Schuettler (left) with Pilot NelsonThat day the blue water was deep and swiftly flowing as it sliced by on each side of the ship’s bow to follow fast and smoothly along its sides like a big two-hearted river. There was great truth in the sea and honestly, too, he knew.
He also knew there was great danger there on the catwalk by the front of the waist catapults. Planes looked as if they were being hurled almost straight at you at great speeds. They passed barely 12 feet away – if all went well.
But standing there was a way once more for Stars and Stripes photographer Gus Schuettler to learn if he still had it – the courage – to stand in front of 30 tons of metal being thrown into the air at more than 100 miles an hour and not to flinch. In fact, he would not bat an eye. For these days one didn’t get the opportunity often for a true test, one that showed what a man was made of.
In our time, the ultimate test – that of a man against man – is largely a thing of the past, with all the impersonal modern weaponry. It was enough to make a man want to chuck it all, to bid a farewell to arms.
He thought of Hemingway’s tales of the old days and wished he had had the chance to fight with the partisans, to go into the trenches.
It would have given him a chance to do something well under great pressure and danger. He thought of it often and came to think of it as grace under tremendous sacrifice or simply by its acronym, GUTS.
He shrugged his heavily muscled shoulders, took a deep breath and stared down the throat of a jet as it catapulted toward him, then shot past. Already it was getting too routine, so he crossed the flight deck and headed below decks.
In the compartments occupied by the deck crewmen he would look for one of those rawboned youths off the farms of Upper Michigan to armwrestle with, knowing that he would win, but it would still be a test. For he knew it was not strength alone that wins. It was the confidence and GUTS—and looking a man in the eye.
Afterwards he would have supper. Then he would sleep and dream of lions and the green hills of Africa as it was in the old days before they ruined it. He always slept well when he went to bed thinking of Africa. And if he dreamed of lions, he knew he would have great GUTS the next day.
He would need it tomorrow for he would fly in the A6 Intruder for the first time. Flying with him would be Lt. Dick Nelson, who he knew was one of the good ones.
It would be fearsome and if death came in the afternoon he was ready. But that was the challenge and as soon as he was strapped in the next day, he immediately felt at home in the cockpit. But maybe that was because he had been lucky. He had dreamed of lions.
As the plane rolled toward the catapult, its deep-throated engines pleased him with their roar of power. He thought of the great Williams of Boston who also had flown jets. Ted Williams in his prime had left the Hub and a couple of certain .450 seasons to fly jets. Williams had played baseball well and he had flown well. Schuettler himself had wanted to play baseball.
Now as the jet got ready for the cat shot, its engines revved. He held an imaginary joy stick because there was none on his side of the plane. But he went through the motions for he would fly the plane if anything happened to Nelson. It would be The Test, perhaps even greater than the ultimate test and would require all the GUTS he could muster. He felt ready.
He sat back in the seat knowing he would smile during the cat shot, even though the G’s would tear and pull at his face. It could not keep him from smiling. And it proved so.
The pilot in the mess hall had said: “What? You’re going to fly with ‘Shakey?’”
But it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t scared him. And he had made a note of the man’s face and he would look for him later.
Once in the air he waited for Nelson to “hang him in the straps” (of the seat) as he promised. That was the term Nelson used and he liked the sound of it.
First, their A6 would act as a tanker, refueling planes whose pilots did not have the courage to land on the carrier with empty tanks. Then came the fun. The dives and twisting veronica-like turns, jumbled in an insanity of motion, trying to shake one of the recently refueled planes and get behind it. It was great sport and he took it all in so that he could do it if anything happened to Nelson.
He thought also of what Nelson had said when they first got into the plane: “The seats are not rigged together so if anything happens I’ll hit you across the chest with my right hand and that means for you to eject.”
It reminded him of the deck crewman who asked him if he wanted a barf bag after helping strap him into the seat. He had not even bothered to answer but he noted the face and he would look for it when he got back to the ship. He would wake the man up if necessary for the arm wrestling he had coming.
He watched with anticipation as the A6 circled for a landing, the carrier looking like an island in the stream. He liked the idea of the small stamp-sized, or better yet, tombstone-sized deck. There would be no easy, careless landing with miles of forgiving runway.
It had to be precise, and there would be great pressure to do it well. If it was done well, then it would be good. There is even great truth in landing when it comes to carriers, he thought.
When the Intruder slammed to the deck and was snatched to an abrupt and easy halt, he thought of his early years and how he wished now that he had taken time out back then to learn to fly the great jets.
Then he stepped lightly out of the plane and went directly to look for the crewman who had offered him he barf bag.
The A6 ride had been very good, almost as good as the one years before in the queenly and deadly Phantom.
In the morning he would stand again near the waist catapult where the jets look as if they come right at you. He would need that in the morning before breakfast.
This story originally appeared in European Stars and Stripes in the mid-1970s.