OCR Text |
Show TOMFOOLERY The stormy appearance of the navy admirals before a congressional committee during the current battle of the Potomac recalled our one and only experience with an admiral; ad-miral; a famous one at that. It happened back in 1943. The war was well into its second year which is probably the reason officers and gentlemen gen-tlemen of the various services were on such splendid terms. In those days there were jobs for everyone. Today with unification and economy the vogue on land, on sea and in the air, it's getting so an admiral hardly knows where his next aircraft carrier is coming from. But to go back to our particular admiral. We met him via radio during times when the navy was happy to make use of whatever air force facilities were available and the air force was glad to place its available facilities at the disposal of the navy. At the time, we were putting in a boring stint as control con-trol officer of a small air force tactical information center on one of the Galapagos islands. The Galapagos are situated situ-ated in the Pacific ocean 700 miles west of Ecuador. Radar stations located on various of the islands reported re-ported all incoming aircraft to our information center by coded radio messages. These reports were plotted on a large map of the Galapagos area. One of the duties of the controller was to determine whether the plots on the map represented friendly or unfriendly aircraft, and act accordingly. accord-ingly. Since nothing unfriendly ever showed up, the controller's con-troller's chief duty was to make sure the secrecy of the operation was protected. The location of the information center, the location of the radar stations and the radio code used to transmit information between the various installations installa-tions were regarded as highly' confidential and not to be compromised at any cost until the admiral's visit, that is. He arrived at our island one day aboard a destroyer, his mission shrouded in deepest mystery. We were later to find out, through overhearing extended conversations conducted in the clear over the air force's radio system, that he had come to the Galapagos for a good look at the albatross birds for which one of the islands is noted. A PBM from the local naval base had flown him to the waters adjoining the home of the albatross and he and his companions had paddled ashore on a small rubber raft. By nightfall the party had pursued their study of the albatross alba-tross to a point some six or seven miles north of the beach where they had left their rubber raft. The terrain was rough and unfamiliar and when someone in tho narfv spotted the friendly Jight of one of our radar stations, all agreed that an attempt to return to the raft was a sure way to get lost. It was at this point, incidentally, we became aware of the admiral's presence on the Galapagos. The operator at the radar station radioed the information center that the admiral wished to talk with the captain of his destroyer. The operator was careful to use code words ror admiral and captain and destroyer. The important message was duly relayed to the naval base.- In a few moments the captain appeared and the conversation was begun over our, till then, chaste and uncompromised radio network. The admiral, it seemed; was lost. He didn't feel he could find his way back to the raft either that night or the next day. He wondered if the captain would mind running the destroyer over to pick him up. The captain was naturally nat-urally agreeable. "How do I find you?" he asked. Then it started. The deep secrets which had been our guarded responsibility were pierced forever as the admiral ' went into a detailed description of the location of the radar station, its location relative to other installations and its location relative to home base. Well, the destroyer sped to his rescue and he went on his way from there, but not before commending the boys at the radar station and those at our information center for a job well done. A couple of days later, leafing through an old Saturday Evening Post, we came across a cartoon of more than passing pass-ing interest. It showed two penguins at the South Pole. One penguin was saying to the other penguin,-"What do you suppose ever happened to Admiral Byrd?" If it hadn't been for strict censorship rules in force at the time we could have written the penguins a long and enlightening letter. |