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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 19, 1961)
. . V ' 10 B FRIDAY. MAY It, 19S1 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, OREGON toy Patrol Planes Decrease Unknoun (Factors in IFar East Areas " By ALBERT AXELBANK Naha, Okinawa - HOT - An unidentified object, possibly a Communist lubmarine, wai picked up on the radarscope ol a U.S. Navy patrol plane i over the Bashi channel, south " of the Formosa strait. In a fraction of a second, the -Information was passed - over the Intercom to the pilot, Lt. Commander Charles D. Gilpin, Rock Springs, Wyo. I was a passenger aboard the , Navy plane, a P2V Neptune, one of a squadron of planes , specially fitted, for submarine detection. ';' ' 1 , ' "Target how bearing 29.1 t 29 miles' Radarman Alvin , ; R. Reefer, of Festus, Mo., said . '. In ' a dry voice without any emotion. The big plane, clogged with some 1,500 pieces of electronic equipment, dropped to 500 feet above the choppy dark blue water. , ! In two and quarter min utes the"obJect" was sighted through binoculars by Gerald ' D. Naxwell, Jonosboro, La, . " who sat in the plane's nose. ' Then Gilpin, 88, a veteran pilot of two wars and more than 5,000 flying hours, saw lt with his naked eye. It was a cargo ship flying the Japanese flag. As our plane passed the ship broadside some three miles away, Hugh E. Hanna. 2, of Richmond, iCalif.. peered through the sight of a 120mm ' camera and made a motion picture to be developed later. Noticeable Tenseness - The Laos crisis added a no ticeable tenseness to the plane's mission, which, in wartime, would Be to corneal enemy subs. Crewmen Frank Schreffler, 21-, Compton, Calif., put Jt this way: "The Laos crisis could mean an extension In the Navy for me. I'm more aware of the fact we might get into a hot war. , Until recently, there's : been lackadaisical attitude among us. Now, we are more 'aware our squadron is per forming a' vital mission',' The squadron is part of the 'Formosa .patrol .force, which usually includes a destroyer division, a seaplane tender and several squadrons of land and water based patrol air- craft. ' As a unit, of the U.S. Seventh Fleet the Squadron's mission is to detect any evi dence of Communist aggres sion against the Republic of China. Schreffler agreed with oth er crewmen that "we are the only way for the United States to get knowledge of ships to and from Red China. Over a long period, we get some idea of Communist Chi nese strength." Batter Survival Chance If a "hot" war erupted in the Formosa strait, U.S. and allied ships would have a bet ter chance for survival be cause of this and other P2V Neptunes.; "Our mission," Schreffler said, "is about as Important as you can get. Without It we will have a blind spot. We'd be giving the U.S. another unknown factor and we have too many of these already." Back at 1,000 feet over the Formosa strait 198-pound sailor sat down at the rear of the plane and began peeling a garlic pod with a long blade knife. This was Hanna, the plro tographer, who is also known affectionately to his crew mates as "our stewardess." He was preparing a spag hetti lunch for the 12-man crew and this correspondent. The spaghetti was not from a can. Nor was the piping hot tomato sauce which was sim mering on a small stove in the plane's galley. I asked Hanna where he learned to cook. He didn't have time to an swer. ;:;..' The radarman spotted an unidentified object dead ahead about 30 miles. Lt. (jg) Ken neth L. Busch, 25, of Washing ton, D.C. plotted it on his navigational chart. Hanna dropped his knife, laid the garlic pod aside and pulled the bulky camera into place in front of him. His subject: A freshly - painted oil tanker churning through the strait.; Adjustment Eased . . , r Then he got back to his cooking - 10 pounds of spag hetti, apples, tomato juice, and coffee for this meal, - Co-pllot Lt, (jg) Roger Hunt, 25, of Los Angeles, eased the adjustment of his revolver in its new blond leather shoulder holster as he sat down to eat. 'Hanna must have some Italian blood In him,", cracked Talmage Creech, 35, of Mid dlesex, N.C., first class avi ation mechanic and plane cap- They'll Do It Every Time ! By Jimmy Hatlo to see the mouse-J but rr breaks our if oc okah'pa built Whenever JMAV I SHOW THEM h HEAWT BOO-HOO-7I rrCN,-StF) THAT'S a pcospjrf.T ffVy AROUND? SI TO EVEM THINK OF V (MAN! PA THERE r- i nJwcn it "L-Vfl (sob) bbeh so , ' house Then the deal ' iUM0 "JT BYE-8VE TEARS- " ' 0 , jt!if&l M 11, luua auoadpok , TMS HATLO HAT 10 CLAOENCE DOHONSV, LEE, ' ',( tain, as he passed his plat for seconds. "This spaghetti is good." Morale of the sailors aboard this and other F2V planes was high. "Many of the men on our planes can sit In on almost any job and do it well," said the pilot of another Neptune, Lt. Cmdr. Charles G. Brady, 40, ot West Palm Beach, Fla. Aviation Ordnanceman First Class Wilbur Raymond, 38, Racine, Wis., said that his patrol squadron . "is the best I've ever . been. in. I have never had more satisfaction on a job In my life." His plane pilot, Lt. Cmdr Ralph A. Hoover, 42, Groveton, N.H., told me most of the crewmen had participated in a "people-to-people program." This pa trol squadron last fall "adopt ed" the Ryukyuan village of Or, 17 miles southeast of Naha Air Base on an island of the same name. They have built a complete playground for children of or, including a merryigo-round, seesaws. swings and exercise bars. Cheated Death i "We cheated death for another ' eight hours," an American sailor said as the Na,vy patrol plane he was riding came to an abrupt stop. - He was joking. The P2V is an ungainly looking craft, lopsided with radar protuberances built into a 12-year-old fuselage, carrying two Jet and two con ventional engines and addi tional wing tip tanks. ' ' But the Neptune has an enviable safety record. ! ' . Last year the chief of naval operations gave Patrol Squad ron -Four the aviation safety award for flying 10,256 accident-free hours, more than any land-based patrol squad ron. , i -"-j The squadron also Is proud of a distance record set 14 years ago and still standing. That . was a 1947 ', non - stop flight from Perth, Australia to Columbus Ohio - 11,471 miles without refueling. "Our planes are equipped with the latest submarine de tection devices available : to the fleet," said Cmdr.-'Walter E. Constance of Seattle, Wash, We are ready to go any where in the world at a mo ment's- notice." ...... "I like this ' duty," said Creech. The men frequently work 10 hours a day seven days a week and get time off "only when we can get it. As one officer explained it, "We have a deadly serious job to do.. Luckily,, we have high morale and top mainte nance." As ' the ' Neptune climbed over the Formosa strait, I pointed to a ship in the dis tance and asked its pilot, if it was friendly. 1 ; .. ; i He replied, "AH ships are friendly unless they' have guns on them." M : .; i , t j Trade of Captives For Tractors Asked Miami i-IUPD - Premier Fidel were being mentioned here Castro has offered, to trade captured ; invaders for 500 U.S.- tractors in a deal recall: Ing Adolf Eichmann's war: time offer to exchange Jewish prisoners for trucks. In a 2V4-hour speech broad cast by Radio Havana, Castro said the 1,000 men captured in last month's Invasion will be used as forced labor if they are not ransomed by the United States. But Castro, unlike the Ger mans, did not threaten to kill his captives if the trade was not made. ... , i NO FAVORABLE BALANCE Government Records Accumulated Faster Than They Can Be Destroyed Br DICK WEST Washington -TO - Of all the government jobs that 1 1 don't covet, the one I don't covet the most is the one held by Dr. W a y n e C. Grover, our n a tional ar chivist. , i Am kuJ VmL I the nation's I T A I p r mclpal I -; IJ parchment re- "wSt"" pository, it is part of his sworn duty to try to throw away federal records faster than the rest of the gov ernment can produce them. There is considerable doubt that Grover will ever be able to achieve a favorable bal ance, mainly because the rest of the government has too much of a head start, Nevertheless, he is making some headway, which is to say that he is not losing ground as rapidly as he once did, Last year, for instance, the volume of records in his custody only Increased : by some' 240,000 cubic feet. 13,5 Million Cubic Feet 'According to figures sub mitted this week to a House subcommittee, the federal government now has about 13.5 million cubic feet of rec ords in offices ' of various agencies throughout the world. . This is enough to fill' 2.6 million filing cabinets, : oc cupying more than 13 million square feet. I haven't figured the thing out exactly, but I feel safe in saying that if all of those fil ing cabinets were placed end to end, they would stretch farther than your ' Imagina tion. This total, big as it Is does not Include the non-current records that are turned over to the archives for safekeep ing or evenlual disposal. All in all, Grover told the subcommittee, the paper vol ume for the last four or five years "has run pretty close to 24 million cubic feet." Many Records Destroyed "How much has the dispo sal program reduced space re quirements for the goverment records?" inquired Rep. Joe L. Evins (D-Tenn.). "The last 10 years of this program has resulted in the destruction of at least 30 mil lion cubic feet of records," Grover replied. - Tb archivist had to con cede, however, that this com mendable feat did not, in real ity, did not greatly reduce the volume in the filing cabinets. About all that the disposal program accomplished was to prevent the agencies from be ing buried in their own paper work. Grover pointed out that "we are taking the paychecks from the old Liberty Loan building at the rate of a mil lion and a half a day." - The checks must be retain ed for eight years, he said, and the Liberty Loan building itself is not big enough to hold all of the checks that accumu late in that time. Besides all of this; the Na tional Archives permanently preserves a billion and a half historical records. What, ia more, when the Civil War rec ords were turned over to the Archives, it somehow became custodian of Jefferson Davis' spurs. - - '. ' i " '-,''; Dust Palliative Oil es and Dodd Co. RHONE SIP 3-422.11 Hugh f A f LARGE SIZE $12.95 1 f , ,"ft SMALL SIZE ...$7.95 I 1 JT rM k we .. x 4 SKIL SAWS ' Powerful motor, orti ' 1 H.f. wtm no Mao, apooo or vv R.P.M. 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