[ARC5] ARC-5/SCR-274 Navigation Receivers?

[Mike Morrow]

>Before you indict the navigator and the rest of that crew you may want
>to do a little more research on the subject.

Have you a book you've read to recommend?  If not, I suggest "Lady's Men"
by Mario Martinez.  It's one of the latest and most in-depth of the many
that have been written about this event.  I've studied and read about
everything I could find for 40 years, but if one reads only one book
on this event, this is the one.

When I said "poor crew performance" the phrase was intended to soften
the judgement on the navigator.  The phrase I used is accurate, for he
was part of the crew.  He appears to have been completely ineffective
on this mission with consequences that were suffered by the whole crew.
His record previous to this event gave some indication that future
performance problems would likely surface.  This indication was neither
recognized nor corrected by the crew leader, pilot 1LT William Hatton.
That is another "crew failure".

>Here's some things I am aware of:
>This was the Lady Be Good's  and the crew's first mission in a war zone.

As I stated in my posting.

>As a Viet Nam combat veteran I cannot let the comment pass nor am I angry 
>about the posting.

The nuclear submarine service to which I devoted a number of years presents
many opportunities for the officers and the petty officers to assess crew
and individual performance.  It's their duty and responsibility to recognize
inadequate performance in order to prevent worse problems later.  I feel
qualified to look at Lady Be Good's record in a military context and judge
it wanting, to say the least.  It appears that her crew's finest hours 
occurred after the bailout, during the struggle for survival that was lost.
That was too late.

Mike / KK5F
(ex-LCDR, USN)