Chapter 2 Dad
Easter Bonnet Curse Words
Easter in Pensacola, Florida was stunning with azaleas and daffodils in bloom. Birds and bees were out in their full regalia and so was I in my yellow Easter Bonnet, fluffy fanny bloomers and yellow puffy Easter dress with the big yellow fanny bow. The Easter outfit was completed by my black patent leather strapped shoes and matching yellow frilly socks. My mother curled my long strawberry blond locks into sausage curls that cascaded down my back from under my Easter bonnet that tied under my chin in yet another big yellow bow. I was three years old and had four older brothers aged eight, ten, twelve and fifteen that completely adored their living doll sister. I also had the adulation of my father who posed his picture-perfect family in front of the azalea and daffodil clad yard. My mind’s eye sees the vivid yellow and fuchsia but the pictures I look at now are black and white. Something more than color is missing.
At age forty-three I look at these four-decade-old photos and can only think of the family decimation and spiral of chaos that ended with complete upheaval in my fragile third year of life. Because my father was a sailor and talked like one to my mother and my brothers that year, I also knew a lot of sailor cuss words. But he never talked to me that way, I was his golden child, a golden thread of sanity, the breadcrumbs left in the woods he would use to find his way back home. That was the year my hero father was court martialed.
John Guy Groves II had been an athlete and boxer in college and used his skill as a lethal weapon against his commanding officer and brought his troubles home to his wife and sons. But he had a good reason and time revealed it. My father was a Navy pilot. He was Top Gun incarnate. He recounted the following story to me with fire in his eyes and belly. He was Lieutenant Groves first co-pilot, and his commanding officer was flight engineer during a crash landing in fog and icy conditions with 12 men in the cargo bay of a Super Constellation, “Super Connie”, C-121 cargo plane landing in Argentia, Newfoundland. During the landing, they could not get the plane to stop on the slick runway and it continued past and stuck in the mud. It flipped forward. The flight engineer kicked out the front windshield at a fissure and ran away from the soon to be inflamed plane. But instead of following his commanding officer, my father went into the rear of the upside-down plane to assist the crewmembers to come forward and out the front windshield to safety.
Several weeks later, back in the states, my hero father, his CO (Commanding Officer) and the rescued crew members were celebrating their luck and good fortune. They were drinking way too much, and the infamous flight engineer said something illicit to my father. My father called him a coward for the coward he was for abandoning his ship to save his own life but not his crew. The rescued drunk crew members emboldened my father and the two officers fought. This was not a good idea. My dad went to Rice University in Houston, Texas on an ROTC, and boxing scholarship. He was on the Navy’s boxing team and stayed in surprisingly good shape during his 18 years in the service.
He was indignant, self-righteous, drunk and in his men’s and his own eyes, a hero. He beat the bloody pulp out of that flight engineer--almost killed him. If it had not been for an act of sobriety, a flashing glimpse of the gravity of the situation that stopped my father’s rage, he would have killed his CO. So, we were court martialed.
The ultimate irony was my mother’s newspaper clipping of my father in a business suit receiving the Medal for Heroism from President Eisenhower on board the USS Tweedy. It reads, “Mrs. John G. Groves Jr., pins the Navy-Marine Corps Medal on her husband during ceremonies aboard the USS Tweedy at Pensacola Naval Air Station Friday. President Eisenhower awarded Groves, a Pensacola insurance man, the medal for heroism in connection with emergency landing of his aircraft at Aregentia, Newfounland, last April 2. Groves was a navy flier at the time. The citation read, ‘Lieutenant Groves as first co-pilot aided in the removal of the flight engineer from the burning plane and returned to assist a crew member from the plane seconds before the aircraft exploded.’” (U.S. Navy photo)
For eighteen years my mom was the loyal navy wife, going to every port of call. She had his sons without him, while he was away time after time for six month’s duty at sea. She caravanned four boys across this country, and then finally had her precious little girl that she could dress up at Easter. But instead, he blew it and got court martialed. He could have retired in two more years. Instead, he received a general discharge with no military benefits and became an insurance salesman. It was very deflating to go from hero to insurance salesman in one year. My mom said his manhood left him. I did not know what that meant then. I do now. Mom went back to nursing, and I went to day care. It broke her heart, and it was all entirely his fault.
I celebrated and shared my sixth birthday cake with my brothers and my divorcee mother on a new kind of plane--a commercial jet plane. We went to live with mom’s sister in California. The last plane my father flew was designed in the mid-50s and like him the “Super Connie” C-121 class airplane had a short service life too. The jet age came along. My father’s service to his country had made us who we were and like the airplanes of the era, we too had to evolve.
I left my daddy, the azaleas, the south, and my Easter bonnet behind. We moved into the Age of Aquarius, the jet age ‘60’s to Southern California. My mom became a modern, liberated divorcee, but I knew how to dress to turn a head, and I knew a lot of sailor cuss words.
Willy Victor and 25 Knot Hole Bruce Jarvis
Preface from a book about why my father was in Newfoundland in the first place, another example of an aborted life
Jarvis, Bruce. Willy Victor and 25 Knot Hole (p. 1). Xlibris US. Kindle Edition.
My interest in writing this story was inspired by the Honorable Tim Johnson, an Illinois Congressman. He gave a speech at a Willy Victor flyers reunion at Chanute, AFB in 2003. He told the audience that until he was asked to speak at the reunion, he had no knowledge of what the group of people he was speaking to did for their country during the cold war. The Congressman indicated that he was overwhelmed with their mission achievements. He indicated that 99.99% of the United States public had no idea what was done or accomplished. His message motivated me to share my story with the public. Following the reunion, it took me three years to get started on this story. Just finding a way to begin was difficult as it had been about 45 years since I had left the Navy for civilian life. Once I started remembering what I and many others experienced, I continued writing until the story was finished. The stories all are true with a little bit of fiction weaved throughout. During 1946, Winston Churchill contacted President Harry Truman to provide him with his thoughts about Russia’s intentions to drape an Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe. Shortly thereafter the Russians began the blockade of Berlin. Following the blockade, they took over the countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine. This time is thought to be the beginning of the Cold War between the Free and Communist worlds. In the early hours of April 17, 1952, World War III nearly began. The previous afternoon an intelligence source had reported unusual levels of activity at Soviet airbases. Shortly after midnight United States Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs, got word from Alaska that vapor trails from bogeys had been sighted high over the Bering Sea, coming from the direction of the Soviet Union. As Generals fretted over the report, another message arrived. Five more aircraft had been sighted off the coast of Maine. It might have been the real thing. The paranoia of the Cold War may be coming true, in a sneak atomic attack. Hence, the Generals ordered a full alert. Fighters were scrambled; Bombers were prepared and taxied to the end of the runways at many bases to fly a retaliatory strike. What was the end result of all of this activity? Nothing! The vapor trails disappeared; the unknowns over Maine were identified as airliners off course. The perceived threat vanished. Most of the people in the United States slept that night undisturbed. But, the North American Defense Command (NORAD) had acted without real evidence of an attack. The biggest issue was the length of time it took for the first report of enemy planes to get to Colorado Springs and even longer for NORAD to finally figure out what was going on: ninety minutes. The methods to identify enemy aircraft were outdated. Hence, the Distance Early Warning Line (DEW) was developed, built, and went operational in 1957. But unfortunately the DEW line’s radar coverage did not initially provide any defense whatsoever against aircraft approaching the United States coasts from the northwest and northeast over the ocean approaches. The ocean approaches were longer however, the Soviets were already flying aircraft prototypes of turboprop bombers with the range to fly just such missions. Adjuncts to the DEW line electronic radar barriers were needed to patrol offshore on both coasts to prevent long range aircraft from penetrating air defenses and reaching the continental United States without warning. I am writing a portion of this story to describe the Airborne Early Warning Squadrons (AEWRON) mission and the people and aircraft that accomplished it. It was these squadrons that were designated, and their operations implemented to cover the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean approaches. They were the extensions of the DEW line. The AEWRON’s flew their missions over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from 1956-1967. The routes they flew were called barriers. Airborne early warning flights continued during the Viet Nam war to protect the Pacific Fleet sailing in those waters in and around Viet Nam. The barrier missions were stood down as Satellites took them over in 1968. The time frame for my story is 1956-1959. The story is about my experiences while serving in the United States Navy during this portion of the Cold War. It began in early 1956 at Great Lakes Illinois and ended at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in August 1959. From September 1957 until early August 1959, I spent flying the Atlantic Barrier as a member of flight crews 5 and 11 knothole in Air Early Warning Squadron (AEWRON)-11 or VW-11. “25 knothole” is a fictional crew of sailors who are a combination of real and fictional people who lived the mission day to day. The stories are real, lived by the crew and their squadron. The aircraft used to fly the barrier was the Lockheed Super Constellation Morning Star. (Willy Victor-2, Navy designation) The crew of “25 knothole” was members of VW-11. It is one crew among many with the thousands of Sailors and Air Force personnel that supported the missions. Our story includes the purpose of the missions, their importance, the people who flew them, some of their stories, personnel that supported them, their families, their women, their wives, their frustrations, their happy moments and their sad. Why did I pick VW-11 as the Squadron for the story? I was a member of VW-11 and spent two years flying the Atlantic barrier. Who am I? I started out as a seventeen-year-old who had no idea what he had begun when his dad agreed to sign the enlistment papers for him. I ended up participating in an adventure that protected my country and completely changed my life. There were many of us flying out of Newfoundland, Hawaii, Guam, and from Air Force bases up and down the East and West coasts of the United States. Some locations were more desirable to be stationed at than others, but all had the same mission, flying barriers, identifying bogies, and reporting them to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). It was then up to NORAD to determine who, what, when, and why an aircraft was flying where it was, who and what it was, and whether it was to be shot down. I would have liked to include the details of this information but, all of the contact data and the data from NORAD remains classified today and is unavailable for this effort. There are no monuments for those who gave their lives flying and training in the Willy Victor and EC-121 aircraft. This aircraft was developed to fly the various barriers around the world protecting the United States of America and the free world from its enemies during this dangerous time in the Cold War. Mr. Donald J. “DJ” Dunnarumma began the story and Mr. Wes Mortenson continued the process with the web page Willy Victor.com. As of the writing of this story both Messers. Dunnarumma and Mortenson have passed on to greater glory. Hopefully my contribution will continue their efforts and be an additional vehicle that memorializes those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, those of us that survived the barriers and those who maintained the aircraft they flew in. In fact, since we didn’t fight in wars in a foreign country during this time frame, 1956-59, we are not eligible to join the VFW.
Jarvis, Bruce. Willy Victor and 25 Knot Hole (pp. 6-9). Xlibris US. Kindle Edition.
A Big Texas Thanksgiving
On my fridge is an old, cherished photo of my dad and me. The photograph was taken at a thanksgiving family reunion in my dad’s hometown of Graham, Texas in 1987 when I was 27 years old. One hand holds a glass of tea, and my other hand reaches up around my father’s still strong back and shoulders with my pink fingernails just showing and draped there. His 63-year-old splotched face is in the shadow of a typical Northern Texas panhandle scrub oak and his gray “Vitalised” hair is neatly in place. My father had a skin condition that made him loose pigment so there are ghastly white and pink splotches that cover his entire face and neck. But despite his disfiguration he still has handsomely arranged features with startling blue eyes that match the blue short-sleeved tieless but under-shirted, starched dress shirt he is wearing. I have on a sleeveless knit beige and black sweater with matching choker beads clasped together with a gold nugget and matching earrings. My hair is wildly curly, and I am tossing back my head slightly in laughter.
I had only just met my grandmother Lola, my father’s mother, and his sisters for the first time this same day that the photo was taken. My husband Randy and I had flown from North Carolina to Houston earlier in the week and I was reacquainted with my brother John and my father at my brother’s home there in Houston after a twenty-year separation. Randy had brought his Autoharp and endeared my dad by playing old time hymns. This rekindled family drove thirteen hours across Texas from the Houston shores to the northern Texas panhandle through tumbleweeds, oilrigs, mesquite, and roadrunners all the while sharing stories and burying the years. I came halfway across the country to understand Texans because I wanted to understand my father. It seemed that the landscape was whispering to me in the spare moment when we rested from our sojourn to play music on the Texas radio and ponder. I came to Texas to reestablish long lost family ties.
A few years earlier, I sent him my scrapbook showing him the missing twenty years chronicled. The scrapbook contained such things as a picture of me in my yellow Easter outfit when I three on up to pictures of me with my engineering projects in college. I had been baptized the year prior for the first time at twenty-four and had included my Christian testament, several birthday cards, and other meaningful writings. He later told me how much it meant to him since he too had been to engineering school and had been baptized later in life. He said it gave him permission and relieved some of his guilt to be able to offer an outstretched hand of welcome after so many years of regret and uncertainty. My curiosity and need for family ties helped me bury deep the pain of the forgotten discarded years.
My mother and father were divorced when I was three years old, and we moved away from my father when I was six. We were the victims of such abuse from him in those early years of separation that my mother was never able to forgive him. For instance, he had us evicted because my mother had been able to qualify for a new FHA house, but he found that she no longer qualified as her income raised out of compliance. He was jealous and turned her in therefore she lost the house, and we were evicted. They hated each other and we were tortured because of it. My mother raised us on her own with little help from him. Later in life she moved to live a mile from me in North Carolina. I love and respect her for all those long years. I almost felt like a traitor when she saw that picture of dad and me on my fridge. Her hatred was so deep and unfathomable that she said she wanted to piss on his grave before she died.
My father called me every Sunday evening for his remaining eight years of his life after our big Texas reuniting. Although he lived and died in Pensacola, Florida, his last will, and testament, like all good Texans, asked that he be buried in Texas. His service in Pensacola and another trek across Texas brought my long-lost brothers and I closer still. Although my father had done some dastardly deeds, he redeemed himself as loving father and allowed me to be that loving daughter in those last years of his life and for that I always remember with fondness that big Texas Thanksgiving and am truly thankful.
The Groves Boys - seated: John, Bob, Bill, and Smith, standing: Joe, George, and Henry. Great-grandfather Joseph Lewis "Joe" Groves, 1861–1937, BIRTH 01 FEB 1861 • Leonard, Fannin, Texas, USA, DEATH 18 MAR 1937 • Jean, Young, Texas, USA,