Willy Victor and 25 Knot Hole

By Bruce Jarvis

In the early hours of April 17, 1952 World War III nearly began. The Distant Early Warning line (DEW) was still an idea to be addressed by the U.S. government and its top military brass. “Willy Victor and 25 knothole” is about that vital cog of airborne defense against the real threat of a sneak attack (atomic and/ or airborne) against the American mainland. Bruce Jarvis, former naval flight crew member, recounts the operations of his Airborne Early Warning Squadron (AEWRON) experience, flying in a Lockheed Super Constellation Warning Star ( Navy designation Willy Victor-2) in support of the DEW line that became fully operable in the year 1957. It introduces readers to the flyers’ lives during the Cold War, and with little fanfare (but much moxie) recalls the unknown heroism of some of the front line troops in the form of a fictional but typical crew of naval airmen, of the now defunct conflict between Russia and the United States. Although the crew is fictional, their stories are true.

The entire U.S. air defense effort was conceptualized by what is known as the Lincoln Summer Study Group in 1952. It was in response to the panic in NORAD ( the North American Defense Command ) when “bogeys” or aircraft contrails were spotted near northern Canada-the U.S. had neither warning nor the means to combat its threat, if any. Had Kruschechev so chosen, the bogeys could have been the vanguard of a Russian first strike on the heart of America. The stories in “Willy Victor and 25 knothole” include purposes of the AEWRON missions, their importance, the people who flew them, personal anecdotes, their ground crews, their families and women and their sad or happy moments. It shows the human face of a war mostly fought in the rarefied scientific/technological and secret ops realms. Bruce Jarvis has taken good care in writing this book so that Americans may know and not forget the few good men who put their lives on the line during the cold war to protect the United States of America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479713684

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Copyright © 2012 by Bruce Jarvis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is edited by: Ms. Christine Hawver

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Table of Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 DISTANT EARLY WARNING LINE (DEW LINE)

CHAPTER 2 SURPRISE ARGENTIA

CHAPTER 3 FIRST FLIGHT

CHAPTER 4 REALITY

CHAPTER 5 WELCOME TO GREAT LAKES

CHAPTER 6 THE COMPANY COMMANDER WELCOME TO THE NAVY

CHAPTER 7 HELLO NEWFOUNDLAND

CHAPTER 8 THE REAL NAVY

CHAPTER 9 RETURN TO PATUXENT RIVER

CHAPTER 10 PATUXENT RIVER DECEMBER 1957

CHAPTER 11 THE PAX RIVER ROUTINE

CHAPTER 12 THE CREW 25 KNOTHOLE

CHAPTER 13 25 KNOTHOLE SETTLING IN

CHAPTER 14 LOCKHEED AIR SERVICE

CHAPTER 15 A FUN DAY

CHAPTER 16 A SCARY NIGHT

CHAPTER 17 EASTER 1959

CHAPTER 18 THE WEDDING

APPENDIX 1 THE PLANE

APPENDIX 2 THE WEATHER AND BARRIER SQUADRONS

APPENDIX 3 FLIGHT ENGINEERS LAMENT

APPENDIX 4 THE MAIN BASES ARGENTIA NEWFOUNDLAND

NAS BARBERS POINT HAWAII

APPENDIX 5 IN MEMORY OF THE WILL VICTOR ROSTER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

To my wife Mary whose love and support

motivated me to continue this effort

Preface 

My interest in writing this story was inspired by the Honorable Tim Johnson, an Illinois Congressman. He gave a speech at a Willy Victor flyers reunion at Chanute, AFB in 2003. He told the audience that until he was asked to speak at the reunion, he had no knowledge of what the group of people he was speaking to did for their country during the cold war. The Congressman indicated that he was overwhelmed with their mission achievements. He indicated that 99.99% of the United States public had no idea what was done or accomplished. His message motivated me to share my story with the public. Following the reunion, it took me three years to get started on this story. Just finding a way to begin was difficult as it had been about 45 years since I had left the Navy for civilian life. Once I started remembering what I and many others experienced, I continued writing until the story was finished. The stories all are true with a little bit of fiction weaved throughout.

During 1946, Winston Churchill contacted President Harry Truman to provide him with his thoughts about Russia’s intentions to drape an Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe. Shortly thereafter the Russians began the blockade of Berlin. Following the blockade they took over the countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine. This time is thought to be the beginning of the Cold War between the Free and Communist worlds.

In the early hours of April 17, 1952 World War III nearly began. The previous afternoon an intelligence source had reported unusual levels of activity at Soviet airbases. Shortly after midnight United States Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs, got word from Alaska that vapor trails from bogeys had been sighted high over the Bering Sea, coming from the direction of the Soviet Union. As Generals fretted over the report, another message arrived. Five more aircraft had been sighted off the coast of Maine. It might have been the real thing. The paranoia of the Cold War may be coming true, in a sneak atomic attack. Hence, the Generals ordered a full alert. Fighters were scrambled; Bombers were prepared and taxied to the end of the runways at many bases to fly a retaliatory strike.

What was the end result of all of this activity? Nothing! The vapor trails disappeared; the unknowns over Maine were identified as airliners off course. The perceived threat vanished. Most of the people in the United States slept that night undisturbed. But, the North American Defense Command (NORAD) had acted without real evidence of an attack. The biggest issue was the length of time it took for the first report of enemy planes to get to Colorado Springs and even longer for NORAD to finally figure out what was going on: ninety minutes. The methods to identify enemy aircraft were outdated. Hence, the Distance Early Warning Line (DEW) was developed, built, and went operational in 1957.

But, unfortunately the DEW line’s radar coverage did not initially provide any defense whatsoever against aircraft approaching the United States coasts from the northwest and northeast over the ocean approaches. The ocean approaches were longer however, the Soviets were already flying aircraft prototypes of turboprop bombers with the range to fly just such missions. Adjuncts to the DEW line electronic radar barriers were needed to patrol off shore on both coasts to prevent long range aircraft from penetrating air defenses and reaching the continental United States without warning.

I am writing a portion of this story to describe the Airborne Early Warning Squadrons (AEWRON) mission and the people and aircraft that accomplished it. It was these squadrons that were designated and their operations implemented to cover the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean approaches. They were the extensions of the DEW line. The AEWRON’s flew their missions over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from 1956-1967. The routes they flew were called barriers. Airborne early warning flights continued during the Viet Nam war to protect the Pacific Fleet sailing in those waters in and around Viet Nam. The barrier missions were stood down as Satellites took them over in 1968.

The time frame for my story is 1956-1959. The story is about my experiences while serving in the United States Navy during this portion of the Cold War. It began in early 1956 at Great Lakes Illinois and ended at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in August 1959. From September 1957 until early August 1959 I spent flying the Atlantic Barrier as a member of flight crews 5 and 11 knothole in Air Early Warning Squadron (AEWRON)-11 or VW-11.

25 knothole is a fictional crew of sailors who are a combination of real and fictional people who lived the mission day to day. The stories are real, lived by the crew and their squadron. The aircraft used to fly the barrier was the Lockheed Super Constellation Morning Star. (Willy Victor-2, Navy designation) The crew of 25 knothole was members of VW-11. It is one crew among many with the thousands of Sailors and Air Force personnel that supported the missions. Our story includes the purpose of the missions, their importance, the people who flew them, some of their stories, personnel that supported them, their families, their women, their wives, their frustrations, their happy moments and their sad.

Why did I pick VW-11 as the Squadron for the story? I was a member of VW-11 and spent two years flying the Atlantic barrier. Who am I? I started out as a seventeen year old who had no idea what he had begun when his dad agreed to sign the enlistment papers for him. I ended up participating in an adventure that protected my country and completely changed my life.

There were many of us flying out of Newfoundland, Hawaii, Guam, and from Air Force bases up and down the East and West coasts of the United States. Some locations were more desirable to be stationed at than others, but all had the same mission, flying barriers, identifying bogies, and reporting them to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). It was then up to NORAD to determine who, what, when, and why an aircraft was flying where it was, who and what it was, and whether or not it was to be shot down. I would have liked to include the details of this information but, all of the contact data and the data from NORAD remains classified today and is unavailable for this effort.

There are no monuments for those who gave their lives flying and training in the Willy Victor and EC-121 aircraft. This aircraft was developed to fly the various barriers around the world protecting the United States of America and the free world from its enemies during this dangerous time in the Cold War. Mr. Donald J. DJ Dunnarumma began the story and Mr. Wes Mortenson continued the process with the web page Willy Victor.com. As of the writing of this story both Messers. Dunnarumma and Mortenson have passed on to greater glory. Hopefully my contribution will continue their efforts and be an additional vehicle that memorializes those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, those of us that survived the barriers and those who maintained the aircraft they flew in. In fact, since we actually didn’t fight in wars in a foreign country during this time frame, 1956-59, we are not eligible to join the VFW.

Chapter 1

Distant Early Warning Line

(DEW line) 

There was a panic at the North American Defense Command (NORAD) in early 1952. Aircraft were intruding into Canadian Air space from over the North Pole, but notification at NORAD wasn’t received until three weeks after it happened. Following that situation, at the Air Force behest a gathering of eminent scientists and engineers called the Lincoln Summer Study Group met at Lincoln Laboratories during the summer of 1952. The purpose of this group was to study the United States air defense issues. Among the conferees were J. Robert Oppenheimer and I.I. Rabi (both veterans of the Manhattan project). These were men accustomed to thinking large and solving problems associated with them.

Prior to 1952 the United States had begun to improve its air defense effort. A post war radar network called Lashup, deployed around some major cities, was being beefed up and two radar fences were under construction: The Pine Tree line, along the U.S.-Canadian border and the unstaffed Mid-Canada line further north near the fifty-fifth parallel. They were useful against slow-moving propeller-driven planes but, totally inadequate for the jet age. The Lincoln Group pointed out that by the time Soviet jets crossed these thresholds, it would be too late to stop them. Only by detecting intruders earlier could an attack be thwarted.

The Lincoln group also knew that the shortest route for Soviet bombers approaching the United States would be across the North Pole. Such an attack could be detected only by constructing radar stations in the far north, stretching across the top of the Western hemisphere inside the Arctic Circle from Alaska to Greenland, covering the entire airspace and connected to the United States by reliable communications. Such a network could provide up to four hours’ warning to prepare defenses and hopefully evacuate at least some of the populace from target cities. In December 1952 in one of his last acts before leaving the presidency, Harry S. Truman approved the concept.

Over the next year it was debated by the military and civilian alike. Cost was one issue. Projected to be over hundreds of millions, some doubted the scheme would work, or that it could prevent nuclear war. Still others thinking back a dozen years to France in World War II, feared a Maginot Line mentality, in which a defensive barrier would yield a false sense of impregnability. In the end, whatever its imperfections, the benefits of such a radar fence made it indispensable as part of the revamped air-defense system, which would also include improved surveillance on the ground and in the air, advance communications, computing facilities, and a centralized staff to put all of the information together. It was an elegant and simple idea.

In practice it would be an entirely different matter. The problems were daunting. How to get all the equipment up there? What about communications in the unreliable atmospheric conditions of the far north, with its magnetic and electrical anomalies? How well would our radars work? How could we build permanent structures in Arctic conditions? To find out the Defense Department hired Western Electric Corporation, a massive subsidiary of ATT, to build several experimental stations, one in rural Illinois and several in Alaska for testing. The success of the tests and the first thermonuclear explosion by the Soviets in 1953 convinced the military that the Defense Early Warning Line (DEW line) was feasible and necessary. Politics was not the issue. The Canadian government gave permission to the U.S. to build the stations as long as the U.S. footed the bill. In December 1954 Western Electric was awarded the contract with the stipulation that the DEW line was to be completed and operational by July 31, 1957.

The enormity and difficulty of the task can only be described as horrific. The sites were built roughly along the 69th parallel, on land that was uninhabited, with the exception of widely scattered outposts of nomadic Inuit natives. Temperatures would drop as low as 60 degrees below zero F with 100 mph winds that would freeze flesh in seconds. For three months of the year the sun never rises above the horizon. Sites were picked using small planes and had to be void of mountains so they wouldn’t interfere with radar, communications or access by air. Ideally the sites would have sea access. Sixty sites were determined to meet the criteria. Airstrips had to be built at each site to provide access for supplies for construction teams and operating teams. The delivery of initial supplies and personnel amounted to the largest commercial airlift ever assembled. Almost 150,000 tons of supplies were carried in 45,000 flights using hundreds of aircraft. Twenty five men died in air crashes the first year. During the 3 years of construction when the frozen Arctic began melting in the summer, some 120 ships brought 42,000 tons of steel, millions of gallons of fuel, and many other supplies. On July 31, 1957 a miracle job completed, Western Electric turned over to the Air Force the fully operational DEW line. A complete 62 operating stations strung out over 3000 miles.

The DEW line operated with modifications and changes until 1990 when the United States turned over its operation to Canada. It seems to have done its job. No one attacked the United States or Canada during the Cold War. In the eyes of the veterans, both civilian and military, it did its job. The cooperation of the military, industry, Inuits, United States and Canadian peoples made this endeavor successful. It was one of the efforts that led to the good guys winning the Cold War.

The early planning envisioned a need for augmenting the basic radar net, because it would not give any real warning of enemy aircraft approaching from the east or west via the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans toward the American coastlines. Thus, the original thinking called for two lines of warning, called barriers, to be set up off shore of the two coasts. Each barrier would be made up of a number of stations and aircraft at each station would orbit in a long racetrack pattern. Initial Air Force thinking in 1951 provided 56 AEW&C aircraft flying 800 mile barriers located 224 miles off shore with aircraft flying on station some 150 miles apart. In effect there would be an electronic wall 800 miles long and 0-40,000 feet high. This concept was refined to extend the barrier further from the continental coasts when the Soviets exploded a thermonuclear device in August 1953.

The next step was to determine who would implement the idea. At this time a rivalry began between the Air Force and the Navy concerning the proposed new radar picket operations. The Air Force had the primary responsibility for continental air defense, including the DEW line. The Navy’s only clear responsibility at that time was providing a few radar picket ships which would patrol off-shore and with their radar pinpoint enemy aircraft trying to sneak in at very low altitudes. The Air Force felt it had the responsibility for the off shore airborne radar picket operations, but, the Navy happened to have the right aircraft at the right time.

A solution was reached and provided that the Air Force would fly barriers a couple of hundred miles off the United States coast and the Navy would handle similar operations considerably further out over the oceans. The Air Force would operate from mainland bases and the Navy would operate from bases in Newfoundland and the Azores over the Atlantic and Alaska as well as Midway Island, Cubi Bay, and the Hawaiian Islands over the Pacific. The arrangement satisfied both services and created a double line of defense. The only problem for the Air Force was that the only AEW&C design that looked promising was already being procured by the Navy. The Navy’s experience with airborne radar was seen as the answer to the threat of air attacks approaching from off-shore. The pentagon planners began looking around for the airframe and hardware necessary to implement a viable airborne early warning system. The Navy had done a great deal of development on the AEW&C concept and had already begun to procure some of the new aircraft for fleet defense purposes. Under these circumstances, the top military planners and decision makers felt that it