Word: planes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Academically, Jimmy Thach ('27) was a less than middling middy, but his first plane ride, in a yellow twin-engined H16 seaplane, sent him soaring into a pilot's career. In 1930 he became a member of the U.S. Navy's famous Fighting Squadron 1, the High Hat Squadron (skipper of the High Hats: Lieut. Commander Arthur W. Radford). Nine of the High Hats, including Thach and Radford, barnstormed the nation in Curtiss F8C4 Hell-divers, tied wingtip to wingtip with Manila rope. Bound thus, Thach and some of his comrades astonished crowds with loops, snap rolls...
Tactics from Matchsticks. He was also working relentlessly at solving tactical problems, and late one night, after jockeying matchsticks across his table for hours, he arrived at a memorable maneuver. Based on the premise that the traditional three-plane fighter element was an inefficient formation for aerial battle, Thach had figured out a two-plane weave pattern. It was soon to be used. Within hours after Pearl Harbor, Lieut. Commander Thach, now in command of Fighting 3, sailed out across the Pacific aboard the Saratoga. The carrier took a torpedo before the airmen ever got into a fight. Switching...
...minutes after take-off at 4:05 a.m., Flight 607E radioed a routine report that it was about 100 miles out over the Atlantic. When a next report, due every 5° of longitude, did not come in, a "phase of uncertainty" was declared, during which all stations and planes were urged to look and listen for the plane. Half an hour later, an emergency was declared. Ten hours passed before an R.A.F. Coastal Command plane, scouring the sea some 40 minutes out from the Irish coast, spotted traces of oil. Coming down to 100 ft., the pilot...
...could say what force had hurled the Constellation to its death, although burns on the recovered bodies and metal fragments embedded in some suggested an explosion before the plane hit the sea. Only one little boy wore a life jacket, perhaps at the urging of an anxious parent. Flyers at Shannon speculated that a propeller might have sheared off, plowed into the packed cabin and perhaps ignited the fuel tanks which had been filled to capacity before takeoff...
...popped by a North Korean MIG, bails out over enemy territory. Mitchum, of course, has only to scoot home and catch a quick shower in order to nest down with the missing flyer's spouse (May Britt). Instead, the red-blooded rat turns true blue; he bellylands his plane, heaps Philips over his shoulder and reels (about 25) back to their own lines. There Philips' repentant wife waves disconsolate farewell to Mitchum, but he does not even notice. He is staring at those vapor trails...