Norfolk, Virginia

During 1947 a book was published titled, Misty of Chincoteague, written by Marguerite Henry.  In 1948 I was ten years old, and that is about the time I read the book.  That name of Chincoteague stuck with me through the years although I had no real idea where it was.  In July 1958, when I was another ten years older, I found it to be a quaint village located on an island of the same name along the Eastern Seaboard of Virginia, only a few miles below the border with Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula.  The Chincoteague Naval Auxiliary Air Station was located near the island, and my squadron, VP-8 was sent there.

In December of that year of 1958 I was married and our first home was located at 108 Daisey Street on Chincoteague Island.  Our landlord was Dave Daisey who owned several oyster boats, and a factory where the creatures were prepared for market.  Our home was Dave’s former home next to the new one he had built on the corner.  We lived in half of it, while two single friends of mine, Ron Kleven and Bob Thompson, rented the other half.  We only resided there for about two months until a big change in Navy plans caused our squadron to once more be re-home-ported to Breezy Point on the Naval Air Station aboard the Norfolk Naval Base.

At the same time my brother Dell, also in the Navy, received orders from Brunswick, Maine to Key West, Florida.  His family had recently purchased a 1953 Champion 8’ by 35’ house trailer.  He was unable at the time to have it moved all the way to Key West so I bought it from him and had it moved to Norfolk, Virginia.  My wife and I lived in that home in a trailer park on Little Creek Road until I left VP-8 in the spring of 1960.

November 16, 1959, with a little over four years in the Navy I was awarded the rating of AMS1, First Class Petty Officer, pay-grade E-6.  Base pay was $225 monthly, while I also received $22.50 sea duty pay, $77 for food rations, and $77 quarters allowance, for a total of $401.50 monthly.  This was a large increase from the $78 a month of four years previously.  I could even afford to swap cars, which I did, obtaining a 1953 Ford to replace the aging ’51 Studebaker.  After a few months of marriage we also were able to afford to buy a used TV for $40 which we paid off in $10 installments.

During that summer of 1959 I volunteered for a flight crew and began flying for a living, but we’ll let that be another tale. 

Chincoteague, Virginia

When I returned from Argentia, Newfoundland to the United States, Patrol Squadron Eight (VP-8) had been permanently reassigned from Quonset Point, Rhode Island to Chincoteague, Virginia in relationship to a new task assignment for the squadron.  During these “Cold War” times a new concept was being developed for coastal protection.  VP-8 was assigned to Task Group Alpha for long-range Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) with a secondary task of Search and Rescue (SAR) duties.  As such we were assigned a more central location along the east coast of the United States.  This is an aerial view of the base at Chincoteague.

A first priority for me was to obtain a set of wheels for local transportation.  I had barely stepped off of the MATS aircraft until I learned of a 1951 Ford for sale by John D. Taylor, a newcomer to the squadron while I was on deployment to Argentia.  It was located in an off-base parking lot outside the main gate of the Chincoteague Naval Auxiliary Air Station.  John told me the car was financed at a finance company in Salisbury, Maryland some 12 miles from the base.  I was to pay him $400 for the car which he would then go pay it off and sign it over to me.  I gave him the money which he promptly used to go AWOL with.  Later he was returned to our station to await Courts Martial for being AWOL.  While there he signed a paper stating he would return my money, which he never did.  He also collected his back pay and used it to go AWOL for a second time.  I never heard any more of him.

I went on leave to visit my parents and while there my brother Ron offered to sell me a 1951 Studebaker business coupe that he owned.  Earlier in the year he had bought a brand new 1958 Edsel.  He had owned it but a short while until one night he was on his way to work when he hit a horse with it.  The horse had to be destroyed, but the Edsel was repairable.  However parts were not readily available for it, so Ron had bought the Studebaker to drive while awaiting the Edsel repair.  By this time the Edsel was on the road again, and I purchased the Studebaker.  It was identical to this one except for the yellow driving lights.

I also met my future wife working in the local J. J. Newberry 5 and 10 cent store.  I have always said since then that I found her in a five and dime.  Nearly every weekend from then until December I made that 750 mile, each way, trip from Chincoteague to northern New York.  That December 20, 1958 we were married, and we’re still stuck with each other yet.

Roses For My Ladies

I wrote on September 20^th of the last rose of summer.  When I wrote that I suspected it would be the last rose of the year for us here in northern New York.  Our growing season is not the longest in the world in this northern climate.

However October 24^th we have three new roses on the very same rose bush in our front yard.  Two are fully bloomed and the third will be in a day or two.  Those two beauties near the top are for the pleasure of the ladies near and dear to me, my wife Nora, daughter Donna, and granddaughter Megan.

The one nearer the bottom is special.  It’s for Wendell whose birthday was today.  I missed you in hunting camp this past weekend.

Deer Hunting

Saturday, October 22, 2011 was the opening of regular deer hunting season in northern New York.  Regular season as opposed to Early Bow Season and Early Muzzleloading Season which have both passed by.
We were fortunate that we had an opening day, as Harold Camping told us the world was ending the day before, but he was wrong as usual.  Our little encampment looks like we circled the campers in fear of an attack though. 
The camper on the left belongs to my nephew Tim.  His son Brian was with him in that rig.  Tim's son Pat owns the center rig.  Pat's brother Ben, and a friend Jeremy were in that outfit.  I own the one on the right and my grandson Alex and I enjoyed the use of it.  No animals were hurt or injured in our deer hunting excursion, but not intentionally.

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.

Quonset Point, Rhode Island

It was late September of 1957.  I had been in the Navy now for two years, and was 19 years old.  I had been through Boot Camp, Aviation “P” School, Aviation Metalsmith “A” School, and had been in a working Naval Aviation training squadron for over a year.  With roughly half of my four-year enlistment over, I was due for sea duty for the remaining half.

I was issued a set of orders changing my permanent duty station from the Naval Auxiliary Air station at Corry Field, Pensacola, Florida to Patrol Squadron Eight based at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.  In Naval Aviation sea duty is not always onboard ships.  I took some leave (vacation) in between duty stations.

While at my parents’ farm in northern New York I hoped to buy an economically priced car.  With my father’s advice and aid I located a 1949 Studebaker Commander Land Cruiser four door sedan.  At eight years old it was decidedly not new, but it seemed to have a lot of good miles left in it yet.  Then I was off to Rhode Island to see if I could find Quonset Point, and Patrol Squadron Eight (VP-8) somewhere on it, arriving there October 11, 1957.  This is not my car, but one like it except for the color.  Mine was dark blue.

This time none of my old friends were sent to the same place as I.  Bob MacGowan, from McCoysville, Pennsylvania went somewhere I don’t remember.  Dave Smith from Woodbury, Connecticut was ordered to a blimp outfit in Lakehurst, New Jersey.  Don Hillhouse wound up in Alaska as I recall.  Paul Hamm, whom I had traveled to his home in Opp, Alabama with him on a couple of occasions, had left the Navy.  With the Navy’s needs always taking precedence friends came and went. 

Soon I was checked in and attached to my new squadron and making new friends.  That November 16^th I was awarded the rating of Second Class Petty Officer (E-5) and placed in charge of a squadron paint crew of two other men, named Ron Kleven and Bob Thompson, both of whom became very good friends of mine.  I’ve lost track of Bob, but Ron and I still occasionally exchange communications 54 years later.  Ron lives in Virginia, and once back about 1988 or ’89 I managed to meet him in person once more through the efforts of my daughter.



Wrong Way Corrigan

He took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York City at 5:15 a.m. July 19, 1938 headed for his Los Angeles home in California.  It seems he made a slight miscalculation and when he alit from his nine-year-old aircraft he was in Ireland.  Because of the age of his machine he had been banned from attempting a trans-continental flight.

Douglas Corrigan stated that he had somehow looked at his compass backwards and apparently flew in the wrong direction.  He said he had been above cloud cover for 18 hours before dropping down to 1500 feet to get a sight bearing.  He then found himself above water and determined he must be somewhere off the California coast.  When he first saw land he decided it did not look like California, and after some thought determined he may have flown opposite from his intended direction and therefore he might be over Ireland.  He searched for an airport and finally landed at Baldonnel.

For his so-called error he was named “Wrong Way Corrigan.”

July 19, 1938 shall forever be known as the date “Wrong Way Corrigan” flew the Atlantic, and as the day I was born.