The
Angels Tried
Fleet
Angels
Shortly
after the first operational Navy helicopter squadrons
HU-1 and HU-2 were commisioned at NAS Lakehurst New
Jersey in 1948, they were dubbed "Fleet Angels"
for their ability to perform life-saving rescues.
Helicopter Units assigned to ships in the fleet were
identified as "Angel ". A ships radio ‘call-sign’
always preceded radio communications between the helicopter
and others to identify the helicopter. (ie: The USS
Philippine Sea helicopters’ call-sign was "Onionskin
Angel").
As the
Korean War progressed, pilots and air-crews from all
branches of service, and other countrys, flew with
increased confidence knowing that an "Angel"
was on-station to rescue them from enemy territory
or the sea.
While helicopter
pilots and crewmen were gratified with the hundreds
of successful rescues they made, they were equally
disappointed in the attempts that were unsuccessful.
Each failure was reviewed to determine if changes
in operations, tools, flight clothing, or anything
else that would have changed the outcome.
Whether
each mission was a success or a failure, it must be
said that
THE "ANGELS"
TRIED.
Following
is a collection of records and stories of those efforts.
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MAYDAY
9 February
1953
STATEMENT
OF ENSIGN R. D. HUNT, USNR, 553344
"May
Day" was sounded on board LST 901 at 1800 on
8 February 1953.
The location of downed pilot and my release were given
to me and I was off the deck at 1805. As per instructions
I proceeded south along the coast from Wonson Harbor
to pick up my RESCAP - all the time climbing until
I reached 6500 feet. While climbing, contact was made
with me from my RESCAP (three F4U's) who were circling
the down pilot. They had him in sight as he had set
off his flares and was walking around. After about
fifteen minutes I realized my RESCAP had not left
the down pilot to be my escort and I reminded.them
of this. My escort reached the coast in a few minutes
and in another ten minutes had located me. I was given
a heading and proceeded inland. That's the last time
I had my RESCAP in sight although I had radio contact
with him. The RESCAP at the target dropped a para-
chute flare which I saw from 12 to 15 miles. When
it burned out they dropped another one which burned
long enough for me to locate a fire presumably started
by the downed pilot. At this time one of the planes
got hit and departed for a friendly landing strip.
The fire was at the 3000 foot level on the side of
a very steep hill appearing to be 60 degrees or better.
One of the remaining RESCAP got low on gas and headed
for a friendly landing strip. This left me with one
RESCAP who kept in radio contact with me directing
me to the position where the downed pilot was last
seen. I circled low and slow trying to locate him.
I then heard gun fire. Thinking it to be the pilot
trying to attract my attention from the-ridge of a
"razor back" jetting out from the main hill,
I made a slow approach with the crewman letting the
sling down. I brought the plane to a hover below tree
top level where turbulence caught me making it impossible
to hover at that position. I tried to make another
pass. At this time I heard and saw rapid fire on the
crest - presumably some type of machine or burp gun.
I went up the hill a little ways and made another
pass receiving two more bursts of the same type of
gun fire. The turbulence got me again. At this time
I was ordered to return home because of the late hour.
Concurring with this as it was 1940 and I still didn't
have the pilot in sight and felt it impossible to
make a night pickup on this turbulent crest. I told
my RESCAP and he escorted me in the direction of the
coast. Upon reaching the coast I secured my RESCAP
and proceeded to Yo-Do Island. I landed at Yo-Do at
2005. The following morning upon inspection for possible
damage it was found the helicopter had been hit by
seven bullets - five of which went all the way through
the plane. One went up between the forward gas tank
and engine - grazing the starter cable and went through
the air frame and out the top side of the,aircraft
The other holes were aft of the engine, scattered
along the tail cone. No vital spot was hit and the
helicopter remains operational.
ed. note:
story found in an Sea Air Rescue (SAR) report in the
HU-1 files
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Another
MAYDAY
HELICOPTER
PILOT STATEMENT
LST
1138
13
May 1953
Air
Temperature 62°
Water
Temperature 54°wind
40-45 Knots from 270°
Sea
Condition 6-8' Svrells
LST 1138 Position 7-Miles)
east of Yo-Do .
At
1832 I took off from LST 1138 in a HRS-2 Type Helicopter
after being alerted for a Mayday. Immediately after
take-off I sighted a parachute floating down about
four (4) miles east of LS7 1138. The chute was oscillating
45° from the vertical.
1834..
The pilots contact with the water was severe in a
face down position. The chute re-mained fully bellowed
and dragged the pilot along at an excessive rate of
speed. 1835. I attempted to hover over the chute to
spill the air out of it with the downwash of the rotor
blades, but the chutes speed over the water exceeded
the backward flight performance of the helicopter
and a downwind hover was impossible.
Since
striking the water the pilot had been towed head first,
both on his back and on his stomach. I did not see
any effort by the pilot to spill the air from the
chute. 1840. After being towed in this position for
five (5) minutes a strong gust picked the pilot out
of the -water and tumbled him so he was being dragged
feet first. The pilot then lost his Mae-West and was
being dragged with his body submerged. During the
entire time the pilot was being dragged I used all
the techniques of flight I knew but still could not
spill the canopy with rotor down-wash. Further action
was necessary to collapse the chute if the pilot was
to have a chance of survival. So, I ordered my crewman
to fire his 38 pistol at the chute to attempt to tear
and deflate the chute. Whether this procedure was
a contributing factor to the chutes, deflating is
not known but the canopy deflated and collapsed. 1842.
I came to a hover over the pilot as he slowly sank
below the surface.
My crewman W. C. CALDWELL, AM3, without hesitation,
leaped from the helicopter into the water. CALDWELL
tried to pull the pilot to the surface with the shroud
lines, but was unsuccessful. I lowered the sling to
CALDWELL, and as he held the chute I raised him..
Although CALDWELL desperately tried to hang on to
the chute the wind tore it from his grasp. 1845. I
lowered CALDWELL into the water again and he took
hold of the chute. At this time the engine of the
helicopter cut out and caught three successive times,
causing me to loose altitude until my wheels were
in the water. The engine caught and held so I rose
to a hover and raised CALDWELL into the plane. 1848.
A destroyer (DD-747) was approaching my position at
full speed from the west. 1849. The helicopter was
running smooth and. the chute was sinking from sight
so I lowered CALDWELL into the water for the third
time and he held the chute while I tried to lift him,
the chute, and the pilot. The chute was torn from
his arms again as the destroyer approached within
a hundred yards. 1851. I raised CALDWELL into the
helicopter as the destroyer picked up the pilot. I
returned to the LST and as I came to a hover over
the deck the engine cut out twice more. The following
are my statements concerning the accident.
1.
I do not know the condition or altitude of bail out
but if the pilot was conscious before contact with
the water, the angle and force of contact was great
enough to render him unconscious,
2. The pilot made no effort to unbuckle his chute,
to cut his shroud lines or spill the air from the
chute.
3. From the time the pilot first sank below the surface
he was no longer seen and only the top of the chute
was visable.
4. The (DD-747) reported the parachute harness attached
to pilot
in tangled condition.
5. My crewman W. C. CALDWELL, displayed exceptional
courage anddevotion to duty during the attempted rescue.
Signed : R. G. BRAND
LT., USN
ed. note: story found in an Sea Air Rescue (SAR) report
in the HU-1 files.
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I
LOST HIM
It was dead winter and cold,
sometime in January 1952. I think is was our unit's
first rescue attempt, I was flying crewman, and I
lost him.
My Unit, #10, had just flown
in to Haneda from Ream via McCord, Elmendorf and Shemya
and reported aboard the Essex on replenishment and
repair in Yokosuka on Christmas Eve. We hadn't seen
a sign of the fire damage sustained on the previous
cruise when a Banshee, I think it was, missed all
arresting wires and barriers and plowed into the "forest"
of aircraft parked forward. A number of men had been
killed, burned, some drowned after being blown over
the side by explosions or forced to jump by the fires.
I don't remember even meeting any of the unit we relieved
although I heard it said that one of its flying crewman
recognized an injured sailor to whom he had dropped
the sling right on his hands only to see them disappear.
The morale on the Essex's flight deck wasn't too good
as it resumed station in the task force.
We were flying launch just
abeam the bridge in UP-32 when a loaded F4U off the
port cat stalled right in front of the ship. From
flight deck level to the drink, that loaded F4U had
spun around the propeller, flopped on its back and
dove in fully upside down after its sickening spin,
its huge prop have nearly stopped with the loss of
air pressure on those bent wings.
My pilot and Unit Commander,
Lt. Gerald Johnson, instantly cranked on full power,
roared diagonally across and just in front of the
bridge, swooping so low I saw the cat officer diving
flat to avoid our wheels as we passed just over him,
then dropped us straight down to the drink as we cleared
the port safety net on the corner of the flight deck.
We got over the splash site in one hell of a hurry.
The fully-loaded F4U never
appeared after its enormous splash but the pilot popped
up and immediately got into the sling I had been lowering,
and I remember being pleased he had gotten in so fast.
However I became immediately alarmed when I saw he
was in with just one shoulder and still buckled in
to his full seat pack, including chute and raft, sidearm,
ammo and belt, and with his life jacket not inflated.
I remember him as a very big man, well over six feet
they said later. All in and wet he must have weighed
300 lbs. easy, but it felt like more.
By the time I got the sling
2-blocked he was slipping out, unresponsive and, I
realized later, probably in shock. I caught him by
one arm and clamped both hands on the wet and slick
black elastic lower part of his exposure suit sleeve.
He never became responsive or make any move whatever
to reach the step, a step that was anyway very high
for anyone in the sling to reach even with a hand,
and even if they were responsive.
Lt. Johnson saw what was happening
but said later he couldn't try banking to starboard
to try rolling him in somewhat because by then the
carrier was going by to starboard just feet away from
us. I remember well seeing it going by so close that
it looked like our main rotor blades were going in
and out of the hangar deck port as the deck-edge elevator
slipped by just under our main rotor.
I think I broke his arm over
the hatch edge in desperately trying to hold on long
enough to get back to the flight deck. He didn't even
twitch and I believe he was unconscious and/or in
shock. I couldn't hold him and he fell making a great
splash and disappeared.
Obviously, I have played many
scenarios over in my mind over the years. What if
he had not buckled into all that full gear? What if
he had gone into shock first presenting the need to
go in the drink after him myself, giving the carrier
time to sail out of the way, giving my pilot time
and freedom to collect and return with another crewman.
What if he had inflated his life jacket? And so on.
For the rest of the cruise,
in fact, for the rest of my hitch, I was particularly
nervous with each and every F4U launch; and even though
I still consider it one of the most beautiful of all
airplanes, I still believe they were loaded far beyond
their design, taking only a slight cross wafting or
drop of wind, any slight reduction of cat shot power,
any little fluke, to start that sickening F4U stall.
Phil
Cavanagh
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Surprise
Surprise
The
event has always reminded me of those western paintings
depicting a horse and cowboy rider in circumstances
in which a number of dire things are obviously about
to happen to them but about which they are totally
unaware.
Damage
to the cable fairlead, drum and assembly of the electro-hydraulic
hoist on a HO3S was prevented by a switch that would
be tripped by the 10 pound lead weight fastened to
the end of the cable, just above the hook. With its
base riveted to the hoist frame, the trip was a keyhole-shaped
flat piece of aluminum, through which the cable moved,
up and down. The rising weight, being much larger
than the hole, levered the trip against the stop switch.
The hoist assembly was thereby protected in the event
either the pilot or the crewman did not release the
up toggle on their pickle switches. It allowed you
to 2-block and stow the cable without worrying about
damaging the assembly..
We
had inherited UP-26 on reporting aboard the Valley
Forge on April 13, 1952. Though only some four months
into our cruise it was our fourth ship and third aircraft
and I don't remember ever checking out the hoist cut-off
safety switch anywhere before until after the incident
that follows. Checking its operation was overlooked
and taken for granted.
The
other thing forgotten was the advice that if the crewman
was going to leave the aircraft on a rescue he should
first toss forward everything loose from the back
such as life raft, grapnel, any arms and ammo, spare
lifejackets, etc. in order to at least partially make
up for the loss of his weight. We had been told this
was necessary because the CG of the HO3S, with regard
to the effective range of cyclic control, depending
of course on the weight of the pilot, was only about
four inches. My pilot that day was not a big man at
all, probably not more than 150 lbs, maybe even less,
and no more than 5'-7" I should say.
Anyway,
there we were three or four of us crammed in the cabin,
over by ourselves on the port side aft of the flight
deck, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun streaming
through the windows of the first nice and warm day
of the year. It was my turn to fly, and in fact it
was so nice I had decided for the first time in the
cruise to leave my exposure gear behind and just enjoy
the freedom of flying in dungarees and a plane captain
sweater. We were between ops, there were very few
if any aircraft on the flight deck, the ship sailing
slowly downwind. I can remember watching the slow
rise and fall of the horizon over the bow. Everything
was really quiet and peaceful, even soporific.
Suddenly
there was a big, single, hollow "whomp"
in the distance abeam to port. In the silence that
followed our ADC, M.J. Kadlecik, says: "somebody
just flat ass spun in". At the same time my pilot
for the day, my good friend Hugh Tiernay, ALC(AP)
came sprinting out the rearmost hatch of the island
and head for us with a wild look on his face. By the
time he reached the bird we had already started the
engine, pulled the rotor boots and tie-downs and jumped
in. Tiernay typically wrenched her up and around and
off we headed to port for a while, pretending the
main rotor was a propeller and able to see forward
only through the top window panels, all par for Tiernay's
course.
Eventually
the crash site became visible about on the perimeter
of the task force only by what we thought might be
the pilot's head. By the time we flared out and hovered
we saw the pilot was prone face-down in the water
with no movement while our rotor wash began partially
filling and billowing out the open chute, still attached
and lying on the surface. We later heard the crashed
aircraft was an F4U on a post-maintenance test flight.
No one saw it go in. There was no visible wreckage.
It's still a mystery whether the pilot had gotten
out late and his chute streamed, landing some distance
away, or what.
I
got in the sling and Tiernay lowered me into the drink.
The first thing that happened was trying to catch
a breath. I couldn't believe the water was so cold.
I never did get that breath back as long as I was
in the water. I soon became aware that Tiernay was
having a problem hovering and I eventually realized
he was tail-heavy. It was then II remembered I had
forgotten to toss the loose gear forward before I
left. After a while I began wondering why he didn't
reel me in instead of paying out more cable around
me and then pulling up sharply on the collective pitch
stick to get my weight again. After a while he began
hovering low as far away as he could and then yanking
me up, pulling me up, surfing me through the wave
crests until I was clear and swinging like a pendulum
like I was part of a circus. He repeated this many
times.
I
learned later that when he came to see he could pay
out the cable but couldn't raise it he realized that
the switch was somehow suck and/or the aluminum ring
had been bent, keeping the switch closed. His low
hovering and sideways taking up slack of the cable
were attempts to get the cable to somehow rub the
ring at a maximum angle and free it. My involuntary
surfing was the result of his last second yanks on
the collective pitch stick to keep from crashing tail
first. He had to find a way to get back some weight
to regain the ship which was quite a distance away.
After
some time at this, a can from the TF reached us and
stopped, with lots of spectators. Our rotor wash pushed
the chute against the side of the can where the crew
began pulling it in and recovering the body. Shortly
after that Tiernay climbed straight up to what must
have been by then close to the bitter end of the cable
and in normal control with my weight. He told me later
he didn't trust the fastening of the bitter end on
the drum enough to put my weight on it ; or what else
might happen when he began reeling me in "backwards"
I.e., keeping the down button down beyond the bitter
end of the cable.
He
judged where I was hanging nicely and deposited me
on the fantail of the can. The cable seemed to run
everywhere, - over the depth charges, up and over
a 5" turret barrel, down and up over the side.
I had a vision of it winding up in a screw and pulling
him out of the air. At that point a kind crewman shouted
in my ear (the R-985 exhaust was blatting away together
with the whap whapping of the rotor blades) asking
if I wanted a cup of coffee. I think my reply was
very brief.
I
couldn't nor much want to keep an eye on Tiernay to
see the tail dip lower and lower and concentrated
on quickly guiding the cable away from obstructions
while he was winding it up backwards. Finally with
a lot of the cable back on the drum and me on the
end we trundled back to the Valley where I caught
my breath.
Phil
Cavanagh
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