[Milsurplus] Flat top flight deck

[Mike Morrow]

Michael wrote:

>1964-'65, USS HORNET, CVS-12 ... any chance I got I watched flight ops.

I was on the USS Intrepid/CVS-11 in 1971.  We spent much of that summer operating north of Norway and Finland in one of the few carrier operations ever conducted above the Arctic Circle.  The concept of an anti-submarine carrier force was later judged to be a failure, but least I got my Bluenose (Arctic Circle Crossing) card from it.

We carried A-4C, S-2E, E-1B, C1-A, and SH-3D aircraft.  I saw an inverted crash of a SH-3D into seas south of Norway, and several other assorted mishaps.  A broken arm was the worst personal injury, but the SH-3D sank.

I found our USN aircraft operations to be less interesting than the close attention paid to us by Soviet naval and air forces.  They didn't seem to appreciate our presence on the western edge of the Barents Sea.  It was a great opportunity for close-up pictures of land-based Tu-16 and Tu-20 aircraft, a Kresta-II (Hull 551) cruiser with her Ka-25 helicopter, and an intel collector ship called the Nahodka.

There are people still upset that Intrepid spent a week at Copenhagen, during that cruise more than 37 years ago (the old nuclear weapons issue).  See http://www.nukestrat.com/dk/intrepid.htm .  The Intrepid's 1971 track is shown on the that site (copied from the ship's cruise book that was issued in 1972), plus a number of interesting Intrepid documents related to the cruise.

Mike / KK5F
(My desired orders to aviator training at Pensacola were canceled when I got drafted into nuclear submarines.)