, it wasn't seen and no one said a word about the drop tanks.

A few days later Lt. j.g. John Luther was on his first ferry flight as a bombing plane commander.  Piloting the new PV-1 over eastern Cuba, he was on his way to Boca Chica and Norfolk Virginia.  For two hours he'd been using the fuel taken from the cabin, or bomb bay tank. "Time," he said, "to use the drop tanks," and had his copilot switch the appropriate valves.  Quickly, one engine coughed, then stopped.  Immediately the same thing happened to the other engine.   John might have been somewhat shaken, but he had flown so many hours with ex-skipper Westhofen, sudden events were almost normal.  John knew his drop tanks contained fuel, but assumed the best move would be to land before anything else went wrong.  His nearest airfield was Camaguey, Cuba.  His radioed message caused competent mechanics at Boca Chica to be flown back to John's aircraft at Camaguey.  They found the problem.   Poppet valves in the drop tanks, or rather the lack of them, allowed the carburetors to suck air but no fuel-an item of great interest to flight crews.  Every crew eventually reached Norfolk Naval Air Station where a number of their older aircraft were traded in for new PV-1's.

By this time VB-128 was obviously beginning to get rank heavy and the squadron should have been losing some old hands and receiving more junior members.  But, all hands were content as things were and requested to stay intact.  Since they had more plane commanders than they had crews and aircraft, the new skipper solved the problem by splitting the crews.   Pilots shared a crew.  No one recalled how many others had split crews, but there were several.  It worked most satisfactorily.

 Norfolk

June 4, 1944 saw the squadron settling in at Norfolk.  Happily for families of the crew, it would be based in the continental U.S., for no one knew how long.   And, after only five months as skipper, Lt. Cmdr. Groome E. Marcus turned his command over to Lt. Cmdr. Jay  B. Yakeley, Jr., USNR.  It was also at this time that the squadron’s designation of VB-128 was changed to VPB-128.

The squadron remained at Norfolk for about six weeks; with most of the married couples living at Old Point Comfort.  They had the time of their lives.  Many recall crossing the bay in the Navy liberty launch during high winds--that was the real  Navy!  There were fantastic lobster dinners at the Naval Operating Base Officers’ club, and there were golf tips from a CPO (Chief Petty Officer) by the name of Paul Runyan, a golf pro whose name all real golfers will remember.

New York (again)

After new aircraft were given test and acceptance flights, the redesignated VPB-128 moved once again to NAS, Floyd Bennett Field.  This time their mission was not patrol, but six weeks of  intensive training for service in the Pacific.  And train they did.  Instruments, torpedoes, gunnery, rockets, formation, flare drops, etc.  One of their most interesting training exercises was a nine plane formation flying over Manhattan without lights.

As mentioned, during January 1944, when VPB-128 personnel were in transition from Iceland to San Juan, Puerto Rico a few junior personnel were added to the squadron including Ensign “Moe” Sathre, and Ensign John Holt.   Ensign Moe Sathre recalled he and Lt. George Duke flew a night formation flight in which none of the participating aircraft used their running lights.  No green, no red, no white-nothing.    Night flights out of Floyd Bennett Field were rare for most VPB-128 pilots and the wartime “brown-outs" of coastal cities did nothing to enhance their confidence when such events were scheduled.  All planes look black in the darkness of night-blacker still, if a pilot once looses sight of his leader.  In any case, upon returning for landing, the formation eventually had to breakup over or near the airfield.   Duke apparently lost his orientation with his lead aircraft and Floyd Bennett's sparse lighting, as well.  Nonetheless, he aligned his landing pattern with a suitable set of lights, only to discover (soon enough, fortunately) that it was a  major highway adjacent to Floyd Bennett Field!

During the period from September 4 to 8, 1944, VPB-128 aircraft were utilized in fighter tactics with F6F fighters based at Groton, Connecticut.  Some of the maneuvers pulled by the fighter pilots practically removed the paint from some of the squadron’s planes.   Only after they returned to base did they learn those F6F boys were rosy cheek Ensigns fresh out of flight training!

Trip from Floyd Bennett to Alameda

With their training complete, the squadron departed for NAS, Alameda on September 23, 194.  This was the initial leg of the long trip to the Pacific.  The flights enroute were not without incident.  The squadron left Midland, Texas, for Coolidge, Arizona, over Guadalupe Pass in bad weather conditions.  Rain hampered visible contact with the ground.  The fifteen squadron PV-1s with supporting crews flew in three plane formations.  On one side of the Pass was a ten thousand foot mountain, and the other side an eight thousand foot mountain.  Clouds and rain became so intense over the pass, Lt. Duke lost contact with the other two aircraft in his formation.  Pilot Duke saw a hole in the clouds and decided to maintain visual contact with the ground.  Suddenly both Duke and co-pilot Ensign “Moe” Sathre saw a patch of green earth directly ahead of them.  Duke put the aircraft in a violent left turn - all the gyros tumbled and they were on needle-ball-airspeed (minimal instruments) only.  After Duke leveled the plane out, he yelled, "Push the throttles forward!"   They started climbing and broke through the clouds into bright blue sunny sky at ten thousand feet with mountain peaks to their left and right!

At that point Duke decided that the weather was too bad to go on to Coolidge, so he headed back to Midland, Texas.  When he got within radio range of Midland, they learned that several other aircraft had arrived safely at Coolidge, so Duke decided to try it again.  He remained visual flight rules (VFR) across the Pass as the weather had improved, and landed at Coolidge two hours after the rest of the squadron.  The skipper was waiting for them.  No one remembered what words were said between Duke and the skipper.  The skipper was upset, but happy that they made it safely.

Navigation rarely gave VPB-128 pilots trouble, but on the transfer of the squadron from Floyd Bennett to Alameda, one of the crews discovered why good navigation is essential in a complex world.  After a long and tiring trip across the nation and his first visit to the San Francisco Bay area, a VPB-128 pilot (who remains unnamed) spotted a rather sizable airfield at the water's edge.  Switching to the standard Navy radio frequency, he told Alameda NAS tower he was six miles east awaiting landing clearance in low scattered clouds.  Alameda had other planes in their immediate vicinity, but apparently none in the landing pattern. Their response was: "Cleared to land."   "Roger," was his reply, happy to receive such service.  Shortly after his landing, the VPB-128 aviator asked for taxi instructions.

After he replied, Alameda tower told him he was nowhere in sight. "Are you sure you're at Alameda?  Is it possible you might have landed just south of here at Oakland?"  There was a long silence, and finally a sheepish: "Sorry, Alameda."  Five minutes later VPB-128 had another airplane in the right place even though he lost a bet to be the first to land in the real Alameda!

Passing Through San Francisco

Complete books have been written about San Francisco’s role during WWII.  The town was geared to ”entertain the troops” and VPB-128 was just one unit of hundreds to sail out of the bay with smiles masking apprehensions.

The Top of the Mark and Trader Vic's were two of the entertainment centers for countless servicemen and women, particularly the flying groups.  Going out and coming back, it was almost a sure thing that the elevator trip to the top of San Francisco's posh Mark Hopkins Hotel would create joyous reunions, miles of hangar flying often generously lubricated, new friends and, always, tracer information about buddies unheard from.

A boatride across the bay, day or night, promised one-to-a-customer, very tall, mostly rum Zombies, pressed duck-under-glass served by attractive Asian girls with grass skirts, a collection of war souvenirs second to none, and the same chance for a familiar face, all at Trader Vic's.  The unique, smokey and noisy atmosphere was completely absent from his postwar chain of restaurants which could not touch the original.

Although they made the best use of the opportunity, they had only a short time to enjoy the California coast.   A couple of days for liberty and the squadron boarded the “jeep” carrier U.S.S. Bataan on October 6, 1944, bound for Hawaii.

    Figure 5. VPB-128 on the U.S.S. Bataan Enroute to Hawaii in the Fall of 1944

VI. San Francisco to Kaneohe          

The trip to Hawaii aboard the Bataan was very pleasant for sea air and reading time and it also allowed VPB-128 to see how the other half of the Navy lived.   There was little else to due except keep an eye open for wayward PV-1s.  Aircraft tie-downs had to be checked constantly since the big planes tended to creep along the deck. The squadron  arrived at Pearl Harbor October 14, 1944, and spent that day on Ford Island disembarking and making preparations to fly across the island to NAS, Kaneohe on the following day.

Midway

Shortly after the squadron arrived at Kaneohe, the Navy decided it needed patrols from Midway Island, twelve hundred miles to the west.  When the commander of the fleet air wing approached Cmdr. Yakeley on the matter, the skipper told them his boys were always looking for something, whether in the air or on the ground.  “They might as well be looking for Japanese subs."  The result was a detachment of six PV-1's to depart in the final week of October; to remain for five weeks.  Lt. Cmdr. "Red" Tepuni was assigned to lead the group on the long flight to a flat, pint-sized atoll in the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean.  

Midway consists of two sandy islands a mile apart joined by a necklace of coral heads.  Neither Lt. Cmdr. Tepuni nor his pilots had ever seen their destination before, and there was no alternate airfield in the event of bad weather.  The flight's navigation had to be "on."  In June, 1942, a large Japanese task force of aircraft carriers, battleships and transports also failed to land at Midway, but navigation wasn't their problem.  It was their “welcome” by a determined U.S. Navy task force! 

In October 1944 there were no operational squadrons in that area of the Pacific until Lt. Cmdr. Tepuni and his detachment arrived.  A USN submarine base and an airfield occupied one isle; an airfield (sans maintenance facilities) and crew quarters made up VPB-128's temporary home on the other.  Of no small importance were briefings of flight crews before-and-after missions.  Responsible for each of the three flight crews per day was VPB-128's administrative officer, Lt. Henry E. "Hank” Hilton.  He had taken over the Midway detachment's air intelligence duties for his mentor, Lt. Terrence McGaughan.  No Japanese subs were discovered, but in one instance a surfaced U.S. submarine returning to Midway experienced a scare when they were met by a menacing and unannounced PV-1.  Except in certain "safe" zones, Navy commanders were extremely cautious about accepting any aircraft as friendly.  They submerged.

Before Red Tepuni's group was to return to Hawaii, the annual migration of Albatrosses, sea birds nearly the size of a goose, arrived by the thousands to challenge VPB-128 airplanes' use of the sky.  Albatross is their official name, but on Midway and Wake

Figure 6.  Lt. “Hut Sut” Ralston Relaxing with the Gooney Birds

Island they are called Gooney Birds.  In flight the Gooney is the most graceful of creatures.  On land they are clumsy and comical.  Each year in early November they come ashore and spend six months to mate and raise their young.  Their mating dance consists of near human traits; their take-offs and landings typical of an aircraft.  They were continuous entertainment.   However, their free-soaring presence lessened the safety factor in the aircraft traffic pattern.

Entering the final week of October, the Midway half of the squadron was sent to conduct a series of weather patrols.  Their first thought was this was just a rip off and a way to keep them from buzzing AAF fields on Oahu.  But, each flight departing Midway had an aerologist aboard taking observations every fifteen minutes.  They later learned that General MacArthur was using these weather reports to help plan the invasion of the Philippines.

Still, many patrols were conventional search patrols such as the never-to-be forgotten experience of Lts. Stan Miller and Don Duncan late in November, 1944.  The two and their crew were assigned one of the three daylight search patrols west of Midway island.  With their PV-1 fully loaded with depth charges and fuel-"grossed out" to maximum operating weight, they taxied to the runway; went through the standard engine run-ups; completed the takeoff check list and were cleared for departure.  Once aligned with the runway, Miller pushed the big Pratt & Whitney two thousand horsepower engines to full throttle and began the long takeoff roll. 

Though the Midway runways were short and ill-designed for larger multi-engine traffic, the power of both engines rapidly brought the aircraft to liftoff.  At the point when the wheels left the asphalt, the worst fears of any pilot happened.  Without a cough or a stutter, the right engine quit!  Quit cold!  Saving themselves, the crew and the aircraft was only a prayerful hope, for no PV-1 carrying such a load had ever successfully remained airborne in that condition, not ever! 

When Navy fliers say. "Flying is 98% boredom and 2% terror," the two percent would be emphasized.   The PV-1 flight manuals were written by experts-pilots who tested every  characteristic of the aircraft.....”Not at liftoff. It can't be done. Your airspeed is too low to maintain directional control."  Their warning was almost repetitious.... the equivalent of: "Forget it, kids.  This isn't your day.'' 

Miller and Duncan didn't have time to read a flight manual, but their  heads were on straight.  They were too scared and busy to remember anything but their training... to keep the plane flying straight, though it tried to yaw wildly... to push with all their strength against the left rudder pedal... to retract the landing gear.. and to feather the dead engine's propeller blades into the wind-everything to cut down the drag... hoping that one throbbing, roaring engine would keep them alive!

Amazingly, Miller and Duncan were successful!   No one yet knows just how they did it, but they kept the big PV-1 flying... with never more than fifteen or twenty feet of altitude.  Barely above the plane's stall speed, dangerously close to sand and sea; they made it back to the runway.   Nobody recalls whether the touch down was smooth... a bounder,  but no one cared.  As the one engined PV-1 rolled to a stop, the distraught and shaken crew started breathing again.

Since patrols only occupied a portion of the time and drinking water was not readily available on Midway, considerable thought had to be given to keeping adequate thirst quenchers on hand.  Also, some game resembling Black Jack was started on the second day and ended five weeks later and just thirty minutes prior to the detachment returning to Kaneohe.  The crewmen swore the game was invented by Lts. McNally and Carter, because they always wanted to change the rules after the cards were dealt.   "Red" Tepuni issued definite orders that the game could not begin before seven each day nor extend past seven each evening.  Like any capitalistic system one man (McNally ) finally won all the money and since the pay records were not carried with the detachment, an issue of currency was created called "Gooney Script".  This was in $5, $10, and $20 denominations.  It was impossible for anyone to win all of this as long as the typewriter and paper held out.  Lt. Hank Hilton, who typed them up, said it was the easiest money he ever made! 

Early in November 1944, the Skipper sent a second detachment under the command of  Lt. Vernon “Swede” Larson to replace the first group who by this time were out of beer, cash, and operational planes in that order.  Lt. Hilton was left to handle the ACI duties and again lost his shirt on the non-operational activities.  This group continued the search patrols.

The second detachment was recalled to Kaneohe in the middle of December.  During the tour at Midway no enemy subs were sighted and no American subs sunk by VPB-128 planes.  The officers and men of the two detachments will probably always pleasantly remember their duty there.¹⁴

  

During the time the two-squadron detachments were rotating through Midway the Pacific warfare training intensified in Hawaii.  Some of the squadron even got involved in a mock attack on Pearl Harbor simulating the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941.  It was amazing how few lessons America had learned.   The mock attack was made virtually undetected until it was all over.

In their spare time they were permitted to "play tourist" pursuing pastimes such as golfing, swimming, and sunbathing at Waikiki, etc.  Many looking back on their stay on Oahu, were still convinced the most dangerous part of their entire Pacific tour were the night bus trips back from Honolulu down the winding Pali road to Kaneohe Bay.  All horn and no brakes!

VII. Kanohe to Samar

When the second Midway detachment returned all hands were sure that they were fully trained and ready to finish the war.  The U.S. Navy was laying heavy pressure on the Japanese occupying the Philippines.  In the summer of 1944, successes in anti‑submarine operations had significantly reduced that threat near Hawaii.  The squadron was ordered to the Philippines to provide bombing, anti‑shipping, and anti‑submarine support in the Pacific theater.

Figure 7.  VPB-128 Squadron Ready to Finish the War

VPB-128 was soon to leave Naval Air Station Kaneohe, Hawaii, bound for the war zone in the South Pacific.  While temporarily based at that station on and off for two months, the great majority of the officer complement assigned to quarters in a single building near the permanent bachelor officers’ quarters.  Was the building to be empty after VPB-128 departed?  Not hardly.  The squadron learned it was to house a large contingent of nurses.

Lt. John Brewer thought about that for an hour or so, then wrote the following on the wall of his room; soon to become a home for a female he'd never seen:

Welcome Nurses... Greetings galore!

May these rooms be a comfort to you,

We have dreamed of girls in our beds before,

Never thinking that they would come true.

If your dreams seem too real...

Do not wake in despair,

Our dreams, not your dreams,

Are getting there share!

On December 23, 1944 VPB-128 departed Kaneohe for the forward area; first stop: Palmyra Island.  There they could see that finishing the war was obviously going to be a snap as they were met at the aircraft by Polynesian mess boys to take their baggage to a nice BOQ.  This, however, was absolutely their last plush treatment.

The next day they left for Canton Island.  Here they saw a glimpse of the front line.  A transport vessel had been sunk about a half-mile off Canton's shore and the super structure

was clearly visible.  Here, also, they saw the logic and effectiveness of the Navy's supply system--the shelves of the small Navy exchange were covered with box after box of Kotex.   Canton, of course, had as many females aboard as did VPB-128.

On 25 December they flew off to Funa Futi where absolutely nothing was significant except the second Christmas dinner--a meal they would just as soon have spent with their families.  Leaving Funafuti for Espiritu Santo on December 27, 1944 they were not aware of 

the possible danger they faced.   After their arrival at Espiritu Santo, pilots of a Marine F4U

squadron informed them at the officers’ club how lucky they were that the weather was bad. 

Just the day before they had all been briefed that there were no American twin-engined planes in the area and they were to shoot down any twins they encountered--no questions asked!   So much for Naval air intelligence.

From Espiritu Santo up to Manus Island in the Admiralties they moved through     Guadalcanal--a place where words could not adequately describe the devastation resulting from the earlier months of war--and Bougainville--a jungle surrounding a steel mat runway. 

Figure 8.   Funa Futi Tropical Parking on the Way to the Philippines

In Manus they learned there were no parking facilities at any field in the Philippines; the war was moving just too fast for the score keepers to keep track of the victories or the losses and squadron locations.   The squadron was shunted farther westward to an island almost impossible to find on any map: Owi, just sixty or seventy miles north of the western segment of New Guinea.  Quite a New Year's present!   Owi turned out to be the size of a postage stamp and just as tasteless.   Of course the squadron was also disappointed that it was so far from enemy action.  VPB-128 set up camp not knowing for sure what was to happen to them.

Owi and the Leyte Fiasco

What a dismal prospect it was in January 1944 - to bring fifteen shiny PV-1s armed to the teeth, onto the impotent little coral island of Owi.  A half mile wide and a mile and a half long, it lay sweltering off the north coast of New Guinea.   The war had long since passed it by leaving only a handful of glassy-eyed G.I.'s and a few natives who grinned, "Hi, Joe", saluting everyone without exception.

Their orders were pulled out every once in a while in the faint hope that it was all a bad mistake.  But no; VPB-128 could go no farther.  Unload everything, set up camp, get to work on the planes. 

Hardly had everything been resignedly stowed away, when on the evening of January 3, 1945, the skipper received that fateful dispatch to move the entire squadron to Tacloban, Leyte Island, Philippine Islands ( P.I.).  While the message ordering the squadron move was quite plain as to location, the last part was garbled.  But that was OK.  All of a sudden little Owi looked pretty good.  This was it!

 Feverishly into the night VPB-128 prepared to get into the shooting war.  Cowlings were snapped back on the engines and planes were loaded up again - personal records, log books, clothing, spare parts - all were crammed back in the cruise boxes they had been taken out of a few days before.

Lt. Bob Jones burned up a type-writer turning out orders and various instructions (squadron movements were always tough on Bob).  Lt. Joe Dorrington was on the line getting planes in shape (or should have been).  The skipper was all over the place and things were really jumping on the equator.  

The morning of the 4th ten planes staggered off for Pelelieu in the Palawan group.  The two remaining PV-1s were to follow when in commission.  Each crew was on its own and stops at Pelelieu were brief for gas, sandwiches, and souvenir Saki bottles from the gutted enemy dugouts.  Marines were still trying to route Japanese troops from their many caves.  Then off to Tacloban -  from the scrub bench to the First Team!

There were heavy rain-storms off the Philippines that afternoon when the VPB-128 planes finally arrived over the busy Tacloban airstrip in ones and twos.  Once they arrived at the airstrip (created by locking pierced steel planking together, one upon another) they found the field loaded with Navy planes.  Both sides of the runway had  barely enough room to free their wingtips, but they found parking places for all of them.  There was no taxiway.  Only one steel mat jutted into the Leyte Gulf.  Planes would take off one way for a half hour or so, then the tower would land circling aircraft the other way for a half hour.  It looked like utter chaos.  All types of aircraft were parked in a solid line, nose to the runway, on each side.  As the squadron circled they watched a group of B-24 Liberators take off with only inches of clearance at each wing-tip; and they also began to notice an amazing number of damaged aircraft that had been pushed into the water beside the strip.

Finally their planes began to get landing clearance.  One by one they settled on the strip - to receive the unbelievable news.   The welcome to Leyte was the same as each plane reached a revetment, but, as one of the first on the ground, Lt. "Tiger" Parent's recietal was, in the days to follow, considered "official".  They didn't even wait for Tiger to get out of his seat.  "Get your gear out of here.  This plane is ours and it's going out as soon as we get it bombed up!"  "What?, are you crazy?", bellowed Tiger as only Tiger can bellow.  "This is squadron 128".  "This was squadron 128", was the officious reply.  "Your planes are ours (VPB-137) now, we lost ours yesterday in an air raid."

The incredulous Parent was finally convinced as was each crew in turn.  The enemy night fighter "Washing - machine Charlie" had dropped a daisy - cutter on one of VPB-137's fully gassed planes.  One after another, a dozen PV-1's went up in smoke as the conflagration spread among the closely parked aircraft.  The Army threatened to bulldoze the whole VPB-137 squadron into the gulf if they didn't get operating again.  So, VPB-128 gave up twelve of their  “pride and joy” and started looking for a ride back to dear old Owi.

The Skipper and Lt. Cmdr. Bill Tepuni kept their planes and shoved off for Owi in disgust.  Most of of the others hung around and frequented the West-of-Tokyo Club,  the first officers’club established longitudinally west of Tokyo.  The club was a large Quonset hut located by an anti-aircraft emplacement.  In the midst of the night's revelries, those guns went off three times - BAM -BAM- BAM.  Some of the squadron’s officers were entering at that moment and will never forget the sight.  Within easily one half of a short second about a hundred assorted officers completely disappeared from sight.  The joint was absolutely devoid of life.  Where they all went is a mystery.  In a short time the word was passed that it was a false alarm, and the boys began to wander back, some muddy, and all very sheepish.  The beer was soon flowing again and things quickly got back to normal.

The next day everybody started hitch-hiking back to Owi in small, dejected groups.  A well trained group of about forty pilots and sixty crewmen seven thousand miles from home with only three airplanes.¹⁵

VIII. The Philippines

VPB-128's replacement aircraft were a group of very tired PV-1s from Fleet Air Wing Two.   “A tip of the hat” must be made in admiration to the ground crews that worked so diligently  to put and keep those planes in flying condition.  With no immediate war to fight around Owi, the squadron trained; made a couple of trips up to  Leyte as “mother hens” to Marine fighters; several meat and supply runs back to Manus where beer was also plentiful.  (They then learned how whole cases of the stuff could be cooled in the bomb bay at fifteen thousand feet!)  The normal supply ship serving Owi had been diverted to the Philippines and had it not been for a rather tiresome diet of  Spam, canned tomatoes and powdered eggs, they probably would have starved.

Samar

After what seemed to be a perpetual holding pattern of relative inactivity they were transferred to Guiuan, Island of Samar, P. I., on February 27, 1945.  Again, they made a refueling stop at Pelelieu where Marine fighters made five-minute bombing flights and the food was just lousy all day.  Their time on Samar was spent with routine patrols, training, and training in the rain.  Rain, rain, and more rain.  In time the SeaBees eventually got the squadron moved to higher somewhat drier ground.

Five or so months in tents on the steel mat runway could have been the ultimate in boredom.  It often was.  P-38's of the 13th Air Force and a navy PB4Y squadron, flying daily to Singapore for photos of the Japanese fleet anchored there, added to the base population.  The P-38's accompanied strikes by the Navy squadrons, described by Tokyo Rose as “planes of McArthur's command", on occasion and with good efficiency.   VPB-128 was assigned coastal and anti-sub patrols around northern Borneo.  Flights up the many rivers  in multi-plane groups against Japanese encampments, small islands and Dutch colonial settlements eventually provided enough excitement for everyone.  Squadron personnel and equipment handled their deployments in highly professional style after two years of unusually varied experience in three theaters of warfare.  A Unit Citation was anticipated near the end but a congratulatory letter from the 15th Air Force was the best the squadron got.        

        

With one or two flights a week, American ingenuity was challenged for entertainment and was met in many ways.  Of course poker, craps, gin rummy, acey-deucy (backgammon), cribbage, chess and checkers were standards.  Softball and volleyball were the only possible outdoor sports.  Cooling off  in the lagoon, in the “buff”, soon produced an amazing collection of tropical fish in an inverted PV-1 top gun turret.  Lt. Joe Dorrington became an outrigger canoe builder using drop tanks for stability.

        

Lts. Hal Forrest and Swede Larson made model PV-1's from raw chunks of  wood.  Swede also came up with a method of developing film in his tent in spite of the lack of clean water.  Military island dwellers shaved and brushed teeth with "purified water” out of the infamous Lister Bag, but it was only drinkable with the addition of Kool-Aid powders.  This potion also made it possible to wash down salt tablets and the ubiquitous Atabrine pill for malaria.  However, when orders back to the states were anticipated, the word was to discontinue Atabrine which was rumored to cause impotence.  It also added a strong dash of yellow to the predominant tropical tan.  Further color enhancement was added by patches of vivid Gentian Violet swabbed in various places to fight several types of “crud”.  Common prickly heat often made the first half hour of a combat mission extremely uncomfortable.

To make matters truly unpleasant, at some squadron stops in the islands, the US Navy in its wisdom, mandated that all males be circumcised who were not already so “improved”.  About a half a dozen squadron members were caught in the resultant dragnet and hospitalized in a Quonset hut facility where recently arrived very female nurses were on duty.  They had brought their sense of raw comedy with them and were  not above displaying a hint of cleavage to the love-starved heroes in  anticipation of their sudden cries of pain and anguish.

        

One pilot was very emphatic after having his appendix removed on Tinian at a hospital housing a ward of badly wounded Marines from Iwo Jima.  He said, if there were no bullet holes it was not wise to seek surgical help from the usually over-worked, under supplied and inadequately sheltered medical corps in WWII.   Lt. Bob Jones received the same lack of compassion when he temporarily abandoned his squadron duties to

undergo hemorrhoid surgery at Tinian, but added to the merciless humor coming his way with a written blow-by-blow accounting describing his first bowel movement as "just like passing the Graf Zeppelin".

Figure 9. Cmdr. Yakeley (right) Explaining Squadron Needs

                             to the Maintenance Chief

On one flight out of Guiuan Samar Lts. John Brewer and Ray Thiele demonstrated that flying over open ocean for hours on end is not always dull.  They had passed over the clouded Surigao Strait at five or six thousand feet, which put them in broken scattered clouds over the Mindanao Sea.  They then turned to a heading of two hundred and forty degrees going southwestward into the Sulu Sea.  The flight was intended to be a regular normally monotonous low-level ocean search, so they felt obligated to head down pretty close to the waves.  By remaining on the same heading they could see (over the top of a broad cloud bank) thier planned course gave them clear weather beyond.  A larger and very  thick cloud bank was immediately off to their right, paralleling their  heading.

They decided to drop down through the cloud bank.   Lt. Thiele was doing the flying and Lt. Brewer was the navigator.   When they were cloud bound they carefully checked their heading via the master compass.   After several minutes flying on instruments, their altimeter showed them down to about eight hundred feet, but still in very thick clouds and rain.   They both began to wonder why they were not yet in bright sunshine, when Lt. Brewer looked out the side window expecting to find the sea.  He wasted no time announcing, “There’s land below and nothing but land behind us!”  Immediately they pushed both throttles to the wall and went into a steep bank to the left.   They were so intent on making such a steep bank on the gauges that they forgot to come out of the turn!  Seconds after turning a full one hundred and eighty degree Lt. Brewer calmly suggested to Lt. Thiele that they had better straighten out and start climbing. 

It wasn’t until afterwards that they found that their “trustworthy master compass” was off by ten degrees.   A check of their maps showed that the only possible land they could have flown over was a small island featuring a two thousand foot mountain.  Flying at eight hundred feet could have been fatal! 

Cebu City

On 1 March Lt. Jesse James and Lt. Hal Forrest made a photo recon flight over Cebu City.  A week later Lt.John Luther, Lt. Jesse Ralston and Lt. Hal Forrest followed with orders to map Mactan Island, adjacent to Cebu.  Both flights were in preparation for the forthcoming invasion of Cebu by the U. S. Army Americal Division. 

Midget submarine

By March 20, 1945, the invasion had not yet begun, but Lt. Cmdr. Bill Tepuni casually asked several pilots if they would like to fly on a "fun run."  This turned out to be a rocket attack on a Japanese midget submarine tied up at Cebu City docks.  This "fun run" sent at least one plane home with about fifteen holes in the right wing.  The strike, however, appeared to be successful.  The next day Bill, with supporting planes, made a follow-up run on the same target.  High overhead, Lt. John Brewer and Lt. Ray Thiele watched in horror as Bill and his crew came under fire and crashed in the center of the city.  (This was an ironic incident.  As previously noted, Lt. Cmdr. Bill Tepuni was the pilot of the first US Navy aircraft to sink a U-boat during World War II).¹⁶

On 26 March skipper Yakeley’s PV-1, in company with other aircraft, circled Cebu City and observed the invasion of Cebu Island.  It was a sight to behold.  It was difficult to imagine how massive some of the larger invasions were.

Palawan

In the latter part of March a detachment was sent to Puerto Princessa, Palawan Island, P.I., to set up camp for the squadron's forthcoming move there.  While working with the SeaBees they learned of the atrocious treatment prisoners suffered at the hands of the Japanese prior to the U.S. invasion.  Remnants of the prison compound holding one hundred and eighty U.S. soldiers were still visible.  These prisoners were burned alive as invasion forces came ashore.

Relief crews

On 29 March, the squadron began their departure for Tacloban, Leyte,  P. I. to fly the same type of search missions until it departed for Palawan on  April 5th.  The next day, VPB-128 opened operations on Tacloban.  Once again the missions were primarily searches, but this time the targets were enemy ships - Japanese freighters, small transports and coastal vessels.  On April 16th, Lt. Paul T. Cypret took off on a routine search from which he and his crew failed to return.  Later, reports confirmed that the plane had been shot down over Borneo.  There were no survivors.   This was the fourth squadron aircraft lost to enemy action.   At about the same time VPB-128 nearly lost a fifth when Lts. Dorrington, Pinkerton, and crew limped back with a thirty inch hole in a wing of their

PV-1.

As Palawan was readied for occupancy by the squadron, several squadron members received orders to be relieved of their duties with VPB-128 and to be transferred back to the States.  Among them were Lts. Joe Dorrington, Tom Warnagiris, Hal Forrest, and Lt, j.g. John Luther. They caught NATS from Leyte to Honolulu April 7, 1945, and then on to the States.    

Figure 10. Lt. Joe Dorrington and Lt. j.g. John Luther Home Bound

Beginning April 1, 1945, the squadron began operations with the Army's 15th air force on Palawan Island.  Under Army command they immediately began making forays down into Borneo while armed with rockets, bombs, napalm and fifty caliber machine guns.  From April 28 on, the squadron began flying only offensive strike missions against enemy land targets, principally in North Borneo, working under the operational control of the Thirteenth Fighter Command, Army Air Forces.   These missions were usually accomplished in six plane groups.  Each PV-1 in the group was equipped with five foward firing fifty caliber guns plus two more in the turret, two drop tanks each filled with napalm, either six five hundred pound bombs of two thousand pounders, eight rockets on each wing launcher, and ten thousand rounds of fifty caliber ammunition.  The tail gun was thirty caliber fired by the plane mechanic who doubled as the strike photographer.   With that  armament,  the PV-1 proved itself one of the most effective and deadliest medium bombers in action.  The load was varied in accordance with the targets, which were chosen with a view to cutting enemy supply lines and destroying depots which would have supported the Japanese forces at Tarakan and Brunei Bay.

  

        

Figure 11. Air Strike Against Enemy Occupied Dutch Settlement

In May the squadron attacked ground positions-some against a small cluster of islands in the middle of the South China Sea, and several other airfields, oil fields, and shipping in the north Borneo area. In the last week of June 1945 the squadron was ordered north to Tinian Island, a B-29 base.

In commending VPB-128 and its skipper, Cdr. Yakeley, Brig. Gen. E. W.

Barnes,  commanding officer of  the Fighter Command, wrote, "During the period in question (April 6 to June 1945), VPB-128 was called upon to perform offensive combat missions of a type with which its personnel had not had previous experience.  These missions involved the combined use of napalm firebombs, demolition bombs, rockets and machine guns on the same strike.  This is the first time, to my knowledge, that this combination has been successfully employed.  You and your personnel exhibited the utmost eagerness to learn, master and adopt new techniques, the resulting tactical success of which is already a matter of official record.  The spirit and performance displayed by you and your unit, merit special credit to you and the members of your command.”  The expression of such appreciation on the part of the Army Air Force was very gratifying.

IX. Tinian

Toward the end of June, when U. S. and Australian forces had liberated most of North Borneo, VPB-128 was ordered to Tinian.  It was during this Tinian phase that the reason for repeated warnings to Japan by Armed Forces Radio was revealed when an Atomic Bomb was delivered from the same runway where VPB-128 aircraft were parked.

There were no missions of any importance at Tinian.  By this time the Japanese had almost been swept from the seas.  At the end of the war (August 1945),  the squadron had been sent up to a station on Okinawa.  By then all of the original squadron crews from the year 1943 had been sent back Stateside.  Officers of Fleet Air Wing TEN as well as squadrons remaining on Palawan bought out the bar at the officers' club on June 22, 1945 to give VPB-128 a bang-up farewell party.  The following day the first group of planes left for the Marianas where, until the close of the war, they flew negative "whitecap  patrols ".

The Post War Legacy

After the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri  in Tokyo Bay, the squadron continued flying patrol missions from the island of Okinawa for the next two years.

Unlike many WW II  patrol bombing squadrons VPB-128 was not decommissioned after the war.  By 1947 the squadron had transitioned to the then‑new P2V‑2 "Neptune" aircraft.   Along with the new aircraft came another squadron redesignation.   Newly christened as VP‑ML‑1, the former VPB-128 squadron changed home ports again, this time to San Diego, California.  The next year opened with yet another move, to NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, and in September 1948 the present designation of VP‑1

and the name "Screaming Eagles" was assigned to the squadron.  The VPB-128 designation was no more.

The years between 1948 and 1966 were filled with frequent deployments to

Alaska, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines.  In 1955 the squadron upgraded its aircraft to the P2V‑5, and in May of that year became the first patrol squadron to make an "around the world" cruise.

The Screaming Eagles were busy during the Vietnam War years.  Deployments to overseas bases such as Iwakuni, Japan and Sangley Point, Republic of the Philippines, VP‑1 supported U.S. operations‑‑including Operation MARKET TIME‑‑with detachments in the Republic of Vietnam at Tan Son Nhut and Cam Ranh Bay.  In April 1966, VP‑1 became the first patrol squadron to incur casualties, including one fatality, during a Vietnamese attack on Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

VP‑1 transitioned to the P‑3 "Orion" in 1969.  Widely recognized as the

world's premier patrol aircraft, the P‑3 provided greater range, improved avionics, and enhanced anti‑submarine warfare capability for the maritime patrol community.  As the Screaming Eagles made another homeport change to NAS Barbers Point, Hawaii in February 1970, they continued to serve as a front‑line "Cold War" deterrent force against the strategic missile threat posed by the submarine fleet of the USSR, and until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, logged thousands of hours tracking Soviet submarines throughout the world's seas.

VP‑1 deployed to Cubi Point, Philippines in May 1980, and simultaneously

held a three aircraft detachment in Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)‑‑a period marked by regional tensions due to the Iranian hostage crisis.  Squadron operations during this period involved demonstrating superb Search and Rescue (SAR) abilities in locating, and assisting in rescuing more than four thousand Vietnamese refugees fleeing their homeland aboard thirty-five rickety boats.

The 1980's found the squadron flying missions from such wide‑spread places as Oman, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Thailand, Pakistan, Japan, Guam, Diego Garcia, and Australia.  VP‑1 flight crews demonstrated their expertise in the areas of anti‑submarine warfare, surface surveillance, mining, and search and rescue operations.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the concomitant fracturing of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, invited navies throughout the world to take a fresh look at naval tactics in the twilight of the Cold War.  The likelihood of large naval forces grappling over control of the open sea gave way to the reality of regional disputes.  The proliferation of effective cruise missiles launched from maneuverable small boats mandated an increased importance on aerial surveillance which had the stamina, flexibility, and weapons to extend a protective umbrella over surface ships operating close to a hostile nation's shores.  VP‑1 personnel became experts at supporting this type of operation through long hours spent patrolling littoral and enclosed seas with both standard, and specially‑equipped, P‑3s.

Operations other than war (OOTW) also provided new challenges for the squadron's crews.  Maritime interdiction, United Nations Security Council resolutions enforcement, and counter‑narcotics operations all found great value in an airborne surveillance platform which was able to linger in an area for hours, or could search many thousands of square miles of ocean, while maintaining constant communications with home bases through satellites, radios, and computer data exchange systems.

When Sadam Hussein's Republican Guard crossed the Kuwaiti border in 1989,

the Navy again turned to VP‑1, and the squadron fully re‑deployed to Diego Garcia to support joint maritime interdiction forces in conjunction with Operation DESERT SHIELD.  VP‑1 also maintained detachments in Masirah, Oman and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and was the first patrol squadron to make such a short‑notice surge into the desert theater.

         After completing a successful deployment to NAS Misawa, Japan and NAF Kadena, Okinawa, Japan in May of 1995, VP‑1 completed another homeport change, returning to NAS Whidbey Island, Washington.  The squadron truly showed its professionalism and dedication to duty by meeting all scheduled events and missions during the move, and by compressing what would normally be a year‑long inter‑deployment training cycle into a mere nine months.

 From May to November 1996, VP‑1 once again conducted a successful tri‑site deployment based in Diego Garcia.  The squadron also maintained a constant presence in NAF Kadena, Okinawa, Japan with frequent detachments to U‑Tapao, Thailand and many other countries bordering the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean while patrolling the politically‑charged Arabian Gulf.

In 1999, patrol squadron ONE is back at NAS Whidbey Island preparing for

its November deployment to NAS Misawa, Japan and NAF Kadena, Okinawa, Japan. Daily training continues with routine flights off the coasts of Washington and California, practicing the skills necessary to continue to be a pre‑eminent anti‑submarine warfare, mining, and surface surveillance squadron.¹⁷ 

The mission is still essential and the tradition is still alive.  Since it began as VP-128 the new squadron name (VP‑1) was only inevitable, "Number ONE because of the men who gave it a first class beginning!"

X. Summary                     

It’s hard to summarize a squadron history, especially since the story is not over.  But, it may be safe to say that although war is not a good thing many good things often come from it.  The squadron was formed for war and its successor squadron still exists for wars that, hopefully, will not happen.  The men who were there during the formation were doing something never done before, doing it in places strange to them, and doing it with new war fighting equipment.   They had little or no guidance.  Consequently, they looked to each other and that produced a close bond that only those who were part of it could ever understand.

References

Key Reference Material

Personal communications from:  Ray Thiele, John Brewer, and Dewey Pearsall,  (squadron members) from February 1998 through January 2000

Squadron history believed to be the writings of Hal Forrest-  from: John Brewer on 3/12/98

Recollections of "Moe" Sathre forwarded by  his daughter, Lee Lorence, 12/18/98

“Two Ocean Raidiers VPB-128", Naval Aviation News

Patrol Squadron One Command History,  http://www.vpnavy.com/vp128.html

Numbered References

[1] Kennett, Lee, For the Duration, copyrighted 1985, Charles Scriber's Sons,                          New York, NY, p61

 

[2] Lockheed B-34 Ventura, Chapter 1, revised 26 Octiber 1996,                                              http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/b034-01.html 

[3] JaLeen Bultman-Deardurff, “Gremlin's Story: Gremlin, Dog First Class”

[4]  Juergen Schlemm

      Comments on U-566 during August 1943

[5]  Werner Hirschmann (U-boat crew member) , subject: August 7, 1943

[6]  War Diary of Unterseeboote (U-boat )U-566     

[7]   History of Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Twenty Eight, J.B. Yakeley Jr.,            Lt. Cmdr. and commanding officer, Robert B. Jones, Lt., historical officer

[8] Edwin P. Hoyt, U-Boats Offshore When Hitler Struck America, Copyright 1978, Stien         and Day, pp 238 - 242

[9]   Personnal correspondence with Ragnar Ragnarson

        Ragnar J. Ragnarsson

        Saebolsbraut 45

        IS‑200 Kopavogur, Island (Iceland)

[10] History of U.S. Naval Operations in WWII, Vol.1, p.57, VP-73  History; VP-74                 History.

[11]  Royal Air Force, Iceland. Weekly Intelligence Summaries No. 114 – 128 (Public                Records Office,         London (AIR 24/775 – 24/776)),   VPB-128,   ICELAND                 OPERATIONS,   September –      December 1943 , and comment by Duane Peasall

[12] War Diary, Bombing Squadron 128, for October 4, 1943

[13] John Luther, CHAPTER 4 in a series of ten (10) on the "History of Navy Squadron            VPB-128."

[14]  Duane Pearsall, Chapter VII, ”Kaneohe Trip”, 1950

[15]  John Brewer, “Leyte Fiasco”,  March 1950

[16]  PV-1 Ventura In Action, Squadron Signal Publications, No. 48, p 15

[17] VP‑1 Command History, http://www.naswi.navy.mil/vp‑1/low_res/history.htm