Trivia Questions (Answers @ end)
- Who said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”?
- Who said (and what movie), “Are you still an effective team.”?
- In what song (and who sang it) did we hear the following lyrics?
Hey mister, where you headed?
Are you in a hurry?
I need a lift to happy hour say oh no
Do you brake for distilled spirits?
I need a break as well
The well that inebriates the guilt
Listen to the audio of this blog, read by Andy Adkins. Click the “Audio” button below.
Back in the mid-70s (’75-77 to be more precise), USS Kitty Hawk had several entertainment “options” while at sea. KTTY was the onboard TV station. Television shows included live daily news updates, movies, and periodic “events,” broadcast on the closed-circuit televisions, located in all the main compartments.
Real-time Flight Ops on TV?
Another Kitty Hawk TV channel displayed real-time flight deck operations. If memory serves, there were two “views:” one view captured aircraft launching off the bow cats (Cat1 and Cat2) and the waist cats (Cat3 and Cat4). The other camera was the PLAT (Pilot Landing Aid Television), a camera located in the flight deck, smack dab in the middle of the recovery area. The PLAT providing a view to watch recovering aircraft.
Most of the training films we watched were from the PLAT and flight deck cameras. Many were horrific crashes that I really don’t care to watch again, but at the time, they did help us learn what to watch for (like an aircraft coming in too low or a pitching deck; or an aircraft catching a wire, but applying full throttle and full elevator only to slam down onto the deck).
Not great for Saturday night movies, but when I look back on it, these training films taught us to constantly stay alert. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the flight deck is one of the most dangerous places to work. Anything can happen at any time. You have to always keep your head on a swivel, a habit that’s stayed with me my entire life.
I don’t know if anyone ever bet on this, but I’d “heard” scuttlebutt that some crew members would place bets to see if a landing aircraft caught a wire (i.e., recovered) or “bolted,” meaning they missed catching any of the arresting gear cables and took off again. I cannot confirm or deny any of this.
Kitty Hawk Radio
Kitty Hawk also had three onboard radio stations: KROC (rock), KSOL (soul), and KRAL (country). These were 24-hour stations, and the DJs were sailors from all different walks of life, each with a 2-hour time slot.
BTW, a little side note, just in case you were wondering… In the United States, radio & TV stations east of the Mississippi River start with a “W” designation, like WKRP & WDVH. Stations west of the Mississippi start with a “K.” I believe this started back in the 1920s when radio & TV first began broadcasting. There are exceptions (aren’t there always?), but that’s TMI for this blog post.
The photos below are from the Westpac ’75 cruise book. It’s been so long, I don’t remember the names of the DJ shipmates in the pictures.
I was an ABH (Aviation Boatswains Mate-Handler) and worked on the flight deck in V-1 Division. When I first arrived onboard, I was assigned to Crash & Salvage and made the Westpac ’75 cruise with Crash. After the Bremerton Shipyards period, I transferred to a Yellow Shirt flight deck director. I loved both jobs.
My DJ “Journey”
But besides working the flight deck, I had my own radio spot: 6a–8a, the Country Chet Adkins show.
“Chet” was my Navy nickname, “assigned” to me by John Melcher, a fellow Crash & Rescue crewman I served with while stationed at NAS Agana, Guam. I played guitar and sang country music and since my last name was Adkins… well, John thought that was appropriate. No arguments, here. I couldn’t play guitar like my namesake, Chet Atkins, but at least I could spell my name right <grin>.
How did I become a DJ, you ask? I know you want to know, so stay with me here…
“Big Willie” was an ABH2 and the Assistant Crash LPO. He always had a cool head, even during flight deck emergencies. His actual name is Shelby Williams. He’s still around… I think in Texas. Everybody called him Big Willie because… well, he was a big guy. He always watched out for us peons, but he also had an agenda.
He’d been around a while and knew that the FNGs were always short of cash right before we hit port. So, if anybody needed any money (before payday), Big Willie was the man to see. Borrow $20 and pay back $40 on payday. No problem, cash was always available.
The Country Chet Adkins Show
Big Willie was also a DJ on the KSOL (soul) station and had a two-hour spot in the late afternoon. I thought that was cool, so I asked if I could do country. BW took me down to the station, introduced me to the station manager and a few days later, they put me on the air. My radio personality name (i.e., my “call sign”) was Country Chet Adkins.
It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but I was a natural. The station equipment included two turntables to play LPs (Long Play records) and two eight-track tape players to play commercials, not that we had that many. There were hundreds of LPs. We even had a phone for shipmates to call in requests.
There wasn’t a lot of room inside the three studios, but they were all located next to each other. But man… we all played a lot of great music.
I initially started out with an afternoon spot 1400-1600 (2:00 to 4:00), because I worked the night shift. Later, I changed to 0600-0800, which worked out well since we didn’t need to be on the flight deck until 1000 for flight ops.
I always started my show with a Chet Atkins guitar solo: Yakety Axe, an old Boots Randolph song (Boots Randolph played the saxophone and it was originally called Yakety Sax).
I would crank Yakety Axe up at 0600 and after a few seconds came over the radio: “Gooooood morning to ya, Kitty Hawk! It’s six o’clock and time again for the Country Chet Adkins show.”
“Gooooood morning to ya, Kitty Hawk! It’s six o’clock and time again for the Country Chet Adkins show.“
This was years before Robin Williams’ Good Morning Vietnam movie. When I had a rough day on the flight deck, it was very relaxing to get down to the radio station and go on the air early the next morning. It helped me get my head right for the upcoming day. We only operated the stations while at sea. I kept my radio spot the entire Westpac ’75 cruise and again after the Bremerton Shipyards.
Back in the mid-70s, country music was in a transition from old country to new country. That sounds like a cliche (it is), but we saw the transition from the old steel guitars, mandolins, and twangy sounds to the more “modern” (that is, 70s modern) sounds that featured artists like Johnny Rodriguez, Tanya Tucker, Johnny Paycheck, Dolly Parton, Charlie Daniels, Lynn Anderson, and John Denver… and, many more.
Yes, country music is always changing. But then again, almost all music genres change over time. Face it, “the only constant in this world (especially now) is change.”
DJs need to speak clearly, not ‘southern’
I learned several things while DJing. First and foremost, I learned to speak clearly. See… I’m from the south and many of us have a special way of talking. For one thing, we often make two-to-three syllables out of any one-syllable word. And we also appreciate our southern drawl. So, I had to learn to enunciate my “spiel” (that ain’t no southern word).
Back then, all of our music came on AFRN (Armed Forces Radio Network) record albums. And, we’d have to queue them up, so we could talk during the song intro, but (like professional DJs) end our conversation at the exact time the singer would begin. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, because you not only had a stop watch in front of you, you also had the exact amount of “intro” time written on the record.
Those were some good times and happy memories. Maybe, just maybe, I and the other DJs aboard Kitty Hawk were able to provide some relief throughout the workday through the music we played.
Somewhere in my house–probably in a moving box–I have several cassette tapes that I recorded during my show. I’ll find them sometime…. then, I gotta find a tape player to play them.
Music is still in my soul today. I continue to play guitar and sing country music, but I also picked up the mandolin and started playing with a country gospel band: WSU, “Whoever Shows Up.” We’ve been playing off and on together coming on 30 years. We don’t play that often, especially now during this COVID pandemic, but now and then, I’ll pick up the guitar/mandolin and try to belt one out.
Stay safe, my friends.
Until we meet again,
Andy
Andy Adkins is a US Navy veteran (’73-77) and the author of several books. His newest novel, NEVER FORGET, is the story of A Vietnam Veteran’s Journey for Redemption & Forgiveness. NEVER FORGET is FREE (eBook, PDF) for all veterans. Download your FREE copy HERE.
Previous blogs mentioned in this post:
Answers
- Mark Twain.
- Sally (Mission Control), Oblivion (2013).
- Hitchin’ a Ride (1969), Vanity Fare; written by Mitch Murray, Peter Callander.