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Page 192 text:
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A Hi Ml 11 H
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Page 193 text:
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Late in April of 1957, roughly four hundred men, from commander through airman, received orders to a large island in the Pacific Northwest. Cdr. Terry B. Fraser, then deployed with an AJ-1 outfit in the Mediterranean, was appointed Commanding Officer of the newly forming squadron, and he began his journey back to the States and Ault Field, part of the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island which lay only fifty-six air miles northwest of Seattle, Washington. On 1 May, Commander Halford Woodson, Squadron Executive Officer, in the absence of Cdr. Fraser, officially accepted the commissioning papers for the fourth west coast heavy attack squadron from Captain W.H. Weston, Commander HATWING TWO, in a formal cermony. This was the birth of VAH-8. All of heavy attack on the West Coast had begun the move north by late June. San Diego ' s North Island was no longer home plate. VAH-8 was to form at Whidbey and be joined there by the rest of heavy attack. On 27 June, Commander Fraser formally assumed command, and by mid-July the move north was nearly complete. Only twelve short months were to intervene before EIGHT was to deploy as an operational squadron of the line aboard the MIDWAY, then docked at the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington. To those with weapon delivery experience, who knew what would be involved, the time must have seemed extremely short. For the most part, however, the majority of EIGHT ' S personnel knew little with the exceptions that the A3D was the aircraft, it had a three man crew, and its mission was to conduct high level offensive air-to-ground attack operations. All were to learn, in the ensuing months, the amount of man hours involved in achieving the capability to effectively fulfill that mission. The infancy of any squadron is a difficult period; before we could walk we had to crawl. While the pilots transitioned in F9F ' s and F3D ' s, the squadron departments set themselves up administratively in the New Brunswick Hanger at Ault Field. Experienced mechanics, electricians, and electronic technicians went to school to study the J-57, the A3D airframe, its hydraulic, electric, and electronic systems. HATUPAL, newly commissioned at Whidbey Island, had initiated its basic training courses for bombardiers and third crewmen. Men who had formerly been AQ ' s, AT ' s, and AM ' s were sent through the training unit and learned dead reckoning, celestial navigation, airmanship, gunnery, and the bombing problem. Intelligence, meanwhile, back at the squadron spaces, was preparing for the homecoming of personnel and the formation of crews. They gathered the needed material on RBJ sites in the United States, stocked the necessary charts. Pilots were sent to FAETU. Ordnancemen were sent for further schooling. The TAD line consumed the larger part of our muster reports until mid-November, and then the pace quickened as TAD percentage dropped off. Nine A3D ' s were in the hanger, with four more coming shortly. The F9F ' s and F3D ' s were transferred to another command, and pilots started on FMLP ' s, night and day. Most of the squadron maintenance personnel were back, the third crewmen had finished school, the first class of bombardiers turned out by HATU reported, followed in two weeks by the second. One successfully completed mission presupposes a combination and coordination of a variety of skills performed by three men. The basic knowledge had now been acquired, and we were ready to learn to walk. Now everyone had to learn the A3D by experience. The big problems became immediately evident. For the pilots, an old one they were used to — each plane has its own personality, its own quirks, and they must be discovered and compensated for. The A3D is not designed to flare : in a sense it is driven into the deck on landing - - - it has a drag chute - - - unlike prop planes, it requires little rudder control, and so on . . . Carquals were scheduled for March. (please turn to page 194)
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