Training Flare**

I swear this actually happened
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Training Flare**

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From: "Richard(Gold crew 83-87) QM2/SS" <sorrem@...>
Date: Wed Apr 28, 2004 3:15 pm
Subject: Training Flare


Was there any trueth to a story of the Madison launching a flare on
a aircraft carrier during a training exersize? I remember hearing
about this and they ended up scrambling the aircrafts off the deck.
Richard
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From: "gradyh627" <gharrison@...>
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:34 am
Subject: Re: Training Flare

Richard,
let's see if we can get first hand testimony... In exercises with
surface ships, subs practice periscope approaches against their
target and after having simulated a torpedo launch need to reveal
their position by firing a smoke (or perhaps a flare) from the
signal ejector. I recall going through hilarious submarine incidents
having to give remedial training in the wardroom... we had a book of
incidents recorded from the diesel boat days and some of titles of
the incidents were :"collison of a submarine with a telephone booth,
collision of 4 submarines and a floating restaurant, flooding due to
car keys...I'll give details at the reunioin" The XO was quite
displeased with my selection of incidents I presented. There was a
report of a collision between a diesel boat and a destroyer (minor
damage to both) during PCO ops when someone made all of his
periscope observations in high power instead of low power and was
much closer than he thought.
I heard that some attack boats would fire their flare upwind from
carriers and try to land the flare on the deck. I am not sure if
this would be an "urban legend"... I can't imagine a skipper coming
that close to a bird farm, at PD or shallow... and there are few
places in the world more dangerous than the deck of a carrier (ref.
Forrestal)...
Stay safe.
Grady
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From: "Harry Bell" <bubblehead@...>
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:50 pm
Subject: RE: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Re: Training Flare

1974 during flex ops with the carrier Eisenhower or maybe Nimitz, South
Carolina, And Farragut (the most advanced ASW of the day) we sent a flare
soo close that they were concerned. Also a Viking aircraft remarked that
the flare went higher than they thought one should go. I suppose the MM on
the after signal ejector may have used excessive air pressure for it.
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From: "Dave McMahon" <dcmcmahon8306@...>
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:32 pm
Subject: Re: Training Flare

We hit a skimmer two piers away on the SSBN 733 in PSNS in Bremerton
two years ago with an orange out of the signal ejector. When we
launched it towards them the orange had black smoke coming off the
back end of it. They were messing up our ESM test by slamming us
with their Radar when we were trying to finish a test. And we had to
test the signal ejector anyway... and they were skimmers... I too
heard about the flare incident from TM2 Rick Haynie when I got to
the boat in 1977.
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From Yahoo wrote:From: "gradyh627" <gharrison@...>
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:34 am
Subject: Re: Training Flare

...I recall going through hilarious submarine incidents
having to give remedial training in the wardroom... we had a book of
incidents recorded from the diesel boat days and some of titles of
the incidents were :"collison of a submarine with a telephone booth,
collision of 4 submarines and a floating restaurant, flooding due to
car keys...I'll give details at the reunioin" The XO was quite
displeased with my selection of incidents I presented. There was a
report of a collision between a diesel boat and a destroyer (minor
damage to both) during PCO ops when someone made all of his
periscope observations in high power instead of low power and was
much closer than he thought....
Stay safe.
Grady
From: James Dullea <jdullea1@...>
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:45 am
Subject: RE: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Re: Training Flare

I remember that officer training...it was insightful and inspiring...

Jim Dullea
Director, Undersea Warfare
Dynamics Technology, Inc
1555 Wilson Blvd, Suite 703
Arlington, VA 22209
703 841-0990 x211
jdullea@...
www.dynatec.com
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From: "KLEAL J PRICE" <kprice54@...>
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 10:27 am
Subject: RE: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Re: Training Flare

Harry don't know about the aircraft carrier flare landing but the 0ne the P3
orion commented on being a little close was launched from the torperdo room
on Madision. Requirement was 50 psi over sea press. this one was at
periscope depth and went out at just over 250 above sea press.
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Moderator Note: The previous and the following were actually two different threads, but are so closely related it was decided to make them one thread here.
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Flare Story**

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From: "Richard(Gold crew 83-87) QM2/SS" <sorrem@...>
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:36 am
Subject: Flare Story

Well it looks like it happen. I just got this email in.
The flare story

Yes, that is another "true" Jolly Dolly Story. It happened to the
Blue Crew. I think Capt. B. Felt was the skipper at the time or it
may have been his replacement not Mr. Williams (he was temproary)but
the next one, Capt. L. Vogt and we were doing ops with a carrier
group. They could not find us so we gave them a "hint" with a flare.
LOL. We all got a big charge out of it for sure! Pride runs deep.
Hey, they limited us to 150 feet, and a certain ops area, and their
P-
3's and cans and a bird farm, could not find us! What was he to do?
That was a classic moment in time. I was the planesman/helmsman at
the time. We had just gotten those flare tubes installed (Buick
Holes)
and were doing a run out of Charleston on Midi ops or something like
that. Hey it's been 30 years. I think it was a red flare.
K. J. Ray, MM1/SS, USNFR

(I remember it was a red flare and the other ships couldn't find the
Madison so the Captain gave them a indication where to look. Good
job to the crew on that one.)
Richard Sorrem
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From: James Dullea <jdullea1@...>
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 9:36 am
Subject: RE: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Flare Story

Sounds great but not likely exactly true...the so called "Buick tubes" were
acoustic countermeasures not flares...flares had to be out the 3" signal
devices...aft was an automatic one, used to call it the modified aft signal
ejector (MASE) maybe that was what you remember.

Jim Dullea
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From: "Richard(Gold crew 83-87) QM2/SS" <sorrem@...>
Date: Fri Apr 30, 2004 10:33 am
Subject: Re: Flare Story

Ok, So who from the blue crew from that time knows what happen
during that exercise with the flat top?
Richard
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From: KRayALS@...
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 10:25 am
Subject: Re: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Flare Story

The Buick Tubes had nothing to do with it, It just happened right after they
were installed. They were counter measures. The flare went from the 3" signal
ejector!
KJ
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Moderator Note: And another closely related thread.
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Flare thing**

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From: KRayALS@...
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 10:21 am
Subject: Flare thing

Yes, this is another true blue crew story! It did happen in 1974. Flex ops
out of Charleston. I think B. C. Felt was the skipper at the time or either
Capt. Williams (Felts temporary replacement) or Capt. Vogt, Mr. Felts
replacement. We were working with a P-3, some tin-cans, and a bird farm playing hide and seek. Well, we were limited in depth to 150, we were limited in operating area, we were limited in speed and they still could not find us. So, what was there left to do? The skipper had to give the skimmers a hint! LOL the red flare turned out to be a direct hit on the carrier! It was not intended. It was a one in a million "lucky shot" but, I bet those skimmer pukes never forgot it! I was the on watch planesman/helmsman for battlestations at the time, so I overheard all the chatter over the incident up in control. The memory is a little
foggy.

So, many things happened to the Blue Crew in that time period. LOL. There were fires, and floods, and med-evacs, and ERP's, and record submerged time without snorkeling, collisions with Russian Fast Boats, the first MK 48 torpedo certifications, we shot two missiles, ran two Co2 scrubbers with with one Amine pump, stored garbage in the missile house for a month (bluies refer to it as "the stink patrol"), we had several people "flip-out", like Greg Brotherton, and some MT3 who got his head smashed in with a coffee cup by Chief Watash "Smitty", I think it was, because he was beating on the launch panel with a night stick over a disapproved liberty chit, hey, it all starts to run together after a little while, so many things happened to us.

This is why we need to write this book! I swear no other Boat has gone through so much stuff, in such a short period of time. It was like we had a curse on the "Blue Crew", Murphy's Law was standard operating procedure! Everything that could go wrong DID. You could not invent a better plot for a book or movie. The truth is really stranger than fiction when it comes to the "Jolly Dolly in the decade of the "1970s" for the Blue Crew anyway. I guess the Goldies never had much bad luck? We seemed to have some terrible story to tell at the end of every patrol on the Blue Crew. They never had much excitement I guess?

Well, there you have it. What I can remember as the truth as an eye witness to the event and several other strange happenings as well. LOL As stated before the memory may be a little foggy in spots. Pehaps some of my Bud's can elaborate a little more on this incident, and help me with my memory. This is one of the things that I had totally forgotten about until this email stirred my "nightmares" again! Hey, WETSU Baby! We won the "Cold War" shipmates, don't ever forget what we did for this Nation! We won the 50 year battle against Ivan! And we never even got a ribbon or a thank you for it. Remember

We the unwilling,
Did the unwanted,
For the ungrateful,
As a mtter of fact,
We did so much,
For so long,
With so litte,
We were qualified to do the impossible,
With nothing!

K.J. Ray, MM1/SS, USN Retired
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From: jjoh781262@...
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 7:45 pm
Subject: Re: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Flare thing

AMEN
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From: "Harry Bell" <bubblehead@...>
Date: Sat May 1, 2004 7:59 pm
Subject: RE: [USS_James_Madison_SSBN627] Flare thing

No the Goldies of that era did the flare thing also, We went to sea with one
O2 generator and it died the day after we went on patrol status. There was
so little oxygen that we had to light our cigarettes with a soldering iron.
When we brought the boat from Scotland to Charleston for MK-48 we worked 26 hour days. My second run we had a failure of some reactor protection equipment and had to snorkel in known ruskie areas. During flex ops the birdfarm confused a Brit sub with us and our old man got in trouble for that as they said we weren't playing the game fairly,
My first CO was relieved of his command early and replaced with the squadron commander who's only task was to ensure we passed the ORSE exam and the we got a fresh CO - but that is another story.
For all the Goldies of that era I still can sing Chesnut's roasting on an
open fire.
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