Sometimes young folks just don’t have enough to do – or so it seems. This particular bit of foolishness started with a few young gentlemen (?) in VP-21 during the 1965-66 time frame who found it great sport to bare their respective rear ends at opportune times, apparently with the intent to surprise or shock one or more of their squadron mates.
This ridiculous display was accompanied by the perpetrator yelling, “Redeye” – for a crude and uncouth reason that is best left to the imagination. (The phonetic spelling, “Romeo Echo Delta Echo Yankee Echo” was occasionally substituted for the word.)
(O.K., stash all the above info in a safe place in your memory and we’ll continue with the story.)
In April 1966, VP-21 was participating in an ASW exercise, operating out of Kindley AFB in Bermuda. The exercise commander and his staff were located at the other end of the island – at the Naval Station. It was a major exercise, with several participating U.S. subs. All communications were classified, so it was required that all message traffic to and from the aircraft be encoded.
The exercise was well underway when a Soviet ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) vessel was detected in the general vicinity of the exercise. The possibility of that ship barging into the middle of our exercise area, disrupting things generally and collecting various bits of classified information, was viewed with great concern – to put it mildly. VP-21 was tasked to intercept the Russian and keep the exercise commander (the Commodore) advised of the ship’s position, course and speed.
Our aircraft were directed to send all message traffic to the exercise commander, with an info copy to the squadron.
No question that this was a very important job. Once the ELINT was located, however, it was a piece of cake – at least during daytime when the weather was good. Matter of fact, it was downright boring.
All was going according to plan – until we in the squadron received an encoded message addressed to CO, VP-21. No other addressee was indicated. The message:
“Soviet ELINT vessel (name) now being given the world’s first airborne redeye.”
We all thought that was hilariously funny – until we received an info copy of a message from the Commodore to the aircraft:
“What is a redeye?”
How the heck did the Commodore obtain a copy of a message that was not addressed to him? We had hardly had time to consider that question when we received the following message from the aircraft to the Commodore (info copy to CO, VP-21):
“CO, VP-21 will explain.”
Oh, the joys of being the CO! I sat there wondering how this matter could be explained in some rational way to my boss. I believe I had just about decided that there was no rational way when the phone rang. It was the Commodore:
Hard to believe, but the Commodore thought the whole thing was funny. I will be forever grateful to that gentleman for going along with the foolishness.
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I do believe, however, that he would have liked to be in on the whole scheme from the beginning.
Did those guys really give the ELINT a redeye? Well, I wasn’t there – but I kinda’ think they did. The bow position in the old P2V was ideal for that sort of thing. (I also wonder if the Russians took a photo of that airborne spectacle. I had visions of such a picture appearing on the centerfold of Life magazine.)
Who were the crewmembers on this memorable flight? The only name that immediately comes to mind is that of the PPC – and a great many of you know him. It was none other than one Bill Locke, currently the Chairman of the VPB-111/VP-21 Veterans Association. Any other crewmembers want to come forward? (Bill can undoubtedly provide the crew list.)
