Bam! Bam! Bam!
A split second before I was sound asleep: dead to the world. But the pounding on the door woke me. The door opened immediately, without a welcoming “Come in.” Rising from my bunk, I muttered, “What the hell!”
Across the room in the other bunk I heard movement and then a string of profanity. It was Dick, my roommate and the junior pilot in our crew. He was having the same reaction I was from being abruptly awakened. But Dick being Dick was using a much more colorful language to express his disgust.
Looking towards the door I saw Bill, backlit by the bright morning sun. Bill was wearing his dark green combat fatigues, our standard uniform while on duty in Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam. Then I remembered that he was the duty officer for the day. The day was in late October 1967.
Bill looked at me then at Dick. His expression was not exactly one of surprise, but it was certainly strange. Bill and I roomed together several times in the Philippines, so I knew him fairly well. Something was wrong.
“What’s up?” I mumbled.
“The Captain wants us all to muster. Right now! Right away!” Bill’s answer was an order. He was in his official mode of duty officer and not as friend and sometime roommate.
“Why?” I continued trying to get more information. My crew had just landed several hours before at eight-thirty after flying a nine-hour night patrol off the coast of South Vietnam. I was tired and trying to get some sleep in daytime, in wooden barracks, and without air conditioning. This was a battle I usually lost. I wanted a reason for being woken from my hard won sleep.
“Not now! I have to roundup the rest of the guys. We’re mustering on the volleyball court. The Captain will be here in minutes,” Bill said quickly and then was out of our room leaving Dick and I to look at each other. We then heard Bill going down the passageway, banging on the doors and sporadically shouting orders, “Muster on the volleyball court! Right now!”
Dick and I started swiftly putting on our fatigues. “I wonder what’s going on,” I said.
“Maybe the war’s over and the Captain wants to tell us that we’ll be home by Christmas,” Dick said somewhat sardonically.
“I don’t think so. Besides we’ll be home before Thanksgiving,” I said with a nervous laugh. Our air squadron was at the end of a six-month deployment to the Philippines and Vietnam. In three weeks we would be back “home” in Whidbey Island, Washington. Just in time for Thanksgiving.
“Maybe the Captain wants to tell us something about going home. Maybe it’s delayed,” Dick said.
“No, that can’t be it. Bill wouldn’t be waking guys up for that. It’s something more immediate,” I reasoned. “Crew Three relieved us at eight. I wonder if something happen. Maybe they crashed? Or shot down?” I said darkly thinking of the dangers of flying and being in the combat zone.
“Yeah, it has to be something serious,” Dick agreed as we hurried out the door. The Navy officers’ quarters consisted of two barracks, two stories high built on sand. In between the barracks was the volleyball court.
By time Dick and I got to the court, most of the other officers were already lining up. Bill was in front of the formation, checking off names on a list attached to a clipboard. There was very little of the usual chitchat between the officers gathered. “What’s up?” I asked no one in particular.
“Don’t know. I guess the Captain will tell us,” someone said rather unconvincingly. The “someone” didn’t make eye contact with me. “He knows,” I though.
But before I could further question him I heard Bill order “Officers! Attention!” The Captain was now by Bill’s side. Bill gave him a smart salute and reported, “All present or accounted for, sir.”
The Captain, the “Old Man” at thirty-five, returned Bill’s salute. Facing us he said in a subdued but clear voice, “At ease, gentlemen. I have some bad news.”
I quickly though of Crew Three, the crew that relieved us less than four hours ago. Maybe they did go down.
But before I could think further the Captain went on, “We lost two men from Crew Eight this morning.” I was in Crew Eight. Two enlisted men in my crew were dead. Cutting through the strange feelings I was having the Captain continued, “Conaway and Stayrook are dead, apparently from drowning.”
The Captain went on, but his words faded away from me. I flew with Conaway for more then two years, with Stayrook for more then a year. Both great guys, great crewmen. Both easily past the primary test of any Navy flight crewman: Would you fly with him? Hell, yes!
I heard the Captain say, “…and we’re having the enlisted men mustered to make sure that they’re all accounted for. But from the initial report it’s just the two men….” Again the Captain’s words faded away.
I knew Conaway and Stayrook very well as sailors. I tried to remember their personal lives. Conaway was older then me, almost thirty. He was the “old man” in our crew. Through many long flights Conaway was butt of many jokes about old geezers. I knew that he was married with kids. I couldn’t remember: two or three. Someone said they were adopted. For the first time I thought of Conaway as husband and father. Then I remembered: in weeks it’s going to be Thanksgiving, then Christmas. For the Conaway family it was going to be hell.
Stayrook was young, maybe twenty. He was single but going with some girl back in Washington State. I remember he said she was going to a junior college in Bellingham. From the hazing Stayrook got from the other enlisted crewmen it sounded serious. Apparently he was “hooked” and carried around a “ball and chain.” But the crewmen sounded a little envious. She was a real “looker.” Now her young life changed forever.
Through my thoughts I heard Bill’s command voice say, “Officers, dismissed!” While my mind was on Conaway and Stayrook, the Captain had stopped speaking and was now talking to a small group of his senior officers – I assumed to make sure that all the official and administrative protocols were being adhered to.
Thinking back on Bill’s abrupt entry into our room, I now realized what had happen; why he looked at Dick and me in that strange way.
After we landed from our “midnight to eight” flight, Dick and I had to debrief the duty officer, who was Bill. Since it was an uneventful fight, no hostile activities or suspicious ships to report, the debriefing went quickly. As we left, we casually told Bill that we would go for a quick swim before we tried to get some shuteye. After a long flight it was normal for flight crews to take a quick dip to relieve stress and cool down.
When Dick and I got back to our barracks, we changed into our swim trunks and walked to the bay, which was less than a mile away. The beach was beautiful – long and sandy – but there were no lifeguards. After twenty minutes of doing more dipping then swimming we went back to our barracks.
When we got there our enlisted crewmen, eight men in all, came by. Dressed in their swim trunks and carrying towels, they were going to the bay for a swim. They dropped by to ask if we wanted to join them.
“No thanks. Done that all ready. We’re ready for some naptime,” I said answering for Dick and me. We exchanged some small-talk then the crewmen started to leave. “See you guys tomorrow. We have the ‘four to midnight’ flight,” I said in closing.
“Sounds like fun, sir!” one of them called back. They walked on, joking and horsing around on the way to the sandy beaches of Cam Ranh Bay.
Dick and I went to our room. We decided to close the door to keep the light out. We would depend on the small oscillating fan and a screened window to cool the hot air of a Vietnam morning. We fell asleep soon afterwards only to be awakened abruptly by Bill.
When Bill burst into our room and looked at us so strangely it was because he wasn’t sure that we were in our bunks. We might have been with our enlisted crewmen at the bay, maybe drowned. That’s why the Captain called for the muster: to verify that only the two men were missing from our ranks.
Later on I found out what happen at the beach. Apparently the crew was playing football in chest-deep water, when Stayrook got caught by an undertow and got pulled under the water. Conaway, the “old man” trying to save one of his “boys,” went after him but got pulled under. The six remaining men decided to regroup. While two went for help, the rest linked hands and searched for Conaway and Stayrook.
They were able to recover Stayrook. He was flown to the base hospital by helicopter, but on arrival he was pronounced dead. Conaway’s body was recovered months later when the squadron was back in the states.
The morning after the two deaths the officers and men of our squadron who were not flying attended a memorial service that was held at a base chapel, which had sand for a floor. Later that afternoon, our crew flew the “four to midnight” flight in eerie silence, with none of the usually talk: girls, going home, or the officer vs. enlisted man jokes.
I read the “Stars and Stripes” several days later. Under the “Vietnam Casualties” column, the names of Conaway and Stayrook were listed, along with several other men, as “Died not as a result of hostile action.” Yes, even heroes can die from a non-hostile action.