Tales from the Deck

By Donald R Elliott

Book Overview

This is a collection of stories written by US Navy personnel who served in Carrier Antisubmarine Air Group Fifty-Seven or CVSG-57, mainly aboard the USS Hornet CVS-12 during the 1950's and 1960's. The US Navy's anti-submarine efforts date back to World War II. In the 1950s, with the advent of the Grumman S2F Tracker airplane, the HSS-1 Seabat helicopter and nine dedicated Essex Class aircraft carriers, Anti-Submarine Warfare provided a powerful force to throw against the submarine threats that were developing. Carrier Air Groups became the norm, as the fixed-wing and helicopters were increasingly kept together for the training cycles and cruises to foreign waters. The airmen of CVSG-57 lived in a much different time, when defending the United States of America couldn't be done by a computer in the cockpit. Every seaman on the ship was needed to keep the ship sailing and the aircraft flying. Pilots used all their training and experience, sometimes making it to safety only because they were unwilling to give in, knowing the slightest miscalculation or poor judgment could mean disaster. Many of the stories collected around the last CVSG-57 reunion relate to the "peace keeping" deployments on the USS Hornet, CVS-12, for the personnel of fixed-wing squadrons VS-35 and VS-37; helicopter squadron HS-2; detachments from VAW-11 and VAW-13 (early warning squadrons) and H&MS-15 (Marine detachment intercept/attack squadron). Please visit the USS Hornet ship museum in Alameda, California, USA. All proceeds from this book will be donated to Naval charities.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1096966905
• ISBN13: 9781096966906
• Release Date: May 2019
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"