Argentia, Newfoundland

In the fall of 1957 I was attached to Naval Aviation Patrol Squadron Eight (VP-8) located at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.  However, because VP-8 was home ported there didn’t by any means mean we stayed there at all times.  We were always subject to deployment to places scattered far and wide.  Right after the new year of 1958 began one of those scheduled was due to start.

This was to be a split deployment.  That meant, in this case, that three of our squadron’s aircraft would go to Spain, three more would go to Argentia, Newfoundland, while the other six would remain at Quonset Point.  Of course commensurate numbers of flight staff and ground maintenance members would also go on these deployments.  As a relative newcomer to the squadron, I was scheduled to remain at Quonset Point.

Only a few days before the scheduled deployment a second class metalsmith’s wife was involved in a car accident.  He had been scheduled to go to Argentia.  I volunteered to take his place for two reasons.  First I felt his wife needed him at this time, and secondly I wanted to go see some of the world, and I’d never been there before.  Where was Argentia anyway?  Isn’t that a country in South America?  No, I guess that’s Argentina, but it’s almost like it, isn’t it?  Maybe not exactly?

I was on my way to New York for a last visit with my folks before the three month trip to Argentia when I blew the engine in my ’49 Studebaker.  As much as I liked that car, I drove it into a junkyard, and hitch hiked the rest of the way home.  Upon my return to Quonset Point it was time to climb aboard a Navy Transport aircraft with my personal gear.  We landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia for fuel.  After a very short delay we made it the rest of the way to Argentia.

Let me assure you, Argentia, Newfoundland in January is nothing at all like Argentina.  The temperature was somewhere below zero degrees with a wind blowing at about forty miles per hour steady.  It hardly changed during the entire time I spent there.  The barracks we were assigned were wooden and rather elderly.  Sometimes it seemed as if the wind blew through them as badly as it did outside.

At least it was only for three months.  Before our scheduled time of departure the Navy started a program for United States east coast protection that our squadron was selected to become a part of.  This was known as Task Group Alpha.  As such it was decided to leave the two three-plane-detachments where they were for another three months.  It is for the best that they never asked my opinion of this latest idea.  So it was that I stayed in Argentia for a six-month-tour.  There was no liberty from this base.  There was nowhere to go.  I didn’t see a human female for that length of time.  This photo was taken in July 1958.

This last photo is a P2V aircraft in an Argentia hangar.  Large aircraft, huge hangars.