Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman

by Neal Thompson

  Although two of Shepard’s colleagues would nearly lose their lives in bizarre landings on the Oriskany, Air Group 19 eventually developed an outstanding record—a low fatality rate and a limited number of lost planes. Jig Dog would credit Shepard’s leadership and mentoring for that success rate, and although he would see occasional signs of recklessness in Shepard, he came to trust him enough to choose him as his wingman, just as Doc Abbot had. That decision would ultimately save Jig Dog’s life.

  Aviators practically lived in their “ready room,” their office/ clubhouse/kitchen and, as Jig Dog put it, “the place where you go to drink coffee and tell lies.” Pilots picked up weather reports from the teletype or sat in the theater-style leather seats for mission briefings. They kept their gear stowed in lockers—helmets, boots, and insulated rubber “poopy suits.” Similar to a diver’s wet suit, poopy suits were worn under aviators’ flight suits and designed to keep them from freezing if they had to eject and land in the water. They not only sweated profusely inside the skintight suits but occasionally were forced to relieve themselves during long flights—hence the nickname.

  Enroute to Korea, life aboard the Oriskany ticked along, a metronome of routines. Breakfast at 6 A .M. A morning of launched props and jets. Maybe pull alongside a transport ship to exchange supplies and pick up new men and bags of mail. An afternoon of postflight storytelling in the ready room. Maybe a basketball game or a boxing match. At night the men might get haircuts, take showers, or crowd into the library for magazines and books. Sometimes movies were shown in the so-called hangar bay, one level below the flight deck, where aircraft were stored.

  The Oriskany bustled with three thousand men, each with a job. For most those jobs were painfully routine. Some spent the entire day in the ship’s bowels tending to its engines and boilers, washing the laundry, or baking the thousand loaves of bread consumed by the Oriskany’s crew each day. But the pilots—especially the jet pilots—were the celebrities. They dressed differently, with sunglasses and baggy flight suits. They spoke their own cool, clipped language, full of jargon, acronyms, and euphemisms. They told each other to “check your six,” which meant watch your six o’clock position—your ass. They complained about a Charlie Foxtrot in the air—code for CF, or cluster fuck. And just before taking off, they’d hit the head for a “combat dump,” also called “sending a Marine to sea.” They talked of vectors and air speed and thrust, about weather and “cat shots” (catapult shots off the deck) and “go juice” (either coffee or jet fuel). And they never talked about fear or death. Instead they’d use euphemisms like “He went in,” which meant “He crashed his fucking plane into the water and died.”

  In the blustery weather of the Sea of Japan, a routine day could quickly turn deadly. An unexpected blast of wind, a small mechanical error, a lapse in timing or judgment, and you’d be gone. For Shepard, luck would be a constant copilot. He would forever argue that skill, discipline, and attention to detail protected him. As he liked to say, “There are old test pilots and there are bold test pilots, but there are no old, bold test pilots.” Still, there are events that are simply out of a disciplined pilot’s hands.

  Even without the help of enemy planes and missiles, a twenty-seven-thousand-ton aircraft carrier capable of moving at nearly forty miles an hour—fast enough to pull a water skier—is a profoundly dangerous vehicle, and the Oriskany’s cruise toward Korea was not without its mishaps. Billy Lawrence, a short, tough Naval Academy football player from Nashville, was one of the few “nuggets”—pilots on their first assignment—in Air Group 19. One day, off the coast of Hawaii, Lawrence experienced what was blandly called a “partial catapult.”

  Two hydraulic-powered catapults were built into the forward deck of the Oriskany. A plane’s front wheels attached to the catapult’s tow bar, which whipped the plane forward like a sling-shot to help it become airborne. But hydraulic catapults were in-famously temperamental. The explosion of a hydraulic catapult aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bennington killed a hundred crewmen. In subsequent years hydraulic catapults would be replaced by stronger and safer steam-powered catapults.

  Billy Lawrence hooked his Banshee to a catapult tow bar, pushed the jet to full throttle, and prepared for the jolt of the catapult’s shove. But the catapult inexplicably lost power halfway through the launch, and the plane belly-flopped two hundred yards off the bow and began to sink as the fast-moving ship bore down on it. Lawrence was able to escape from the crippled jet, and a helicopter—which always hovers nearby during takeoffs—was able to drop a safety line. But Lawrence realized too late that he had forgotten to unstrap his parachute. The helicopter barely lifted him and his waterlogged parachute to safety.

  When Captain Griffin later summoned him to the bridge, Lawrence expected to get chewed out. Instead, Griffin told him, “Well done.” Lawrence later learned that Shepard, as the officer assigned to investigate the mishap, had written up the accident report and instead of crucifying Lawrence praised him for handling the emergency with poise.

  Other aviators weren’t so lucky. One landed too hard on the deck, and a bomb attached to the wing exploded, killing him and several others. One pilot took off perfectly one morning, banked left, and just kept going left—into the sea. Another was killed when his propeller plane’s wings, which folded in toward the cockpit to allow more planes to fit on the carrier deck, inexplicably folded in the air.

  Still, with advice and training from Shepard, who took on a mentoring role during the cruise toward Korea, the hard landings declined and Griffin’s deck required fewer repairs. As the Oriskany’s record came to outshine that of most other ships in the Pacific, colleagues began marveling at Shepard’s expertise. He had more experience at twenty-nine than most aviators a decade older. “He had an aura of confidence that was unbelievable,” said squadron mate John Mitchell. “Whether it was in a roomful of admirals or in mixed company, he just exuded it. And that confidence carried over into his flying. He was fearless.”

  As the Oriskany neared the coast of Korea in the summer of 1953, significant progress had been made in the armistice talks, and the aviators began to suspect that war would turn to peace before the Oriskany reached the scene. Still, the stormy seas complicated many otherwise routine landings, forcing the LSOs to wave off incoming jets, which then looped around for another approach. While waiting for his chance to land one afternoon, Shepard’s squadronmate Frank Repp began running low on fuel and received permission for an emergency landing. Alighting on an aircraft carrier in calm seas is difficult enough. But in foul weather the ship might rise and fall as much as fifteen feet and would rock from side to side as well. Landing on such an unstable target was like trying to thread a needle held by a drunk. Pilots were told to time their approach so that they would land precisely as the deck was falling into a trough between waves.

  Repp approached slowly and, in an effort to touch down before the next wave lifted the ship’s rear, lifted the Banshee’s nose a bit to slow it down. But he had slowed down too much, and his Banshee flamed out and stalled. Repp was now a falling brick, and despite the LSO’s frantic wave-off signal, it was too late to veer left or right. All he could do was coast—a hail Mary dead-stick landing—and pray for the best. The deck was still too high, and for a second it looked to Repp as if he was done for, as if he was going to slam right into the backside of the Oriskany. Then, slowly, oh so slowly, the deck began to fall into the trough between sea swells.

  In the game of inches that is an aircraft carrier landing, Frank Repp came up a few inches short that day. His Banshee hit the rear edge of the deck and cracked open like an egg. The plane split apart just behind the cockpit—feet from Repp’s head— shredding the tanks where the last few hundred gallons of fuel sloshed around and unleashing a fireball that shot flames two hundred feet into the sky. Two-thirds of the plane—wings, engines, tail—stopped dead on the edge of the ship’s fantail, then slid back into the water. Bouncing forth from the flames, at more than a hundred miles an
hour, was the front third of Repp’s Banshee, less than fifteen feet of nose and cockpit, which had somehow escaped without being blown to pieces. Inside, Repp held his hands tight to his chest—he remembered that in similar accidents men had lost limbs by bracing themselves against the cockpit walls. The wingless tube tumbled and flipped across the deck until a barrier caught and stopped it. Repp thought he was dreaming when he saw the figure of a man wrapped in a puffy asbestos suit, who pulled him free of the wreckage.

  Most of those on the ship who saw or heard the explosion assumed the worst. Jig Dog had even picked up the telephone to call Captain Griffin and report another fatality. Then he saw Repp walking across the deck.

  “Frank!” he yelled. “I thought you were on that airplane.”

  “I was, Jig,” Repp yelled back. “Pretty colorful, wasn’t I?”

  The next day Repp was flying a new Banshee.

  Shepard’s colleague John Mitchell once found himself in a similar dead-stick landing, bearing down fast on the Oriskany’s tail. Just the night before, Shepard had told him not to let his speed drop too low on approach or, like Repp, he’d stall. But when Mitchell tried to accelerate, there was no response. Instead of trying a “colorful” landing, he jerked the Banshee down and left at the last second, hoping he’d hit water, not steel. But the jet slammed into an open section of the ship’s rear end, just below the flight deck, an area called the “spudlocker.” The plane burst into flames, and Mitchell heard the screams of five men who were sleeping nearby. The screams made him realize: I’m not dead.

  After crawling from the wreckage and helping carry the other injured men to the ship’s hospital, Mitchell phoned the ready room to tell his colleagues he was okay. Another pilot picked up the phone and Mitchell said, “Hi, this is Mitch.” After a moment of silence an angry voice on the other end said, “That’s a pretty sick joke, whoever you are.” And Mitchell realized: They think I’m dead.

  Another officer grabbed the ready-room phone and began screaming at Mitchell, “You fucking son of a bitch, you sick fucking—”

  “Willie!” Mitchell yelled, recognizing the voice of a craggy, forty-five-year-old warrant officer, Willie Williamson. “Willie, Willie, Willie! It’s me.” Finally Mitchell convinced Williamson he wasn’t dead. Shepard rushed down to the doctor’s office, where the doctor had touched up Mitchell’s miraculously minor scrapes and cuts and was offering him a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves. He took a glass of whiskey for himself and told Mitchell to rest up and give him a full statement tomorrow. “And Mitch,” Shepard said, “good to have you back.”

  In July 1953 an armistice was signed by the United Nations, North Korea, and China. Even though South Korea refused to sign the treaty, the Korean War began winding to a close. Shepard’s chance to blast the enemy from the sky had passed. Instead of dropping bombs or chasing MiGs, he and his squadronmates remained in “alert posture” and spent their days patrolling the skies, like cops on a beat.

  Korea had been Shepard’s last, best opportunity to reach the exalted ranks of certified combat aviators. But Shepard would not, in an otherwise stellar career, earn a single kill. That fact would haunt him years later when his record was stacked against that of his fellow astronaut, John Glenn, who five days before the cease-fire was flying with his four-plane division when they encountered and downed three MiGs. Glenn painted another red star beside the words “MiG Mad Marine” on his jet. Three stars for three kills—not quite an ace, but close. Glenn’s last MiG turned out to be the last of 792 Soviet-made MiG jets downed by U.S. aviators in the war.

  Arriving too late to join that elite group was a disappointing twist of timing for Shepard. But he was never known to mope or complain about things. Like his optimistic mother, Renza, he rejected dejection. Even during bad times his colleagues would notice his “irrepressible spirit.” Shepard could be insensitive, dismissive, and pithy. Sometimes he was distant and contemplative, other times pedantic and overbearing. He had a low boiling point and could easily explode into noisy anger. But an emotion he never displayed was melancholy, as if even a brief submission to woe was the ultimate sign of weakness. Besides, Shepard always found ways to enliven a disappointing situation.

  At the end of its patrol duties off the Korean coast, the Oriskany returned for a brief stop back in San Francisco. During the Pacific crossing, VF-193 practiced some formation flying. Four-plane divisions returning to the ship usually bypassed the carrier in the echelon formation—each plane a little behind and below the other, like steps, so that each pilot could see the next. They’d then separate and land one by one. Shepard one day convinced his three other divisionmates to assemble in a tight diamond formation and pass low over the ship. It was a trick borrowed from the Navy’s four-year-old stunt team, the Blue Angels. Formation flying requires incredibly steady hands, but disassembling a tight-packed diamond formation is even more difficult and dangerous—and, without prior approval, completely against the rules. As Shepard’s quartet roared past the Oriskany, the deck crew cheered its approval. Captain Griffin and Jig Dog, however, weren’t amused. Shepard was put in hack—just as he had been back at Patuxent River. He had to stay in his tiny room for an entire week.

  Billy Lawrence, John “Mitch” Mitchell, and the other younger pilots visited Shepard at mealtime so that he wouldn’t have to eat alone. But, just like those swats in the ass at Annapolis, Shepard took his punishment with a smirk. In fact, he seemed proud to have distinguished himself from his peers. Soon after the flyover stunt his squadron commander wrote in his fitness report an assessment that could have easily applied to Shepard’s whole career: “LT Shepard is a very fine Naval Aviator, but he occasionally strains the bounds of good flight discipline.” In time, however, Shepard convinced Jig Dog that his skills were valuable enough to outweigh his indulgences.

  Jig Dog was a perfectionist and not one to suffer incompetence. He frequently had lesser pilots transferred off the ship, in keeping with a note he wrote to himself at the start of the cruise: “You are not aiding the individual or the Navy by retaining a weakling. Get rid of him early. He will only cause you trouble in the end.” But he realized Shepard was a keeper, and over time he decided to look the other way when Shepard broke the rules.

  Once, during a change-of-command ceremony just west of San Francisco, Jig Dog chose Shepard to lead a ceremonial four-plane flyover. With all the Oriskany’s officers and crew assembled on the deck, Shepard had gotten approval from air traffic officials in San Francisco to make a low-altitude pass. But as the four planes approached the ship in an echelon formation, Jig Dog could hear a change in the pitch of the roaring jet engines, and he knew something was amiss. Then he saw the planes’ noses start to tilt upward. All heads on deck started tipping back as Shepard’s quartet soared up and over for a spontaneous—and unauthorized—loop-the-loop before coming in for the low pass. Air traffic control called the ship to ask about the changing altitude of the jets on their radar screens. But Jig Dog talked his way out of it, and Shepard escaped unpunished. Again.

  Another time the commander of the entire seventh fleet was aboard the Oriskany during exercises in the Sea of Japan. One by one, each four-plane division of Air Group 19 passed by the ship. Then Shepard’s division roared past—upside down. Again Shepard was spared the rod, but just barely. “It was pointed out that that type of aviation was not necessarily the way the fleet commander liked to see his planes flown over the flag ship,” Jig Dog recalled.

  The way Jig Dog saw it, Shepard was flamboyant but not dangerous. He was a hotshot, always looking to stand out from the crowd, but he was never extreme. Sometimes Jig Dog would hear mumbles of complaint from other aviators—those whom Shepard might reprimand for deficiencies in their flying while he was out there breaking Navy rules. But Jig Dog had decided to let Shepard get away with his “idiosyncrasies.” They boosted the air group’s morale, broke up the tedium, and made the flyers momentarily forget the occasional fiery wrecks and funerals at sea. “He always had
a lot of protection,” Jig Dog said. Looking back, Jig Dog realized that by keeping Shepard on board and keeping him happy, he may well have saved his own life.

  A winter night over the Sea of Japan, the Korean coast off to the west, the ship somewhere east, and a storm brewing overhead. Flying solo on a night mission, Shepard learned from the Oriskany that unidentified planes had been spotted on the ship’s radar, and he needed to find out who they belonged to. The mission looked to be a quick one. As he approached the “bogey,” he realized they were friendly—U.S. Air Force jets. Shepard made a wide turn back to the ship. He was above the clouds, but as he descended through them he was surrounded by a surging storm and couldn’t see a thing. He began flying by his instruments, following the ship’s homing signal on his radar screen. Just then the blip on his screen that represented the Oriskany disappeared, and the control stick in his hand became mushy. A quick calculation told Shepard that a lightning strike had probably zapped his Banshee’s electrical system; a backup system kicked in, but flying under backup power was much more difficult, especially inside a raging storm. Then the jet’s navigational system quit, followed by the radio, essentially severing Shepard’s connection to the Oriskany. He was many miles out, and as he approached a spot where he thought he’d find the ship, it wasn’t there. A thought crossed his mind: I might be in real trouble. He was burning fuel fast and considered that he might have to ditch in that dark, cold water. In an effort to steady his thoughts, he checked his systems again, and realized the radio was flickering on and off.