Reading some of these others stories reminded me of a bad one for me - that eventually turned out o.k. We were sitting in port in Athens in '73 and I had to go up to work on one of the birds that had some sort of fuel transfer problems. This A-6 was parked with the tail over the water as all will remember. Also this was the last port of call before heading home after a 10 month deployment !! Well it was pretty windy up there as usual ( we had even deck launched planes at anchor as there was so much wind comming across the deck . The FID would turn into the wind at anchor and if I recall this was the first time for deck launching an A-6. Anyway I took off the turtleback to do work on the fuel cells or something under there and picked it up to walk it back to hand down to someone on the deck and the wind grabbed it and me !! Well it was let it go or go for a swim with it ,and so you can guess that the biggest turtleback section went away ! I walked out farther on the tail and watched as it slip slidded away into the sea. I went down to the shop and told the chief (Crisci) that I dropped the turtleback over the side and of course he thought I was kidding as I was always playing jokes etc... Well it didn;t take to long for everyone to figure out it was true as reports made it to the ships people and our maint. control about it. Soon after my branch officer came up and boy was he pissed as they had just given him that plane for the flyoff to Va. Beach in a couple of days . These guys took me to the bridge to try to tell them what way the ship was turned so the UDT and diver boys could go down and try to retrieve this thing !! Hell I didn't have a clue as I was saving my ass at the time !!! Well as luck would have it we ended up with a hanger queen for some reason so they took the turtleback off it and my branch officer got his fly off and all ended o.k. but for a while it was touch and go. Got out 6 mo. later so what were they going to do ? Sure got sick of Athens that cruise as we were there about 5 times I think and once for 3 weeks during the fuel crisis of '73. Scuttlebutt was we didn't have enough oil to run Forrestal for training as the fuel might be needed as real war stuff because of the Arab , Isrealy war stuff. Ah the good old times !!!!
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After you got out, in fact the next cruise, an AT airman dropped about 45,000 dollars worth of Top Secret gear off the wing in the same "sneak spot" on the flight deck. It too went to Davey Jones, along with both cheeks of the young mans ass!
Great story Kim. Too bad nobady took a picture of your face when that turtle back went sailing. I can imagine how my old shop chief, Al Kanode may have reacted. I guess you can laugh about it now but at the time, I'm sure it wasn't funny.
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