MM2 John Reynolds

It was the 79 or 80 Med run, and we were on plane guard for one of the carriers we worked with, I want to say America. It was getting pretty boring, when all of a sudden, and quite out of the blue, we get buzzed by a couple of F-14’s. I mean buzzed. They run down the either side of the ship, buzzing the bridge wings, and generally pissing off the skipper. They pass around, and one makes another run at the bridge, pulls vertical, and cracks the sound barrier. The CO is by now really pissed and confused. The last pass is over the flight deck, at slow speed, with an after burner kick in and resulting sonic boom. The CO is in fits trying to find out what is going on, and leans on the Air Det OIC. He has no idea why the go fast boys would act in this way. Only after much digging does the CO find out that the Airedales had sewn sheets together, enough to cover the flight deck, and scrawled “If you can’t hover, you’re queer.” They had stretched it over the flight deck at the appropriate time (when the go fast crowd could see) and then punctuated the insult by mooning the target pilot while he passed by (all twenty five, or so, of them at once).
Charlie Oscar was not happy, but we didn’t do much plane guard after that either!?