Navy Story #9
Overflight
It was a dark and stormy night. Where have I heard that before? It was actually a dark but clear, beautiful night somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. We were underway with a small task
force of other amphibious ships, doing some formation steaming/training. Even though the night was clear, it was really, really dark. And we had our running lights off. We were pretending to be an "enemy" force
that some other ships and planes were supposed to see if they could locate in the dark.
I'm not sure why I'm even telling you about this night, except that it turned out to be kind of exhilarating and exciting.
Here is a picture of the bridge of the Pensacola. This picture was taken in full daylight, with a lot of people above the bridge, on the signal deck. They were watching the "Mail
Buoy Watch," which is another story for another time. I'm including this picture so you can get an idea of what the bridge looks like, since it figures in this story.
At one point during the midwatch (that's the watch that runs from midnight to 4 a.m.), I was scanning the horizon with my binoculars just to make sure there wasn't anything out
there that we didn't want to run over. I saw a small green and another small red light suddenly appear about 20 degrees off the starboard bow (for you landlubbers, that means the lights were about 20 degrees in angle
off to the right, from straight ahead). The lights were just above the horizon, and they moved up and down just a bit in unison, sort of like a see-saw with lights on it.
I was startled and confused for just a second or two, and then I realized that they looked like the lights from an airplane, approaching us at very low altitude. So I called to the
Captain, who liked to be on the bridge even late at night, "Captain, we have a contact at 20 degrees off the starboard bow, on the horizon, and it looks like a plane, sir." Just about as I said this, a very, very,
bright white light appeared from the direction of the plane. It blinded all of us on the bridge, of course, because we were all used to the dark. Ouch. I mean, it almost literally hurt our eyes! But we were able to squint
our eyes enough to follow the plane as it got closer and eventually flew directly over our ship, really low. We could see enough of the shape of the plane to know that it was a P3 Orion. At that time, at least, in the early
1970's, these planes were used for patrolling the seas for submarines. It's very similar to, and maybe even the same kind of plane as, the plane that was held in China in 2001 after it collided in mid-air with a Chinese
jet aircraft.
After we were able to see again so we could get around the bridge without stumbling into things and each other, we discussed the situation and decided that we should complain to the
admiral in charge of the task force. The Captain handled that, of course, and it was interesting to see his determination to make his voice known. The issue was that, in peacetime, a plane is never supposed to shine its
lights on (called "illuminating") the bridge of a (friendly) ship at night. I heard much later that the pilot of that plane got in trouble for doing that. I think he thought it was just a fun thing to do, since
he found us, and his illuminating our bridge was a way for him to brag.
I think the "adventurous" part of this incident was two-fold: One, that we were "illuminated" and experienced firsthand why it's so crucial that it not be done
in peacetime. And two, it was fun to be the "fox" that the "hounds" were hunting for. Even grownups in the Navy can have some fun with stuff like that! It's a competition of sorts, even in peacetime
training.