Bob Sullivan:  

Life : After Graduation I worked locally for about 4 yrs then joined US Navy in 1961 was assigned to Squadron-VA 25 at Moffett Field Ca. in 1962. I Made Two cruises aboard------ USS MIDWAY CVA-41 (now an Air Museum in San Diego Ca.) 1963 to Asia -Hong kong ,Phil.Islands ,Japan etc. 1965 the second cruise we went to war with North Vietnam and proceeded to bomb them back into the stone age (as if they were not already there) My squadron alone dropped 6,000,000 lbs of Bombs during that 10 month deployment consisting of at Sea periods of 35 to 45 days at a stretch-with us working 12 on 12 off 7 days a week, till we ran out of bombs ,then back into Subic Bay P.I. for 3 to 5 days to replenish Bombs , I was the assistant shop Petty officer, one of my primary jobs was that of Flt Deck Trouble shooter for our Electric shop-(part time-Nuke Bomb specialist & conventional bomb loader) which basic's entailed being there for engine start and then following the planes fwd while taxing to the cats ,checking periodically with the pilots in their weapons laden Aircraft during launch to see if they had any problems and to try and fix them right there on the flight deck with any where from 30 to 50 loaded and running Aircraft on the flight deck (of course my main focus was making sure one of our planes didn't cut me up with their propeller or the jets blow me over the side) ( I saw that happen on the first cruise) We did this so the launch would not be aborted because disarming the bombs was extremely hazardous -these planes were loaded with live ord.-Bombs (largest was 2000 lb),Rockets,Napalm etc. One incident of note was while we were watching the last of our Skyraiders taxi on to the Catapults ,the Aircraft taxiing on to the Starboard (RT) Cat. dropped one of its 500 Lb bombs off the left wing pulling the arming wires out of the fuse propellers allowing them to spin in the 20 knot wind coming over the bow of the Midway (thus beginning the arming sequence of the bomb fuses) this good friend of mine Bob Kennicotte AO-3 (ord. man) & I were standing leaning against the fwd part of the Island he took off on a dead run toward the 500 pound bomb rolling around on the deck ,lying down on it and grabbing the fuse props I got three other VA 25 maintainence people from our squadron & took them over to Bob and yelled " you wanted to try and rehang the bomb" (note: the other option was to try & throw it over the side into the Tonkin gulf) , he said yes so myself and the other three guys - got two of us on either side of the bomb and reached under and grabbed each others arms (note ; we had done this before during normal loads-thats only 125 lbs each IF every one lifts together) & lifted the bomb up into the rack & Bob reset the rack lugs and then reinstalled the arming wires (ver...Expand for more