From the Flight Deck

by Mersky, Peter B.

• ISBN13: 9781574886122
• ISBN10: 1574886126
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-30
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc

Summary

"Prepare to launch aircraft!" One can almost hear the order booming from the island's loudspeaker. In From the Flight Deck, the exhilarating and always dangerous world of aircraft carrier aviation is covered in thirty-two excerpts of the best fiction and nonfiction writing on the subject. Beginning with the first success in 1910 by American aviator Eugene Ely, the anthology then covers British operations during World War I and the unique contributions to carrier warfare made by the U.S and British navies during the 1920s and 1930s. World War II and the Korean War are also well represented-with excerpts from such American classics as Walter Lord's Day of Infamy, Ted Lawson's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and James A. Michener's The Bridges of Toko Ri-as the period during which carriers and their crews matured into the indispensable weapon systems we nearly take for granted today. Experiments with larger and more capable aircraft as well as advances in a vast array of carrier-related technology bring the reader to the present day, with selections by such noted authors as Norman Polmar (Aircraft Carriers) and George Wilson (Supercarrier). The diverse experiences of U.S. and foreign naval aviators in the Suez Operation in 1956, the French and American wars in Vietnam, the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Allied air campaign in Bosnia are all covered, often through eyewitness accounts. For example, in Peter B. Mersky's book, RF-8 Crusader Units Over Cuba and Vietnam, he relates a chilling first-person account of the fire on board the U.S.S. Oriskany in 1966. In She's Just Another Navy Pilot, Laurie Hirschman describes the major social changes caused by the arrival of women fighter pilots in the Navy. From its primitive start during the earliest years of flight, through its numerous tests in the crucible of war, and to the high-tech operations of recent missions, all the thrills and risks of nearly a century of carrier aviation are captured in From the Flight Deck.

Author Biography

Peter B. Mersky is well known for his military aviation books, for some hundred magazine articles, and for hundreds of book reviews on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation. A lifelong aviation enthusiast, he served sixteen years as the assistant editor, then editor, for Approach magazine, the Navy's aviation safety publication. He is a retired officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and he has held close ties to naval aviation for more than thirty years. Mersky is also a series editor for Brassey's Aviation Classics series. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xvii
Credits	xix
The Early Years, 1910-1938
Taking the First Chance: Eugene Ely, the First Carrier Aviator
from Wings for the Fleet	3	(7)
Rear Admiral George van Deurs
The Aircraft Carrier Goes to War
from Aircraft Carriers: A Graphic History	10	(11)
Norman Polmar
The U.S. Navy's First Aircraft Carrier, USS Langley
from The Golden Age Remembered: U.S. Naval Aviation 1919-1941	21	(14)
E. T. Wooldridge
Carrier Aviation Comes of Age, 1939-1945
Fighting the Germans in the North Atlantic
from Wings on My Sleeve	35	(7)
Commander Eric Brown
Royal Navy
``The Famous Victory'': Swordfish at Taranto
from With Naval Wings: The Autobiography of a Fleet Air Arm Pilot in World War II	42	(11)
John Wellham
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
from Day of Infamy	53	(7)
Walter Lord
Payback Time: The Doolittle Raiders Bomb Tokyo
from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo	60	(7)
Captain Ted Lawson
Bob Considine
Something for the Home Folks: Taking Liberties with the Facts
from ``Battle Descending,''	67	(10)
Richard Sale
Don Samson
The Battle of Midway	77	(23)
The Midway Admiral: Raymond A. Spruance
from Admiral Raymond A. Spruance	79	(6)
Vice Admiral E. P. Forrestel
A Lost Aviator Disappears
from The Last Flight of Ensign C. Martin Kelly, Jr.	85	(8)
Bowen P. Weisheit
From the Japanese Viewpoint
from Midway: the Battle That Doomed Japan	93	(7)
Mitsuo Fuchida
Masatake Okumiya
Fighting for the Solomons: The Carrier Navy Joins the Marines
from Carrier Warfare in the Pacific: An Oral History	100	(11)
E. T. Wooldridge
There Were Heroes on Both Sides
from The Last Tallybo	111	(10)
Richard Newhafer
So Young to Command
from Bring Back My Stringbag	121	(20)
John Kilbracken
The Early Cold War, 1946-1953
The Navy Wants a Piece of the Action: Nuclear Bombers Aboard Carriers
from Aircraft Carriers: A Graphic History	141	(6)
Norman Polmar
Marines on Carriers in Korea
from ``The Black Sheep in Korea,''	147	(6)
Admiral John S. Thach
E. T. Wooldridge
A Whitehat's Viewpoint
from Sailors in the Sky: Memoirs of a Navy Aircrewman in the Korean War	153	(5)
Jack Sauter
Fiction As True As Fact
from The Bridges at Toko-Ri	158	(10)
James Michener
Royal Navy Carriers in Korea
from With the Carriers in Korea	168	(13)
John R. P. Lansdown
Times of Development and Transition, 1954-1963
The Rubber Deck
from The Wrong Stuff: Flying on the Edge of Disaster	181	(8)
Commander John Moore
Young Pups and Old ADs
from Gold Wings, Blue Sea: A Naval Aviator's Story	189	(9)
Captain Rosario Rausa
Carriers in the Middle East: The Suez Campaign
from Wings Over Suez	198	(19)
Brian Cull
David Nicolle
Shlomo Aloni
French Hellcats in Vietnam
from Au-Dela du Pont d'Envol [Beyond the Flight Deck]	217	(12)
Vice Admiral Roger Vercken
The Vietnam Crucible, 1964-1975
The Skyhawk's War
from Dark Sky Black Sea: Aircraft Carrier Night and All-Weather Operations	229	(7)
Charles H. Brown
Paying the Price: Frank Elkins of VA-164
from The Heart of a Man	236	(12)
Frank Elkins
Fire on the Oriskany
from RF-8 Crusader Units Over Cuba and Vietnam	248	(8)
Peter Mersky
America and Liberty: Passing Ships
from Wings and Warriors: My Life As a Naval Aviator	256	(9)
Donald D. Engen
A New Age, 1976-Present
War in an Unknown Place
from Sea Harrier Over the Falklands: A Maverick at War	265	(10)
Commander Sharkey Ward
Managing the Store: What It Takes to Run an Aircraft Carrier
from Supercarrier: An Inside Account of Life Aboard the World's Most Powerful Ship, the USS John F. Kennedy	275	(9)
George C. Wilson
A Helo Crew's War
from Weapons Free: The Story of a Gulf War Helicopter Pilot	284	(9)
Richard Boswell
Prowlers in the Gulf
from Ironclaw: A Navy Carrier Pilot's Gulf War Experience	293	(21)
Sherman Baldwin
Bailout in the Balkans
from No Escape Zone	314	(9)
Nick Richardson
Recce Over Kosovo
from Le Porte-Avions Foch	323	(5)
Alexandre Paringaux
Women in the Cockpits
from She's Just Another Navy Pilot: An Aviator's Sea Journal	328	(11)
Loree Draude Hirschman
Dave Hirschman
Index	339	(4)
The Editor	343