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I was up there in September-November 1976 on the USS JFK.

It was heavy weather up there, I remember seeing one of our escorts (a Knox class FFG) the bow was taking green water, then you could see the screws come out, and the whole time, the ship was rolling and yawing. The water was so whipped up that the surface was white and frothy.

Nobody was allowed on deck on that day, all the planes had 24 point tiedowns. Me and two of my buddies wanted to see what it looked like at the bow, so we went out in the catwalk (keeping our heads down so they couldn’t see us from the bridge)

We watched the bulbous part of the bow of the carrier come ponderously up out of the water, and TONS and TONS of water cascaded off of it...it was stunning for me to watch! Then the ship paused, and that bow went back into the water...the only thing I can compare it to is that picture of the North Sea lighthouse with the wave crashing around it....

It looked like the whole bow of the carrier was going to submerge the way the bow entered the water and kept going...the three off us nearly killed each other leaving footprints on each others backs trying to get through the hatch!

Needless to say, we weren’t in any danger. No way the bow was even close to going under, but it sure didn’t look that way to us. Without a doubt, that was one of the most vivid memories I have of all the time I spent at sea.

It was my first extended cruise, and I was still a plane captain trainee at the time. A lot happened on that cruise, two major events, both on the same day, September 14, 1976. I have to say...after all these years, I had forgotten both of these things happened on the same day. How I did not remember that is a complete mystery to me. It puzzles me, because I was sleeping in a plane near both incidents when they happened! How that could be, I don’t recall, but I suppose one might be related to the other in some way, though I cannot recall.

On September 14th, I was still a trainee, and we lost a Tomcat over the side. When that happened, I was asleep in the cockpit of one of our Corsairs spotted in a line between the waist cat and the island, and the jet blast of the Tomcat as it played across my plane when it plunged over the side woke me up. Apparently, as it taxied to the waist cat for launching, it had a fuel control malfunction, and one or both of its engines went to full power as the pilot stomped on the brakes trying to stop it. He couldn’t stop it, and the Tomcat taxied right off the side of the ship. I woke in time just and jerked my head around to see the tail disappear with everyone running over to the side of the deck. As I looked around, off in the distance, there was a Soviet warship that was steaming across our bow to get a better look (many miles away) and one of our destroyers cut in front of it...at least that was the way it looked to me. I don’t think they were close enough to collide.

You would think that would be enough for one day, but I found myself again near another calamity, but completely unaware of it. I seem to think it was later in the evening around 22:00, though I don’t recall.

Again, I was manning a plane as a brake rider and sleeping in the cockpit of a plane spotted just forward of the starboard elevator with the tail pointing out over the starboard side (I was a potential brake rider in case they needed to move it). I was shivering and huddled with my lousy foul weather gear jacket pulled up as far as I could, but drifted off to sleep. I was awakened by by a pounding noise, and when snapped awake disoriented and nearly scared shitless, I was confronted with the bizzare sight of one of the flight deck crash crew in their silver reflective garb staring at me through the canopy. We had collided with the USS Bordelon, one of our escorts, and when we went to General Quarters, he had come over to see if we had any damage, and saw me sleeping. He had climbed up and banged on the canopy with the plastic end of a fire extinguisher. Startled, when I opened the canopy, he said “We are at General Quarters...you better go down and check in!”

Two events in one day like that? That is bizarre. But I learned a lot on that cruise, and we went to Edinburgh, Scotland, Portsmouth, England, Brest, France, and Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

Edinburgh was great, people were very, very friendly, loved us. I was drinking alone in a bar, and a guy asked me if I wanted to go bowling with him and his family. I said no, I didn’t have time, but someone told me that was a big deal because they don’t have a lot of bowling alleys, and have to reserve them (or at least they did back then)

In Portsmouth, I met a really good looking blonde girl just after I got off the ship. She suggested we go to a dance, and I was all for this, and had to take a cab and pay an expensive entrance fee for both of us to get in. Shortly after we got there, I lost track of her, and spent a good deal of time looking for her...only to see her some time later coming in with some other sailor! Boy, did that piss me off. I felt pretty taken advantage of. It was apparent her job was to get guys to pay for themselves and her, and the more the better.

Brest was gray, depressing, and had the singularly most unfriendly people I have ever seen. We had to wear our uniforms, and how the people glared at us. It was uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it at all.

Heh, I don’t remember Wilhelmshaven at all.

But I do remember how damned cold it was in the North Atlantic. They gave us foul weather jackets that were only good to about 30-40 degrees, and we didn’t even have enough for all of us. We had to “hot bunk” the jackets, when one guy came down off the flight deck, another guy would take his jacket and go up.

We used to get bales of rags for cleaning the planes (with waterless cleaner) and we rummaged through new bales looking for the best rags we could tie around our faces and stuff down inside our shirts for warmth...those were tight times for the US Navy, and Jimmy Carter didn’t help in that decade.

I was told that the extensive search for the plane took place