Mentor In a Poopy Suit
By Bert Botta
In June of 1957, with the ink still wet on my high school diploma, the U.S. Navy shipped me off to my first duty station, Barin Field, Alabama.As part of the agreement I made with the Navy as a reserve sailor, I committed to serve two years active duty immediately upon graduation from high school.One year later, after serving my time at “Bloody Barin” as it was known throughout the Pensacola Training Command because of the frequent aircraft accidents among cadet pilot trainees, I received orders to report to Antisubmarine Squadron VS39 in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.After arriving at Quonset, I spent a few months finding my niche in the squadron and preparing for my first deployment to the north Atlantic with VS39 aboard the U.S.S. Randolph, an aircraft carrier based out of Norfolk, Virginia.One of the officers whose aircraft I was assigned to as part of his flight crew was a young Ltjg (lieutenant junior grade) named McGill. He was a couple of years older than me, and he was a Nav Cad (Navy Cadet) graduate. He had also put in a couple of years at Princeton. He busted any image I might have had about aloof Ivy League school kids.McGill used to tell the enlisted men that he liked going on liberty (Navy term for R&R) with us better than the officers because he had more fun. But I suspect he said that to make us feel better. That’s the kind of guy he was.
When VS39 deployed to the Randolph, it was to qualify our pilots for carrier landings (carquals). We flew S2-Fs, affectionately known as “stuufs,” a Grumman built, propeller driven anti-submarine aircraft with sophisticated (for its day) onboard electronic submarine detection and tracking gear.During the night before McGill’s final early morning launch, someone spilled a five-gallon bucket of engine oil on the deck. Either no one saw it, or they neglected to clean it up.Once the launch got underway in the black, north Atlantic predawn, McGill was signaled to taxi his aircraft forward to take his position on the starboard catapult. I was standing just aft and off to the starboard side of his aircraft as he reached up to the overhead throttle quadrant and pushed the throttle levers forward on the two big, 2,000 horsepower, Pratt and Whitney, R2800 radial engines.As McGill turned his aircraft to line up with the catapult, the prop wash, blown aft from the force of the rotating props, and in combination with the carrier completing its turn into the wind, forced me into a 30-degree lean against an instant gale force.His “stuuf” taxied over the oil slick and, as the deck rolled left, McGill’s aircraft began a sickening, synchronized, slow motion skid toward the port side of the flight deck. I stood there, frozen in anguished disbelief, while an impotent cry of “Mac..!!” was ripped out of my mouth and blown aft over the boat’s fantail.The aircraft, with McGill and a full crew – copilot and two enlisted electronic countermeasures experts, crammed into their seats amidst thousands of pounds of electronic gear – cart-wheeled lazily over the port side of the carrier deck. She took 30 feet of catwalk (the walkway surrounding most of the ship, immediately below the flight deck) with her, landing topside down.As she completed her inverted roll, her phosphorescent underbelly gleamed in the pre-dawn darkness like the belly of an inverted sperm whale. The frantic churning of her props seemed to act in her fatal favor as she sliced her way through the water’s surface, seeking a frothy grave in the frigid, angry waters of the North Atlantic.We lost all four aviators. The last time I saw McGill was in a body bag about six hours later as the “angel,” the recovery helicopter, deposited the crewmembers’ bodies on the flight deck.One of the chopper crewmembers threw McGill’s “poopy suit,” the rubber exposure suit that the Navy required all crewmembers operating flights over cold water to wear, down on the carrier deck shortly after they landed.His suit was ripped to shreds, except for a piece of his name, McGill, in large black letters on one of the larger pieces.High Touch MemoriesIn some strange, inexplicable way McGill helped to heal the insecurity of this teenage, future aviator’s soul. He left an indelible impression on me of what real manhood and leadership was about––his love for life, his passion for flight, his vulnerability, his fun loving, open-hearted, strong yet respectful and honoring of younger men.I’ve never forgotten him.Maybe that’s why, to this day, I still honor the ground that naval aviators walk on, even though I’ve apparently taken my place beside them in the aviation brotherhood.If one were to hold up to the light the advances in technology over the last 50 years and compare that to the brilliance of McGill’s soul, tech comes in a distant, dim second.
In June of 1957, with the ink still wet on my high school diploma, the U.S. Navy shipped me off to my first duty station, Barin Field, Alabama.As part of the agreement I made with the Navy as a reserve sailor, I committed to serve two years active duty immediately upon graduation from high school.One year later, after serving my time at “Bloody Barin” as it was known throughout the Pensacola Training Command because of the frequent aircraft accidents among cadet pilot trainees, I received orders to report to Antisubmarine Squadron VS39 in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.After arriving at Quonset, I spent a few months finding my niche in the squadron and preparing for my first deployment to the north Atlantic with VS39 aboard the U.S.S. Randolph, an aircraft carrier based out of Norfolk, Virginia.One of the officers whose aircraft I was assigned to as part of his flight crew was a young Ltjg (lieutenant junior grade) named McGill. He was a couple of years older than me, and he was a Nav Cad (Navy Cadet) graduate. He had also put in a couple of years at Princeton. He busted any image I might have had about aloof Ivy League school kids.McGill used to tell the enlisted men that he liked going on liberty (Navy term for R&R) with us better than the officers because he had more fun. But I suspect he said that to make us feel better. That’s the kind of guy he was.When VS39 deployed to the Randolph, it was to qualify our pilots for carrier landings (carquals). We flew S2-Fs, affectionately known as “stuufs,” a Grumman built, propeller driven anti-submarine aircraft with sophisticated (for its day) onboard electronic submarine detection and tracking gear.During the night before McGill’s final early morning launch, someone spilled a five-gallon bucket of engine oil on the deck. Either no one saw it, or they neglected to clean it up.Once the launch got underway in the black, north Atlantic predawn, McGill was signaled to taxi his aircraft forward to take his position on the starboard catapult. I was standing just aft and off to the starboard side of his aircraft as he reached up to the overhead throttle quadrant and pushed the throttle levers forward on the two big, 2,000 horsepower, Pratt and Whitney, R2800 radial engines.As McGill turned his aircraft to line up with the catapult, the prop wash, blown aft from the force of the rotating props, and in combination with the carrier completing its turn into the wind, forced me into a 30-degree lean against an instant gale force.His “stuuf” taxied over the oil slick and, as the deck rolled left, McGill’s aircraft began a sickening, synchronized, slow motion skid toward the port side of the flight deck. I stood there, frozen in anguished disbelief, while an impotent cry of “Mac..!!” was ripped out of my mouth and blown aft over the boat’s fantail.The aircraft, with McGill and a full crew – copilot and two enlisted electronic countermeasures experts, crammed into their seats amidst thousands of pounds of electronic gear – cart-wheeled lazily over the port side of the carrier deck. She took 30 feet of catwalk (the walkway surrounding most of the ship, immediately below the flight deck) with her, landing topside down.As she completed her inverted roll, her phosphorescent underbelly gleamed in the pre-dawn darkness like the belly of an inverted sperm whale. The frantic churning of her props seemed to act in her fatal favor as she sliced her way through the water’s surface, seeking a frothy grave in the frigid, angry waters of the North Atlantic.We lost all four aviators. The last time I saw McGill was in a body bag about six hours later as the “angel,” the recovery helicopter, deposited the crewmembers’ bodies on the flight deck.One of the chopper crewmembers threw McGill’s “poopy suit,” the rubber exposure suit that the Navy required all crewmembers operating flights over cold water to wear, down on the carrier deck shortly after they landed.His suit was ripped to shreds, except for a piece of his name, McGill, in large black letters on one of the larger pieces.High Touch MemoriesIn some strange, inexplicable way McGill helped to heal the insecurity of this teenage, future aviator’s soul. He left an indelible impression on me of what real manhood and leadership was about––his love for life, his passion for flight, his vulnerability, his fun loving, open-hearted, strong yet respectful and honoring of younger men.I’ve never forgotten him.Maybe that’s why, to this day, I still honor the ground that naval aviators walk on, even though I’ve apparently taken my place beside them in the aviation brotherhood.If one were to hold up to the light the advances in technology over the last 50 years and compare that to the brilliance of McGill’s soul, tech comes in a distant, dim second. 