USS Independence - the Voyage

This is the Captain. We will shortly have a Soviet long range reconnaissance aircraft flying down our port side

I will not dwell too much on the domestics of living for a few days on CV62. Suffice it to say that everyone, from the Admiral downwards (this was the fleet flagship at the time) made me feel most welcome. On my first evening I was the guest of the Wardroom and was served a superb dinner. It was then that I realised the USN run a ‘dry’ outfit. In a quiet moment over coffee I confessed to the Captain that I had some alcohol in my cabin. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said with a grin. ‘Just keep it well out of sight. It’s for medicinal purposes isn’t it?’

For the first 48 hours the stomach bug I had contracted in Gibraltar continued to plague me although I am quite certain the USN thought I was simply sea sick. I was actually very surprised at how much the carrier pitched as we crossed the Bay of Biscay. Standing out on the flight deck, always with a safety escort to make sure I didn’t fall off, it was remarkable to see how much the bow went up and down in the swell. In fact, for a couple of days no flying off was possible because of the conditions even though Spanish land airfields were within range.

The Captain gave me a free run of his ship and told me I could go wherever I wanted except in the communications centre. If I wanted to go on deck I was to arrange an escort for my own safety. The problem, I soon discovered, was finding my way around. I had taken the precaution of writing down the number of my cabin in case I became totally lost. Down below, I found the constant noise and vibration tiring and it was quite impossible to tell which way was forward and which way aft until a friendly sailor explained the signs. It was obvious that all ranks on board knew roughly who I was and I found nothing but curiosity and friendship.

Each of the flying squadrons, I forget how many there were, operated from their own area of the ship. They were all linked together by a ship-wide closed circuit TV system. Any of the ship's company could, apparently, listen in to briefings and debriefings when the system was switched on. I was assured that every rank on board would wish to watch my TV briefings on how to carry out air-to-air refuelling. That was bad enough but then they told me that the system provided talk-back so anyone could chip in and ask me questions right there and then. In 1975 CCTV in the UK was in its infancy so the prospect of having such a large and professional audience for my briefings was daunting to say the least.

I decided, as my American friends would have put it, to ‘cut the crap’ from my prepared script. I shortened my briefing by at least 50% and concentrated as much as possible on practicalities and emergency drills. It seemed to go down well and I had lots of sensible questions from the various crew rooms.

The next day it was time for me to go flying! I had extensive safety briefings as one would expect. My pilot was the Flight Commander, a full USN captain in rank, son of a 3 star admiral. Some of the pilots wished me luck adding, ‘He doesn’t do much flying these days but you should be OK!’ He also flew me on my second flight, this time in an F4 and that was much more exciting. As we shot off the end of the ship, the pilot said ‘You OK, Tony?’ ‘Yup,’ I gulped. Then I noticed that the air speed was already approaching 600 knots and that we were skimming the waves. ‘Hold tight,’ he called and promptly pulled the aircraft into a vertical climb. I saw the accelerometer reach 6g before temporarily I blacked out. He was wearing an anti‑g suit; I was not. When my sight and senses recovered a few seconds later, we were rolling off the top at 35,000 feet.

We RV'ed with a Marham Victor tanker south-west of the Scillies to refuel. The Victor crew were astonished to recognise my voice on the radio because only a few people at Marham knew where I had gone. When we returned to the carrier we had to make about eight approaches to land back on deck because the weather, and the swell, had worsened considerably. We were waved off at least half a dozen times. One of the junior pilots was sharing the circuit with us and eventually he got down to his minimum fuel state whereupon he was ordered to divert to RAF St Mawgan, about 100 miles north of our position. I learned later that he landed safely on the 9,000 foot runway but apparently made a carrier-type landing and came to a very rapid halt using maximum braking, bursting all his tyres in the process. I knew there was some excuse: the St Mawgan runway was by no means level. There was a pronounced up gradient to the first hundred metres of the runway before it fell away for the rest of its length. Just before touch down it would have suddenly appeared to the Navy pilot that the runway was extremely short. He had to wait for his aircraft to be dragged off the runway. Very embarrassing. We finally landed back on deck just before we reached our minimum fuel state.

On that same day I went to what I thought was the Captain’s Bridge, having been invited the evening before by the Captain to go there to watch some replenishment at sea (RAS). Somehow I found myself on the wrong deck entirely. I knew I was in the wrong place when I was confronted by a very large, armed Marine. I looked beyond him and saw the Admiral grinning at me. ‘I guess you’re lost, Tony,’ he said. ‘Come right in and welcome to my Bridge.’ The Marine stood aside, a little reluctantly I thought, and let me pass.

There was no-one else on the bridge. It had never occurred to me that the Admiral would have his own bridge. It must have been a lonely existence. The two of us chatted away very amiably for quite a long time, with me sitting in a large leather swivel seat alongside the Admiral. Eventually one of the fleet’s cruisers came alongside on the starboard side ready for the RAS. The Admiral called me over to the side of his bridge and said, ‘Let’s have a talk with the Captain.’ He told a signalmen to get the captain of the cruiser on the ship-to-ship telephone. 'Won't that be a little distracting for the Captain?' I asked. ‘Sure!' said the Admiral to me cheerfully. 'I should think he'll be very worried when they tell him the Admiral wants to talk to him.’  The cruiser Captain quickly came out onto the cruiser's deck holding his 'talking brick' to his ear. He waved at the Admiral with his other hand and asked if there was a problem. The Admiral told him him that he had a visiting RAF officer with him watching to see how it was done. I am sure the last thing the cruiser Captain wanted right then was a cheerful chat with his Admiral with a Brit watching on.

Shortly after that 'Intelligence' reported that a Soviet aircraft was approaching from the north. The Independence scrambled a pair of fully armed F4s to intercept it. I was asked not to take close up photographs of the armed F4s and, of course, I obeyed. A message came over the carrier’s public address system: ‘This is the Captain. We will shortly have a Soviet Bear Delta long range reconnaissance aircraft flying down our port side. All ranks who can be spared can go on deck to see it – but don’t all go at once otherwise you’ll over-balance the ship!’ I was amazed at how many hundreds of sailors came on deck to watch the Soviet aircraft with its USN F4 escorts pass down our port beam at about 500 feet above the sea.

All too soon my cruise was over. We passed through the English Channel, leaving Dover off to port, just as dawn broke. It was a beautiful day. Later that morning I was flown off the carrier to the US base at Mildenhall where a car took me the few miles back to Marham.

Here are a selection of pictures I took during my cruise. Click on any thumbnail to download a larger version in a new window. Some kind friend took the black and white photographs of my F4 landing.

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