The Near Miss of Apollo 11

The sun had not yet risen as I walked across the deck of the carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) to my aircraft. The E-1B Tracer (affectionately known as Willie Fudd) held inside its tear-drop-shaped dome a million dollars of sophisticated radar antenna. It was 24 July 1969, and the people of the world held their collective breath as Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, the first humans to reach the moon, streaked back to earth at 25,000–27,000 miles per hour, heading toward a tiny spot 800 miles southwest of Hawaii.

Glancing into the dark sky I thought, “Would they reenter earth’s atmosphere without burning up? Would our recovery crew be close enough to get them?”

The Hornet’s deck—nearly three football fields long—was almost empty of its usual 65–70 aircraft. It was eerily quiet, compared to the usual hectic launches I was used to on my previous western Pacific (WestPac) cruises on the much larger attack carriers.

Today, only my aircraft and one other E-1B were being moved into position onto the catapult. Four HS-3 helicopters were parked back near the ship’s island, but all the S-2s and the normal complement of helicopters had been left behind in San Diego.

My responsibility as ComRelay was to provide the line of communication between Houston and the astronauts. If their command capsule fell outside the recovery area, the other E-1B (Air Boss) would be responsible for finding it and directing the helos to it.

My crew and I were one small piece in the huge Apollo 11 mission.

 

Our next two hours had been painstakingly, intricately choreographed—second-by-second—by NASA. But in spite of all the planning and practice, before the day was over, I would find myself dealing with several unexpected situations.

 

I knew bad weather had forced NASA to change the splashdown site, and that the Hornet had to travel 230 miles of rough waters through the night to make it to the new recovery site. What I did not know was that failure of the ship’s auto-tracking navigational equipment had made it necessary to improvise with celestial navigation. Unfortunately, continually overcast skies prevented star shots. That meant that although the ship’s navigational crew knew we were somewhere in the area of the splashdown site, no one knew exactly how far away it was. I was preparing to catapult off a ship whose exact location was unknown.

 

If everything went well, this would be a great day for mankind. And I would be a part of it. It was an honor to be here.  Everyone said so. So why didn’t I feel that way?

 

To begin with, I would not even see the splashdown. The master plan placed me miles away, flying repetitious racetrack patterns. Even President Richard Nixon, who would be on board to greet the returning astronauts, would be long gone by the time I returned to the ship.

 

What was troubling me, though, was deeper than that. Three months earlier, the Hornet’s crew was happily returning to San Diego after an exhausting cruise. Husbands would see their wives again. Children would see their fathers, some for the first time. Then, abruptly, it was announced that some of us would be in port just long enough to off-load the ship’s air group and on-load an astronaut isolation unit and other NASA equipment essential for recovery of Apollo 11.

 

It was a blow.

 

By now, I had spent years at sea. Four WestPac cruises, averaging nine months each, and countless short-term deployments at sea and on land for training and proficiency purposes. I had been pilot-in-command of 600 catapult take-offs and landings. I was tired, very tired. My wife, Carol, and I had spent precious little time together in six years of marriage.

 

Three months before, in the Sea of Japan, I nearly had a midair collision with a Japanese civilian aircraft.  Another time, I was caught for hours with zero visibility during a torrential storm with too little fuel to reach land and the ship’s deck heaving up and down 30 feet. The rain was so blinding that after attempting to trap seven times, and with only the voice of the landing signal officer to guide me, I did not see the deck until my wheels touched down, amazingly, on the center line.

 

Also, never far from my mind were my three flying buddies and roommates, whose plane, immediately after being launched from the catapult, crashed into the sea, just minutes after one of the pilots replaced me in the cockpit. I never saw them again.

 

There were people in the Hornet crew who were excited to be on this historic mission. Although I didn’t say anything, I was not of them.

 

Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away in Houston, 20,000 miles above me in the space capsule, on the Hornet, and—in a few minutes—with me in the air nearby, there were thousands of things that could go wrong. Quite a few did. A few I witnessed, a few I experienced. Some I’ve learned of since. Amazingly, none of them caused a disaster.

Ready to Launch

 

Soon, my plane, with its four-man crew, was positioned on the catapult. In the cockpit, I glanced up at something new—a black box installed by the technicians that I could reach with my right hand. It held the key to communications between Houston and the astronauts in the capsule.

 

I turned up the engines while checking each instrument with a sweeping, split-second glance. My copilot gave a nod. We were ready for launch.

 

The catapult officer began his two finger spin over his head. I brought the engines to full power and saluted. Swooping his hand, he dropped to one knee, his lighted wand touching the deck.

 

Two seconds later, I felt the force of three Gs and I was hurled from the ship, into the black night, just 60 feet above the waves. I began climbing to 6,000 feet, where, as ComRelay, I was assigned to fly a ten-mile racetrack pattern, out and back, out and back.

 

Not long after, my radio crackled.

 

“ComRelay. This is Air Boss. Our radar is down. Our communication relay is down. We cannot provide radar or communications. You will have to do both missions. Can you take over?”

 

Now I was glad NASA had insisted that Air Boss and ComRelay cross-train responsibilities.

 

“Air Boss. This is ComRelay. That’s affirmative. We’re on our way to relieve you at 8,000 feet.”

 

NASA’s careful planning of my day was beginning to unravel. This turned out to be fortunate for me, because at 8,000 feet, just as I began to go into my turn, we saw the command module, streaking like a shooting star down through the sky. So far away. That’s the last we’ll see it, I thought.

 

Then, two minutes later, as I finished my turn, suddenly the three red-and-white paneled canopies were right there, opening in front of us. Pop! Pop! Pop! Dead ahead, only 1,000 feet away!

 

Immediately, I turned right to avoid the capsule. Then, to avoid disturbing the airflow over the parachutes, I began a slow, wide, turning descent off to the side, watching as we followed it down, until it disappeared into the overcast clouds.

 

Later, we received another unexpected announcement, “ComRelay, you are being ordered to accompany President Nixon’s helicopter back to Johnston Island.”

 

“Well,” I thought, “this was going to be a day of surprises. Did I have enough fuel? Yes, we could make it to Johnston Island. There we would refuel, and, since some of us had had no breakfast—hopefully, get something to eat!”

 

It would be hours later, after a long, eventful day, that we would trap back on board the Hornet. Collapsing onto my bunk, I was asleep in minutes.

 

Behind the Success

 

The Apollo 11 recovery was extremely carefully planned, but success could not be guaranteed. Not only did it rely on primitive computers and software, but bad weather forced a change of location the night before splashdown. Equipment failure forced the Hornet to use celestial navigation and star-sighting when the skies were continually overcast; and unexpected changes had to be dealt with, sometimes in a split-second by personnel who had worked long hours under stress.

 

The men and women at Houston, the astronauts in the returning capsule, the sailors on board the Hornet, the swimmers recovering the astronauts, and those in the aircraft in the air—they were the reason the Apollo 11 recovery succeeded.

 

Apollo 11 was a turning point in human history. When people are called on to accomplish something greater than themselves, it is amazing what they can do.