During this crisis, a call came into the duty office in NATC Patuxent River early morning of 9 NOV 1962. It was like many other calls that had come into VP-8 during the few weeks preceding the initial removal of missiles from Cuba. The calls were all trying to make the most out of a unique capability the P-3A provided. This time the request was simple and straight-forward: Could a VP-8 P-3A take a team of reporters out to the site of an unprecedented open-ocean boarding of a Russian vessel by a U.S. Navy destroyer and thereby also establish another first; the airborne news coverage of an event as it occurred at sea over 1000 miles from the United States. Of course, the answer was yes! VP-8, "First With The Orion," was about to cement its place in history.

CDR Creighton Cook, CO of VP-8 had done a remarkable job in transition to the Navy's first new patrol aircraft since the 1940's - all taking place within the few short months before the Cuban Crisis. Flying the few aircraft it owned literally day and night, VP-8 had managed to field an operational crew for each of its six aircraft by the time the first call came to begin the open ocean surveillance requisite to the threatened quarantine by President John F. Kennedy. The fact that the P-3 could reach any spot in the Atlantic and put in productive time on station was a capability unheard of in VP operations; it was an advantage put to use by none other than the CNO himself, ADM George Anderson.

Since the P-3 transition had only started in July with the delivery of the first aircraft, none of the crews held recognizable readiness qualifications; the acting patrol plane commanders (PPC) were still designated second pilots; it took 1000 hours in type to be designated PPC. The rest of the crew-members were in a similar category, holding conditional crew status until the total Atlantic Fleet readiness requirements could be met. The first 3 crews, including CDR Cook's crew 1, were the best qualified at this point.

CDR Cook had just received an urgent telephone call, informing him that his mother, ill for some months, was dying. He had already given the order to ready his aircraft LC-1, Bureau Number 149671, and his crew for the flight pending Navy authorization and briefing. The loading of the aircraft was critical since they would be carrying a mixed load of depth charges and torpedoes, along with all the various search stores and, of course, a full load of fuel (9200 gals.) Because the first P-3's were so-called "light-weight" aircraft, they were limited to 127,500 pounds maximum takeoff gross weight. All of the aircraft, when loaded with this set of stores and fuel, topped that number by 4000-5000 pounds. Thus, they operated under a special waiver obtained from OPNAV by Creighton Cook during this period, and learned very early that the P-3 had much potential for growth.

Deciding quickly that this was another case where his squadron would have to carry the mission for him, CDR Cook turned to me and directed that I take the mission, using his aircraft and crew. It was not until early in the afternoon that the details and the authorization came from the CNO team entrenched in the basement of the White House. The Russian freighter "Anasov," supposedly carrying the first missiles out of Cuba and bound for Russia, was to be intercepted by the Barry, a USN destroyer at sea. The position was southwest of Bermuda at a point about equidistant between Miami and Bermuda. The P-3s were picked since they were the only aircraft with the speed and range to do the job. In order to foster fair opportunity to both of the major news services, a VP-44 aircraft was commissioned to duplicate the mission with a news team from the other agency. We were to take Peter Hackus and the NBC team, while CDR Andy Serrell, CO, VP-44 took the other.

It was late afternoon when both aircraft finally taxied - a 3 hours transit lay ahead. Their instructions from the Navy were to "treat them like VIPs and get photo coverage of the event. Return them to Washington, DC (Andrews AFB) as soon as possible in order that they could file their story." Our VLP-8 task, self-assumed, was to beat VP-44 (If this has to be explained to anybody in VP-8, they're an impostor!)

As soon as the VP-44 taxied and declared "Echo Item" the VP-8 crew knew VP-44 was out to do the same thing to us. ("Echo Item" was an air traffic control code word necessitated by the advent of the P-3's rapid response posture to suspicious submarine sightings, and immediately gave priority to the flight just below that of the presidential aircraft.) Of course we assured "Pax" tower that our flight was involved with the very same "Echo Item." We were airborne in a matter of minutes.

When it came to racing aircraft, I was a hard man to beat. They were on scene more than 30 minutes before LM-4 from VP-44 showed up. There was one hitch. This was November, in a time zone between Florida and Bermuda, and the local time was DARK! The Barry could not board for inspection, and those aboard the VP-8 craft couldn't get any pictures, even though they fired off some photo flares carried in the tail of the aircraft for night photography. The news cameraman tried to time his shots with those of the photo flares, but it was like trying to use somebody else's flash with the camera in a different room - not a chance. The news people were antsy. What could we do to help them file an interim story and be back "at first light" for the intercept. Puerto Rico was the closest point where the facilities to file the news story were available. They headed for Isla Verde, the commercial airport just east of San Juan.

By the time they landed, (beat 44 again) it was almost midnight local time, and the Air National Guard, which showed up on the chart at a corner of the commercial airfield, had closed up for the night. The Sergeant on watch said, "We're a day fighter outfit." It turned out that he was the only breathing person at that ANG unit. He was not qualified to give them anything, including fuel. He did give them a telephone roster of all the officers in the squadron, and they called every one of them to no avail. (So much for DEFCON readiness!) They debated going down to Roosevelt Roads to fuel, but they couldn't return and land with the weight problem previously described. (Maximum landing weight was 91,320 pounds, with an overweight inspection following any landing up to an absolute maximum of 108,000 pounds. Nobody, including me, was going to make any landing at a weight OVER maximum take-off weight.) The flight engineer (AD1 Frank Dobing) and I literally stole a fueling truck from the ANG fueling compound, and with a lot of complaining from the manual transmission, managed to get their aircraft fueled. Since the flight for the photos was not planned to return anywhere but Patuxent River, they had no food. They bought food from the commercial kitchen that serviced the numerous airlines that brought the tourists in and out. They selected some breakfast items (eggs, etc.) and some cold-cuts and bread for lunch. The cost was an astronomical $44+. (In 1962!) I subsequently had to pay the bill because the Navy refused to see that anyone had authorized the use of a commercial facility.

During all of this, Andy Serrell tried to strike a bargain. 'Let's work together on this. We don't want either of us looking bad and penalizing the news teams.' Since the VP-8 crew had demonstrated the ability to outdo VP-44 at every turn, it was only logical they should try to slow us down. I was polite and agreed, but beat them they did; to the photos and to Andrews.

In the meantime, before returning to Andrews, in order to be on station at first light, they had to take off at 0430. (The ships were traveling northeast all night.) The crew had barely gotten the aircraft fueled and the food purchased when the news people showed up. They had napped on the way down, and would nap off and on until the photos were taken and then on the way back to Andrews. Between the heat (the early P-3s had no auxiliary power unit), the mosquitoes, the fueling, and the arguing with the ANG Sergeant, the VP-8 crew had not slept at all. They did not get to bed until late on the night they returned to Pax River.

Off they blasted. They had the power-levers bent over the end of the quadrant (nearly normal rated power) all the way. VP-44s radar operator was "fished-in" by two targets early on (the navigation in the 44 airplane was atrocious) and so they boomed on at altitude until they got the right two ships and let down... It was the first time I had ever "matched the needles"; that is matched indicated airspeed with the needle for Vne (speed not to exceed.) As advertised, he found that the left wing got heavy at limiting airspeed. Their clearances were something else that VP-8 pioneered as a consequence of these early operational flights. After a lot of flight violations for busting altitude assignments, they finally met with representatives of the Oceanic Control Authority and worked out a procedure whereby they could declare "going operational" and "military assumes responsibility for the separation of aircraft" (MARSA) and that gave them license to get down in a hurry from their cruising altitudes in the 20,000s to their operational altitudes below the floor of oceanic control, app.5,500 ft.

The scene below was interesting; the Russians didn't want to be boarded by people from the Barry, but in the end they were. (I didn't find out until later that the XO of the Barry, who led the boarding party, was an ex-pilot friend of his from his first squadron VP-47.) Somewhere milling about taking pictures from every conceivable angle, Andy Serrell of VP-44 showed up and talked me into waiting until they had their pictures before departing. The news photographer in the VP-8 aircraft was sitting on the radar cabinet in the flight station right behind the pilot's seat. He asked innocently if he could get a shot with all three units in it; the Anasov, the Barry, and the VP-44 P-3. I told Andy Serrell that they were going to fly a little formation on him and try to get this shot. This is where Andy finally got even with me for the entire two days and then some, because he indicated that they wanted to do the same thing after VP-8 got their shots. Of course THEIR shots never did get close enough, or never had all three units in it, so I still live with the occasional reminders from someone of the Cuban Crisis era that VP-44's P-3 with numbers plainly showing, got international PR, courtesy of VP-8 and Lt. Richard Zeisel!

They made it home to Andrews. The P-3, with full load of everything, had flown from San Juan, P.R. to on-station in the Atlantic somewhere south of Bermuda, stayed on station at low altitude for a couple of hours, and then returned to Andrews AFB without stopping for fuel. They were worried about 44 for awhile though. I remember Bermuda asking anybody in contact with Navy 50497 to relay messages to them. They admitted later that they were lost. In fact, the VP-8 crew landed at Andrews, refueled, refiled for Patuxent, and had taxied out for takeoff when they saw the LM-4 puff into the pattern. I am still mad at Peter Hackus and NBC. They never paid for the food; they made up crazy stories about the Crisis which they erroneously attributed to the VP-8 crew, and they never offered copies of the prize winning photograph to any of the VP-8 crew.

After a goodwill mission to South Africa and extensive operational missions during the Cuban Crisis in 1962, the "Tigers" were awarded their fourth Battle Efficiency pennant and the Arnold J. Isbell Trophy for excellence in airborne ASW.

"VP-8 Alumni Association"

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