First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong: Part Three

As early as 1946, the navy commenced feasibility studies of global command and control of the U.S. fleet via Earth satellite vehicles.

At the helm of the first Space Shuttle flight—the mission of the orbiter Columbia in April 1981—sat yet another all-navy crew (Young and Crippen).

Recalling his days as a Holloway scholar in the fall of 1948, Armstrong surmises, “I suppose the navy saw the Korean War coming” and “needed to ratchet the volume up a little bit, so they called us up early.”

Its greater “finesse and control force” flew “very much like the F6F Hellcat that was the predominant navy fighter in World War II.”

Armstrong’s flight A-10, on Tuesday, August 9, was graded by instructor S. W. McKenzie as “Satisfactory,” with three areas rating “Below Average”: Taxiing (“too fast, too much throttle”), Landing Pattern (“weak speed control”), and Approaches (“cuts throttle and turns immediately into field”).

“Altitude control is poor. Climbs during turns. Airspeed is erratic during glides. Does not coordinate rudders properly during rollout to a level attitude.”

Armstrong received two Stage F “downs”: on December 5, 1949 (F-5), when “Student was sucked far behind on most of rendezvous. Wing position was very erratic. Failed to pass signal on break up,” and on January 7, 1950 (F-12), when “Rend[ezvous] and join-ups badly sucked, continually fouling up people behind. Lags behind in position. Doesn’t know sequence very well.”

At Cabaniss Field, one of Corpus Christi’s six outlying auxiliary bases, he began his indoctrination with VF ATU (Advanced Training Unit) No. 2 on March 28, 1950. In the three months ending June 21, 1950, Neil made thirty-nine flights and logged over seventy hours in the air, all but one hour of it solo.

This was not just a matter of military decorum.

“As soon as your wheels lift[ed] off, then you’re going to be susceptible to wind tending to drift you one way or the other,” possibly right into the bridge.

Fortuitously, the deck cleared just as Neil’s plane approached and he became the first in his group to make his sixth landing.

Harley Thompson was pulled out of VF-51 to become a naval liaison officer with the air force in Japan, and squadron veteran Red Gardner was killed in an F9F training accident at NAS San Diego.

The squadron was fortunate to retain experienced chiefs and first-class petty officers in maintenance, ordnance, and supply.

By mid-March, the winter fog had lifted and VF-51 had a full complement of aircraft allowing each pilot to fly between five and seven hops per week, periodically maintaining their instrument proficiency by flying “under the hood” in old twin-engine Beechcraft SNB trainers.

He qualified in the bright light of day on June 7, 1951, roughly two months before his twenty-first birthday and just two days after his preset “date of rank” for promotion to ensign.

If the navy’s Pentagon aircraft procurement unit “had only gone with the North American Fury [the progenitor of the Sabre jet] instead of the Panther,” Kramer has speculated, “we would have been the pilots fighting the MiGs” in the Sabre jet being built by North American Aviation for the air force.

Also embarked were four VC detachments: VC-61 with F9F-2P photo planes; VC-3; VC-11; and VC-35 (“VC” designating a “composite squadron” trained in night attack and defense, air early warning, and antisubmarine warfare).

Air Group 5’s first stretch of combat operations commenced on August 24, when CVG-5 launched seventy-six sorties against “targets of opportunity.”

According to Armstrong, “The four-plane division was the mainstay of the operation.”

On a couple of occasions Beebe managed to get authorization for his jets to fly up into MiG Alley in the uppermost regions of North Korea, though the requisite defensive maneuvering against MiGs would have used up too much fuel to afford safe return to their carrier.

Three of the next four days (except for September 1, when the task force replenished its fuel and supplies), he flew armed reconnaissance over Wonsan, Pu-Chong, and again up to Songjin.

As with his fellow aviators, Armstrong finished his raiment by tying a silk scarf around his neck.

The scarf was not simply stylish; it was necessary to help stop water from getting into the immersion suit from around the neck if a ditching did occur.

The call to “Flight Quarters!” commenced a noisy, frenetic choreography on deck.

Flak hit Lieutenant Frank Sistrunk’s AD Skyraider from VF-54 while Sistrunk was bombing the bridge.

His aircraft, well loaded with ordnance, came so close to the ground that he sheared off two feet of starboard wing on a power pole.

Naval Aviation News, during wartime a “restricted” publication, capsuled Armstrong’s close call in its December 1951 issue under the title “One Stub Wing”...

Regrettably, some of the salient facts about Armstrong’s flight of September 3, 1951, have been wrong from the start.

“Navy guys like to come down in the water; it was a soft landing” over the sea, patrolled by intrepid navy rescue helicopters.

This fact contradicts VF-51’s John Moore’s The Wrong Stuff, which had Ernie Beauchamp assigning Neil the collateral squadron’s duty of “survival officer.”

“There was great concern among our senior officers and even some speculation whether the casualties might be sabotage,” Armstrong remembers, “because some of the accidents were unexplained..."

Bouncing high into the air, the plane jumped all of the heavy crash barriers, then tumbled headlong into an array of aircraft just moved from the aft flight deck to the starboard catapult area to make room for the returning aircraft.

By the time the conflagration was extinguished several hours later, seven men had died.

With the loss of Armstrong’s plane, the deaths of Ashford and Bramwell, the serious injuries to Moore, and the fiery destruction of four additional Panthers in the Banshee disaster, a demoralized Fighter Squadron 51 counted only nine serviceable aircraft, down from sixteen, and twenty-one pilots, down from twenty-four.

A neophyte golfer, Neil discovered incentive enough to try the game, which he later came to love.

He designed the furnishings and garden in his Houston house to express the Japanese influence he found “unique and interesting.” Equally inspiring as Eastern aesthetic were the Japanese people, so thoroughly villainized by World War II propaganda.

Fighter Squadron 51 suffered nary a casualty during this second tour.

Following another refurbishing of the ship in Yokosuka lasting from October 31 to November 12, 1951, the Essex and its air group returned to action, again off Wonsan Bay.

“We would jettison armaments prior to returning,” Armstrong explains, “and we tried to jettison on targets of opportunity.”

Some of Neil’s mates looked at the situation more fatalistically.

The job of the jets was to quell the antiaircraft fire.

On January 3, 1951, divisions of VF-51 flew flak suppression in a concerted attack against heavy gun emplacements protecting a trestle-type railway bridge near Yangdok, west of Wonsan in Green Six.

“O God, we humbly beseech thee for the soul of the pilot, our shipmate, Leonard Cheshire, who died this day. Deliver him not into the hands of the enemy, but command that he may be received by the holy angels and conducted into paradise. God bless you all, men.”

The Panther jet that Neil flew was U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics No. 125123, a plane he had flown only twice before (photo escort to Songjin on September 17 and recco escort to Wonsan and Pu-Chong on November 18). He flew BuAer Nos. 125132 and 125100 ten times and nine times, respectively.

The great majority of the casualties were U.S. Marines or soldiers in the U.S. Army.