Liberty Flight to Dallas

by Jerry Blackerby

The first week in January, 1955, I had the opportunity to catch a flight coming from Whidbey Island, Washington to Dallas and take 30 days leave. The crew coming to Dallas agreed that I could ride and asked me to take the radio seat on the trip to Dallas. The regular radioman would sleep during the night flight. I contacted Dad to meet me at NAS Dallas.

We preflighted a P2V-5 and made sure everything was in working order during the early afternoon. We planned to leave about 10 PM. At 9:30 PM we arrived at our plane ready to leave and found that another crew had taken our preflighted aircraft. We loaded into another P2V-5, performed a quick preflight check, and left Whidbey Island. We also had an extra passenger; a soldier going home to Puerto Rico on emergency leave. The soldier could speak very little English. This made ten men on board, filling all of the takeoff/landing seating positions, commonly called “ditching” positions.

Ten people are provided for during takeoffs and landings. The pilot and copilot have their seats. Four chairs are in the navigation/radar area in front of the wing beam. These chairs rotate to a rear-facing position for takeoffs or landings. Four ditching positions are in the radio compartment, behind the wing beam. The radio operator has a chair, which rotates to a rear-facing position. Two positions are on the floor beside the radio operator’s chair behind the wing beam. Headrests can be lifted and two people sit on the floor and strap in facing the rear. A section of the floor between those two people and the hatch to the rear compartment can be raised and another person sits on the floor and straps in facing the rear.

Our first problem was that we had seven oxygen masks and ten people. This meant people that were not doing required tasks would not have an oxygen mask. About an hour after takeoff, the regular radio operator took the radio seat for the flight to Dallas. He said he could not stand the lack of oxygen since we would be flying around 15,000 feet. This left three of us, including the soldier, to ride in the rear compartment. Our second problem was that the heat for everything behind the wing beam was not working. We did not have any heat in the radio compartment or the rear compartment.

I bundled up in my pea coat and stretched out to sleep on the floor of the rear compartment. Several times, I awoke feeling sick from lack of oxygen. I would reach for an oxygen hose and breathe a little 100% oxygen from the hose. I showed the soldier passenger how to breathe from an oxygen hose also. We survived the cold night and were coming into NAS Dallas about 9 AM.

I told the pilot that I wanted to stay at the rear port watching our approach to NAS Dallas and would take my seat just before landing. Sometimes we did this when we approached a place that we knew. The radio compartment is two steps up from the rear compartment, through a hatch or door. Since I would take my seat at the last minute, everyone else should be strapped in and the floor section raised waiting for me. I could drop into my position and be strapped in within seconds.

I watched the Fort Worth/Arlington area as we approached NAS Dallas from the north. As we crossed US Highway 80 (two blocks from the runway), I ran to my seating position. I was shocked to see the soldier standing at the hatch to the radio compartment looking at me. The two men in the radio compartment were yelling at the soldier, but he could not hear them much less understand them. Someone should have gotten up and led him into the compartment. I hit him in a dead run and pushed him into the arms of the person seated on the floor. He locked his arms around the soldier as we hit the runway. I grabbed each side of the hatch with my hands and tried to hold on.

With a smooth landing, I would be okay. Instead, the landing was rough. The plane bounced twice and I lost my grip. As I fell backward, I caught the Sonobuoy rack on my right. The rack rotates in a frame, but should be locked down. The rack was not locked and rotated until I slammed into the right side of the plane behind the rack. I lay there a few moments as we slowed and taxied to the parking area. I got to my feet hurting all over.

After landing, we had to tie down the airplane. My job during tie down was to climb out the top hatch and walk the wing to put a pin in each wingtip fuel tank. When I climbed out the top hatch, I was aching all over. After tie down, the other radio operator suggested that I should tell the pilot and check into sickbay. I asked him to keep quite because this was just one of those dumb accidents that can happen when you do not follow regulations. I wasn’t hurt bad, only bruised.

We entered the flight operations building and my family was waiting for me. We drove to Snyder, Oklahoma where they were living at that time. Within a few days, the bruises were gone and I never told the Navy what had happened.