RememberedSky.com

Testimony of Pilot: Sightings – American Dragons

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Ed

Testimony of Pilot #4

Sometimes no matter whether the words of a Hemingway or any author, no matter how skilled, the complete essence of story just can’t be captured as well as on the artist canvas. Sometimes the event itself precludes the photograph, or in combat aviation particularly, I think the dynamics sometimes prevent complete recall of the pilot in sufficient detail. But with only minor information the imagination and talent of the artist can bring that story to life or indeed stand by itself as the telling. Peter Chilelli used that talent to recreate my memories of that first Alpha Strike and THE SAM near the Than Hoa Bridge in early May 1972.

He has now graciously volunteered use of his art for the Testimony of Pilot series. Where story and his art are in sync his work will be a major aspect of this series. Below are several examples of Peter’s aviation art as the story. His work can be found at Fine Art America.

The aviation storytelling of Peter Chilelli

“I am a dragon. America the beautiful, like you will never know”

Continue reading →

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Testimony of Pilot: “I Am a Dragon, America the Beautiful Like You Will Never Know”

Posted on April 22, 2019 by Ed

Testimony of Pilot#3

From AIRSHIPS; Testimony of Pilot

by Barry Hannah

… Through Lilian I got the word that Quadberry was out of Annapolis and now flying jets off the Bonhomme Richard, an aircraft carrier headed for Vietnam.

He telegrammed her that he would set down at the Jackson airport at ten o’clock one night. So Lilian and I were out there waiting. It was a familiar place to her. She was a stewardess and her loops were mainly in the South. She wore a beige raincoat, had red sandals on her feet; I was in a black turtleneck and corduroy jacket, feeling significant, so significant I could barely stand it. I’d already made myself the lead writer at Gordon-Marx Advertising in Jackson. I hadn’t seen Lilian in a year. Her eyes were strained, no longer the bright blue things they were when she was a pious beauty. We drank coffee together. I loved her. As far as I knew, she’d been faithful to Quadberry.

He came down in an F-something Navy jet right on the dot of ten. Continue reading →

Posted in Memorials, Of Dragons and Ghosts, On their Shoulders, Testimony of Pilot -Series | Comments Off

Testimony of Pilot: “I’ll Remember”

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Ed

Testimony of Pilot #2

by Richard L. Newhafer

I remember the things of the past four years. They are as much a part of me now and forever as my very soul. The years of my life may be many or may be few, but I’ll remember . . .

VF-6 Hellcat on the USS Hancock

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant, Junior Grade Richard L. Newhafer for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Fighter Plane in Fighting Squadron SIX (VF-6), attached to the U.S.S. HANCOCK (CV-19), in a strike against major units of the enemy fleet, including aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, in Kure Harbor, Japan, on 25 July 1945.

I’ll remember a glistening bar atop the El Cortez in San Diego in September of 1943, cloudy with cigarette smoke and noisy with a hard and forced laughter. I remember the gold wings and battle ribbons on the chests and Bates sitting beside me looking westward out over the sea.

‘Well, Batesy, tomorrow we go. A week from today we’ll be in it. So tonight we either get drunk or go to church. What’ll it be?’ And Bates smiled and ordered a drink for the house. Continue reading →

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Testimony of Pilot: Of the Telling of TINS and the Avoidance of Lawyers

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Ed

Testimony of Pilot #1

You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be.
Ernest Hemingway

Spitfire by Barrie Clark

This Ernest Hemingway quote is from an article he wrote for Collier’s when he was their correspondent in London during World War II. Titled “London Fights the Robots”, it’s about the R.A.F. effort to shoot down incoming buzz bombs. – From the book, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, a compilation of much of his journalism – It can certainly be supposed Hemingway was characterizing one of the most beloved aircraft in history from the Battle of Britain.

With this note Remembered Sky begins a new series Testimony of Pilot. The intent is to provide an anthology of aviation TINS (“this is no shit” as contrasted with “once upon a time”) stories, some by me some by others. Focus is good stories in general rather than digging into Vietnam or WW II or airpower concepts, etc. As to those by others, a major factor is to prevent some really good TINS from being lost within the vastness of Google or lost forever through the passage of time. Continue reading →

Posted in Of Dragons and Ghosts, On their Shoulders, People, Testimony of Pilot -Series | Comments Off

1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; (Part 11+) – “Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal?”

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 11+

The National Interest magazine recently published Why Is China’s Navy Studying the Battle of Guadalcanal? by Lyle J. Goldstein a research professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the United States Naval War College in Newport, RI. The following provides key excerpts and points. The original article can be found here.

China’s military has not had much combat experience in recent decades, and this is recognized among Chinese military leaders as a potentially serious problem. The reasons for this scarcity of battlefield know-how are obvious and might even be praise-worthy. It has been nearly four decades since Beijing undertook a significant military campaign, so how would its armed forces have attained this knowledge? …

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has sought to remedy its lack of actual combat experience by the careful study of military history, including the bloody Pacific War … Continue reading →

Posted in Year of the Carrier | Tagged A2AD, Airpower, AirSeaBattle, Guadalcanal, War-at-Sea | Comments Off

TOPGUN – Book Recommendation (2)

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Ed

Highest recommendation for Dan Pedersen’s (CAPT. USN, Ret) just released book TOPGUN; An American Story

… we sent our people out there not trained for dogfighting. We sent the aircraft out there not equipped for dogfighting… and we got into nose-nose combat situations where neither the guy flying the airplane nor the airplane itself had ever fired a missile. Further, based on the expected nature of air war and our technical developments to intercept bombers at long range, we have lost expertise and continuity in ‘being dogfighters’ … there is a need to establish a fighter weapons school to reverse this trend and to eliminate aircrew and ground personnel error…. The Ault Report (1968)

Book reviews for historical works are mostly written by other authors, historians, or folks with significant knowledge of the subject matter, in this case naval aviators, TOPGUN graduates or instructors. Captain Pedersen’s new book timed with the 50th anniversary of the first Navy Fighter Weapons School class has received many excellent and well deserved reviews, so here I’ll take a slightly different tack.

For me there are four significant threads woven into this anniversary book: Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Vietnam War, War and Remembrance | Tagged Airpower, Linebacker I & II, Remembered Sky, Vietnam Air War | Comments Off

Scream of Eagles – Happy Birthday TOPGUN (1)

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Ed

As the first of two parts recognizing 50 years of training fighter pilots/instructors the below is a modified version of the article written for TOPGUN’s 40th anniversary and serves as introduction for a book review of TOPGUN; An American Story by Captain Dan Pederson USN, Retired, the founder and first Officer -In -Charge.

Fifty years ago, the first Fighter Weapons School -TOPGUN – class was in their second week of“graduate level” fighter pilot education and training in an old trailer next to the VF-121 hangar at Naval Air Station Miramar. (3 March 1969 start date) They were there because eagles screamed. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Vietnam War, War and Remembrance | Tagged Airpower, Remembered Sky, Vietnam Air War | Comments Off

FIGHT FIGHT – Book Recommendation

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Ed

Highest recommendation for Kevin Miller’s (CAPT. USN, Ret) newest novel Fight Fight.
I was going to do a normal “book review”/recommendation but decided to just leverage my comments to Kevin along with his response instead. I had done a recommendation on his first book Raven One in a somewhat normal/accepted manner, but this book has some deeper levels for me than just good naval aviation fiction so wanted to add some emphasis. Some bit ago the novel Ghost Fleet on a future war scenario was highly regarded. The books are similar in some ways, but Kevin’s book strikes home (for me anyway) in a much more personal and directly relatable way to the overall Blown Slick Future Airpower Analysis series and the sub-series on carrier battles in 1942 around the South and Southwestern Pacific island defense chain set up by the Japanese. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged A2AD, Aircraft Carriers, Airpower, AirSeaBattle, Guadalcanal, SEAD, Strike Warfare, War-at-Sea | Comments Off

Remembered Sky: A Naval Aviator Lies in State

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Ed

You Only Live Twice

“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 60 years, and especially my fellow Arizonians, thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I’ve tried to serve our country honorably…” John Sidney McCain III

A Naval Aviator lies in state today – since 1852 only 30 people have done so before him. Yet social media continues to extrapolate their dislike and even hatred backwards to his military career, no matter the truth of those times – found in ample sources. You “only live twice” from the James Bond movie seems an appropriate description and vehicle for discussion of the certain elements in the first life of John McCain and the truth out there for those are interested in truth vs. politics. What follows addresses three issues wrongly stated: Continue reading →

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1942- The Year of the Aircraft Carrier; Part 11 – Guadalcanal – Interlude

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Ed

Blown Slick Series #13 Part 11

Between the lines

The haste in putting Operation Watchtower together would prove problematic on many levels not the least of which was that this tasking was completely new – none of the commanders knew how to put it all together, from logistics, to air support of ground forces with long term land, sea, and air opposition, to night battles at sea.

Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer

The original intent of the Year of the Carrier series was to post discussions on the anniversaries of the major events – Doolittle/Hornet raid and the four ’42 carrier battles. While Hornet’s raid, Coral Sea and Midway battles were time span and focus relatively straight forward, Guadalcanal covers six months with a lot more areas and types of conflict. As such, several aspects of air operations need to be put forward throughout the remainder of the series with some addressed prior to discussion of the third major carrier battle – Battle of the Eastern Solomons . Therefore that will cause a delay in the 24-25 August anniversary post .

Here are the anticipated areas of discussion: Continue reading →

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