Paul Gillcrist

Sea Legs Paul Gillcrist

Sea Legs is a collection of nautical aviation vignettes covering the thirty-three year naval career of the author beginning in the US Naval Academy, naval flight training fleet squadron and test pilot duties as he advanced to the grade of Rear Admiral. The stories include his early fleet squadron experience as a "nugget" pilot on USS Oriskany, his selection to be a Navy test pilot (including the account of his first ejection from an out-of-control test aircraft), his fleet exerience in a fighter squadron based on the USS Lexington during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later on the USS Shangri La in the Mediterranean. This tour was followed by three cruises in the Tonkin Gulf on the USS Ticonderoga, (during which he ejected for the second time) USS Hancock and USS Bonhomme Richard during which he flew 167 combat missions over Vietnam for which he was awarded seventeen combat decorations. The vignettes also follow him through tours of duty in the Pentagon and cinCLantFleet staff, including his stint as the lead pilot in the movie, "Tora, Tora, Tora" flying off of USS Yorktown. Many of these vignettes are humorous, a few tragic, but all are exciting and serve to give the reader a good idea of what US naval carrier aviation was all about in the latter half of the 20th century.