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DisasterMan
was disgraceful to waste money like that. Then he would rent
a fi shing boat with its owner to take us out in the middle of
the bay. I would get seasick almost every time, but my mother
encouraged me to go. She would say, "You'll get over it," or
"The water will probably be calmer today," or "You won't get
sick in a fl at calm." I would end up catching a couple of fi sh
called croakers, a not very distinguished looking fi sh which
I disliked eating because it was full of small bones. I hated
catching fi erce looking eels which always seemed to swallow
the hook.
The "Identifi cation, Friend, or Foe" tests went extremely
well. Equipment was installed on all of the ships and a large
number of naval aircraft. After numerous tests with small units,
a large test was scheduled with about 150 aircraft which came
to the Norfolk operating area from bases from Quonset Point,
Rhode Island to Key West Florida. This test was designed to
determine if a large number of aircraft would saturate the
whole system and cause a catastrophic breakdown. I had an
interesting six months assignment to the Navy's Operational
Development Force in Norfolk and then I was recalled to
Washington so that another analyst could be assigned to the
Operational Development Force.
B-52 Bomber Self-Defense
I presented a paper, "Combat Information Center Problems
under consideration by the Operations Evaluation Group"
(Listed in Appendix C Professional Papers and Presentations)
at the 1947 Fleet Air Defense Conference held in August by the
Chief Of Naval Operations. I then wrote OEG Study No. 337
"Air Defense by Control of Interceptor Aircraft" in August
1847 (Listed in Appendix C). I was therefore nominated by
the Director of the OEG to attend an Air Force conference on
defense of future bombers.
I met Charles Lindbergh at this conference in Air Force
Headquarters on August 23, 1948 which is a date that I must
tell my grandchildren about. The Operations Evaluation
Group had been studying the problems associated with air
defense protection of naval aircraft against attacks by enemy