John Delach

On Flag Day, Mary Ann and I walked into the lobby of the original Terminal Five, TWA’s former Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport for the first time since February of 2001. Back on that cold Saturday morning we were catching our flight on a TWA 767 to Porto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Our purpose last Friday was to have lunch at the newly opened TWA Hotel that utilizes the soaring concrete and glass main terminal as its lobby, food court, museum and our destination, The Paris Cafe.

Philip Kennicott noted in his review for The Washington Post: “Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA terminal has always been about selling a fantasy.”  Indeed, it did back in its day and indeed it does again. As college students in the early 1960s my cousin, Bill and I would occasionally drive out to New York International Airport or Idlewild, it’s popular name, to visit the new terminals seemingly springing up out of nowhere. Seven were constructed, Number One, Eastern Airlines, Two, Northwest, Three, Pan American, Four, The International Arrivals Building for foreign and small domestic airlines, TWA’s Number Five; Eight, American and Nine, United. (Six and Seven would be built later, Number Six a second terminal for TWA as they outgrew their flight center and Number Seven for British Airways.)

Five of the seven were boring box-like structures., Only Pan American’s World Port and TWA’s Flight Center presented buildings that rivaled the innovations in design, architecture and engineering simultaneously being developed for the 1964-1965 New York’s World Fair. Those two were our favorites and we had easy access to almost all areas during those long-gone innocent days of minimal security. Only First Class and the private airline clubs, TWA’s Ambassador’s Club and Pan Am’s Clipper Club were off limits. 

The overhanging roof at Pan Am’s circular World Port was its most innovative feature It protected passengers from all precipitation as they used outside stairs to board and de-plane aircraft. Impressive, but not comparable to Saarinen’s bird-like design that rose upward and outward, creating an enormous open space unsupported by internal columns. It took your breath away or so it seemed.

Fantasy was swell, but it took until January of 1977 before I made my first flight from that magnificent edifice, a Saturday morning trip to San Francisco on a Lockheed L-1011. I made my first business trip to London in 1976, but, for several years, I preferred British Airways as they were the only carrier to offer a day flight to London, BA Flight 178 that left JFK at 10 am. I did fly TWA home several times arriving at Terminal Five. Once TWA added a day flight, I switched over to TWA for most of my trans-Atlantic flights.

I stayed the course when Carl Icahn muscled his way into control of the airline although with guilt and a bit of fear. The striking seasoned flight attendants were replaced with newbies who were heavy on smiles and giggles but short on competence. I doubted their effectiveness in an emergency. Fortunately, the veterans returned but Icahn had broken the spirit that was TWA. By then three of the legacy airlines were failing, Eastern, Pan American and TWA. To survive they gutted themselves. TWA sold off its transatlantic routes to American Airlines in 1990. They ceased all remaining operations in October of 2001 closing Terminal Five.

Even though it sat dormant, the building had a life insurance policy, the City of New York had designated both the exterior and interior as historical landmarks in 1994. Various proposals fell apart or failed and it remained in repose until 2016 when Tyler Morse, chief executive of MCR Development, owners of 88 hotels announced the plans for the TWA Hotel. Long story short, it came to pass this May.

Though I didn’t wear a tie, I felt the need to wear my blazer, Mary Ann wore a white, woven poncho over her white blouse and black slacks. After leaving her Jeep with valet parking we entered the lobby. To the left and right were tube shaped corridors once used for check-in stations. If memory serves me, international to the left and domestic to the right.

Straight ahead a wide marble staircase led to an old friend, a sunken seating plaza carpeted in ruby red, TWA’s primary color. A tall glass window framed the rear of the lounge but instead of presenting a view of a busy tarmac, taxiways and runways in the distance, that view was now blocked by Jet Blue’s Terminal Five. Morse understood the need to improve this landscape, so he bought a surplus Air Force Lockheed Constellation domiciled in Maine, dressed it in TWA colors and had it trucked to JFK. Re-christened “Star of America” the airplane restores the fantasy of flight.

And fantasy abounded; hostesses occupied a desk by the entrance wearing vintage TWA stewardess uniforms. “Behind them a reproduction of a vintage Italian hand-made Solari di Udine split-flap display board made its distinctive tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik-tik-a-tik chatter as it announced flight departures and arrivals from an orchidlike sculptural pedestal.”

Rotary pay phones. A sign read, “Make a call for ten cents or try it for free.” Mary Ann dialed our home number and reached our answering machine. An old shoeshine stood-unmanned. Morse had done his best to create a time warp. I took it all in; once this was a friendly place to begin journeys to far off places, journeys of triumph, failure, fun or boredom.

Lunch was disappointing. The write-up for the Paris Café led me to believe that with luck, lunch would feature a croque monsieur one of my favorite French inventions. Instead, the menu was anything but French. I settled on a cheeseburger, Mary Ann a tuna tartare appetizer.

After lunch we explored the old girl one more time. I led Mary Ann to the other mezzanine where the Ambassador Club was once domiciled. The bar was gone, but we did discover an alcove where VIP’s could relax in private Called the “Pope’s Room,” Pope John Paul II used it during his 1987 Papal visit to America.

The two elevated tubes that once led to the long-gone separate structures that once housed the gates now led to the two separate hotel wings. Re-carpeted in ruby red they looked much as they did back in the day.

Before leaving we explored the Connie decked out mostly as a lounge with a bar at one end. Three rows of two across seats had been installed, one, the larger first-class variety and two rows of smaller coach seats albeit larger than any coach seat in the sky today. The guide informed us that these were the actual seats TWA used to furnish their Constellations. The discovery of ash trays built into the arm rests gave him credence.

I left with mixed emotions. It was truly fun to see the terminal again in its restored condition but a bit sad too. Most of the people who come to visit or stay there won’t have a clue what TWA was like as an airline and not just a theme for an airport hotel.   

Grounded in Gravesend Bay off Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the spreading conflagration enveloping the Sea Witch and the Esso Brussel intensified.

The inferno created havoc on board the Sea Witch as the contents of the on-deck containers quickly caught fire and began to explode. Aerosols containing hydrocarbons and fluorocarbons; hair spray, shaving cream and spray paint turned into lethal projectiles that exploded through the thin aluminum skin of other containers igniting more and more cargo. The crew first took shelter near the stern, outside the aft deckhouse, but the heat, smoke and the intensity of exploding containers drove them inside. Their cabin of refuge had a ½ inch fire hose that they used to spray continuously the bulkheads, deck and overhead watching in horror as the water evaporated into steam. Without it, they would have been baked to death. The hose kept them alive, but they had to endure a hurricane of noise and pressure that assaulted their senses and sanity as containers, their cargoes and the ship’s own gear erupted at its own choosing.

By then the life and death struggle of the Esso Brussels’ crew had played itself out. Tugs rescued the survivors, but thirteen of the crew were lost.

Firefighter tackled the fire blazing on the port side of the Esso Brussels. Amazingly, despite the intensity of the inferno, none of the oil that remained in the vessel’s still intact tanks caught fire. It was only when the firemen extinguished the fire on the port side that they realized the bow of the Sea Witch was protruding from starboard side and that two vessels were involved in the inferno. Finally, they proceeded along the port side of the container ship towards her stern.

Fires onboard the Sea Witch continued to spread as the contents of containers caught fire or exploded. Breathing was an ordeal even though the trapped crew covered their faces with wet towels and knelt on the deck. Sensing that this desperate condition was not improving, Cahill took the initiative to signal potential rescuers. He grabbed a blanket, had it soaked with the hose, wrapped it around himself and stepped outside waving his flashlight toward the Firefighter. The crew spotted Cahill and, using their water cannons, fought through the flaming water to reach the stern. Two ladders were raised from the fireboat allowing the thirty trapped men to descend to Firefighter.

The fires on the Esso Brussels were mostly under control once daylight arrived and the Coast Guard and Fire Department agreed to have tugs separate the vessels. After the tanker was re-floated, the fireboats easily extinguished what little oil continued to burn.

 The Sea Witch was in a more critical condition as almost all the on-deck containers were still burning. Four fireboats were ordered to use maximum waterpower to put out the fire creating a severe list of 25 degrees forcing the authorities to reduce their efforts to two nozzles from a single fireboat. Containers burned or smoldered for several days before being declared under control.

Exxon worked with the Coast Guard and Fire Department to unload the remaining cargo from the tanker into barges that carried it to their refinery. Once empty, the Esso Brussels was towed to the Bethlehem Shipyard in Hoboken, NJ to await disposition.

The Coast Guard estimated that of the 319,000 barrels of oil the tanker carried, 16,000 barrels escaped after the collision. What didn’t burn, washed up on Staten Island, Bay Ridge and Coney Island, but the same low flash point that made this crude so volatile also caused most oil to evaporate.

Salvage of the container ship was far more complicated. It wasn’t until June 14th that a salvage crew was able to pump out enough water from below decks to bring the vessel back to an even keel. CO2 was pumped into the holds to stabilize the contents of the containers stored under deck and the remaining fires in the on-deck containers were extinguished. The derelict Sea Witch was offloaded, then towed to a pier at the former Brooklyn Navy Yard where she would remain for eight years.

Coast Guard hearings opened on Monday, June 4th and it quickly came to light that the Sea Witch had had frequent steering problems. The investigation revealed ten similar incidents had occurred since 1969. The immediate response from the Coast Guard was to advise all operators of vessels with similar steering systems to modify the mechanics to prevent a similar failure.

Exxon sold the tanker to the Greek ship owner, John D. Latsis on an “as is where is” basis. He had the vessel towed to Piraeus where it was rebuilt and sailed under a variety of names for several of his companies until she was withdrawn from service and scrapped in 1985.

Various American maritime firms expressed interest in salvaging the engine spaces of the Sea Witch. She was finally towed to Newport News Shipbuilding’s yard. All spaces forward of the engine room deck house were cutoff and scrapped being replaced by a new forebody built at the yard. Converted to a Jones Act, US flag chemical carrier, she was first re-named the Chemical Discoverer later re-named the Chemical Pioneer. In April of 2015, I saw her on the Mississippi River outbound from Baton Rouge as we passed her on the American Queen.

Government regulations, new industry standards and technology have made the transit of ships through the Narrows safer since that early morning collision in 1973. Still it should be a lasting reminder that navigating large vessels in confined waters is a difficult enterprise requiring utmost training, diligence, good judgment and luck. 

Part One

First published in 2006, this piece ran in “Professional Mariner” and was included in the author’s anthology, “The Big Orange Dog.”

Just before midnight on June 1, 1973, the CV Sea Witch left Staten Island carrying 445 containers below deck and 285 containers above deck.  Built by Bath Iron Works in 1968, she was small by today’s standards. The Sea Witch had a length of 610 feet overall and a gross tonnage of 17,902. The bridge and officer’s quarters were located forward of the holds while the machinery spaces and crews’ quarters were aft, giving the ship the appearance of a fat Great Lakes boat.

John T. (Jack) Cahill, a pilot active since 1948, took charge of the ship directing it east toward St. George, Staten Island. In addition to Cahill, Captain John Paterson, and three other members of the vessel’s crew occupied the compact bridge. As a precaution, Captain Paterson positioned the chief mate and two seamen on the fo’c’sle to help spot other marine traffic and be able to lower the anchors should an emergency arise.

Twenty-nine minutes after midnight, Cahill ordered the speed increased to full harbor speed, 13.4 knots. With the ebb tide traveling at approximately two to three knots, the Sea Witch’s actual speed was about 15 knots. As the ship crossed the ferry terminal at the tip of St. George, he directed the helmsman to bring the ship to a heading of 167 degrees to begin transiting the Narrows separating Staten Island from Brooklyn. Seven minutes later he corrected the course to 156 degrees.

The helmsman did not respond as expected. Instead, he told the captain that the vessel was no longer steering. Captain Paterson remarked, “That damn steering gear, again.” He attempted to correct the problem by transferring steering control from the starboard system to the port system. Cahill also took corrective action ordering, “Hard left rudder.”

Both the captain’s and the pilot’s attempts proved futile. The port and starboard steering units fed into a single mechanism controlled by a faulty “key”; a device like a cotter pin that had come undone. Without it, Sea Witch lost all steering control and the currents forced the vessel out of the channel towards Staten Island.

Cahill immediately ordered the engines reversed to full astern and for the crew on the bow to let go the port anchor.  He blew a series of short rapid blasts on the ship’s whistle signaling that the Sea Witch was in distress and ordered the general alarm bell rung to alert the crew, many of whom were in their quarters.

The Esso Brussels lay anchored in the southernmost Narrows Anchorage just north of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The tanker carried 319,402 barrels of light Nigerian crude destined for Exxon’s Bayway Refinery. The Esso Brussels was a handsome ship built in 1960. At 25,906 GRT, she retained classic tanker lines with her bridge and the officer’s quarters located amidships while the engines and aft deckhouse included crew’s quarters were located towards the stern.

Captain Constant Dert commanded a mixed European crew of 36 men and one woman, Gisele Rome, the first steward.

The bow crew on the Sea Witch couldn’t release the port anchor.

By now, she was closing in on the Esso Brussels and Cahill locked the whistle to sound continuously. The first mate ordered his men to release the starboard anchor. They freed the windlass, but the chain would not run. Cahill and Paterson ordered them off the bow and they retreated behind the forward superstructure. Only two and one-half minutes after the pilot and the captain realized that the ship was out of control, the Sea Witch was a mere 200 feet from the starboard side of the Esso Brussels. Cahill advised Paterson to clear the bridge allowing these five mariners to make it as far as the boat deck behind the forward superstructure when the night exploded.

About two minutes before being struck, the mate standing watch on the Esso Brussels’s bridge heard the Sea Witch’s whistle. His first thought was that the disabled ship would pass astern of his tanker, but as the ship continued to veer in his direction, he recognized the impending danger and sounded the alarm awakening the crew.

 The Sea Witch rammed its reinforced bow into the starboard side of the tanker between the midship and aft deck houses, piercing three cargo tanks. The conflagration was instantaneous and flaming oil began to spread rapidly. Captain Dert supervised the crew as they lowered the motorized aft port lifeboat. Despite the chaos, the crew managed to launch the boat, only to have trouble releasing it from its lines. That accomplished, a mate tried to turn a hand-crank to start the engine, but the space needed was filled with terrified crew making this impossible. A last attempt to row away from the advancing fire was thwarted by the engines of the Sea Witch, now in reverse, that pulled both ships down the Narrows despite the resistance from the tanker’s anchors. The movement created a suction pinning the lifeboat against the tanker forcing the crew to jump in a desperate hope of escaping the flames that rounded the stern.

The fireboat, Firefighter, based at nearby St. George, S.I.  arrived minutes after the collision. The firemen could not tell that two ships were trapped in the inferno as both vessels were enveloped in a sea of flames that extended three thousand yards in front of them.

Flames from the burning oil radiated 200 feet out from both ships and rose so high that they scorched the bottom of the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge as the ships passed underneath. Fortunately, the wreck passed under the bridge quickly, preventing the steel. from suffering heat damage South of the bridge, the ships grounded in Gravesend Bay.

The New York Football Giants 1966 season turned out to be an absolute disaster, the worst in team history. Entering Week Ten their record was 1-7-1 as head coach Allie Sherman led his boys into DC with their new back-up QB, Tom Kennedy. Three weeks earlier the Giants had plucked Kennedy from the minor league Brooklyn Dodgers of the short-lived Continental League than a stellar addition, he assumed the starters role after Gary Wood, the team’s other sub-par QB hurt his shoulder..

 Frank Litsky reported in The New York Times on Saturday, “The Redskins have lost three in a row, but Sonny Jurgensen’s passing will probably make them well.” Jurgy already had 18 touchdown passes, rookie Charlie Taylor had developed into a fast, dangerous receiver and the Giants had been reduced to playing three rookie linebackers, Mike Ciccolella, Jeff Smith and Freeman White who was supposed to be a tight end. The Skins were scheduled to start two former Giants in their backfield, Steve Thurlow, and the bizarre, Joe Don Looney.

Sunday, November 26 produced, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

The Good:

The Giants scored 41 points, the most they would score all season.

They out gained the Redskins 389 yards to 341.

They had 25 first downs to the Skins 16.

Joe Morrison caught two TD passes from Wood for 41-yards each.

Homer Jones caught a 50-yard TD pass from Wood.

Wood ran one in for 1 yard.

Aaron Thomas caught an 18-yard TD pass from Kennedy.  

The Bad:

            The Redskins intercepted the Giants five times and scored on a 62-yard fumble recovery,

            a 52-yard punt return and a 62-yard interception.

The two teams scored 16 touchdowns, ten by the Redskins and six by the Giants.

The Ugly:

Bobby Mitchell scored the final TD for the Redskins by running the ball for 45-yards. Mitchell had last played as a running back in 1961 with the Cleveland Browns. Normally a flanker back, he shifted position due to injuries to the other running backs. Redskins head coach, Otto Graham told reporters after the game, “He doesn’t even know the plays from that position.”

Kennedy started, but the Redskin defense befuddled him with blitzes and fake blitzes leading to three interceptions in the first half. The sore shouldered Wood replaced him, but finally had to give way to Kennedy again in the fourth quarter.

This opened the door for Kennedy to engineer a bizarre play that led to an all-time scoring record. With seven seconds left on the clock and with the ball on the Giant 22-yard line, Kennedy threw a fourth down pass out of bounds to stop the clock. His excuse was that he thought it was third down which begs the question: With seven seconds left on the clock and your team down 69 to 41, just exactly why are you stopping the clock?

Graham ordered Charlie Gogolak to kick a 29-yard field goal. When asked if his motive was to embarrass the Giants, Graham replied: “Hell no, I didn’t know anything about records. I wanted Gogolak to try a field goal. He hadn’t had a chance all day and he missed two against Cleveland last Sunday. I’m not one to run up the score on anybody.”

But records they did set: It is the only NFL game with a total combined score of over 100 points.

The total of 113 points was 15 more than in another game involving the Giants, a loss in 1948 to the Chicago Cardinals, 63-35.

The Redskins scored the most points ever scored in a regular season game, one shy of the 73 points the Chicago Bears scored against the Redskins in the 1940 championship game.

The 16 touchdowns scored is a record for any NFL game.

The Redskins 10 touch downs and Charlie Gogolak’s 9 PATs tied a record. If Charlie had made his first, another would have been broken.

The New York Times also reported that the Redskins lost $315 in footballs that went into the stands. In this era before nets behind the goal line, 14 Duke footballs, then manufactured by Thorp Sporting Goods costing $22.50 each, became fan souvenirs. The Times article pointed out that the Duke is named after Wellington Mara, the Giants president.

Coach Allie Sherman wasn’t happy either. “I guarantee you this is never going to happen to a team of mine again.”

He was right, but then again, that’s a tough score to replicate. But the Giants did try. The next week in Cleveland, they lost to the Browns 49 to 40. At home against Pittsburgh, they crumbled to the Steelers 47 to 28 before ending the season with a milder 17 to 7 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Yankee Stadium.

That game ended the season with a dismal record of 1-12-1. Truly, the season of our discontent.

In 2006, I decided to research a piece about a spectacular maritime accident that took place in New York harbor in the spring of 1973. The Sea Witch, a container ship was outbound from the Howland Hook, Staten Island terminal. The ship had just entered the Narrows when the steering mechanism failed causing it to veer toward one of the Staten Island anchorages and strike the fully laden tanker, Esso Brussels, igniting its cargo of crude oil. Locked together, both ships drifted under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before they grounded in Gravesend Bay off of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

My initial searches were fruitless. When I Googled “Sea Witch,” the only match I made was for the Nineteenth Century Clipper Ship of the same name. I tried several different portals, each of them a dead end. Frustrated, I decided to visit the U.S. Maritime Academy’s library in Kings Point only to find that they too had a limited collection about the Sea Witch or the collision.

Finally, on an off-chance, I contacted the National Transportation Bureau’s Accident Investigation Bureau. That led me to a U.S. Coast Guard’s site where I discovered what I was seeking, the Coast Guard’s accident report. There it was right in front of me, their accident report.  Between a balky printer and an unreliable internet connection, I worried over downloading and printing out each of those forty-seven pages until it finished.

I now had the foundation for my piece. Next, I made my way to the newspaper room at main branch of the NY Public Library at Fifth Ave. and Forty-Second Street to copy the articles that ran in each newspaper’s Metropolitan Section.  I paid attention to The Staten Island Advance that focused on the accident as a local story.

One source led to another and slowly, the details I was seeking began to assemble. Still, I wasn’t satisfied relying principally on third-party reporting. One person’s name critical to telling this tale kept appearing, the pilot in charge of the Sea Witch when all hell broke loose, John T. (Jack) Cahill.

How to find him? I wrote a letter of introduction to the New York Harbor Pilots Association, the governing body for all licensed pilots, asking them to forward a second letter addressed to Cahill. My letter explained who I was and why I wanted to contact him.

Almost a month later my home phone rang while I was sitting in the kitchen. My hello triggered a rough voice that responded, “This is Jack Cahill, I understand you are looking for me?”

A week later found me heading west on I-78 almost to the Delaware River to meet Jack Cahill and discuss my project. He lived in retirement with his second wife, Andrea, who was of French extraction. Quite a scene, Cahill had a table full of folders that he didn’t choose to open while Andrea buzzed around the table in an obvious hostile mood.

I realized my situation was in doubt. Andrea didn’t want me in her home as she perceived me to be a threat to her man. If I couldn’t win here over, my visit would be a waste of time. I had to overcome her lack of trust in me.

I turned to her and said: “Mrs. Cahill, let me be assure you, from everything I have gathered about that night, your husband, Jack, was the true hero. If not for him, the Sea Witch crew would have perished. Let me make you both a pledge that I will not submit my story to any publication until Jack signs off on the content. If Jack doesn’t approve it, I will change it. If that doesn’t work, I will scrap it. To do otherwise would be a sin.” 

Her reaction was immediate and amazing. The clouds parted and the sun shone down. Andrea offered me coffee and a tray of biscuits before she left the room. Jack opened his files, showed me his remarkable photos and told me his story.

I drove home knowing I had something special. Professional Mariner magazine bought my story and published it. I was ecstatic, my first (and only) paid published piece. Jack Cahill’s first- person account gave it wings.

Once published, a copy quickly made its way onto Wikipedia. The original listings attributed the piece to me but as time went on and different organizations picked up on it, my identity faded away.

 Recently, I Googled the accident and found a serious expansion of my piece written for the fireboat “Fighter” museum. The author took complete license with what I had written yet retained my favorite line that I used to describe the initial conflagration when the ships collided: “…and the night exploded.”

I loved that line and this S.O.B. not only lifted what I wrote but took it out of sequence at his/hers convenience. Whoever you are: please note that plagiarism is and always will be plagiarism. Shame on you!

Truthfully, I really don’t mind.

I know that it was my effort that added this story to our collective memory. My baby, no one else’s. I conceived it and I birthed it.

Now my teenager is on her own. 

Never published on this blog, In June, I will give you, dear reader, my revised edition of my story in two parts

The dictionary defines irony as: “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”

The street definition of irony is: “You really can’t make this s*** up.”

The dictionary defines Sarcasm as: “The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.”

The street definition is “Gotcha!”

This piece is a bit of both, however, before I present it, I wish to explain two relevant points:

During my thirty-year career in the marine and energy insurance business, I represented several so called “Big Oil” clients and major oil tanker fleet owners. To fulfill their insurance needs led me to develop a close understanding of how they think. The major oil and gas companies are the most competitive, competent and professionally run operations on the planet yet extremely demanding in achieving their perceived results.   

They are ahead of everybody else including Uncle Sam and like Uncle, they have all the time, all the money and all the lawyers they need. Witness Rex Tillerson’s tumultuous tenure as Secretary of State. He knew he was better than the President, but he failed to recognize he was no longer CEO of Exxon-Mobile and Trump was now the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

I lifted what follows from an article by Jesse Barron: “Hedging Against the Apocalypse,” part of a series of essays in the April 14, 2019 climate issue of The New York Times Magazine.

I accept on face value what Mr. Barron wrote and, to the best of my ability, I have not influenced or altered his message.

Barron begins with a confrontation between Tillerson, and a Capuchin Franciscan friar, Michael Crosby, during Exxon-Mobil’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Crosby deliberately set out to upset Tillerson’s apple cart by accusing him of deliberately ignoring climate change. During their exchange, the good friar gave the CEO a run for his money scolding Tillerson by admonishing him that, “You’re living in the past.”

Crosby challenged the CEO on renewables, but Tillerson came right back at him. From my own experience, I can easily picture the biggest bully in the room gripping the rostrum, steely eyes, laser focused, reply: “Quite frankly, Father Crosby, we choose not to lose money on purpose.”

Dear reader, Tillerson’s statement sums up in a nutshell what makes Big Oil tick.

Fast forward to 2018. Never mind that Tillerson retired and Darron Woods is Exxon-Mobil’s new CEO.

Declan Flanagan, CEO of Lincoln Clean Energy, a renewables company announces that his firm has partnered with Exxon…”to build a solar farm in the Permian Basin.”

If you read the book, Friday Night Lights, saw the movie or watched the TV series, you would understand that the Permian basin was in decline in the 80’s and 90’s. Its oil fields first exploited in 1921, were running dry. Drilling was at a minimum and Odessa, the heart of the basin, was dying.

There was a solution, hydraulic fracturing, a concept first reported in a 1948 issue of Oil & Gas Journal. (Ayn Rand promoted the concept in her masterful 1957 apocalyptic novel, Atlas Shrugged.) (Who is John Gault?)

But the price of crude oil remained too low and the cost of fracturing or, fracking remained too high for this technology to be cost-effective until the millennium when the price of oil and advanced technology made it profitable.  

Barron noted in his piece: “In recent years, the Permian became the most productive oil and gas field in the United States, as…fracking…made it possible to shatter the tightly packed shale. Exxon, Chevron and their peers can now access natural gas and oil that was previously unreachable…If Permian were a country, it would rank among the largest oil states in the world.”

“All well and good but what’s the point? Simple, fracking requires an inordinate amount of electricity to be effective. Though Exxon’s deal with Lincoln is one of the most visible examples of a fossil-fuel company using renewable energy, all the Permian extraction outfits consume it…to make fracking more profitable.”

Exxon, Chevron and their partners have blanketed the surface of the Permian with solar panels installed by Lincoln for the sole purpose to pay the electric bills needed to extract the oil and gas.

Save the planet? Bah humbug: Maximize profits.

Climate change is real. What Big Oil is doing in the Permian is at best, a head-shaker and, at worse, complete pervasion of why Lincoln exists and its stated goals.

Never-the-less, because of fracking, the USA has once again become a net exporter of oil and gas and Lincoln is making a handsome profit.

Note to my readers: my computer is out of action forcing me to present an abbreviated version of this piece using my IPad.

The point of my original piece was to demonstrate that Lyndon Blaines Johnson knew from the beginning that our war in Vietnam was a “Bright and shinning lie.”

In his book, Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss reproduces LBJ’s conversation with Senator Richard Russell recorded by LBJ on May 27, 1965:

(LBJ:) “It’s the damn worst mess I ever saw…and I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out of it without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them, down there in those rice paddies and jungles…It appears that our position is deteriorating. And it looks like the more that we try to do for them, the less that they are willing to do for themselves…It is just one of those places that you can’t win…it frightens me…It’d be Korea on a much bigger scale and a worse scale…The French report they lost 250,000 men and spent a couple of billion of their money and two billion of ours, down there, and just got the hell whipped out of them…we’re just in quicksand—up to our very necks.”

On March 31, 1968, almost three years later, LBJ cashed in his chips finally admitting that the military quagmire he called: That “Goddam” War had destroyed his presidency.

He concluded his otherwise banal speech to his tired and spent constituents with these two pronouncements:

“With America’s sons in the field far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to nay personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country.”

“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

So marked the beginning of the end for America to lose the war we couldn’t win. Richard Nixon gave us five more years of killing fields in Southeast Asia before the house of cards collapsed in 1973,

LBJ missed the dramatic last scene, succumbing to a heart attack on January 22 of that year. RIP.

I hope you enjoy this abbreviated and early post, and, God willing, I’ll be back in business next week.

“

K

Early in the morning of April 18, 1942, Captain Marc A. Mitscher ordered the USS Hornet, to turn into the wind and prepare to launch aircraft. Sixteen twin-engine Army Air Force B-25 bombers were lined up on the flight deck, engines roaring prepared to race into the sky and fly to Tokyo 650 miles distant. The first bomber had only 500 feet of deck available to achieve take-off speed. Splashing into the Pacific presented a real and frightening possibility.

The battle plan called for the B-25s to be launched no further than 500 miles from their target but Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsey in charge of the task force, was spooked by a Japanese picket ship that reported his fleet. Halsey’s priority was to protect his two aircraft carriers. He ordered an early launching so his fleet could retire before the enemy mounted a counter attack.

Sixteen airplanes, 80 men, five aboard each airplane. A pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier and an engineer / gunner. Lieutenant Colonel James (Jimmy) Doolittle commanded the mission and flew that first bomber. His co-pilot was Lieutenant Richard E. Cole who lived long enough to be the last surviving Raider. Lieutenant Colonel Cole (retired) died on April 9, 2019. He was 103.

Doolittle and Cole shared the flying but during the flight, Cole perplexed his pilot. Cole recalled that the crew remained quiet as they approached Japan but, “…The tune, Wabash Cannonball, kept running through my mind. I (started) singing and stomping my foot with such gusto that the boss looked at me in a very questioning manner like he thought I was going batty.”

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar

As she glides along the wonderland o’er the hills and by the shore

Hear the mighty rush of the engine hear those lonesome hobos call

Traveling south to Dixie on the Wabash Cannonball

Every plane reached Tokyo, successfully delivered its bomb loads and escaped with minimal damage. Sadly, the added 150 miles made it impossible for any plane to make it to a Chinese controlled landing strip. The crews had a Hobson choice to crash land or parachute into a dark and rainy night. One aircraft made it to the Soviet Union where the crew was interned. Three aviators were killed and eight fell captive to the Japanese. Four of these Raiders survived to return home once the war ended.

Cole’s parachute snagged a pine tree. Twelve feet off the ground, he waited until morning. “Being a young kid…it was easy for me to climb down.” Chinese soldiers on patrol found Cole and reunited him with Doolittle at their nearby camp. 

The story of the raid is legendary. Conceived in January of 1942 by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest J. King as a morale booster to gladden the hearts of Americans during the darkest days of World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt approved it with gusto.

As soon as news of the raid was released it became the stuff of legends that was magnified by the book and movie, “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo”, starring Spencer Tracy as Doolittle. FDR helped enhance the mystery. When asked to reveal the secret location where the bombers originated, he replied: “Shangri-La.”

Jimmy Doolittle received the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his heroic exploit. An aviator’s aviator and a great leader, Doolittle held several important commands during the war including the Eighth Air Force. He retired in 1959 as a four-star general. He died at age 96 in 1993.

Dick Cole retired from the USAF in 1967 and moved to Comfort, Texas.

The Raiders sported an active alumnus first meeting in 1946 to celebrate their leader’s 50^th birthday in Miami. Cole told the National World War II Museum: “It gave us a chance to renew the camaraderie of the group and it gave us a chance to honor the people that gave their lives on the mission and those who had left the group since.”

The reunions became an annual affair. In 1959, the city of Tucson presented the Raiders with 80 silver goblets, each etched twice with each raider’s name, one right side up, the other upside down. At each reunion, the Raiders raised a toast with a sip of 1896 cognac, the vintage-Doolittle’s birth year. They retired the goblets of those who passed since the previous reunion by turning them upside down.

Cole built a velvet-lined display case to move the collection to the site of each reunion. By 2013, only four survivors remained, Dick Cole, Edward J. Saylor, David J. Thatcher and Robert Hite who could not make the ceremony.

Colnel Cole made the final public toast: “To the gentlemen we lost on that mission and to those who passed away since, thank you very much and may you rest in peace.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined tumbling mirth

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

(From High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.) 

RIP Dick Cole, Jimmy Doolittle and the other 78 Raiders: collectively our National Heritage.

Netflix premiered the film, Highwaymen, in mid-March at selected theatres for one week to make it eligible for the 2020 awards season, a curious requirement they had to fulfill before releasing it on their proprietary network on Friday, March 29^th.

A true story, so far as any Hollywood production can be considered true, it tracks two de-commissioned Texas lawmen, Frank Hamer and Maney Gault who are pressed into service to track down and kill Bonnie and Clyde.

Played by Kevin Costner (Hamer) and Woody Harrelson (Gault), they prepare to ambush Bonnie and Clyde with the assistance of three local Louisiana lawmen. Utilizing basic police work, they deduce the couple’s next move. The young murderers meet their end in a hail of automatic, rifle and shotgun fire. The Highwaymen is a decent film, but way too long for my taste.

On Thursday, March 28^th, I happened to be listening in to our local morning WABC radio show featuring Bernard McGurk and Sid Rosenberg when Costner joined them by phone for a pre-planned promotional interview for the movie.

We will never know, but I believe Sid drew the short straw as the boys knew Costner was only doing this to fulfill publicity requirements. As expected, Costner sounded noticeably disinterested and bored as the interview began. Rosenberg took a different approach that caught Costner totally off guard.

“Kevin, you have starred in a number of baseball movies like Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, but I have to tell you my favorite was For the Love of the Game.”

“Mine too.” Costner responded, his enthusiasm clearly building. Rosenberg, who has an ego the size of an elephant, wisely understood not to interrupt and let Costner continue:

“We spent two weeks filming in Yankee Stadium, but it almost never happened. Two or three days before we were supposed to start, I was told that George Steinbrenner, the Yankees principal owner, had nixed the deal and banned us from the ball park.”

“It was up to me to call Steinbrenner and settle the problem. I called him, we exchanged pleasantries before I asked him what was wrong?”

“He replied: ‘I don’t like your movie because the Yankees lose.’

“George,” I responded, “It’s true that our hero pitches a perfect game against the Yankees, but he is a diminished pitcher who is at the end of his career. Sure, he ends with a perfect game, but the Yankees had already clinched the pennant and would go on to win the World Series.”

“Hearing that Steinbrenner decided he loved the concept and gave us a green light to make the movie.”

Costner paused and continued: “You know, I have never told that story to any one else before, so I guess I have given you a big scoop.”

“Oh yeah, one more thing, as luck would have it, the Yankees won the World Series that same season and Steinbrenner sent me my own World Series Championship ring. I have never worn it, that would be inappropriate, but it’s my prized possession that I keep it with my valuables.”

Having never seen For the Love of the Game, I watched it on demand the following weekend. I found it to be only fair but an enjoyable baseball movie. However, I discovered that Costner wasn’t completely honest with Steinbrenner. When the hero, Billy Chapel, pitches his gem against the Yankees, they were tied with the Boston Red Sox and the pennant was yet to be decided.

It would appear that actors like politicians can’t be trusted.      

Late in December of 1960 my father summoned me to Miami between Christmas and New Year’s Day to meet with Congressman Dante B. Fascell’s service academy selection committee. John Sr. desperately wanted me to attend the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy located on Kings Point, Long Island. The old man believed the competition for an appointment from Florida would be easier than from New York so he concocted a plan that I would apply using his Homestead, FL address.

(Long story short: John Sr. divorced my mother shortly after coming home from WW II. He re-married and remained on active service. In 1957 he was stationed at Homestead AFB while I lived with Mom in Ridgewood, Queens.)

My reaction on arrival; culture shock. They had Christmas lights in Florida. I thought: “How dare they! Christmas belonged to those of us who suffered through cold snowy winters. These interlopers had the sun, swimming pools and short-sleeve shirts. Who gave them the right to celebrate Christmas!”

I did meet with the selection committee; it went nowhere.

But the trip wasn’t a waste of time for me. On one of my few free days, the old man drove over to the home of Jack Roberts in Coral Gables. Jack was an Eastern Airlines pilot and was the first person I ever met who had a swimming pool in his backyard. On this day though, swimming would have to wait.

Jack announced to his two boys and me, “Pile into the car, we’re going to go watch a football practice.”

We filled the back seat, my father sat shotgun and off we went to a nearby field in Coral Gables. Jack explained who we were watching: “Boys, that’s the Midshipmen preparing for their game on New Year’s Day against the Missouri Tigers in the Orange Bowl.”

We stood there watching their drills, an experience slightly more exciting than watching grass grow or paint dry. Jack and John Sr. drifted off to speak to one of Navy’s coaches. They re-joined us as practice ended. I stood there wondering why we were wasting swimming time when the coach walked over with a midshipman dressed in a sweat-stained cut-off tee shirt and blue shorts. First thing I noticed, I was taller than him but, quickly my eyes were drawn to his enormous legs. His name was Joe Bellino.

The Washington Post noted: “Deceptively fast, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound Bellino said he was never tackled from behind. His legs were so heavily muscled that he had to cut slits in the back of his football pants to make them fit.”

“All I know is that I was quick,” (Bellino) told the Baltimore Sun in 2010. “I wasn’t big in the shoulders or waist, but my legs were stocky, and I was built low to the ground. I could run straight, or sideways, without losing any speed.”

Bellino first greeted Roberts and my father with the respect due an Eastern Airlines captain and a USAF Major. Moving on to us kids, Roberts introduced us as we shook his hand. He wore a smile easily and joked around with us before leaving for the locker room.

The thought of asking for an autograph seemed out of the question, but all three of us were genuinely impressed by this football hero who spoke to us.

Back at Mr. Roberts’ house, we charged into the pool for a good time, but observed Mr. Roberts posted warning sign: “IF YOU PISS IN MY POOL – I’LL SWIM IN YOUR TOILET BOWL”

Despite this disappointment, Joe Bellino was awarded the 1960 Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation. Labeled, “Jolting Joe” and the “Winchester Rifle,” in honor of his Massachusetts home town, he broke every running record at Navy. Annapolis retired his number. 

Arthur Daly, then the dean of The New York Times sportswriters scribed:” Of recent years the Navy has developed at least two tremendous weapons. One is the Polaris missile and the other is Joe Bellino’”

Red Smith, then writing for the New York Herald Tribune noted: “(He) wriggles like a brook trout through congested traffic.”

For the Service Academies, their clashes against each other are paramount. And the greatest rivalry is Army versus Navy. In the 1959 contest Bellino scored three touchdowns including two scoring runs of 15 and 46 yards and, playing both ways, he intercepted an Army pass to set up another Navy TD. Final score: Navy 43, Army 12.

The following year’s game was much closer, but the Midshipmen prevailed 17-12. “Bellino ran for 85 yards, caught two passes, scored a touchdown, returned kickoffs and at game’s end, intercepted an Army pass on Navy’s goal line to preserve the win.”

After I returned to Ridgewood, I watched my newly adopted Midshipman lose the Orange Bowl to the Tigers: 21-14 on New Year’s Day…and so it goes.

Bellino fulfilled his service obligation played two years in the pros for the Patriots before finding an ordinary American life back home in small town Massachusetts.

Reading his obituary in Newsday on April3, 2019 reminded me my father’s scheme, my first winter break and meeting my first football hero. Joe Bellino, RIP.

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on April 17 and will resume om April 24.