Night shoot

[jimlongley]

There are several islands around the world that the US has taken possession of during one war or another which are used for target practice. Off Crete, Malta, Sicily, and Puerto Rico. Most of these islands have been returned to the claimant countries in the past few decades, which makes me wonder just what the Navy does for target practice these days, I mean making big splashes is fun, but nothing beats blowing up a surplus German tank at 2000 yards with an HE round from a five inch gun, been there done that, enjoyed the heck out of it!

We were conducting a night shoot, a joint exercise with the USMC, landing troops, inshore fire support with spotters for enfiladed fire and all that. It was my privilege to land with the Marines on a couple of islands during my tour, and I have a couple of tales about those trips too, but this one is specifically about that night shoot off Culebra.

Mounts One and Two, forward on the ship, were to fire "for effect" while Mount Three was assigned to provide illumination.

A great deal of coordination goes into an event like this, besides the obvious stuff between the various ships, Marines, and such, there is evacuating civilians from the area (some people actually lived on the fringes of the firing area) and making sure the airlanes in the area are clear for when we fire an illumination round almost straight up, with a little tilt downrange.

Mount Three fired its first illum round at about 2300 local time, and it failed to ignite, landing we knew not where. A second round was prepped, and the exercise was resumed.

A bunch of us were standing on the gun deck at Mount Two when the round was fired, we had never seen a star shell "deployed" and were suitably curious.

The gun fired, as we shaded our eyes from the flash, and then we stood there in joyful anticipation of the bright light appearing in the sky hanging from a 'chute.

One little problem - someone forgot to coordinate the resumption of the live fire exercise with the FAA, or the airlines, or the airport traffic controllers, or whoever.

So there we stood, all lights out, waiting for the flare to pop - those magnesium flares are bright enough to light up the ground for many acres from something like a half mile up, and it finally went off.

And as we stood there marveling at the sight, an American Airlines 707 bound for Isla Verde International Airport (now Munoz Marin) flew UNDER the flare.

I can't imagine the chaos in the cockpit when that thing went off a relatively short distance forward of and above the flight path of that plane.

We spent part of the next day moored in San Juan, with no liberty, while the Captain, the Exec, the Weapons Officer and a variety of other people went ashore to explain to the appropriate parties why we had tried to shoot down a jetliner.

[Lumberjack98]

[tboesche]

D'OH!

[dukalmighty]

I wonder how much the navy had to pay to replace the aircrews underear