My Carrier War (17 page)

After dinner, we all went to the nightclub in the hotel. Most of the single guys were there. A small dance band was playing as we and our wives sat down at a table. Soon, the single guys joined us, pulling over an extra table. The party had started! Jean danced with every one of the bachelor pilots. I was told that it was a rule: the bull ensign’s wife was expected to dance with all the single pilots. Jean loved it!

We all left the club when the band stopped. All the married couples headed for our rooms off the base. There were a few ribald remarks from the single guys who had to return to the base, but Jean and I didn’t care; we were in love and we were going to make a baby!

We were in ground school for the next two days learning about torpedoes. Then on 25 September we went to the flight line to observe our ordnance guys load our TBFs with torpedoes. They were deadly-looking weapons: about 20 feet long and shaped like a cigar. They were made of steel with a compact alcohol-fueled engine that powered a small propeller at the back of the torpedo. They weighed over 1,200 pounds. These practice torpedoes, of course, did not have an explosive attached to their heads.

When my assigned plane was loaded, I prepared for takeoff. I taxied out, highly aware that my plane was heavily loaded. I would need more runway length for takeoff. After takeoff, I headed out to the torpedo range area. When I arrived in the area, I contacted the range officer by radio. He was located on a small boat charged with retrieving the torpedoes after they were dropped. The drop area was outlined by a series of buoys on each side. I could see more small boats at the end of the marked area; they supported the underwater nets that were designed to stop the torpedo at the end of the drop area.

The range officer’s voice suddenly came through on my radio. “TBF approaching the range. The range is clear. You are cleared to make your approach and drop.”

I could see the entrance to the range. A line of buoys marked it.

OK, get lined up. What’s the compass heading? Check the chart—140 degrees. Altitude: 200 feet. Air speed: 128 knots. Steady now. Bomb bay door open. Hope the damn thing drops out...there! I’m past the entry buoy. Press the torpedo release switch. There it goes! This plane is a hell of a lot lighter. I can feel the difference. God! What a helpless feeling...low and slow...if I was making a run on the enemy ship...hell! There’s no place to go! How would I even avoid the ship I was attacking? No wonder all those guys died in Torpedo Eight, except Ensign Gay.

Then I heard my radio again. “Good approach, TBF. You have a hot run. The weapon is running true and straight. You’re cleared to return to base.” The next day was our last day of training at Quonset. I flew a TBF back to the air station at Norfolk. I expected Jean, along with the other wives that evening, so I was planning on meeting her at the train station. I would pick them up with the official car and take them to the boarding house. I headed for the ready room, opened my travel bag, got my uniform, and changed from my flight gear. When I stopped on the way out to check my message box, there was a note from the housing office. They said they had an apartment for me to look at. I knew we would take it. Anything would be better for Jean than that boarding house!

I talked with Jean that evening after we returned all the other wives to the boarding house. We agreed we’d take the apartment. Bill and Betty Austin agreed to join us. The apartment was described as a two-bedroom apartment, furnished, with a kitchen and bath. I called the housing office the next morning, agreeing to take the apartment and told them my wife would be moving that day. That evening, Bill and I joined our wives in our new apartment after dropping off the two guys who still lived at the rooming house. I told the guys that I would continue to pick them up at the rooming house and take them to the base.

The four of us sat on a dingy, old couch in a tiny livingroom. Bill and I had just inspected the apartment. The two bedrooms were very small with just enough room for a bed and a dresser. The wallpaper in our bedroom was stained from some old water damage. The kitchen was of ancient vintage. A small four-burner gas stove, a sink that looked like it was made of stone and an icebox, the kind that held ice in the top were the only appliances we could see. There was a pan under the icebox to catch the melting ice water. On the linoleum covering the floor, there was plenty of evidence that water had overflowed many times. Again, like the boarding house, the bathroom had no shower, just a tub and the sink and toilet.

Sitting there, I turned to Jean and Betty, asking, “Did you two girls inspect this lovely little hovel we’re going to live in before you paid the rent?”

Both to them started to giggle, and finally Jean said, “Sure we did. It looked like paradise after the boarding house.” Both girls stopped giggling, and Jean continued,

“Norm, Betty and I are going to fix this place up, get some curtains, some pictures on the walls. We’ll be able to fix our own meals. Norm, it’s home. Don’t you guys worry about us. We’re going to be real happy here. And you guessed right, Norm, we did close our eyes when we signed the monthly rental lease.”

The next two months were wonderful. Jean was happy with a place of our own. The Austins were wonderful friends and the girls related very well to each other. Betty had told us she was pregnant, and Jean insisted on going with Betty to the hospital for her check-ups. A learning experience, Jean called it.

As for Bill and me, we were very busy getting ready for deployment. We didn’t have a date yet, but we knew it wouldn’t be long. During the month of October, I logged 27 hours of flight time in 11 days. A great deal of flying time was lost that month due to bad weather. In November, however, the weather improved and I got 59 hours of flight time in 18 days of flying. We were continuing to gain proficiency in glide bombing, gunnery, FCLP, and navigation.

The flight syllabus we were flying was dictated, not by our commanding officer, but by a Navy staff called COMFAIRLANT (Commander Fleet Air Atlantic). A Navy admiral headed the staff. All TBF squadrons training on the Atlantic Coast used the same flight syllabus, and it was designed to ready us for carrier operations in the Pacific. In November, a new element was added to our flying. My log book recorded eight hours of night flying.

I was surprised when, on November 8, my name appeared on the daily flight schedule: “Berg: TBF. Time 2000 hrs. Night Familiarization. That evening, I sat in the ready room with three other pilots. One of the lieutenants was scheduled to brief us on the flight at any moment.

Jesus! I haven’t done any night flying since Corpus Christi back in 1941! What’s the weather like? Sure hope it’s clear...need to see that horizon. Better replace the white lens in my goggles with red lens. I’ll get them from my flight gear locker. They will cut out the white lights here in the ready room. Give me better night vision; got to keep bright light out of my eyes. This is just a familiarization flight to help us get the feel of flying at night. Bet we’ll be doing night formation flying pretty soon. What about night carrier flying? No, we’re not trained for that. No night FCLP; just daytime. Here’s the lieutenant.

I was right about the formation and about the night carrier work. The briefing officer gave us the schedule for the next five nights. We would be practicing joining up, first in three-plane sections and then joining in a nine-plane division. He also told us we would not be landing aboard the carrier at night, because our carriers were not equipped for night operations. What a relief, I thought; day carrier landing will be tough enough. Well, I still had that to look forward to.

The next five nights went smoothly. The weather was cooperative with a big, full moon the last two nights. No mid-air collisions on join-ups. Actually, it was a fine example of teamwork and precision flying. I remember feeling that we were ready for the Pacific. All we had left to do were the carrier landings. Each pilot had to make six carrier landings to be considered qualified to perform all missions from the carrier. I felt I was ready.

When the Thanksgiving holiday arrived in late November, the Austins, along with the other two couples from the boarding house, and Jean and I were all in our tiny apartment for a feast. The turkey was cooked in a baby’s bathtub borrowed from a young family living next door. Our celebration had to wait, however, until we could also borrow an extra table and chairs from the same neighbors. We all toasted one another with a Chianti wine poured from a bottle encased in a little straw basket. Jean took the empty bottle and promised to use it as a candleholder at our next Thanksgiving. I remember that she looked at all of us and said, “No matter what happens in the future, let each of us remember this first Thanksgiving together.”

The celebration ended soon as four of our friends headed back to the rooming house, and the rest of us helped clean up. There was no shop talk that day, no flying stories. We pilots knew that the skipper had scheduled an all officers’ meeting for the day after Thanksgiving. I think we each knew the reason for the meeting. Another carrier had been lost. On 26 October 1942, Japanese bombers had sunk
Hornet
off Guadalcanal. That left just two carriers in the Pacific:
Enterprise
and
Saratoga
. Our carrier was needed. The skipper was going to tell us to ready to go aboard
Chenango
. We would be heading for the Pacific.

Jean and I held each other that Thanksgiving night, falling asleep in each other’s arms. We both knew what was coming. The only thing we didn’t know was how soon.

The day after Thanksgiving 1942, Bill Austin and I left the apartment before seven in the morning to pick up the other two pilots at the boarding house and head for the base. When we arrived, conversation centered around the meeting with the skipper, although we all agreed it was about deployment. We were concerned about how much time we had there in Norfolk with our wives.

None of our wives was planning on staying in Norfolk, and we were all thinking about making travel arrangements for them. I knew Jean would be going back to Bremerton, but then there was the apartment. I had to help Jean pack our belongings and arrange to have them shipped to Bremerton. We also had to return the dishes and linens that the Navy Relief Society had loaned us to set up the apartment.

Last, but certainly not least, there was one final concern: none of the squadron pilots, including the four of us, had yet to make our first carrier landing. We’d done a lot of FCLPs, but none of us had actually landed on the deck of a carrier.

By eight o’clock, all the pilots from TBF squadron and the dive-bombing squadron were in the ready room. The room was filled with the odor of coffee, cigarette smoke, and sweaty flight suits. The murmuring of conversation continued as to why we were there. It was on everyone’s mind. Suddenly, we heard the order, “Attention!” as Commander Butts entered. We quickly stood and came to attention until the skipper said, “As you were, gentlemen.”

He stood before us, a big, burly man with rusty-reddish hair that matched his ruddy face. He was chewing on a cigar. Looking at him, I thought, “This is the man we’re going to follow into combat, into war.” We could all sense his confidence, his willingness to lead us wherever our carrier would take us.

He laid his cigar down in an ashtray on the desk in front of him. “Good morning, gentlemen. Have a good Thanksgiving?” There was a buzz of responses mixed with a few “Yes, Sirs!” He continued. “I guess you’re all aware that we lost
Hornet
last month. Her planes were protecting a convoy taking supplies to Guadalcanal when the Jap bombers found her. Her fighters got most of the bombers, but not before she was hit.” He paused. “Well, gentlemen, we’re not another Hornet,but we’re heading for the Pacific!”

There was a sudden burst of cheers, of pent up excitement from all of us. Finally, we were going to the war! I remember being just as excited as the rest of the guys. It seemed as if we’d been training forever.

But what about Jean? She won’t be cheering; she’ll be frightened and worried. And she’s pregnant; she told me just last night. Sometimes I feel so guilty. Maybe we should’ve waited until after the war to get married—hell! All I can do is my best. I’m a damn good pilot. I’ll come home to Jean and Bremerton a hero...I’ll make it.

The skipper’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Our major problem is getting all of you carrier-qualified. You know that Chenango has been supporting the invasion of North Africa. What you don’t know is that she was damaged in a storm on her return to Norfolk. She’s in the shipyard for repairs. In view of our problem, COMFAIRLANT has made USS
Ranger
available for our carrier qualifications. If you young ensigns don’t know,
Ranger
was the Navy’s first carrier. As a matter of fact, she was the ship I did my carrier quals on, and I don’t feel obligated to tell you how long ago that was!” He stopped, waiting for our laughter to subside. “She’s not considered a combat carrier any longer. She’s now a training carrier and here are the dates we have for you ‘torpecker’ pilots.” (My pilot log book has the following dates for carrier qualifications: December 10 and 12.) “Now one final thing—the date we’ve all been training for. We are scheduled to deploy on Chenango on December 20. We will be transiting the Panama Canal heading for the South Pacific. May I remind you that our deployment date is secret? Go ahead though with your planning for your wives’ departures, but do not tell them the date of our departure. You married officers should make your wives’ travel arrangements with our deployment date in mind.”

He paused, picked up his unlit cigar and stuck in his mouth. It seemed as though he was looking at each one of us. Then, speaking around the cigar, he said, “It seems to me that you guys are ready. Let’s always remember we are a team and we’ll face the enemy as a team. I expect each of you to do your duty as a naval officer. We’re going to win this war! XO take over.”

As we heard the command, “Attention,” we all stood again and the skipper left the ready room. As he departed, there was only a low sound of voices. It was as if we were no longer just practicing war. We had a responsibility, a duty to our country to win the war. I stood there among my friends, those men with whom I flew, partied, and had just shared Thanksgiving.