The following excerpt was written by Gordon Permann. It tells the story of Naval
Aviation losses of people known personally to him. While it is not strictly applicable to H-2’s, it does serve as an
honorable memory to those who have gone before us…

Martinie, Bishop, Hood, and My Other Heroes

I know about heroes. Late in life, I realized they are practically everywhere, but, the
ones I knew came from my childhood and became my colleagues, friends, and room mates. The
only regret to a life near these magnificent men was the incredible incidence of crashes
meant we nearly always knew who was lost.

Most of the guys that flew kept either a mental or written list of the friends that
they had lost. With dread surety, we would wait for the Sword of Damocles to select
another — usually within months, someone else would go down and we would get the word.
That was the worst. I likened it to a herd of caribou, losing one now and then, hoping it
wasn’t anyone too close. Hoping.

I have a list of names: each reminds me of a smiling face. The Greeks believed that as
long as one man remembers your name, you are immortal. Well, then, these are the immortals
of my life.

Our class at Naval Aircrewman Candidate School at Pensacola began with 40 eager, fit,
and intelligent students. By attrition (dropouts and set-backs), only 19 diplomas were
needed. Years after graduation, I stood on an airfield ramp and reviewed the class roster
with one of my remaining classmates.

On our fingers, we counted off, relating the stories of each man. The nineteen trickled
down, one after the other. Bishop, Hood, Hutchinson… The stories rolled on.

Crashes, awards, fights, wars, and ugly little forgotten deaths. In one hour, we had
reduced the list to seven or eight. Life had gotten hard and fast and we had been spent
like cartridges.

Each name triggered a face and a happy memory of our time in the sun.

NCAA swimming is the upper pinnacle for the amateurs of that sport. Outside of the
Olympics, there is simply no other yardstick for excellence in competitive swimming, and
we had room in our ranks for one of their best. Bishop was the most natural athlete I
served with, and he was no brute. His sleek muscular body smoked by me in every single
contest. I am not a good natured loser, but it was hard not to enjoy watching this guy
perform.

He had gifts of balance, speed, and strength, and we all shook our heads at his
abilities. In addition, he had a wicked sense of humor that the ladies loved.

After graduation from Aircrew School, Bishop and another five of us were sent for
further training as Rescue Swimmers. The ease of his passage through this school made me
curse –he often finished the grueling mile-long timed swims several laps ahead of me.
Cross country runs were worse: he shaved three minutes off my time in the seven-mile Fun
Runs!

With a handshake, we left that school for the real world, and he went into heavy
helicopters called CH-46 CHINOOKS.

My job specialty turned me a different direction, but I saw him around NAS North Island
(our base) frequently.

During a passenger transfer between an Aircraft Carrier and the shore, his CH-46 went
down hard and very unexpectedly. In the froth and spray of the crash, more than a dozen
shocked and injured passengers and flightcrew bobbed up in the churned sea.

The survivors reported that Bishop had been standing, adjusting seatbelts and doing his
job, when the aircraft collided with the ocean. He was knocked unconscious, and thrown
into the tail section and out of sight. Pinned in the sinking Chinook helicopter, the seas
closed over the champion swimmer. We had graduated two months earlier.

My other roommate at Pensacola was a sad case from the day I met him. Charles Hood was
a certified heroic tragedy.

During Aircrew School, we had a very interesting test that everyone must pass. In the
film “Officer and a Gentleman”, the audience gets to witness this test — a long
tube, simulating an aircraft fuselage filled with men, is dropped 15 feet into a deep
pool. The tube rolls upside down and sinks in a cloud of bubbles.

Inside, students wear blackout goggles to recreate darkness and we have to obey a
simple rule: allow the ‘aircraft’ to sink below the surface, then attempt to swim free.
There is an excellent reason for this, but it would take two more pages to describe it
with any clarity. Most of us considered it a ride from Disneyland.

Hood couldn’t do it. Never. He was a setback to our class; an earlier class had left
him behind because he failed this particular test dozens of times. The rest of us
completed the testing in one day. A few runs, and the watching instructors judged us fit,
and we moved on.

Hood did not. The contraption would fall, splash into the chill waters, and Hood would
immediately leap out of the closest window, failing the test by not waiting for the water
to drag him under.

After some period of time, months at least, he was given a certificate, but the rest of
us knew….

Soon after I got into my next squadron, Hood showed up as a student on the jets I had
previously served on. On his first indoctrination flight, the jet climbed to 20,000 feet
over the Pacific west of San Diego, and the canopy blasted out. The resulting
decompression knocked out all four of the crew, and the jet (basically unharmed) flew
away, toward our base. Some nearby angel guided the Viking jet through the busy skies of
San Diego, where the pilot finally regained consciousness and control.

Two hours later, the medical staff released the crew with a pat on the back, and
fifteen minutes after that, I was pouring shots into Hood at the club closest to the
runway. He requested, and was granted, a transfer out of jets within a month.

Sometime during that night of getting pounded drunk, I must have somehow convinced him
to switch to my little killer helo. SH-2s have the worst reputation of all helicopters,
but I always shrugged it off as bullshit.

To me, they were all fun, or deadly, depending on the conditions and the pilot.

I got the accident report third or fourth hand, and at first, no one knew who it was.
After all, it was on the East Coast (a whole different Navy), and those guys operated on
another page. I had been in H-2s for a couple of years by then, so I read the report
thoroughly. I saw his name, and fought to keep my legs under me. It was Hood, and it was
bad.

Most takeoffs in helicopters are vertical, but regular, runway-type takeoffs are also
needed, especially if the chopper was heavily loaded.

Hood’s helicopter began to roll down the runway, picking up speed and preparing to fly.
At around fifty miles per, the pilot began to lift but something went very wrong. A
component had been installed upside down, and when the control stick was raised, the SH-2
flipped in a heartbeat, to skip and scrap and stop, laying on its back.

The force of the crash was so minor.

The noise stopped, their ears quit ringing — the virtually intact chopper stopped
sputtering, and the pilots painfully crawled out, bruised but unharmed. Shaking it off,
they waited for the Crash Crew trucks that were only moments away.

Inside the helo, Hood woke to the touch and calls of his pilot. He answered, and
attempted to de-tangle himself from the hundreds of pounds of electronics that lay on him.

As the trucks rounded the cross of the two perpendicular runways, the helo inexplicably
burst into a spectacular fire.

In seconds, the fire drove the pilots back and away from their pinned crewman. Another
human life was gone. The smoky pall rose with his soul, announcing his loss and final
transfer.

The rumor at the time was that he had used his survival knife on himself, rather than
burn. I knew him better than most, and it seemed possible in the face of his terror.

My list continued to grow. Bishop and Hood, and each of the rest, taught me about life,
and time.

Newbill & Sorbey	Crete	C-1A	Crash into hillside	night 22 lost
Ron Lipshutz	Hawaii	P-3B	Crash into hillside	fog 13 lost
Miller & Cooper	near Singapore	SH-2F	Crash into sea	night 1 survivor
Hutchinson	Arabian Sea	A-3D	Exploded at night	Hutch sole surv; 7 lost
Ampong & Carlson	San Diego	SH-2F	Crashed into sea	night 2 survivors
Pelz	Indian Ocean	SH-2F	Crashed into ship	3 lost
Bill Martinie	Indian Ocean	SH-2F	Bill died fighting sharks	? lost
Jeff McKenna	Mediterranean	F-14G	Crashed at sea	2 lost

I must add this — in my life, I believe the finest, nicest man I have ever met was
Michael Ampong. He would loan you his last dollar, and give you his shirt. He was a warm,
happy person and in every respect, deserving of admiration. A Hawaiian native with a heart
of gold, I miss him deeply. His helicopter, Seasnake Two-One, crashed into the sea
alongside USS Reid.

His best friend, Boomer Bumanglag, made a desperate attempt to save him, but his seat
failed, sending Ampong to the ocean bottom. The co-pilot, CDR Carlson, also died. He was
sighted by the Rescue Motor-whaleboat, but they assumed he was dead and they left him
floating while they searched for LT Paul and Boomer. By the time they recovered Carlson,
he had drowned. Lt Paul had his throat slit, but Boomer managed to hold the gaping cut
closed until they could be rescued.

The rest of us that flew in the back of these helicopters wasted no time in throwing
those untrustworthy seats over the side of the ship. Danny and I carried the seat from our
helo right to the deck edge, and tossed it into the sea, right in front of everyone. No
one said a word about us destroying Government Property.