When the Missiles Left Cuba
A Navy aircrew got it on film.
- By Paul F. Stiller
- Air & Space magazine, November 2012
The Pollysboy 11 crew: Author Paul F. Stiller, standing, third from left; Bruce McCormick to his left; George Fabik, far right; Eric Neptune, front row, far right.
Courtesy Paul F. Stiller
(Page 2 of 3)
“Roger, sir. Come to 193 degrees, contact five miles.” At 6:03 p.m., the ship had arrived at the three-mile limit. We could legally take a look. Flying at 50 feet above the water, we readied our two bulky KB-10A 70-mm black-and-white cameras to photograph the details of the ship as we raced past it.
As we swept up the ship’s starboard side, we saw eight canvas-covered, cigar-shaped objects lashed on the deck. Was this a Soviet ship carrying the first load of missiles coming out of Cuba? Were the Soviets relenting?
The photo guys confirmed they each had taken the first of 70 photos. As we zoomed down the ship’s port side, the maintenance captain—appropriately named Eric Neptune—threw the Red Book into my lap. This time the message would be highest priority. “Break, break, Caveman, Caveman, this is Pollysboy 11. I have FLASH traffic. Stand by to copy.”
Caveman commanded us to stay over the ship and report every half-hour until released, then fly to Naval Air Station Key West and get the photos developed.
Twilight settled in around 9 p.m., the azure waters slowly turning black. Without our external lights, we were invisible. The only thing an observer could see was the blue fire from the exhausts of our engines. The ship also showed no lights. The captain knew we were up there, but he wasn’t going to make finding his ship easy.
At night, the only way to see the ship was with the 70-million-candlepower searchlight 50 feet out on our starboard wingtip. If the searchlight was on longer than 30 seconds, heat from the burning carbon arc tips would melt the searchlight frame and possibly start a fire in the wing. Two aircraft in our detachment of five had experienced such melting, requiring new searchlight units to be flown in. The destroyed units had to be chopped out with a hammer and chisel.
The extreme brightness of the searchlight would ruin my night vision for at least 15 minutes, making me useless as a pilot. McCormick would protect his eyes by lowering his seat, flipping down his helmet-mounted sunglasses, and using duffel bags crammed into the dashboard windscreen to block the brilliant light. He would not look out of the cockpit, flying on instruments until I switched off the light.
At 11:45 came the message: “Make searchlight pass at midnight. Divert to Key West immediately thereafter.”
At 11:59, we lined up to make a 30-second run up the ship’s stern. We set our altitude at 1,500 feet. Radar operator Fabik was counting down. I adjusted the pistol grip, tipping the searchlight down and slewing it left.
Five…four…three… A blue-white blaze exploded in my eyes. Excruciating pain. I couldn’t see anything.
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Comments (7)
Hi Paul,
Great job and extremely interesting article.
Best regards,
John
Posted by John Jacobson on September 22,2012 | 11:41 AM
I was less than a day old when Pollysboy 11 overflew that ship. This was global stuff, and really scary. Who knows what could have transpired if that deck was empty? Kinda glad the pullout was confirmed; otherwise I doubt I would have made it if the worst happened.
Posted by Mark Diggle on September 25,2012 | 09:51 AM
Pete,
Even after 50 years it's still good to revisit a Pollysboy adventure memory.
<><
Posted by Carp on September 26,2012 | 08:24 PM
I never knew that the searchlight couldn't be on for more than thirty seconds.
Posted by Bob Neu on September 27,2012 | 06:49 PM
(These comments are being made by a Naval Aviator who flew Neptunes (5's and 7's) in the mid 1950s, as well as H-3 helicopters embarked on the USS WASP right in the middle of the quarantine.)
Very, very interesting account and helps provide a clearer picture of all that took place. It raises some questions, however. One is tempted to speculate on why there were missiles photographed leaving Cuba five days before the Soviets agreed to remove them. Robert Kennedy's book, "Thirteen Days", gives almost an hour-by-hour account of the difficulty John Kennedy had in making the decisions that led to a peaceful resolution of this adventure. R. Kennedy makes no mention of any missile withdrawals that they were aware of during the tense period just prior to the Soviet "Blink". It certainly appears that the photos taken by Pollysboy 11 never reached the Kennedys, else they would have been mentioned in the book because R. Kennedy laid out very clearly all the relevant factors they had to consider while making their decisions. This October 23 withdrawal of missiles, had they known about them, would have been of considerable import thus unquestionably worth mentioning. Rather puzzling.
It's worth noting that R. Kennedy's book contains a picture captioned "October 24, Soviet ship laden with jet-bomber crates photographed by U. S. reconnaissance aircraft." Significantly, there are eight long massive crates on the vessel's deck. I would not describe them as appearing to be "cigar shaped", however.
Regarding another commenter's note about the thirty second limitation on the use of the searchlight, my recollection of that searchlight was that it was prone to malfunction, even when limitations were observed. However, on occasions when you needed to illuminate a surface contact the radio circuits would almost instantly be filled with profanity coming from the guy on the bridge of the ship that you just temporarily blinded. They were not at all understanding or charitable.
Posted by Kelsey Goodman on October 20,2012 | 08:31 PM
I was there, flew a P2V from Jacksonville, FL. Several yrs ago I visited the bone yard in Tucson, AZ, and swear I saw my old plane there.
Posted by Raymond Narug on October 22,2012 | 05:50 PM
I was A Radioman with Air Crew Wings, which means I was qualified to fly three different positions on the P2V Neptune. My primary position was Radioman. One of the other various duties was to photograph ships when required. Before my discharge in March of 1962, my crew LF 1 out of Jacksonville, Fl with Commander Bishop as Squadron Commander and Lt.Kraft as Captain and Lt. Nelson as Co-Pilot, flew recon flights rigging ships coming out of Cuba. On one occasion I remember photographing, with a movie camera, some ships having long tube shaped containers on their decks. As we flew over them, at a very low altitude, the crewmen on the ships pulled canvases off the tubes so we could see the tubes. Weather there was anything in those tubes or not we didn't know but we photographed what we saw. The particular flight I am referencing was a daytime flight.
Posted by Ken Wilhelm on November 8,2012 | 11:30 AM