This is Bob Phelps. Today is June 3rd, 2006.
I'm interviewing Al Kerkhoff.
This interview is taking place in Jackson,
Mississippi at the Edison Waffle Hotel.
This interview is in support of the Center for
Pacific War Studies,
archives from the National Museum of the
Pacific War, Texas Historical Commission,
for the preservation of historical information
related to the site.
and ask Al to give us his name and address,
and then we'll turn off the machine
and see if we've got the signal set up.
ALFRED KERIKOFF I'm Alfred Kerikoff.
I was human first class with the squadron,
and I live in Bradenton, Florida, 808 53rd
Avenue East.
During the winter months and the summer months,
I live in South Haven, Michigan, at 262 North
74th Street,
South Haven, Michigan.
Okay, how'd you get in the Navy?
Well I got a notice in 1942 to report to the
draft board and I thought well I don't want
to go to the Army, I want to go to the Navy.
I was always interested in flying and in the
Navy and so I got married in August and enlisted
in the Navy on October the 22nd, 1944. No, 1942.
Get back to our father, yeah. And I
was really interested in the Navy so I didn't
want to go to the Army.
And in terms of training, did you pick me up or
did they assign you?
No, they picked me up. They sent me to Great
Lakes in Chicago. The first night I arrived
there at 2:30 in the morning and had hot dogs
and slept on the floor. So then they
assigned me to the Yeoman School in Great Lakes
Naval Training Station where
I spent six weeks of nothing but typing and
office work. And then they assigned
me to the Naval Air Base in Quonset Point,
Rhode Island where we drove, my
wife and I drove and reported for duty in
January of 1943.
And at Kwonson your duties included what?
My duties included at Yeoman work I helped-I
was assigned to KSU-22, which is a carrier
aircraft service unit.
And we yeoman worked with Skipper, which was-I
was assigned to Admiral-I can't think
of his name now, but anyway, I helped set up
squadrons that were going to sea.
And they come in-the pilots come in for
training and they learn to fly at night, because
I remember real well my first squadron that I
was assigned to as a squadron yeoman was
Air Group 41, with Turner Caldwell as captain.
And on January the 20th,
we was to report to Admiral's office and form a squadron.
And the skipper says, turn my hat over backwards,
and now we have Air Group 41.
You're the only enlisted man and I'm the only officer.
So these pilots all started reporting in,
pilots and enlisted men all come and start
reporting in from their various assignments.
Was the designation 41 at that time or is it?
It was the Air Group 41, yes, consists of
fighter pilots, dive bombers and torpedo bombers
and so many ACI officers and so many enlisted
men to report for duty.
So you had a template for what an air group was.
Was there any particular rules for the number
of the different types of airmen?
No, they didn't tell me any listed numbers to
have, but then I think we got a record
There's quite a few that come in but the
skipper says these guys are going to be
new. They've never, we don't know what a night
Fighter squadron will be like but
he says I'll make a fighter, night fighters out
of them. I remember him saying
that real well, well I'll make night fighters
out of them. So. When did, as you're
forming up the squadron, would the senior
officers show up first or is it
The pilots showed up first. I think the pilots
and then the enlisted men, the
senior officers were assigned, I think, from
different units. Each one later on,
if I remember, they come in, Skipper was the
only one that was on the original deal,
and then these officers come in, executive
officers, Dudley Adams,
and the gunnery officer was Terry Barker who's
here today.
Now would they have come in earlier?
I don't remember exactly when they could they
just come in at random because we
and Mr. Gaines, Jack Gaines, was the
administrative officer. He was the one
that took the, gave the people their orders and
I had to type them up and
accept each one of these pilots as they come
from their different places. I think
some from Florida, some from Texas, and the
enlisted men come in a little later.
But getting the squadron organized, it took, I
think, a couple months. But
then they-we had our training duties assigned
then, and my job was to stay
with a skipper all the time wherever he wanted
to go. So I had a pass to go to
the chow line. I didn't have to stand in chow
line or anything like that, but I
was allowed to live off of the base. Because
you had your wife? Because I had my wife
there and so we lived off the base in Westerly,
Rhode Island. And then the
Charleston. The two auxiliary bases is where
the boys did their training and of
course he set up, the skippers set up their
training program. One of the
interesting experiences I remember real well
was the pilot, one of the pilots
says, if I can fly by night I can drive by
night. So out he went that night, first
thing he did, he hit a guardrail. Was he a
better flyer? He was a good flyer
later on, I think. I'm not sure which one of
the guys it was, but then the skipper
made the remark several times, I'll make night
fighter pilots out of all these
men, and he did. It was a wonderful squadron
when he went out. Now how long, if you were
forming up the squadron, how long would you
stick with him before a new squadron
would cycle in? I would be stuck with them
about I'd say if I remember right
three months and then they would assign me to
organize the next squadron which
would be I remember organizing 106, 107, and
108 and then I was signed back as a
permanent yeoman to air group 41 and when we
when they first initiated radar
for night flying the skipper come to me one day
and he said we're going to go
out tonight in our GB beach craft we're gonna
fly out over the Atlantic and
and there's a squadron that's going to find us
by radar.
And so out we went and it wasn't long till
zoom underneath us a fighter plane went just barely
missed us and the skipper says he found us all right.
He found us all right but then
another time it was I called well that some of
these people didn't
care a lot for Caldwell, but he was a good
skipper. I liked him and he's very
interesting to work for. But then another
incident that brought in trouble was
one night there was five of the guys come in
from being partying and the
Skipper held his arm out and said,
they won't stop me because I am an officer.
And he went through the gate
and the Marine Sentry shot, killed the driver.
And Skipper says that,
I'm sorry, but then I see,
I had to, as a human, send a letter of regret.
your son was killed in the line of duty to his
mother in Idaho.
And another incident I remember from the squadron
was one pilot named Herbert Woods, Enzo Woods,
come in and says, I don't feel like flying tonight.
The skipper says, you've got to go.
And 30 minutes later, we got a call
that he had crashed and killed, was killed.
And the skipper put his head down on a desk
and kind of cried just a little, just sobbed a little,
and he said, we better go out and see.
So we had to go out there and see,
and where Woods had had vertigo, and he was killed.
And so I had to send a letter to that,
his parents in Springfield, Illinois.
So I remember those instances quite well,
but I lived off the base,
And when the squadron got ready to go to sea,
my wife was pregnant,
and so they reassigned me to the headquarters.
And I wish I could remember the admiral's name,
but I worked in the headquarters office
in Quonset Point for three months.
And then they sent me to sea,
and I was there by myself, alone.
You know what I mean?
In other words, I didn't know a soul when I
reported to the Air Group 10 on the USS
Intrepid in Alameda, California.
Were you ever permanently assigned to this
squadron, 41? Yes.
I was assigned with Yeoman Don Massa and myself.
We were both first class Yeoman.
And so Don went out to sea with the group and I
was reassigned to another air group.
But as I say, it was a training unit through
the winter months in Quonset Point and Charleston,
Rhode Island and Westerly, Rhode Island.
They were both auxiliary training stations and
of course the pilots probably told you
what their duties were for being pilots in
their training, but I do know they trained
on the ranger some, but I don't know where the
ranger was stationed off of, must have
been stationed off of Quarantine Point.
From your memory, setting up multiple air
groups and squadrons, was there anything different
about setting up the first night?
No, they always-
Same equipment?
Same equipment and everything, but there always
would be a different skipper and different crew.
But then as a yeoman, I served the duties as a
yeoman each place, I mean for every squadron
like that.
There must have been at least a half a dozen
squadrons went out of there during the period
a time when I was there from January 43 to
September 44 and all my jobs were setting
up squadrons. Yeah.
When you went to the Intrepid, you picked it up
in Alameda and then sailed?
Picked it up in Alameda.
One interesting story that they've written in
one of their squadron books, one was going
across the United States I heard someone in the
bunk above me crying and we was on a troop
train and I said to him I said what's your
problem and he says I've been out to sea twice
and this is the third time and I won't make it.
That's exactly what you said his name was Kenog
K-O-N-E-I-G and he was the first one killed. He
was killed on March the 23rd. I can remember all
these dates. Well, he was killed on March the
23rd when the plane started to take
off the carrier and the wind and the storm was
so great the carrier tipped
over like this and the plane slid off and went
through the screws. So that, but
I reported for duty at Alameda, California on
the USS Intrepid and I
said that's a big outfit, a whole lot of hay.
How many groups were there? Five thousand
group, 5,000 men on the crew on there and I
didn't know a soul.
How many air groups? Just one air group but we
had a hundred planes. I didn't
remember the planes real well because when we
got hit in April we dumped all
those planes overboard, a hundred of them. Any
engagements that you remember? Oh yeah, I went
through Okinawa engagement. It was on the
Okinawa invasion was April the
first, 1945, and then we went back to Ulythi,
which was in the middle of the
Pacific, was a spatial base for R&R that after
a battle the carrier would go
back there and you could get a little time to
rest. And that Ulythi was a secret,
supposed to be a secret base that the Japs
didn't know anything about, but one night
we were in there, a Jap Marine-a Jap miniature
submarine made it in and put a torpedo into
the USS Randolph, so I remember that real well,
but then I was in the Battle of Okinawa
And also on April the 7th, we sunk a big
battleship, Yamato.
Before Okinawa, was there-
Just regular sea battles, but that was the only
invasion at that time that I can recall of.
But then we were very much aware that we were
going to be in the Okinawa invasion.
So we were the support group for that invasion.
Any memories on the Kamikaze?
Very much so, because I was up on the flight deck
and three Jap Kamikazes come straight out of
the sun.
It was 2:30 in the afternoon
and the big USS Missouri was on the right side
firing at it, and they got two of them. And the
third one went through the deck
with 2 500-pound bombs, went through the flight
deck, and when they hit the
hankering deck steel, that's when the bombs
exploded and blew up like this.
And we were on fire for two days, but then they
had to cut off all the
electric, all the ovens, kitchen, and we had
cold sandwiches. And we weren't out
of our clothes for two, three days, but we
headed back for Pearl Harbor to get
fixed up, repaired, because we couldn't take
off any planes because they put a
hole in the middle of the flight deck. So when
you got to Pearl Harbor, they
couldn't take care of us. So they said we'll
just send you on to Alameda,
California. So when I got to Alameda,
California, when we got to Alameda, the
skipper says give everybody two weeks leave and
report back here. And so I did
that. I wrote out the leave papers and when I
come back my orders read you go
to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Oak Knoll,
California for medical treatment, and so I had
no idea when.
So they told me my nerve was beyond something.
I don't know how they reported it, but then I
was there six weeks, and I got a medical
discharge from the U.S. Navy on July the 22nd, 1945.
on the engagement over near Okinawa when the
Kamikaze came in and you were on fire,
the Intrepid was on fire for a couple of days.
Yeah, it was on fire for a couple of days.
Were you participating in the firefighting? No,
no, each guy had his own duties, each guy had
his own
duties. My duty was to get back to my office,
which was suspended from the
flight deck, and type out the orders or
whatever the skipper ordered, so I don't
recall now all I can remember one particular
deal that he had me type a
whole three pages see we didn't use computer we
had electric type we had the
regular typewriter and after I got through he
looked at it and he says I
decide I wanted to put one more word in it so I
had to do that all over again
adverse weather how well I remember each one of
those things he said he told
about the weather conditions, see, and the
flights back.
See, when these pilots come back every flight,
they would come back to the ready room and
they would report what they saw and what
happened, and then I had to type it up for records,
official records.
So in the course of the record keeping, just
take a typical day in just regular operations,
There'd be a log at the ship level and there'd
be a log at the air group level?
Yeah, air group level, yes.
And then there'd be a report on each of the
individual missions?
Each individual pursuit, yeah.
And I had to, of course, I'd never seen them
after I'd type them up.
I'd hand them to the skipper, which was
Commander Lawrence.
I mean, yes, at that time it was J.C. Lawrence
that would later become an admiral.
But then he was our skipper of Air Group 10
fighter pilots.
Well, no, he was the Air Group 10 skipper,
same as Caldwell was the Air Group 41 skipper.
See, I have trouble getting the two, keeping
them straight.
Because I never went, I went back to two reunions
with Air Group 10.
But I liked the one of Air Group 41
because I knew the boys for two years, almost
two years.
And so I've been to every one of the reunions,
but one,
I've been to 27 reunions this group has.
I only missed one, and that's because I was in
the transaction
of buying a new home, and I had to be there in Ohio,
and that happened.
With all that, all those reports, are you aware
of where those reports have gone?
Are they part of classified or security?
We have a few of them.
It's marked confidential.
And they'd like this war diary here.
I remember that war diary.
And this is when we commissioned our squadron
and we started keeping what they call a war diary.
everything was confidential from there on. And
how I got a hold of them afterwards, I
don't remember, but I, when I decommissioned,
when I come out of Hawaii,
going from Hawaii to California, I had to type
up a lot, lots of reports.
Now would the administrative officer do the
text of the war diary? Yeah, yes,
an administrator over and that was Lieutenant
Jack Deans and that was the
war diary though for 79. See I wasn't at sea
with 79, I got to keep that
straight. I was at sea with Air Group Tanner and
Air Group 41 consisted of VFN 9, I mean 79, and
then Torpedo Bomber 79, and the
They had SBDs, the dive bombers.
Going back to Quonset, when you formed up the
squadron, would it have been VFN-79?
That was the fighter deal.
That's what the F was for.
And then VT was the torpedo bombers.
So there'd be a VF, and a VT, and a 79, and
then it turns into a 41.
And then the V.B. was bombers and then that
consisted of Air Group 41.
Now that was-I don't remember whether that was
assigned as Air Group 41 in Quonset
Point or was it assigned when we got the fleet.
Well, I know that the fleet, there was, we were
task force 58-3 and the Halsey was
our skipper. I mean, they flagged.
I think the, once again, I'm at, yeah, August
25th, looks like August 25th the,
From Common Air Pack, that's Commissioned Air
Pacific Ocean.
So it looks like we were VFN-79 and VTN-79 from
when you formed in January of 44 until
August of 44 when it turned into the- When it
was sent to sea I think they made
them an air group.
A different group?
A different group, yeah.
Does that sound right?
Yes, that sounds right.
said again Nancy, I was with Air Group 10 when
they trained, so I really don't know
where they trained. All I know was that I would
report to the senior
yeoman on the aircraft carrier at Alameda. When
I got there, my duties read
report as a chief yeoman, I mean as a senior
yeoman at Air Group 40, I mean Air
Group 10 and so we were sent to Hawaii and from
Hawaii we sent out, which all
air carrier groups were sent on what they call
a shakedown cruise. That was
when they'd go out to the, right down to below
Hawaii and test their guns, test
everything was tested before they went into
combat. And then that's when we went
from Hawaii to the combat zone it usually took
a week or so but coming
from the United States to Hawaii we never went
in a straight line.
We always zigzagged at 22 knots so no submarine
could follow us. And I never
thought about submarines in those days. I never
thought about it until I learned
later you know that we were probably surrounded
with Japanese submarines most
all time and didn't know it. But the carrier
Intrepid was listed as the most
hit carrier in the Navy. Have you visited in
New York? Yeah, I visited a couple
times in New York. I have a lifetime pass as a
crewman on there to visit at any
time. Back to the Kamikaze attack, you said the
vessel burned for a couple of
days and you had to offload or just tossed off
overboard all the aircraft?
To get up speed we had to toss over all the
planes off of the flight deck
because they could not be flown off. So the
crew, we had, we lost eight men in
that attack and we had to bury them at sea.
I've got the witness to bury them at sea,
which I've heard a lot about. We buried eight
men at sea, and the, like I say, the
firefighting crew put them out pretty well,
pretty, pretty quick, but then we
smoked, but that automatically had to turn and
go, get out of the area. That's
where I feel like, as I look back, the Japs
made a lot of mistakes by not
following up when they damaged the carriers,
but they saved one or two of
our ships and the Franklin, I saw the Franklin
get hit and burned, but I forget
the date on that, but I wasn't attached to the Franklin.
If you were following the Yeoman on the, or
Group 10 on the Intrepid, and the group
loses all its airplanes, how did the, how were
the pilots handled after that?
Were they transferred out there?
No, I don't know what happened.
See I wouldn't hear any of that stuff before
they were transferred because we come in,
we come in to Alameda, California, the Naval
Air Station there took over the
records and everything, the carrier, because
the carrier, I don't know how
long they were stationed there, but then like I
say, when I come back, my
orders read to report to Okinawa Hospital.
But I'm just trying to figure out, did the
pilots sail after the ship was
damage, intrepid damage. Everybody stayed on
board? Everybody stayed on board.
They couldn't fly out because they put a big
hole in midship, put the big hole
and then also there was three elevators,
forward elevators and
portside elevator and the aft elevator and they
were all knocked out of
So the planes just had to stay where they were,
and the pilots could not do anything.
But then all I had to do then was just keep,
type up the records as we went back home.
When you were on the, for the Intrepid, did you
run into the independents or any of the fliers?
No, you know, I didn't realize until later,
now, that they were with us in that air
group because we didn't know who all was there.
All I do know that the Missouri
was on one side and I believe it was the
battleship New York was on the other
side. And then we had so many destroyers and so
many tin cans as we
called them, but we did go through two typhoons.
So you're out there in December
in January? Let's see, January, February,
March, and April. I report for duty to go
on the West Coast in January, and then we
sailed out immediately and we'll get
back in April or May, let's see, because I got
my medical discharge
from the Navy in July. That was before the war
was over, so.
What was uh, what was the recreation in the
Olympic like?
That, that was nice. It was, and I like to
relate the story that when I was on the
winter Shore, the, I was walking along and when
somebody howled, hi Al, and I found
out as a kid from my hometown was stationed
there on that island and then
another thing that I recall at the island there
we had ferries that take
you around to different ships you could visit
and I was afraid to get on that
ferry afraid I wouldn't find my particular ship
when they come back
because if you weren't there they go they don't
we don't nobody but I do
I do recall real well that the Randolph got hit
that night in the Pantale by a Japanese
miniature sub torpedo, but it was a nice
recreation base.
So, you'd take a ferry over to the beach?
To the beach, yeah, at Ulysses, but it was
supposed to be a secret base, and I think
See, I've got all that stuff in my own log
books at home that I don't, I haven't turned
into a squatter.
I mean, it's my own books.
And I got a map of the cruise we went on and
where it went and all that, but that was Air
Group 10.
Did you spend much time at Pearl Harbor or not?
Not too much time at Pearl because when we
pulled in, we weren't allowed to go ashore
because they said there's too many base sales,
servicemen on Pearl Harbor at that time.
So we had to stay on ship and then we went out
on our shakedown, what we called a shakedown cruise.
But I did find out that the independence was in
the Okinawa, I think in the Okinawa invasion,
So my squadron, Air Group 10, would have been
there, Air Group 41, to see if they're not right.
This was the campaign ribbons for the air group?
So it started in September through January, I
think that's when they headed back to Pearl, so
that's about right. Yeah.
They got the same two typhoons that you got?
Yeah, Mm-hmm. Jack Gaines was my lieutenant
executive officer,
administrative officer, yeah, Jack Gaines, and
I tell you an interesting story on
Jack Gaines. He wrote me later and said,
see if we was walking up a ladder, as we called
it a ladder, and the five-inch
guns went off it would knock you off of there
and he wanted this executive
officer wanted me to sign a slip and send it to
the Navy that he was on a
ladder and got knocked off and I says I will
not do that because I did not see
you do that so I never heard from him again but
I thought I remember right it
was Jack Gaines, but then, too many officers to
remember, but Jack Gaines, I do know
that he would say, he was on, here's the, I
made this list up. That's like good
typing, no mistakes. They were allowed to make
mistakes. They never expected you to make
mistakes. How many words could you type? Well,
that's a debatable deal. See, I would
like to find that out but I did know I didn't
have to take any spelling because
by the middle of the year I had a 100% perfect
in spelling that
they said you don't need to worry about the
rest of the course because your
typing deal is 100 percent. Well the military
likes to do qualifications what
were the qualifications a young man had to
complete in order to? Well we had to
The main thing was typing and filing, that's
what our responsibility was.
We had to know where, when that skipper wanted
something, we got to know where it is and
get it for him.
And as we were at sea, the file cabinets, doors
would go back and forth.
My office was suspended from the flight deck
and twice during the flights a plane would
come in and see when they would land the
landing hook would catch the cables and twice
it tipped
the plane down and the propeller tip come
through my ceiling but see I slept in my office
I didn't have a bunk downstairs at all, down
anywhere. I always stayed in my office 24 hours
a day.
That was to keep you close to the skipper?
To keep me close to the skipper, yeah. Yep.
But then, one particular day at Quonset Point,
I drove my car into the base,
and when I reported to Skipper said we're going
to Floyd Bennett Field in New
York for two weeks I said well I'll notify my
wife he said no you won't
notify your wife you don't notify your wife so
my car set there for two weeks
my wife had no idea where I was at. We flew to
Floyd Bennett Field in New York
for some kind of training do I, all I know is
that I had to, but every time they
issued orders I would type them up and I had a
very interesting experience on one
of them. I just got back from leave. I had a
leave of two weeks and then when I
got back a couple days later Skipper says we
decided the crew could have
another leave, have a leave, so you write up
orders for all the crewmen."
And I wasn't I wasn't a crewman, no. I got home
and there was a telegram says
report back to the base immediately or consider
yourself AWOL. So I had to
get back on the plane, head back to New York,
report in Rhode Island. But I said,
hey you told me to write everybody leave you
said well that didn't include you
but anyway I've had a lot of interesting
experience I always said that I never
wanted to do it again but I appreciate the
opportunity for what I had because I
see I learned to fly when I was 14 years old
and so that aviation was my lacking
but I didn't know that I did not want to go to
the Army.
For those of us living in a modern era with
computers and Xerox machines and
all that stuff in our homes, how many copies of
each of these items would you
make on a routine basis? Did you use carbon
paper? We used carbon paper.
I remember it was probably around three copies.
One for the unit, one for the file,
Yeah, we filed one for, see, all our stuff had
to go to flag office, and that was
Admiral Mitcher, I believe it was at that time,
or either Halsey or Mitcher, but
anyway, all our reports had to go to the
skipper, and he would send a copy to the flag
office, and we'd
keep one in our files. No copies? No copy
machine, just carbon paper.
and no electric typewriters, no waves. What was
the brand that you used?
Royal. The reason I remember it real well is
about three years ago, see I'm a
garage sale person, three years ago I ran on to
a U.S. Royal typewriter just exactly
like the one I had on the ship. And so I bought
that, cleaned it up, took it to an
antique shop, got $25 for it. I paid a dollar
for it. But anyway, we had the
antique ASDFGKL semicolon space. I think I have
a pretty good memory for an 88
year old. But when I met Barker, you know
Barker told me then that you
was the yeoman when I reported to the intrepid,
and I didn't remember that
because everybody did come in and out, but I
probably typed up his orders. He
said he remembered me as the yeoman. Yeah, but
see that was when he reported to this
squadron, yeah, twice, and I remember real well
that on the side of his
airplane it had J.E. Barker, U.S. Navy on the
side of his plane and I don't know
why, but that's, you see, some of those
memories just stick there. I want to ask him
about that when I see him.
What was the tail on the Intrepid? How were the
tails painted?
That I can't recall.
Wasn't there a distinctive?
Yeah, each of that was supposed to, see the
tails were all painted different for the
different squads.
And the signal officers usually knew that, the
RC, the signal men.
But then another incident I remember real well
was the flagman.
He'd always stand out there and raise the wing
up just that way there.
And that was, let me see if I can recall his
name, he just turned 90 years old.
He's Cy. Cy Hendricks, yeah. Cy Hendricks. And
anyway, the flagmen, they always, they
didn't have visual, I mean they all visual
flags, but then now they're on the
carriers, they all are by lights. Do you
remember, and going back to
Quonset during training since it was mostly
land-based, was there a flight
officer on the runway? No. They were just doing..
. Skipper would give them
instructions of what you're supposed to do and
then that's what they carried out.
We maybe one day they would fly to Hialeah,
Hyannisport, Massachusetts. Maybe
one time they fly to Floyd Bennett, but they,
yeah, they all, each year they had in
there, of course, we had a lot of ice and snow
in Rhode Island during that time, in the
winter months. So, most all I can say is the
skipper gave the orders and I typed
them up. That's a succinct job description.
Yeah. Any comments on any of these folks
characters? Well, no, not, they were all good
pilots. They had to be, because as I
said, Caldwell made that statement, he said,
I'll make top pilots out of them, and I
think that's why some of them today just don't,
still don't dislike, still dislike the thoughts
of Caldwell. But he was very, very strict, and
he was a good
commander and if I remember right he set a
speed record across the United States
am I right and at a 325 miles an hour at one
time from Los Angeles to Cleveland
Air Races but I can remember I went to that
same Air Races to see that plane
come in from California and it was Lieutenant
Caldwell, but
anyway I understand he went on up to be an
admiral, so anyway my duties at Air
Group 41 I'll always remember. Well, you've
left great records for us, they're very well
Thank you. I think as you noticed, we had to
put our knee show. I just wonder if there's any
of them in here that had my knee shows on the top.
But see, at Quonset Point, we had two yeoman.
Not sure if you understand, for the different things.
We had two yeoman, and Don Massa was DM and I
was AK, and, uh, but then, uh, Caldwell,
but see, I remember Barker, now that's where I
remember Barker was there, and all
these guys here, I signed them in when they
come in. These young pilots, when
they come in they would, Skipper says, I'll
make pilots out of them. They were all green as
far, oh yeah
they'd make a remark about radar. They'd make a
remark, how can we fly at
night? And also, we were afraid to walk in
front of the radar
bulb hanging on the right wing, that's when
they were testing them, because we didn't
know whether, what, that radar bulb sent out
waves or just that, because it was all experimental.
Well, when the pilots came in to be assigned to
this new squadron, did they ask you questions
about what they were supposed to be doing?
No, but then when they sat in the ready room,
they were there and the skipper said,
there and the skipper says I'll tell you what
you're doing, but we're going to fly at
night and you're going to land on the carrier
at night and by radar. This man
here was carry on. Barker, did you have an
airplane that had a lieutenant
Barker, J.E. Barker, U.S. Navy on the side.
I don't remember where it was, but that's the
reason I remember Terry Barker, he said
he reported.
I don't recall.
I may have been, but I don't think so.
Yeah, you had a J.E. Barker on the side, it was
a plate, name plate, must have been in
Rhode Island.
Well, in all the years, I never ran into
another Barker in a movie.
Any other thoughts you want to put on the tape
for the museum?
No, other than this is my favorite squadron.
I've been to every one of the reunions but one,
and this was the 28th reunion,
and I'm looking forward to going to the next one.
Well, we certainly thank you for taking the time.
You have the distinction of being one of the
few young ones that's checked in Captain Barker
twice, right?
Vander Hill. Yes.
Vander Hill.