VMA 225 was the first Marine squadron to serve on a nuclear powered carrier. we were on board the Enterprise from Oct.20 to Dec.9 1962 as part of the blockade of Cuba, I was a 6511 MOS (aviation ordnance) & I still remember the first three days aboard ship we only got three hours sleep getting all our A4D 2N Skyhawk aircraft configured with external stores racks and loaded with munitions with pilots sitting in their aircraft on all four cats with sealed orders as we thought we were going to war.
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What is this 6511’s name?
Back in 1962, I was a five year-old boy living in a little town called Hershey, about an hours drive from Havana, Cuba; one night, we heard a plane flying overhead and the air raid sirens were sounding, fortunately, there was no attack. Move forward to 1975, and I am on a flight from Atlanta to Charleston, SC on my way to Parris Island. In 1979, when working the Visiting Aircraft Line at Cherry Point, I actually got to work on some A-4s, similar to the ones in the picture. It’s amazing how life can play out sometimes.
If I remember correctly, they made a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis titled “15 Days in October”, but just like the story above we only made it home just in time for Christmas. The Radio Relay platoon that I was in spent 3 months floating around Cuba on the USS Chilton, otherwise known as the “Chilton Hilton”. Not the most luxurious cruise ship. We were loaded rather hastily and somehow they forgot to give us enough ammo for our M-14’s (about seven rounds per man), so maybe we should be thankful that we convinced the bad guys to quit their sabre rattling.
During this time period I was going through Ground Radar Repair school at MCRD, San Diego. A number of us were drafted to help load ships heading for the blockade. My duty station after school, late Jan. 63, was H&S Co 1/1/1 located at San Mateo on Camp Pendleton and most of those Marines had taken part in the blockade and I believe there some sort of a problem with dysentery.
Certainly a time in history when many in the military were holding their breath. Thanks for the experience you expressed.
During the Cuban Crisis the San Diego news paper said “a cadre of 800 Marines are going to the Far East”. Well after a few days of loading the USS Breckenridge, the ship leaves port with 3000 Marines on board. We always had a port & starboard man over board watch…. that swore they saw a submarine a few times in the very early morning hours out on the high seas. Don’t really know….also don’t know what else we had aboard besides our fellow Marines.
I was there aboad the APA 220 1st recon Semper-Fi
I was a Sea Going Marine aboard the USS Princeton (LPH5), returning from West Pac..we left Hawaii and were headed for Long Beach, California…My daily duty station on the LPH allowed me to plot the ships position and report it (hourly)..I remember wondering what was going on…the old carrier made a very distinct course change when I was on watch…after a few hours, a few of us realized where we were headed…Never went through the Panama Canal…we just made circles in the Pacific for a few weeks….EVERYONE was on edge!