roll with JATO operating perfectly. Hehad difficulty keeping the nose down andthe main gear left the ground after 100feet of travel while the tail skid continuedto drag on the sand. Nevertheless, after320 feet and 12 seconds, the FH-1 leftthe ground. Blass jettisoned the JATObottles and flew on to Ciudad Trujillo,D.R., for refueling.

The cause of the forced landings wasnot nearly so puzzling to the Dominicansas the takeoffs. One native said that “theplane could not remain airborne becausethey had lost their propellers.”

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On August 9, 1949, in the skies overWalterboro, S.C., Lieutenant J. L.“Pappy” Fruin made aviation history. The

An FJ Fury fires an air-to-ground Bullpupmissile in 1961.

An F9F Panther is waved off USS Essex inJuly 1951.

VF-171 pilot became the first man in theU.S. to make an emergency ejection toescape a stricken airplane. He “punchedout” while traveling at the fastest speedat which an ejection, experimental or realemergency type, had been made by anyknown living man. (During the war,German jet pilots had reportedly ejectedfrom aircraft. Also, a British test pilot hadejected from a crippled machine sometime before Fruin). Pappy was at 39,000feet in an overcast en route to Cecil field,Fla. His F2H experienced icing difficultiesand the Banshee fell off into a graveyardspiral.

His starboard engine had quit between20,000 and 30,000 feet. As he recalled,his airspeed needle was indicating 40knots above the plane’s Mach needle. Itwas calculated that he was traveling at600 mph. He felt severe buffeting and allother instruments were erratic. Hejettisoned the canopy, grasped the tworubber handles, and yanked the curtaindown over his face. Despite the speed, hedid not black out when pitched into theairstream although his oxygen mask,helmet and shoes were blown off, and hisMae West became inflated, making itdifficult to reach his parachute releasering. He opened his lap belt and kickedaway from the seat with minimumdifficulty. He gyrated somewhat duringthe free fall phase but, by placing hishand on his chest and compressing the

life jacket, could see the red parachutehandle and he pulled the rip cord. Hebelieved he was at 1,000 feet of altitudeat that time. Pappy landed in a sittingposition in salt water about 30 feet fromswamp land. He began swimming towardshore but was slowed by a broken leg andother f ractures. Fortunately, localcitizens came to his aid and got him to ahospital. The aircraft plunged into deepwater and was never located.

F r u i n ’ s e j e c t i o n e c l i p s e d a nexperimental ejection by the Air Forcefrom an F-80 in level flight at 555 mphover San Francisco Bay.

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San Diego-based Air Group Five wasperhaps typical of similar units whichflew both jets and props. By 1950, itsB e a r c a t s were being rel ieved byGrumman F9F Panthers. The switch tothe “blow torch special,” as the jets werecalled in some quarters, inevitablyprompted compar isons. VF-111’sLieutenant Commander U. L. Fretwellsaid about the Panther his unit flew aftershedding F8Fs, “The greatest difference Inoticed was the lack of rapid accelerationwhen adding full throttle on takeoff andthe touchy aileron boost control. TheBearcat could get off the ground in merehundreds of feet and climb, seemingly,straight up. Not so the Panthers.”

Lieutenant Junior Grade Carl A.Dalland noted that after being used tohearing the roar of a “conventional”engine, the quietness of the jet cockpitwas astonishing. “Ordinarily, after aflight in a propeller-driven plane, the pilotcomes down with his ears ringing. But in

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the jets, all the noise shoots out thetailpipe. The pilot hardly hears a sound.”

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The second Navy pilot to use hisemergency ejection seat to bail out of astricken plane was Lieutenant Hugh J.Tate of VF-171, the same squadronwhich claimed the number one man tomake such a bailout, Lt. Pappy Fruin. InMay 1950, Tate ejected from his F2Hnear Jacksonvi l le. Onlookers sawexplosions as the Banshee seemed tocome apart in the air while performingsnap rolls. The aircraft landed on ahighway near a beach. Tate had troublewith G forces before escaping but got agood chute and descended safely. Hesuffered only a bruise under his right eyewhen wind force tore the oxygen maskfrom his face.

Five days later, on May 24, LieutenantAlden M. Pierpoint of VF-11, became thethird flyer to eject when his F9F-2 flamedout at 37,000 feet over the Atlantic.Interestingly, Marine First Lieutenant L.E. Lovett of VMF-223, MCAS CherryPoint, was searching for Pierpoint whenhe discovered a heretofore missingwreck of an F4U near Sandy Hook, N.C.About 30 mi les away, he locatedPierpoint who was eventually collectedby a Coast Guard helo and transported toElizabeth City, N.C.

Korea

The Korean war erupted in the summerof 1950. Carrier aircraft went into actionon July 3. USS Valley Forge with AirGroup Five on board and HMS Triumph, aBritish flattop operating in the YellowSea, launched strikes on airfields, supplylines and transportation facilities in andaround Pyongyang, northwest of Seoul.This signaled the first combat test forGrumman’s jet-driven Panther. It wasalso the occasion for the first Navy kills inaerial combat when Panther pilots of VF-51, Lieutenant L. H. Plog and Ensign E.W. Brown, shot down two prop-poweredYak-9s on the first strike over Pyongyang.

In comparison to the forces engaged inWW II, Korea was a small war. No morethan four large carriers were in action atone time. Yet in the three years of war,Navy and Marine props and jets flew276,000 combat sor t ies, dropped177,000 tons of bombs and expended272,000 rockets. This was within 7,000sorties of their WW II totals in all theatersand bettered the bomb tonnage by74,000 tons and the number of rockets by60,000. In terms of national air effort, theaction sorties flown by Navy and MarineCorps aircraft rose from less than 10percent in WW II to better than 30percent in Korea.

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Lieutenant Carl C. Dace of VF-111became the first American to use hisejection seat in the war when his F9F-2Bwas struck by antiaircraft artillery (AAA)while strafing at 400 knots, 2,000 feetover the ground. He was rescued at sea.

The first blind jet carrier landing alsooccurred in the early months of thef ight ing when Ensign Edward D.Jackson, in his VF-112 Panther, wasspeeding along at 100 feet over theterrain. He struck a cable strung acrossthe Han River just below Seoul. Thecanopy was smashed and Jacksonknocked unconscious for about 20seconds. He came to in a steep climbingturn, blood from facial lacerationspouring down into his eyes impairing hisvision almost 100 percent. He radioed hiswingman, Ensign Dayl E. Crow, andreques ted a t t i t ude and d i rec t i oninstructions. He slowed his machine andflew 120 miles back to USS PhilippineSea. Crow issued commands like “leftwing up, ” “left rudder,” and “nose down”en route to the center.

On the downward leg, LieutenantJunior Grade L. K. Bruestle, Air Group 11LSO, dropped his paddles and talkedJackson down by radio. He gave him a“cut” and the plane landed right of centerengaging the number five wire. A flight

An F2H-2 catapults from USS Intrepid in February 1955.