Fly Navy: Naval Aviators and Carrier Aviation—A History

by Jim "Twitch" Tittle

Article Type: Book Review
Article Date: February 15, 2002


Fly Navy: Naval Aviators and Carrier Aviation—A History covers the progress of the flat top from its early days to present. I recall the phrase “Fly Navy” used to be a recruiting poster, and later, television advertisements. Once again Kaplan creates an eclectic montage of imagery and personal accounts that are beyond the mainstream of dry history and pure statistics.

Fly Navy cover

At the front of the book is a helpful glossary of terms unique to carriers apart from other Navy vessels. Did you know that a “Dilbert Dunker” is a device for teaching emergency escape from aircraft downed at sea?

The images generally are large in scale and clean, with many in color. Some photos you’ve seen before but in smaller size. Kaplan's treatment of images, as in his other works such as Fighter Pilot, are found in large and full-page sizes which allow the reader to see details lost if viewed in small dimension. A good example is the six photos of poor quality depicting many of the top Japanese Navy aces of WWII. They are shown in about four times the typical book publishing fashion revealing a much clearer visual impression of these deadly ex-foes.

The mix of candid photos taken by non-professionals, along with combat stills and posed portraits makes an interesting collage of illustrations depicting carrier life in combat.

Of course the meat of the volume is the words from participants about operations. Canadian-born Nigel “Sharkey” Ward of the Royal Navy discusses the sweat of night landing his Sea Harrier on the HMS Invincible’s Squadron 801 during the Falklands War in inclement weather. It echoes the thoughts and fears of every pilot in any era that has experienced the anxiety of getting back on deck at the end of a mission.

Commander Nigel Ward

Ward gives a detailed account of the last kill of the war, a C-130 Hercules. He was flying a combat air patrol at 35,000 feet with Steve Thomas when the HMS Minerva relayed a radar contact to them. “Contact at thirty-eight miles. Investigating,” was the response as he picked it up on the fighter’s radar adjusting the antenna angle and descending.

“I was at 12,000. That made the target at 8,000. I broke the lock so as not to alert the target (using a passive radar receiver) and wound our speed up to 500 knots in a shallow descent,” Ward recalled. It was certain that shore radar has informed the target of the two fighters as it turned away from them.

“It was now a race against time and fuel. The Invincible was 200 miles away and we should have been heading home,” says Ward. He radioed Minerva to be aware that they might have to land in San Carlos due to fuel shortage.

They were at 6,000 feet above the clouds with the lookdown radar painting the target perfectly. Ward planned to ease down while Thomas stayed above the cloud layer in case the enemy plane popped up. By the time Sharkey punctured the cloud bottom he was at 1,800 feet with “…a fat blip six miles and closing fast. I looked up from the radar and flight instrument and it was at 20 degrees left, a Hercules heading for the mainland as fast as it could go. It was at a height of about 300 feet above the waves.

Office of the Sea Harrier

“Tally ho, one Herky-bird! Come and join me down here Steve.

“I closed on the four-engine transport quickly and when I felt I was just within missile range and had a good growl from the seeker-head I fired my first Sidewinder,” describes the Sea Harrier pilot. But the missile fell short after the motor burned out and it fell into the rough sea below.

“There was no mistake with the second missile. I lock up the Sidewinder on the target’s starboard engines from well under 1¼ miles. It left the rails with its characteristic muffled roar and tracked inevitably towards the right wing of the Hercules, impacting between the engines. Immediately, both engines and the wing surface burst into flames,” continues Commander Ward.

Fuel was marginal by now and the transport might be able to limp home if due to the excellent fire suppression system of the C-130 so Ward prepared to use guns. “I still had more than 100 knot’s overtake as I closed to gun range and pulled the trigger. My hot-line aiming point was the rear door and tail plane and all of the 240 rounds of 30 mm high explosive ammo hit their mark. There were no splashes in the sea below.

“As I finished firing, and with its elevator and rudder controls shot away, the large transport banked gracefully to the right and nose-dived into the sea. There could have been no survivors,” he reflected.

Thomas and Ward were able to return to Invincible.

As a footnote, Ward also got a Dagger and Pucara while Thomas tallied two Argentine Mirages and a Dagger.

A sizable portion of the book, nor surprisingly, covers WWII since that era was the one when the flat tops were used in combat more than in their entire history.

Good photo of A-1 of Vietnam era

A side bar quote from James Cain was interesting. Aboard the San Jacinto in March 1945 he described a unique kill with is Hellcat. He was set on the catapult when a Jill came into the carrier group’s territory at 100 feet…

Finally the cat fired. The Jill with bomb or torpedo in plain view, was crossing my launch path. I squeezed the trigger. Nothing. The gear was still down. The guns aren’t supposed to fire with the gear down. I hit the gear up lever. The Jill was closing at full deflection. I squeezed the trigger and all six .50s were firing just as the Jill crossed in front of me. It exploded as it flew into my line of fire. I had been in the air less than thirty seconds.

Top Navy ace David McCampbell's Hellcat

Admiral Halsey is quoted as saying, ”The psychology behind the kamikaze attacks was too alien to us. Americans who fight to live find it hard to realize that another people will fight to die.”

Most people know that Ensign George Gay was an unwitting witness to the grand victory at Midway after being shot down and floating near the Japanese armada. In Fly Navy he gives the entire chronicle of the mission. He tells how he had a perfect line up on the Kaga when attacking Zeros raked his TBD Devastator with fire.

At left Ens. Gay was lone survivor of his group

“I had been told an ideal drop was 1,000 yards range, 80 knots speed, and 80 feet or so altitude,” Gay tells us. His torpedo launch may have never happened since the controls to toggle the fish were shot up though he felt it might have released. His rear gunner was dead by then. After ditching Zeros strafed him in the water.

After witnessing the fatal attacks by SBDs to the Japanese carriers and the remainder of the engagement he spent thirty hours in the water before he was picked up by a PBY. Since the contesting fleets were so distant to one another Midway was all ship versus plane and Gay was the only American observer.

Then there was the Gulf War account of F/A–18s off the Saratoga with pilots Mark Fox, Nick Mongillo plus two more on ingress with 8,000 lbs. of bombs for a ground-pounding mission. Their Hawkeye AWACS plane called out bandits dead ahead at fifteen miles.

They switched to missile configuration.

Soon radar locks were buzzing at ten miles to the bandits, which turned out to be MiG 21s. Fox concentrated on the right-hand fighter while Mongillo took the leftmost one as the shot was taken with the Sidewinder. “For good measure he also fired a Sparrow at the target.”

“The MiG became a fireball, absorbing both missiles, but it was the Sidewinder that had destroyed it.” Mongillo unleashed a Sparrow and killed the second MiG followed by clean kills from the other pair of F/A-18s getting theirs.

The planes switched back to air-to-ground weapons, carried out their mission, and returned with the only Navy kills of the conflict.

Paul Gillcrist describes a mission in the F-8 Crusader over Vietnam. Peter Gaido’s downing of a kamikaze from the back seat of an SBD sitting on the deck of Enterprise is described. Korean-era tales are pictured and relived. There’s a little something for everyone in this volume, even P-51s modified for carrier use!

P-51s with hooks were real- Mike Machat art

Fly Navy can be found at Amazon.com for $19.98. The ISBN is 1-58663-6. This book is published by MetroBooks in association with Aurum Press Ltd. 25 Bedford Avenue, London WC1B3AT.




Read Twitch's review of Kaplan's Fighter Pilot: A History and Celebration




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