Commander N. Brango of Navy reconnaissance says: “Yes, we get a good many requests from men who want to go along. Would you like to go on an eight- to ten-hour flight in a four-engine, thirty-ton, Navy patrol plane? You will probably see some of the beautifully lush islands of the Antilles chain, waters shading gradually from pale green to a deep clear emerald, shining white coral beaches, native villages buried in tropical jungles, and many other sights usually referred to in the travel advertisements.
“Doesn’t that sound enticing? There is just one catch. You may have to spend four to five hours of your flight-time shuddering and shaking around in the aircraft like an ice cube in a cocktail shaker, with rain driving into a hundred previously undiscovered leaks in the plane and thence down the nearest neck. You may bump your head, or other more padded portions of your anatomy, on various and sundry projecting pieces of metal (of which there seem to be at least a million). You may not be able to see much of anything, at times, since it will be raining so hard that your horizontal visibility will be nil, or you may be able to catch glimpses, straight down about 300 feet, of mountainous waves and an ocean being torn apart by winds of 90 to 150 miles per hour. There’s one thing I will guarantee you, you won’t be writing postcards to your friends saying, ‘Having a wonderful time, wish you were here,’ because you won’t be able to keep the pen on paper long enough to write much of anything.”
You have guessed by now that the carefully phrased invitation was just a trap to get you aboard one of the Navy’s “Hurricane Hunter” patrol planes as it departs on a hurricane reconnaissance mission. According to Brango, these flights have been described by visiting correspondents, using “thrilling,” “awe-inspiring,” “terrifying,” and other equally impressive adjectives. Actually, it is difficult to find words to describe such a flight. That it is hazardous is obvious, but the feeling that accomplishing the mission may mean the saving of many lives and much property makes it seem worth doing—not to mention the lift received from an occasional “well-done” from up the line.
Just to indicate to the prospective guest what it may be like, Brango gives “Caribbean Charlie” of 1951 as an example.
Charlie was spawned several hundred miles east of the Windward Island of Trinidad. The first notice the Navy had of its presence was a ship reporting an area of bad weather, and almost immediately one of the hurricane hunter planes from the advanced base in Puerto Rico was in the air to get the first reports on Charlie. For the next nine days Charlie led them a wild, if not a merry chase. He slipped by night through the Windward Islands and into the Caribbean, loafed across this broad expanse of water, then slammed into Kingston, Jamaica, dealing that city one of its most devastating blows in history. Then Charlie headed across the Yucatan Channel and over the Yucatan Peninsula, where he lost some of his push. Some sixteen hours later he broke into the Gulf of Campeche with renewed fury, stormed across the Gulf and into the Mexican coast at Tampico, on August 22, again costing lives and millions in property damage.
During his long rampage, he was being invaded almost daily by Navy planes. On Tuesday, August 21, Brango had the fortune of being assigned to the reconnaissance crew for that day.
They departed Miami at noon of a bright sunny day. For three hours they flew over a calm ocean, flecked with sunlight. By then they could see the looming mass of clouds ahead, which indicated Charlie’s whereabouts. Dropping from seven thousand feet cruising altitude to six hundred feet, they started getting into the eye. The sun had disappeared and the winds jumped rapidly to seventy miles an hour. For almost an hour they swung around to the west and south, feeling for the weaker side, as the winds got up to one hundred miles per hour and the rain and turbulence became terrific for about ten minutes before they broke through the inner wall and into the eye.
According to Brango, “The eye is a pleasant place! Many of them have blue sky, calm seas and air smooth enough to catch up on your reports and even drink a cup of coffee. Charlie’s eye wasn’t too good—big, but cloudy; still it was better than what we had just come through, so we hung around for about thirty-five minutes, watching the birds. There are usually hundreds of birds in the eye of a hurricane. Probably they get blown in there and have enough sense not to try to fly out. But not us, we want out.”
Soon the decision to start out was made, and the order went over the inter-com: “Stand by to leave the eye—report when ready.” This always brings the stock answer, which has become a standard joke in the squadron: “Don’t worry about us mules, just load the wagon!”
The flight out was rough. Sunset was nearing, and in the storm area night falls rapidly. For almost two hours they beat their way through one hundred mile-per-hour winds toward the edge of the storm and in the general direction of Corpus Christi, their destination. The turbulence and rain on the way out were so severe that they were unable to send out messages and position reports, so someone in the crew, catching a glimpse of the waves beneath, came through with the scintillating remark that “We’re still lost, but we are making excellent time.”