TERRIER BT-3

It was February 1961 and freezing cold when we left  the East Coast. We arrived at LAX at about 2100, nine PM to you civilians, and I bundled up before deplaning. I had on dress blues over a wool jersey with a scarf and peacoat. This was still the era when you came down steps and walked to the terminal. I walked off of the airplane and was engulfed in heat. Not jut warm, or very warm, but heat. This was February and I immediately knew that I was home. That this is where I wanted to live. We had transportation to the Convair plant in Pomona where the birds were built. Did you get it the missiles were now birds. I was picking up the lingo. You have to walk a very narrow line when you are a young sailor. If you look babyish, you get shit from your shipmates. If you have a squeaky voice, more shit. For whatever reason, maybe it was because I was already in for two years and had learned the "ropes" I didn't get too much crap. Terrier C School was fun. SoCal was paradise to me. The Navy had two and a half surface to air missiles back then. The Talos was a very long range bird. It had an approximately eighty mile range and was powered by a ram jet engine. FYI, ram jets don't even work under Mach 1. The first stage booster takes the Talos up to supersonic before separating. There was the Terrier also a two stage missile with solid fuel propellants. That's what we learned. The Terrier had a little brother the Tartar. Tartar was basically a single stage Terrier with a DTRM, duel thrust rocket motor. It was much smaller destined for use on Destroyers. It was the quarter horse of missiles. Very fast off of the launcher but it only had a little less than a twenty mile range.
I bought a tricked out 41 Ford coupe and was excelling at school. Sure there was state of the art electronics to learn, but there was those beautiful missile airframes that just took my breath away. I was the top dog in my class. The big kahuna. C School was far too short, only 11 weeks. And then I got my orders. I joined the Navy to see the world and I was being assigned to Guided Missile Service Unit 219, GMSU or gumshoe to the sailors, at Crane Indiana. It was the worst of times and the best of times. Crane is huge about 110 square miles and is where there is enough ammunition stored there to make a very big bang if the shit hits the fan. I pinned on my third class crow as I arrived. 

I bought a '57 Plymouth Fury  a very beautiful car but a real turd mechanically. Things broke on that Fury faster than you could get them repaired. The ammunition depot is surrounded by farms and the farmers used to burn their fields once a year and if the fire got out of control, they would call the base and say something like oh dear my fire is headed toward your ammunition and I'd hate to see the whole state become the sixth great lake. 

This is how and why I taught myself  how to sail. If I heard the base fire engines tear out sirens a blazing, I'd look out of the window and if the OOD was heading towards us, I'd jump in my car where I had the sails, rudder and centerboard stored in my trunk and head for Lake Greenwood which was rather large and completely on the base. No cell phones back then and no-one could get to you. My old buddy Bart Hart beat me to the dock one day and was bitching like hell. He said that he couldn't find the gear for the sailboat. No trouble, I said, I know exactly where everything is. Locked up in the trunk of my car.    

I made second class pettyofficer while at NAD Crane and reenlisted into the Regular Navy for six more years. I still wanted to see the world. Part of my reenlistment incentive was B School. Being that we were literally in the  back woods of Indiana, we sent the Storekeeper to Great Lakes to get us clothing and small stores. He came back after one trip and said that they no longer carried Guided Missileman crows. The OIC of the GMSU called someone and asked what the hell was going on. That's when we found out that our rate was changed to Missile Technician. 

I got married to my first wife while in Indiana and three months later we packed up the car put Tiger the wiener dog in the back seat and moved to Mare Island MT B School in Vallejo, California.

Next exciting chapter B School.