Presentation Date: January 25, 2001
Art Hansen
F6F Hellcat Pilot assigned to Night Fighter duty with VF(N)-41, on Carriers Independence, Enterprise, and then Lexington F6F Hellcat Pilot assigned to Night Fighter duty with VF(N)-41, on Carriers Independence, Enterprise, and then Lexington
Hellcats in the Night
Like at least one other previous Golden Gate Wing speaker (Pan Am pilot Wally Dean) Art was inspired by the Pan American flying boats which daily rose from the chilly waters of San Francisco Bay. To Hansen joining the U.S. Navy came naturally. "Being Norwegian, we love the waters," he says. "What better combination, flying and being on the water."
Hansen signed up for the Navy at the Ferry Building, and was told that due to the war just starting and their being a rush of enlistees, he ought to consider the Civilian Pilot Training Program. It was the beginning of a very circuitous path to the pacific.
Hansen learned to fly in the CPTP in Carson City in Piper Cubs, alongside Army cadets. One memorable part of his stay there was being housed with other cadets in an old mortuary. Another memory was a flight when the instructor had Art recover from a spin.
The Cub's seat gave way as Art pulled out, thrusting Art's head through the wing fabric. "My instructor was looking around, thinking perhaps the engine had something wrong with it. And with a kind of dazed look I pointed up the the ceiling. There was a nice big hole."
Secondary training was in Susanville, flying open cockpit Ryans and Wacos in the icy winter weather. Next came pre-pre-flight, and the delightful environs of San Luis Obispo, followed by pre-flight in Monterey. Billeted six bunks to a room at the Del Monte Hotel, Hansen got physical training as well as learning flying procedures. There were five hours of sports - - from football to soccer, boxing and swimming - - every day, to develop competitive attitudes while hardening bodies.
Following that came orders to report for advanced training in Navy "Yellow Peril" N3Ns in Norman, Oklahoma . "My great love, I loved that plane," says Hansen. "I just had one pilot that wanted to wash me out. I had to take a check out, and fortunately, things worked out well from there."
Corpus Christy brought a transition to SNJs, a commission, and Art's choice to fly night fighters. After that training, an escort carrier ride to NAS Barber's Point, Hawaii. The first all-night carrier was the USS Independence. Hansen and three other pilots were tabbed for F6F Hellcat night fighter operations about the CVL. Flying into Ulithi Atoll by C-47, the pilot got lost. They were 25 minutes beyond their estimated time of arrival when came upon a task force and got blinkered to make a 180-degree turn. The pilot found the island and the short runway, but came in hot.
"We're looking out at the tail and saying 'we're not going to make it.' Fortunately the pilot was of the same idea. He gave her the gun, and as he pulled up we could see the water (closely below). The second approach was slower and brought the C-47 safely in.
Ulithi's tent city had about ten wet cots under each canvas top. Hansen and the rest of his airmen were tired, and settled in before that night's heavy tropical downpour. It rained until there were about three inches of water running underneath the sides of the tent. A flash of lightning suddenly exposed a green iguana lizard.
"I swear he was about five feet long, but was probably two and a half," says Hansen. "He was crawling up on my leg, and I gave a kick and it flew across the tent and landed on a marine who weighed about 280 pounds and he came up with a start, ran into the post of the tent and knocked it down. So here we are in a collapsing tent with a thrashing lizard and everything else..."
Protecting the Independence at night was the number one job for Hansen. Kamikaze attacks could come at any time, but carriers and their fleet could be exceptionally vulnerable at night, without benefit of their antiaircraft batteries.
"At times they had you just sitting in your plane on deck in the night. If they had any reports of bogeys, they would catapult you off. Or if they suspected there would be heavy bogey traffic, they'd send one or two planes up in the air. You'd just fly quadrants around the fleet."
Hansen says on his third night mission, out in the China Sea, there came the call of a bogey. He got a compass heading, an altitude and the bogey's speed. The night fighter version of the F6F had a radar housing on its starboard wing, and inside the cockpit was the radar screen. Within about three miles of a plane, the screen showed a little dot. There were two 'goals posts' and the closer you got to the aircraft, the dot would 'grow' wings. The wings reaching the goal posts should signify your F6F was directly behind the bogey, and with recognition of an enemy plane, you could fire on it.
"I had great difficulty that night. We kept going and going mile after mile. Cloud coverage was bad and this plane was in and out of clouds, and I finally got to a point when the base was telling me to return. I didn't answer, and finally after about ten minutes I saw this betty. They had dampers and I couldn't see any exhaust to speak of. I armed all six of the guns and opened up...quite an extensive burst, but it just wouldn't go down. I fired more and finally the left wing caught on fire and it spiraled on down."
As Hansen was returning to the fleet, he was vectored onto a second bogey. He quickly got behind the airplane, identified it, and opened up immediately. "I got one burst out that hit one of the gas tanks and the thing just exploded. I pulled up sharply because of the pieces just flying all around. I finally got back on deck, and the next day the gunnery officer said, 'You know, you burned out three of our guns.' And I thought, there goes my 90 dollars a month salary."
Those were to be the only aerial victories for Art Hansen. But it was not to be the end of his memorable experiences on board carriers. He rode out two typhoons while on the Independence, then transferred to the venerable Enterprise, rejoining his old squadron.
On their first mission, fifteen planes supported the landings on the Philippines. Three had to abort due to radar problems, but one of them never returned.
Hansen developed a reputation for being invited to quarters of the Enterprise's skipper. "I sort of hang my head, perhaps in shame. But it was funny at the time." The first of three times, Art was sitting in his Hellcat on a sunny afternoon, waiting to take off. He was still helmetless, and when he glanced in the mirror the 22-year old noticed how his hair was thinning. He couldn't help commenting on the radio, "Stop the war, I'm losing my hair." When he got back from the mission, he was asked to report to the skipper, who told him such an announcement wasn't proper, especially given that there was a war on, and his hair has nothing to do with it.
On the next occasion, Art was in the ward room with his fellow 350 officers, enjoying one of their first hot meals in about a week. About five minutes into the feast, general alarm was sounded and everyone rushed for the hatches. Except Art, who sat there thinking, "Look at all this food." The hatches had all been dogged down, and fifteen minutes later when it had been proved to be a false alarm, everyone returned to Ensign Hansen, eating. This time the skipper asked, "When you at general quarters where should you be?" When the ensign replied that he should be in the pilots ready room, the skipper said "This is the second time, I'll let it go. But watch yourself next time."
The third time occurred after the Bunker Hill had been hit by a kamikaze. Admiral Marc Mitscher transferred his flag to the Enterprise "Nobody told me that he did," Hansen recalls. "We have the ready room there, and just a jig and a jag and you were at a pantry, with tea and coffee and a refrigerator."
Whenever there were fresh provisions, there was generally fruit in the reefer. For the past two weeks, the box had been empty, but this one day, Hansen discovered all kinds of fruit. So he filled up his arms for himself and fellow pilots, and headed through the hatch when he ran into Admiral Mitscher coming in.
"So I said, you better help yourself quick, you know. I thought he looked somewhat familiar. I got a call shortly thereafter, and the skipper said he understood I was stealing the admiral's fruit. He requested I return any that was uneaten... "
Iwo Jima was soon occupying everyone's attention, with bombing and strafing missions in support of the Marine landing, and continued patrols for kamikazes. Enterprise took two kamikazes as well as friendly fire to one of the carrier's 40mm antiaircraft mounts. After returning from repairs at Ulithi, an enemy bomb and the engine from the dive bomber that tried to hit the ship caused more damage. Hansen had been in the ready room when he heard a bump, bump, bump,bump, bump. He looked out the door to see a 550 pound bomb with its fuse still burning, having bounced down the deck, careened off the superstructure and now laying feet from where Art was.
"And I'm looking at it, the fuse burning and putting white smoke, and you're wondering is this going to go up? By that time some deck hands had arrived to roll it off the end."
Another time Art was in the ready room, a plane landed and caught the last wire with its tailhook. One blade of the propellor cut through the wooden flight deck and plate and Art was looking up at the blade, eighteen inches away from his head.
The Enterprise itself ran out of luck shortly thereafter. A kamikaze's bomb dropped down the number one elevator shaft, blowing the whole elevator several hundred feet in the air, and buckling the flight deck. Returning to the fleet about the same time as the suicide attack, Hansen found himself in between two kamikazes. He started to fire at one of them, then decided to avoid the antiaircraft they were attracting.
Given the Enterprise's damage, Art was sent to land on the Lexington. When he was transferred back about the "Big E" a few days later Art discovered the bomb had knocked down about eighteen bulkheads. But, adding to Art's string of good fortune, a heavy fan had been blown across the room and onto the bed where Hansen might have been, had he not been flying.