 A task force, or a task group, is a group of specially selected ships designed to carry out a special task commission. Now in the case of Task Force 77, we have three attack carriers and supporting destroyers and cruisers. Admiral, the eight o'clock surface now shows low level convergence into the Op area with the high still building up in here and the weather. We are all seamen here and the weather is of prime importance to us. To me, the commander, the daily weather briefing provides an indication as to what the men in this Task Force and the ships and planes are going to have to cope with and carrying out our mission. And we're all of us here living in ships scattered over hundreds of miles at sea, doing one job and working together. At the heart of this Task Force, the men of the aircraft carrier Kitty Park. Lieutenant Ernest Brazil speaking. No matter how many times you're cat it off this carrier, you just never get used to the feel of a catapult child. It's something that can never grow old, something you can never become accustomed to. It's somewhat akin to being hit in the chest by a Mack truck, yet still it's a very fine feeling because you know everything's working properly and you're going to get off the end of the aircraft carrier flying. Those catapults out there are my responsibility and without them the Kitty Hawk is nothing but a floating hotel for 5,000 men. When you're on that flight deck you got to have eyes. Once we get on a flight deck and start operating with the high noise level we have, we do most of our talking by hands and by lip movements. Just what you can see topside is only half of what is going on. It's catapulting. The people's below job, below decks are just as important as the people's topside and it's just one big team all together. As you'll see the flight deck crew hooking up the airplane, we have 5 men working together and they have to work together to kill each other. I personally worked and trained all of my crew on the Kitty Hawk to my own satisfaction. In almost 100,000 aircraft shots we have never put an airplane in the water on account of the malfunction of the catapult itself. Among the young crew of this floating city is a solid sprinkling of old timers. Commander Malcolm Guess is one. As a squadron executive officer it's been my privilege and opportunity to observe these young pilots in action. We ask them to do more today than they ever were required to do at my lifetime and the stage of training the kids are going through. They continually daily are asked to do a terrific job and they complete this job all on their own. Since I've been on a ship of course the thing has always impressed me so much as a hidden talent. You know the guy that's off on the side that's doing a job that nobody ever really pays any attention to until he fails to do that job. And that's where I was referring to you about using a very good example since you actually can see it from standing up on the bridge. On the ship all he does every day is take a bunch of tow bars and they're not really light. They're made out of aluminum, good type of alloy and put them on this cart and all he does is pull them forward where they're available to fill an airplane. Well the reason that his job is so important is you notice as our airplanes land they taxi forward and they park them up on the bow. Well they park them and this is a and they park them at about a 45 degree angle. They park there and then as they pull out well prior to being pulled out of course they're being gassed. As soon as they're gassed they want to be able to pull that airplane right out of that spot, pull it right aft as soon as recovery will go with them parking. Well they can't pull it aft unless there's tow bars on them. The object is to catch a bunch of airplanes in a short period of time as you can. And to launch a bunch of airplanes in a short period of time as you have. They don't get the glory and the stuff of the other people out there on the flight deck where the action is. Where it's nice to watch, boy there goes an airplane. Look at that. Boy isn't that dangerous? Oh you know it catches the eye. These people don't catch the eye but their job in my opinion is just as important as the people in the action. How come three, two and a half, one, three, six? The Airbus sits up on high seeing it all happen. A carrier can launch scores of aircraft in less than an hour. Thousands of men hurry around the flight and hangar decks in apparent confusion but there is no confusion. The Airbus is boss and his flight deck control center is a good symbol of the order woven into the wild hustle of a carrier vessel. Every aircraft has a place to be every second of an operation. A7 is the starboard, whale on the point. Behind the carrier it's plane guard destroyer waiting in case the worst happens. If the worst doesn't happen they throw in a dummy named Oscar and rehearse for it. That's their task in the task force, to wait, to be ready. Commander Berkmaev Jr. Skipper, USS Black. Despite all the electronic equipment we have in this ship for this type of work and the destroyer Navy, seamanship is still all important. This type of work has special meaning to me in that I was an aviator myself one time. I went into the water off of a carrier on a dark night off coast of Korea. This was off Incheon in the night before the Incheon invasion in September 1950. So I know how the fellas feel up there and this is why we put forth a little more effort to do a real good job in this plane guarding work. They wait for months at a time, one man with a shark rifle. The sea and time flowing past them while on the big body they're guarding a continuous non-stop drama is being played. That is the carrier's task. All right Jens, don't forget to use your pink code word cards for the day. Our dependency on other people starts right here in the ready room before mission. We depend upon the photo reconnaissance people going over the beach unarmed, take pictures of our targets, bring them back out here. Put into the computers. We have the people flying the electronic reconnaissance missions. They also get the same type of information and this is all correlated together in the computers. Then our air intelligence people down at the other end of the ship correlate all of this together, work out our missions for us. And we go down there and pick up this information that we need before we actually go out on a mission. We come down here to the ready room and we have all this information right in front of us all laid out. Okay Jens, you've had the rundown on the target and you've got the route and how we're getting in there, standard formation on the way down. Once we get ready to make the turn in to go coast in, we'll pick up a standard tactical formation, get it outspread nice and wide and I'll call my throttle setting there and we'll make our run in. Remember to keep the bird moving hadn't been a lot of fire but we don't want to take any chances on it. Okay, when we're ready for our mission we start off by putting on right around 70 pounds worth of flight gear. The survival vest carries your radio, your flares, your die marker, your survival kit, a small medical kit, water bottles. These are all the things that you really need to survive if you're going to be down in the jungle for any length of time. Of course you strap on a 38 caliber pistol on your hip and you're ready to go on up to the flight deck and get out there and do it. We actually wear so much gear at times you have the appearance of a big old teddy bear. You pretty well waddle up to the airplane and at some point in the future I think you can foresee a direct to just pick up a pilot and sit him in the cockpit. The largest carrier is no more than a moving patch in a heating liquid board. The landing signal officer, the LSO, is therefore an indispensable man. If you give me the choice between one of the richest insurance policies that you can give me or give me a good LSO. I'll take the LSO any day. A middle year once in a while you're going to have what we call a hairy one or well that's a wall and type pass. Knock that off, don't do it again type thing. This occurs, but it's nothing you accept, it's something you try to correct. The LSO picks him up approximately three-quarters of a mile. The carriers of the task force are bound to their supporting ships by the commander's will and a network of electromagnetic signals. The purely human bond is the logistics helicopter. Commander Donald Garrett. As a log helo pilot I see a great deal of Task Force 77. As a matter of fact I think I see more of it than anybody else on a day to day basis. We fly from carrier to carrier and from ship to ship all within Task Force 77. Some of our people out there go for, they used to go for weeks, for months without mail. But one of the most important things to, I would say the average sailor out there now when it comes to the log helo is the daily mail. The ships that we live on out here come and go, how will we stay? You might say we're nomads, nomads of the tanking gulf. We are the only airline that I know that has to deliver people to their destination while we're still flying. And we get to see them all, we get to know their personalities. And the ships do have personalities, just like people. The log helo gives a little and takes a little. Refueling on the fly makes every little ship a filling station in the China Sea. On USS Stanley is at the very tip of the Task Force's perimeter, more than a hundred miles north of Kitty Hawk. Stanley, a three-year-old frigate, is the picket ship, the Task Force's advance morning ship and advance guard. Captain William M.A. Green commands. Mr. Genette, bring the ship to 25 knots. Aye, sir. All engines ahead of flank, indicate 175 RPM for 25 knots. Captain Green. Stanley is a ship of less than three years old. She has invested in her from the people of the United States, a hundred million dollars worth of ship, and two hundred million dollars worth of ship's company. Stanley and her position as the powerhouse ship is the eyes of the seventh fleet, which means she's the furthest north in the Tonkin Gulf, and has the ability to detect whether or not a hostile aircraft or surface vessel might be approaching the seventh fleet forces. This ship's company is made up of what we call a top drawer variety of the new breed of people. They are highly skilled and trained in electronics, which is awfully important to the concept of present-day warfare. The sophisticated Stanley may be, but she still needs the hands of a seaman. Bolson's mate's second class, Richard Handler. As modern as this ship is, there's two rates that she cannot do without. That's her Bolson mates and her engineering department. As Bolson mates, we handle the ship as they handle ships of old, with lines and all sorts of associated equipment. The two that work together the closest are your Bolson mates and your engineers. Your engineers keep the ship running, they keep us with fresh water, they keep us with fuel, and they supply the speed. We as Bolson mates keep the ship maintenance-wise, up to par, keep all of our topside areas up to date with gear, and keep everything running and working in working order. We handle everything such as refueling and high lines. A fleet of supply vessels, a task force in itself, mothers the ships on station. Unrep, underway replenishment, sees to it that no ship falls short of anything it needs. The two ships steam side by side as fuel goes into Stanley's tanks. On the signal bridge, a brisk trade goes on in movies. Old, new, any movie you haven't seen. Lately, bays to board a ship. Some of them not very interesting. Some of them a bit too interesting. Arriving by high line is in the second classification. Stanley's escort destroyer, USS Porterfield, has come alongside to pick up a medical officer for a routine visit. It is the doctor's first voyage in the Bolson's chair. Stanley has another visitor, a Russian trawler. Captain Green. Trawler, the Ghidrifon is the present one in the Gulf. It'll be on station for some time, we suppose. And it looked like an array of electronics, antennas and transmission equipment. Soviet, he lends ships that position themselves in the talking Gulf among our naval forces. Have a right to be here, this is international waters. Our guidelines are pretty much to be alert to him, but not to interfere of course with his operations. Same time, not to let him interfere with our operations. I want to keep the Soviet trawler Ghidrifon to port just for menace. He's been trying to maneuver around to see our starboard side and really, I don't know what he'll gain, but we'll keep him interested anyhow by if I continue to pass him to port as he stays around my area of operation here. Stanley is full of devices that might interest Soviet intelligence. Her combat intelligence center has the job of alerting the entire task force to any hint of threat. Captain Green. It's a time of quick response. Now, matter of seconds, that is the atmosphere in which the commanding officer of the ship of this sophistication operates. You know, you might ask me, what level do you stop letting people make decisions or use a judgment? We don't stop at any level. We even have petty officers of the blue jacket, first class and second class petty officers, who communicate back and forth with other ships without ever consulting me before they communicate or consulting the evaluator. They've got to in order to keep, we say, real-time information flowing. Radar man, first class, Arthur Russo. This is the bar cap, barrier combat air patrol, first line of the task force, 777. We are providing control, much the same as around the civilian airport with one important exception. MiG Air Base is approximately 30 miles north of this aircraft. And any time they may venture out, if they did, it will be my job to vector the bar cap into a position to meet the incoming raids. Working with these pilots every day, pretty soon it gets to be on a first name basis. And then eventually it leads up to a nickname basis. The pilots and the controllers all have nicknames. Some of them are very descriptive, such as the Hawk, Happy. I acquired the nickname of the Bear initially. And after a period of time it was shortened even further to the Teddy Bear. I'm known as the Teddy Bear of the Tonking Gump. These bar cap pilots, the world's greatest, is often difficult sitting down here watching a couple of pips on a scope. Especially after getting to know several of them personally after visits to the carrier. And then all of a sudden you have a pip disappear on you. It's a very shattering experience, every time we lose one, particularly when you know someone personally. Just about a week ago, Ernie and I had an incident where we had a double engine, flying on. We had a eject from the aircraft. We were about halfway down to Denang, we had another F4 on our wing. Of course he was right there to make all the radio broadcasts. We were in the parachutes and we hit the water. And one of the first things I did was to pull out my little personal survival radius. Since we got in the water I was in full contact with the other aircraft at all times. I just approved how quick these people did work and how weather teamwork was. We were in the water and the time we jumped out of the airplane, the time we were on board the helicopter on our way to the USS Horner. It was a total of, I'd figure, less than 25 minutes. This force is a collection of men and ships at sea. And the sea is full of wind and rain and weather and days and weeks and months passing. Many Americans no longer think of themselves as a seafaring people. The prairies, the mountains, the wilderness are more our historic images. Yet, Dave Herrickson, Columbus, the pilgrims, the great waves of immigrants came by sea. And Americans fought the most decisive battles in history in the Pacific. One of our greatest stories, Moby Dick, is about the sea. And today we are still fairers of the sea. This is a stand-down day out here on Yankee Station. This is the first one we've had this cruise. The stand-down day is a 24-hour period when we get a chance to relax. There are no flight ops for this time. Of course, they always have to have a fighter man up. And unfortunately today, Ernie and I threw the alert. The else is Don relaxing. We're up here on our airplane just in case we have to be launched. In case we're ever intercepted out here. Daisy's to Sunday. I just got a letter from her. I figured I'd write home and let you know what's happening. We're sitting out here off the coast of Vietnam. Here's a tradition that probably did not come down from the old days of wooden ships and ironmen. The catapult officer has ended his tour of sea duty, and he's going home. But not before he commands one more launch from the deck of Kitty Hawk. As the days turn into months, it is easy to forget the perils of the sea. A man coming too close to a jet exhaust has been blown over the side. Five thousand shipmates wait, each suddenly aware of his own mortality. Here is the young sailor saved from the sea. When I was falling, I didn't have much time to think trivial thoughts. As the ship went past me, I was spotted by one of the watches and a smoke pot was thrown in the water. I was only in the water for about ten minutes after the fantail of the ship passed me. When a motor whale boat off the USS Robinson picked me up. I came back on board the ship, landed in the healer that picked me up off the destroyer. I looked out the door, and the first thing I saw was all of the cat crew that the cat officer would let come over, the men that weren't actually involved in the launch at the time. It was a real good feeling to know that so many of my friends had turned out to see me come back on the ship. Admiral Cousins. You have a mixture here of old pros and a large part, perhaps 75% or more, are men and young officers who were on their first combat tour, their first enlistment in the Navy in the case of the men. Nevertheless, it's always gratifying to me and I think surprising to many people to see how the young men pitch in, take their share of responsibility. The young fellows who last year were on a high school football team or working at a gas station this year out here have a vital partners team, whether they're down in the engine room or working in a shaft alley or tending a boiler or up working in the resting gear on the flight deck, they're all in a responsible place and for many guys it's the most responsibility they'll ever have. Captain Green of the Stanley. But I believe this is a fairly good summary of commitment to cause and we have in Navy ships a commonality of cause, a commonality of purpose. I don't believe any other profession can really say that. Everybody has an objective of purpose, an objective for which they stand and which they are destined. But I believe in the Navy ships, even unlike other military forces, there is a commonality of purpose. There's a camaraderie that I can't believe others can develop. But again, when you say shipmate and a ship's mission, they fit hand in hand and I think we usually go in without holding back on a little bit of our effort. That's the only way and as a crew. A collection of men in ships and planes, young men and old pros, shipmates a long way from home, a task force of the United States Navy.