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On February 16, 1953, I was acting as Airdrome Officer, and the Base Ops
Officer and I were monitoring landing flights from a weapons carrier
just off the runway, about two-thirds down the strip. A squadron of
Marine Corps F9F Panther jets called in for permission to land, as they
had a plane with severe battle damage in their formation and he could
not make it to their home base at K-6, farther south of K-13.
Given
permission to land, we saw the damaged plane, streaming smoke and vapor,
cross east to west over the runway. As the pilot passed over the 51st
FIW area, a piece of the plane blew off. Turning on base leg, we could
see fire and smoke billowing from the bottom of the airplane. The F9F
bellied onto and skidded down the runway. The pilot jettisoned his
canopy, and as he passed by our position, the nose of the aircraft
skewed to the right so that its 20mm cannons passed through us. We
jumped into the "beater" (the weapons carrier) and sped off to
where the F9F had skidded to a stop. We jumped up on the wing of the jet
and helped the pilot out and took him to the "beater." The
fire engines and rescue crew arrived, and put out the burning F9F.
Taking the pilot to the base hospital, we discovered that he was Ted
Williams, the famous Boston Red Sox baseball player. After he was
checked out and found to be okay by the doctors, we took him to Base Ops
to await transport back to K-6. It was his first combat mission!
The word spread throughout the base that Ted
Williams was there. The troops gathered around Base Ops, and Williams
signed some autographs and posed for photos. I had an opportunity to
talk to Williams at length until a Marine "Goony Bird" arrived
to take him to their base. He was quite bitter about having been
recalled to active duty. He said that he had finished pilot training
near the end of World War II and left the Corps to resume playing
baseball, and had no idea that he was subject to recall. In 1951, he was
at the peak of his career when he received the notice to report to
Cherry Point NAS for six weeks of jet upgrading, then to Korea. Williams
thought that he had been singled out because he had a high profile, and
said that Jerry Coleman, another famous ball player, had also been
recalled in that manner. Before he left I snapped a few pictures of him.
Being Airdrome Officer that day was sure interesting.
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