Consolidated Aircraft PBY-1
The
next morning, when I reported for muster on the seaplane ramp in front of the
VP-21 hangar, I arrived early to inspect my strange new world. Each squadron had thirteen big Consolidated
Aircraft PBY-1 flying boats. A total of
52 of the twin-engine airplanes were parked in rows on the broad expanse of the
concrete ramp. Silver fuselages and
broad high-mounted wings gleam in the morning sunlight. Different stripes on the high rounded rudders
identified each squadron’ airplane.
Being
a lowly seaman second class recruit, I was immediately assigned to the beaching
crew. The PBYs were supported on land by
large dual-wheel main gear that locked onto each side of the fuselage and a
tripod mounted tail wheel with a steering bar for use when the airplane was
towed by a tractor. To fly, the
airplanes were lowered down a launching ramp into the water by a tractor. The beach crew then removed the wheels and
dragged them back up the ramp.
When
the airplanes returned from a flight, they taxied to the launching ramp and the
beaching gear was re-installed by the beach crew. It was onerous duty but we did have the
advantage the this was Hawaii and we were required to go swimming several times
a day. Our uniform on the beach crew was
Navy blue swim trunks and a pair of hob-nailed shoes for good footing on the
wet ramp. The water was eternally warm
and we had plenty of time for recreational swimming unless the beach crew chief
had us policing the ramp and hangar area while we waited for airplanes to get
ready to launch or returned from a flight.
Pre-war
duty in Hawaii was a delight because Navy shore installations observed
“tropical working hours”. Our hours were
from muster at oh seven hundred (7AM) to fourteen hundred hours (2:00 PM). The crew was divided into port and starboard
watch sections between which the duty was divided so that during off hours,
evenings and weekends, half the squadron was on duty—the other half could have
liberty and the married men who had families in Hawaii could go home. The off-duty section could have liberty on
the weekends from 1400 on Friday until O700 Monday morning—one of the many
reasons that duty in Hawaii was so sought after.
A
problem for us recruits was that the $36 per month paid a seaman second was not
enough to really take advantage of all that free time. It did, however, give us plenty of time to
study our practical factors manuals for the examinations for our next promotion. Some of us, particularly we aviation
machinist mate (mechanics) strikers, spent some of that free time poring over
PBY maintenance manuals and going over the details of the airplanes. Before I was even eligible for promotion to
seaman first class, I was familiar with every system on the
airplanes—particularly the big engines. L
also spent time with the ordinance gang helping to bore sight the machine guns
and learning to field strip and re-adjust the mechanism. I was determined to be ready when the time
came that I could be assigned to a flight crew.
I
did not get well acquainted with VP-21 shipmates. Instead, I applied for transfer to my brother’s
squadron and it came through in less than two weeks. On 14 March I was transferred to VP-23, soon
to become VP-11.
My
duties did not change. In VP-23 I was also
assigned to the beaching crew. I was
envious of brother Dick because, being more than four months ahead of me, he
had just made AMM third class and had already wangled assignment to a flight
crew. (Flight crew assignments were
doubly coveted because flight pay—known as “flight skins”—added fifty percent
to base pay. A third class made $72 per
month. With flight skins it totaled $108—a
small fortune to us then.) Of course it
meant that Dick continued to lord it over me just as he had done all our
lives. I did not mind—I was used to it
and knew that, sooner or later, I would overtake him.
Dick’s
assignment to a flight crew had one advantage for me—it got me my first ride in
a PBY. One day he talked his plane
captain into listing me supernumerary on his crew for a local training
flight. The beach crew chief, Tex Foret,
gave me permission and I happily drew a flight jacket, helmet, and goggles from
the equipment room.
The
big fuselage of the PBY had a bombardier’s compartment in the nose that
included a manually operated gun turret for a thirty caliber machine gun behind
which was the pilots compartment with its raised seats. Aft of that was the radio/navigation compartment
then a compartment with the small auxiliary “put-put” and a rudimentary galley
on one side and two crew bunks on the other.
Above that compartment was the mechanic’s station in the tower that supported
the big wing and engines above the fuselage.
It had windows on each side, an instrument panel, and all the engine
controls except the throttles which were on the overhead of the pilot’s
compartment.
Aft
of the mechanic’s compartment was a bunk compartment that was also used to stow
tool and ammunition boxes. Immediately behind
was the “waist compartment” having the sliding hatches and a 50-caliber machine
gun stowed on each side. There was also
a tail compartment that had a hatch that could be opened to fire down and aft
with a thirty caliber machine gun.
We
had hardly reached our cruising altitude of seven hundred fifty feet and the
engines had settle down to their synchronized drone when I knew that I had
found my milieu. I was ecstatic. Glover was the second mech on the crew and
was on duty in the tower. He waved me to
stick my head up and showed me all the gages on the panel, the fuel quantity
gages, the wingtip float control, and the engine fuel mixture and carburetor
temperature controls.
The
fuselage windows were tiny and I could not see much until Dick took me to the
waist compartment and opened one of the hatches. Standing in the gunner’s position half out of
the airplane on the port side, I had a panoramic view of the island as we flew
around Koko Head, past Bird Island off Kailua, and circled in over Kaneohe Bay.
Richard
gestured for me to put on the port gunner’s interphone because the pilot was
speaking to the crew. As I recall his
words were something like, “Take a good look down there on the peninsula at
those new buildings, fellows. That is
the brand new Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station that will be commissioned this
summer and will be our new home. They
are transferring us to Patrol Wing One and we will become VP-11 and move in
there in two or three months.
The
Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station was on the seaward peninsula of the bay directly
across from the village of Kaneohe. I
could see a long seaplane ramp with two or three launching ramps, one big
hangar completed and another under construction, and a complex of new buildings
of a major air station. At the north end
of the peninsula a small runway for land planes was under construction. Kaneohe would obviously be a vast improvement
over the crowded conditions of Ford Island.
