S.E.A.
STORIES
IN MEMORY of COL. LARRY A.
NITZ 1936-2002
This story won first place in
MAC FLYER Safety Story Contest July 1967. The story is true, but some names and
aircraft numbers have been changed to protect the innocent.
“Sir, the tower’s on the phone, looks
like we’ve got a HOT one.”
I charged into OPS and grabbed the receiver from Dave. His voice
betrayed the excitement of his first rescue mission.
“This is Sergeant Sams in the tower…”
said the calm voice of man used to handling unusual situations. A Navy P-3 at sea has contacted us on Guard. There’s a sailor with acute
appendicitis on a small ship off the coast that requires immediate evacuation.
He wants to know if we can help. The ship is about 70 miles south.
“No reason why not,” I
thought as I quickly added up the pro’s and con’s of taking the mission. I was
pretty excited myself since this was our first possibility of a save in over 6
months. “Get the position of the aircraft and ask him if he can cover the
mission and guide us to the ship?” I shouted to the crew clustered around the
Ops Desk, “We got one! Break out the LPUs. Call the Standby Crew to pull our alert. Get the rescue basket aboard. Be sure we
have the right maps!” While everyone hustled to comply, I returned to the
phone.
“Sir, you still there?” the Tower Operator came back. “Roger,” I
answered, “what did he say?” “Sir, he
says that he’ll lead you right to the ship, he has a TACAN bearing of …”
I quickly interrupted, Negative TACAN on the chopper, ADF only.” I
wondered if I ought to tell him that the ADF was out, but decided against it.
We never used the damned thing anyway.
“Roger… standby…Sir, he is 70 miles out on a heading of 170
degrees. He’ll contact you on FM frequency 50.90 MC.” “Negative Fox Mike on the
chopper, only UHF,” I cut in again.
There was another short wait while Sgt Sams
passed this information to the Navy pilot. “Sir, the Navy pilot says to come up
on 364.0 when airborne. Squawk IDENT on your parrot and he’ll pick you up on
his radar.
“Tell him negative parrot on the chopper.”
“Standby……Sir? He says if you have an engine and a rotor, to crank
them up and meet him on UHF frequency 364.0.”
“Roger Sarge.” I could hardly suppress
my sudden dislike for this unseen and unknown Navy Jock with his terrific wit. “Tell him our call
sign will be PEDRO FIVE - FOUR and we’ll be airborne
momentarily.
As I ran out of Ops, the wind hit me. “Must be blowing about 25
knots straight out of the North, I’ll have to figure on a long trip back.” I
found myself talking under my breath as I struggled into my LPU.
Dave’s excited voice cut into my thoughts; “We better hurry, sir
or DET12 will beat us there.”
Damn! I hadn’t thought of that! Our arch rivals had beaten us out
of the last save by 5 minutes and they were closer to the ship than we were.
They might already be on their way? “Well, let’s get going then. Is everything
ready?” “How about it Sarge, ready to go?” Denkins, the FE hoist operator, just grinned.
I had a sudden second thought and ran back into the DET where the
clerk sat alone. “Airman Nichols, wait
about 10 minutes, then contact DET12 and ask them to help us. We’ll be on 364.0
working a Navy P-3 call sign Bulldog
3. OK?” I headed back to the
bird feeling better knowing that we would be covered if anything went wrong,
and we’d still beat them to the ship. Would I rub it into old Bud at the
upcoming DetCO Conference? “Hey Bud! Hear about our
mission last week? The ship was actually closer to you, but they must have
known how unreliable you were, so they called us.”
I took a last look around and crawled into the right seat. We went
through the scramble checklist, engaged the rotor and took off, headed straight
out to sea.
“Dave, what was that heading again?” I asked.
“One Seven Zero.”
“Oh hell! I had forgotten the heading indicator was
down.” We had been keeping this bird in commission to fly local crew training
and I hadn’t looked at the indicator all week. “This is the price you pay for
trying to keep 2 helicopters in service and maintaining the Maintenance
Officer’s precious in commission rate.” I cussed the paperwork war under my
breath.
“Well, it’s still ‘no sweat’ if we can get a hold of that Navy many motors. He’s got everything to get us there. He’d told the
tower that all we needed was an engine and a rotor, and he would handle the
rest. Let’s see how good he really is?” The chuckles that greeted this remark
were somewhat strained, but I could see that Dave reflected my satisfaction in
a good beginning to the mission.
Dave switched frequencies. “Bulldog 3, Bulldog 3, this is PEDRO 54, over.”
“PEDRO 54, this is Bulldog
3. We have a radar target
departing the base on a heading of 180. We’ll be joining you in about 10
minutes.
“He sounds competent enough,” I thought. “If he has us heading
180, we better adjust 10 degrees left. Look at that mag
compass swing in this wind.” I could see that even though the white caps were
small, we were rocketing along at a great rate. “With the wind like this, we’d
be over the ship in 45 minutes.” Dave was working with his computer, but I
wasn’t sure he really knew what he was doing.
“How can you tell our ground speed with no landmarks and no radio
fix?” I asked.
“Well sir, just making a good guess.”
Fifteen minutes after takeoff, I saw the P-3 overhead. “PEDRO, Bulldog has you
in sight. Just relax, the pathfinder will lead you there…..say, that’s a funny
looking machine. What’s the extra rotor for?”
“That’s for the copilot incase mine gives out,” I replied “By the
way, you’re 5 minutes late.” It was obvious the Navy pilot
had never escorted a chopper before. He kept loosing sight of us as he flew
over then had to turn around and fly back.
“How’s about cranking up that second rotor
so you can keep up?”
The voice in Bulldog 3 suggested a face that never stopped
smiling.
“If you’re having difficulty, suggest you zigzag, Bulldog.” I hoped he caught the hint of sarcasm my voice.
“We’ll try it, thanks.”
About 30 minutes later he was getting used to the zigzag pattern
when we lost him in the suddenly overcast sky. “Bulldog 3,
we have lost sight of you, do you have us on radar?”
“Negative, PEDRO. The ship is now about 25 miles at two zero zero
degrees. Our radar is bent and we are above the cloud deck, but we should still
be able to direct you right to him.
The way the mag compass was swinging
around, I was beginning to have doubts, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
The turbulence seemed much worse now, but maybe it only seemed that way because
we were alone? The engine seemed to be gulping fuel at a terrible rate too, but
I shrugged it off as pure anxiety.
Twenty minutes later the solid overcast and semidarkness turned
the sea from blue to steel grey. As I let down a few hundred feet to a better
search altitude, I glanced at Dave. His face mirrored my anxiety as he
alternately watched the sea below and stole furtive glances at the fuel
gauge...
Ten minutes later… “PEDRO this is Bulldog, our radar is completely inoperative, but
you should have the ship in sight.”
“Negative ship.”
The frustration had tinged my voice with anger and Dave glanced at
me apprehensively before returning his attention back to the sea and fuel
gauge.
“PEDRO, transmit a tone and I’ll get a bearing
on you.”
“Roger…PEDRO transmitting …one…two…three…four…
five…four…three…two…one…PEDRO out.”
“Head 360 degrees, you must have passed the ship.” Now he sounded
mad. I turned the bird around and thought dark thoughts about Navy pilots, overcasts, heading indicators, ADFs
and unpredictable winds.
“Bulldog, if we can’t locate him in the next 10 minutes, we’ll
have to RTB for fuel. “Dave’s voice
sounded loud in my ears after listening to Bulldog. “Sir, I
figure we should head back NOW, we’ll
be lucky to make shore.
The radio interrupted…”Understand your fuel state PEDRO, just keep looking, you’re bound to spot
them.”
“We’re LOOKING!” (What
the hell does he think we’re doing?) All heads turning and eight eyes lookin’, still nothing!!
“PEDRO 54, PEDRO 54, this is 33, where are you?” Bud’s voice sounded faint, but clear. I keyed
the mike: “Hello PEDRO 33, this is FIVE-FOUR. We’re in the indicated area, but having
difficulty locating the ship. Where are you?”
“PEDRO 54 this is 33, we’re about 50 miles out heading towards you. I got a good
bearing from your last transmission. Do you need any help?”
“Please Mother; I’d rather do it myself!” My own banter surprised
me. How in the world could I be flippant at a time like this? Dave kept
punching the fuel gauge test switch every 30 seconds and it was driving me
nuts, yet I knew we should have headed back.
“Bulldog 3, do you have us located yet?” I angrily
slapped the mike button. “Negative PEDRO, give us another count.” “Roger.” This is ridiculous. Even
looking, you must be right over the ship. Bulldog no longer
sounded mad, just disgusted and that made me more determined to find that
stupid ship.
“Sir, we have to start heading back!” Dave was almost begging.
“Just one more swing and
we’ll give it to PEDRO 33. Now, everyone LOOK!” I almost sounded as desperate as I
really was. I felt as if I was boxed in with the walls slowly closing and no
place to go. We looked and looked hard, nothing!
“Bulldog 3, can you give us a vector to the nearest
land? We’re getting low on juice.”
“Sir, we’ll be lucky to make land with the fuel we have.” Dave
echoed my thoughts exactly. I looked out at the ocean, but I could see very
little movement over the waves. I consoled myself by remembering how hard it is
to judge ground speed over water. Seconds like minutes…minutes like
hours…ticking away.
“PEDRO
54, this is Bulldog; head 290 for nearest shore, over.”
“Bulldog 3 or PEDRO 33, can you escort us to shore?” There was
nothing flippant in my tone of voice now.
“PEDRO 54, this is 33, give us a count.” “Roger…one…two… three….” Even the numbers
sounded desperate. “FIVE – FOUR this is THREE – THREE, we still have you ahead of us. We’ll
turn toward shore and try to intercept you. How much fuel do you have?”
“Almost 300 pounds.” I tried to sound confident, but inside my
helmet a voice was screaming; “Tell them…TELL them…you’re down to 200 pounds
and the engine has turned into a fuel gulping monster.” I looked out again at
the wave patterns slowly passing astern with an almost overwhelming feeling of
helplessness engulfing me. Still no land and now we were down to150 pounds.
With a sigh of resignation, I keyed the mike. This was REAL! This was happening
to ME!
“PEDRO 33, this is 54. We now have only 150 pounds of fuel and I think we might have to
ditch.”
“Roger 54, (now he sounded worried) give us
another count.”
The countdown went out over the radio like a disaster, MY disaster!
PEDRO 54, this is 33, according to our needle you have hardly
moved. “What is your heading?”
“We’re heading 290, but we don’t seem to be making much headway.”
(That was an understatement) “Listen 33, it doesn’t much matter now which way we
head, we are going to ditch, repeat DITCH, over.” There it was, I finally said
it, and it didn’t seem to matter much how many people heard it or what they
thought about it.
“Roger 54, we can keep heading for you for another 15 minutes, then we’ll
have to return for fuel ourselves.”
Denkins’ voice over the intercom was so calm that
at first his words didn’t register…”Sir, there’s a shadow at two-thirty that
might be an island?”
“I see it! There it is! We can make it easily!” My voice came over
the intercom in almost a shout. The feeling of relief that engulfed me almost
made me loose control. There it was! A lovely, beautiful
green island. Right smack in the middle of the ocean in an area where
there weren’t suppose to be any islands.
“Bulldog 3, this is 54, we have a large island in sight. We’ll
be landing there. PEDRO 33, can you bring us out a few barrels of fuel?” Anyone
listening to my voice would have thought it was the most common and expected
thing in the world to have an island suddenly appear out of an empty ocean.
“An island? PEDRO FIVE – FOUR WHERE
ARE YOU?” Bud was as
incredulous as I was.
“I don’t know (the truth for once) but I’m approaching an island
with 1…no…2 villages on it.” There were a few minutes of pregnant silence while
Bud digested this information.
“PEDRO 54, we have an island on the next map. You are about 30 miles
further south than we thought. We’ll head back now for fuel and see you in a
few hours.”
EPILOG – ONE WEEK LATER
“Sir, DET 12’s
bird just landed.”
“Oh
Boy! Here it comes!” I
had been dreading this encounter with Bud ever since he brought us fuel on the
island. Well, I might as well face the music. It can’t be any worse than what
the Colonel at 38th gave me…here it comes.”
“Say, did you
hear about our mission last week? Well, there was this chopper pilot that got
lost, see? So he sent out an SOS for the best chopper crew in RESCUE. Naturally, we ended up saving that
chopper pilot’s tail. We flew all around the ocean calling:
PEDRO FIFTY–FOUR WHERE ARE YOU?”
“And guess where
he was?”
I held my head
and tried not to listen. It was going to be worse than I thought.
Editors Note:
The save of
the sailor was completed by DET1 38ARRS.
Here is the description by Ron Cantwell the FE
hoist operator on the mission:
The seas were extremely rough with the swells rising to over 20
feet and winds gusting over 30 knots. It was extremely difficult to hover over
the ship as their antenna was in the hover area and the ship was bobbing up and
down like a cork. I centered the horse collar and lowered it to the deck. The
sailor had just been placed in the collar when the ship suddenly dropped and
left me feeling like I had yanked out his appendix. We flew the victim to the
Hospital at Cam Ranh Bay, refueled and then sling
loaded 3 barrels of fuel back to the island.
PEDRO’S 33’s CREW
PILOT Capt Larry A. Nitz
Copilot ?????
FE SSGt Ron Cantwell
PJ SSGt Joe Luther
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