P2V5F Night Flight

I sat in the plastic bubble affixed to the nose of the P2V5F Neptune aircraft staring into the inky blackness of a starless night.  The rain hit with small spatters that quickly broke into a sort of spray as it trailed off toward the rear of the plane.  Although it restricted vision to some degree I never felt that I was unable to do my job as bow observer.  My job was nothing more than to be an extra pair of eyes in addition to the pilot and co-pilot’s. No one else in the aircraft could look forward to see where we were going.  On nights like this human eyes were really not all that good and we in the aircraft relied heavily on instrumentation to tell us what we wanted to know about our surroundings.

We were far out over the Atlantic Ocean on patrol.  Our main purpose was Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) with a secondary duty of Search and Rescue (SAR) should the need arise.  We were on a never-ending quest, forever seeking the elusive submarines of any foreign nation that might be considered an enemy during what was known as the Cold War.  The year was 1958.

On day flights sometimes the view was spectacular if the weather was contributing, but at night, especially when it rained, sitting up in the bow alone for countless hours could get to be rather tediously boring.  So it was on this night.  Then a piece of our electronics reported some sort of a contact somewhere in that vast body of water below.  The “hit” was weak, but yet it needed to be checked out to ascertain its origin if possible.

With everyone on board doing their own part, it was soon established that it was too small to be any sort of ship.  A few minutes later the determination was some sort of floating metal object, probably an oil barrel, or something else of that nature.  Everything quieted back down as the continuous drone of the twin reciprocating engines once more became all that could be heard as we lumbered along through the hours of the night ever watchful, always vigilant, unceasingly awaiting that next contact that just could be a real threat to our Nation.