19 APR-Squadron Meeting 26 APR-Squadron Meeting

Missions for America

Semper vigilans! Semper volans!

The Coastwatcher
Newsletter of the Thames River Composite Squadron GON Connecticut Wing Civil Air Patrol

13-15 MAY-CTWG Great Starts 21-22 MAY-Corporate Learning Course (tentative) 21-25 JUN-National AEO School 9-16 JUL-RSC-McGuire AFB 9-16 JUL-Reg. Cadet Ldrshp School-Concord, NH 23 JUL-07 AUG-NESA (two sessions) 08-14 AUG-CTWG Encampment 13-2o AUG-Reg. Cadet Ldrshp School-McGuire 17-20 AUG-CAP Nat'l Summer Conference 22-24 SEP-AOPA Summit-Hartford 22-23 OCT-CTWG Convention ERRATUM

http://capct075.web.officelive.com/default.aspx LtCol Stidsen, CTWG IG, noted that the aircraft labeled Lockheed Tristar in the last edition of The S. Rocketto, Editor Coastwatcher is a Boeing 737-100. Here is a a [email protected] picture of the L-1011 Tristar in TWA livery. C/1Lt Brendan Flynn, Cub Reporter 1Lt Scott Owens, Paparazzi Vol. V, No 14 07 April, 2011

SCHEDULE OF COMING EVENTS For Future Planning Cadet meetings normally start with drill and end CADET MEETING NOTES with aerospace history, current events, and 05 April, 2011 Commander's moment. Blues are worn on the reported by second week of the month and BDUs at other C/1Lt Brendan Flynn times. Main topics will be indicated on the schedule below. See website for updates. Opening ceremonies and a uniform inspection was conducted. 09 APR-Annual TRCS Officers Banquet 09-10 APR-Orientation Flights 12 APR-Commander's Call 16 APR-CSRRA High Power Rifle Clinic 16-17 Apr Orientation Flights Capt Wojtcuk lead a character development class on "Fairness." Cadets discussed the quote, "The hope of all who suffer, the dread of all who wrong, aspects of fairness, and whether or not life

C/2Lt Wojtcuk and C/SSgt Hall directed a teambuilding activity called "Great Balls of Color." The equipment for the class was one red plastic ball and a set of white balls, each with a differently colored ring of duct tape around them. Additionally, Wojtcuk and Hall cut holes in a white bed-sheet, one for every duct tape-encircled ball and each one outlined in one of the duct tape colors. The cadets, divided into two teams, held the blanket elevated and competed to get each ball through the hole with the same color. A ball that went through the correct hole was three points, and there was a two point bonus for balls that fell into the trash under the blanket. One point was subtracted if a ball went through the wrong hole, and five points were subtracted if the full-red ball went through any hole. To make it harder, cadets were "muted" one by one; Cadets Daniels and Flynn were the first to loose their talking privileges.

The day's operations were conducted in a safe manner. Assignments were briefed, executed, and closed out with dispatch. Cooperation of the participants was commendable and improvisations were devised for problems which arose. The completion of tasks was facilitated by a slow operational tempo but down-time was used to provide additional training. The Cadet ground team members completed a number of tasks on their GT SQTRs and the electronic submission of photographs and the use of WIMRS were practiced. However, the SAREX revealed a number of areas where improvements ought be made.

Mission organization might be facilitated in a real situation by distributing the OPPlan electronically. The Mission Base ought take more effort to appraise the outlying stations of the big picture. Cadets practiced basic drill movements and Finally, our two ground teams were never tasked open/close ranks in an indoor mini-drill session. but did use the time profitably to train. Cadets Schultz, VanDevander, and Barberan made progress on their Ground Team Member Level 3 ratings. They were signed off on cold weather injuries, whistle signals, hasty search, using a signal mirror, and keeping a log. Cadet Flynn worked on his GTM2 rating. He was signed off on map terrain feature identification, map topographic symbols, map elevation determination, distance on a map, conversion between map and compass azimuths, determining azimuths on a map, orienting a map to the ground, and orienting a map. Communications remain a major issue. The CAPFM radio at GON is unreliable. Cell phones were crucial in making our part of the mission operate smoothly but the radio problems must be addressed. This would include resolving the CAPFM problem, getting the HF radio on line, installing a VHF (air band) station and remove the VHF antenna connections to the comm room so that all radios can be monitored by the communications staff.

Suggestions for improving operations included a study of how the arrange the briefings and briefing SENIOR MEETING NOTES information efficiently. This would entail a set of 05 April, 2011 displays, paper or electronic with the following notes by information: the scenario, an organizational chart, Capt Thomas Petry personnel procedures and duty schedules, important phone numbers and frequencies, facility lay-out, safety information, weather, specific air The meeting was devoted to an after action review ops information, specific ground ops information. of the Tri-State SAREX held on Saturday,

Administration needs improvement. A staff officer should be appointed to check-in personnel and vet their documentation. A ground team briefer should be appointed. Suggestions were made on how to establish working areas for the different functions so as to both avoid interference but at the same time, improve communication between different staffs. Two equipment problems bear mentioning. A scanner would be useful to copy documents for distribution and the internet service should be studied in order to determine how to increase its speed.

from Hartford. During the day, the Groton based crews, under base commander LtCol Lief Bergey and Capt Thomas Petry flew two sorties, taking damage assessment photographs on the Connecticut and Thames River and along the eastern Long Island coastline.

Groton air crews were Mission Pilots LtCol Thomas Wisehart and Capt Jay Farley. NavigatorRadio Operators were LtCol Lawrence Kinch and Maj Daniel Mode. LtCol Richard Doucette and Lt Edward Miller were the aerial photographers. The Groton ground team was led by Maj Roy Bourque and Lt Robert Looney. Cadet members of the TRI-STATE SAREX ground team were C/1Lt Brendan Flynn, and Cadets Brendan Schultz, Austin Vandevander, and Groton's Thames River Squadron Participates Jorge Barberan. in Three State Disaster Drill 02 April, 2011 MILLER AND ROCKETTO VISIT Thames River Composite Squadron participated in MINUTEMEN a week-end disaster drill involving Connecticut, 04 April, 2011 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The drill's objectives were to develop a unified command Lt Miller and Maj Rocketto visited the New Haven structure within the region, rehearse standard Minutemen for the second time this month. Lt practices developed in CAP's training programs, Miller presented the second part of his aircraft and test regional communications. design lecture to a selected group of senior Cadets and senior Officers. Maj Rocketto offered a short The scenario for the disaster involved a earthquake lesson recent problems with skin failures on the on the Ramapoo Fault with an epicenter in Boeing 737 and demonstrated a metal fatigue Pennsylvania which caused infrastructure damage failure. The Cadets then took a 15 question quiz to the transportation net and the power grid from based upon CAP and aerospace themes. A prize New Jersey to Connecticut. was awarded to the high scoring Cadet. The headquarters for the search and rescue exercise was at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Connecticut's leadership was based at Danbury Airport and Groton was the southeast mission base. Two members from Groton, Maj Keith Neilson and Capt Paul Noniewicz reported to Danbury and functioned in the roles of Air Operations Commander and Safety Officer respectively. AEROSPACE CURRENT EVENTS Commercial Heavy Launch Rocket

SpaceX announced that its new Falcon Heavy vehicle will be ready for liftoff in 2013. The rocket, the most powerful since the Apollo Project, will be a cargo carrier but SpaceX will ultimately attempt to get NASA to rate it for manned flight. Groton supplied three air crews and one ground The plan is to carry out four launches per year at a team and hosted an air crew and a ground team cost of $100 million dollars per launch.

The proposed vehicle will stand about 227 feet high and its develop 3.8 million pounds of thrust from a first stage cluster of 27 rockets and will lift 58 tons into orbit. In comparison, the Apollo moon rocket developed about twice as much thrust and lifted around 140 tons.

Executive Action The Shoot Down of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto 18 April, 1943 "Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge." Sun Tzu The Art of War PART TWO Planning Operation Vengeance The information was passed up the US chain of command. Exactly how far it went is open to debate. Some claim the order to kill Yamamoto was issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself. There seems to be no documentary evidence to serve as proof. Nimitz, in overall command of the central Pacific theatre of operations consulted with Secretary of the Navy William Knox and then authorized Admiral William F. Halsey, commander in the South Pacific to proceed with the operation. Halsey bucked the order down to Rear Admiral Marc C. Mitscher, the commander of joint air operations in the Solomons. The operation was code named Vengeance.

NASA Sending UAV To Restudy Kilauea Volcano.

NASA has dispatched a Gulfstream III equipped with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) to study the the Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii. The new study will follow the 2010 flight paths to a precision of five meters with the intent of comparing the data sets and learning more about how the plutonic processes influence earthquakes. UAVSAR has also been used to study the Greenland Ice Cap, the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Canada's boreal forests, and the Haitian earthquake. Successful Soyuz Launch Heads to Space Station

Two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut expect to reach the ISS sometime on Wednesday. The Soyuz was decorated with a portrait of Yuri Gargarin in remembrance of the 50th anniversary However, there was a caveat. The mission had to be run in such a way as to conceal the fact that the of his flight. information had been obtained by breaking the Japanese codes. Stories were prepared that the Yamamoto flight had been reported by AEROSPACE HISTORY Coastwatchers. The Coastwatcher were allied Last week's Coastwatcher carried the first part of agents, often Australian or New Zealand planters, this article in which we learned about the career of who has stayed behind enemy lines to report on Admiral Yamamoto, his role as commander of the Japanese activities. Some patrols were flown in Imperial Japanese Navy, and the interception and the general area of Rabaul so that the planned decoding of a message which detailed the itinerary attack might seem to be a coincidental of an inspection tour which he would make in the interception. In case of capture, most of the pilots Solomon Islands. Part Two discusses the planning who flew the mission were not privy to the name and execution of Operation Vengeance, a mission of their prey. mounted to intercept and shoot down the aircraft carrying Yamamoto and his staff.

Also, the attack had to be launched from Guadalcanal and the extreme range of over 400 miles one way meant that only the US Army Air Force's Lockheed P-38 Lightnings were suitable. The Lightnings still needed to be fitted with two drop tanks, one of the usual 165 gallon tanks and a special 310 gallon tank. The Navy had gathered the intelligence for the mission and the area of operations was a Navy fiefdom so Navy planners believed that the best course of action would be to make the kill while Yamamoto was being transported from Ballae to Shortland by sub chaser. However, Major John Mitchell, the commanding officer of the 339th Fighter Squadron which had been chosen to execute the mission objected due to the unfamiliarity of the army pilots with ship types and decided on an air intercept. The Hunter Aircraft

Mitchell secured an excellent navy ship's compass to assist in navigation and selected 18 pilots which he organized into three groups: four shooter, and two cover groups consisting of six and eight aircraft respectively. The flight would be flown at minimum altitude and maintaining radio silence. The course followed a multi-legged northwest course, skirting the New Georgia Islands which form the central part of the Solomon archipelago. Executing Operation Vengeance Two of Mitchell's shooters aborted. One blew a tire on take off and the other with a malfunctioning drop tank. According to plan, two aircraft assumed their position in the four plane attack flight. Meanwhile, Yamamoto, punctual as usual, departed for Bougainville. His flight consisted of two G4M Betty bombers with six A6M Zeros as escort. The meticulous planning by both Japanese and US staffs was faultless. After a two hour flight, the P-38s found the Japanese aircraft exactly where they had been expected. The attack commenced and the fog of battle descended on the action.

Lockheed P-38 Lightning The Hunted Aircraft

The action as painted by Sgt. Vaughn A. Bass Mitsubishi G4M Betty

(Model and Photo by Lt Ed Miller, TRCS) (USAF photo)

Captain Thomas Lanphier and First Lieutenant Rex Barber each claimed a Betty. A third pilot, Lt B. Frank Holmes claimed a third but only two Bettys were present. Lanphier returned first, stated that he had made the kill, and was given credit but this was disputed by Barber. A rather unsavory episode over who killed Yamamoto developed and lasted for over two decades. Eventually, both Barber and Lanphier were give a half credit each by the Air Force. Since then, based upon the testimony of two Japanese survivors, a study of the pilot reports and the performance capabilities of the P-38, many authorities who have studied the battle believe that Barber shot down Yamamoto's plane. Air Force records were not amended.

SCENES FROM GON PAST

Joe Fugere, Pilgrim Airlines, a pioneer in the commuter airline business built up a fleet of DHC6 Twin Otters

USN Douglas C-9 returns the crew of a Polaris submarine to Connecticut

The wreckage of Yamamoto's G4M1 Betty, Tail Number T1-323 lies in the jungle some miles northwest of Ballalle Airfield, its destination. Yamamoto's body, with two gunshot wounds, was thrown clear of the wreck. According to witnesses, his body was found the next day under a tree, strapped in his seat and clutching his katana. His staff had his corpse cremated and some of the ashes were returned to Japan where he as honored with a state funeral. As cherry trees flower With katana sheathed I sit at rest Maj Rocketto, then flying a Cessna 206 for Coastal Airways, delivers another satisfied customer.

Nord 262 of Allegheny awaits servicing and passengers at GON