Word: squadronal
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Alfa's beefsteak includes Thach's flagship, the aircraft carrier Valley Forge, eight destroyers, two submarines, a squadron of Valley Forge-based Grumman 52F sub-hunting aircraft, a helicopter squadron, a land-based patrol squadron of P2Vs, blimps, 5,000 men, a vast electronic network of electronic eyes and ears. Its armament is a marvel of the Atomic Age: included are nuclear depth charges, nicknamed Betty and Lulu, each with sufficient explosive force to lift the entire U.S. Navy (901 ships) clear out of the water...
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...
...cruiser U.S.S. Cincinnati in SOC-15, patrolled the Canal Zone in PBYs. Stationed in San Diego in the 19305, Thach met and married Madalyn Jones (they have two sons, John Jr., an experimental psychologist, and William Leland, about to enter William and Mary), became gunnery officer of Fighting Squadron 3. He set up mock dogfights, gave new pilots the advantage of altitude and invited them to "stay on my tail." Few could. Invariably. he sat in his cockpit eating an apple as a gesture of contempt for his foe, almost invariably evaded his pursuer before the apple was eaten...
Iowa to Christmas. Pearl Harbor found Jim Holloway 43 years old, a commander in charge of the gunnery section of the office of Chief of Naval Operations. He put in for sea duty soonest, was cited by the Navy Secretary for "aggressive fighting spirit" while commanding Destroyer Squadron Ten in the North Africa landings. He got the Legion of Merit for a brilliant training job commanding the Atlantic Fleet's Bermuda-based shakedown group for new destroyers and destroyer escorts. In late 1944 he pleaded against Navy Secretary Jim Forrestal's ruling that he must stay...
...illness, then spend the evening at the hospital with her before taking a long walk home, as he put it, "to become healthfully fatigued and then to sleep." In October 1956 Jean Holloway died. Their son, Commander James L. Holloway III, Annapolis '42, is now commanding a jet squadron aboard the attack carrier Essex in the Sixth Fleet off Lebanon...