Trego's Mountain Ear

I ran across some photos of the first plane landing on a Navy warship – eight years before Dad was born.  Since his WWII service on the seaplane tender Kenneth Whiting left him as one of the Warrant Boatswain’s closely connected with Naval Aviation, and I can’t share the photos with him, I’m sharing them here.

Wrapped around Ely’s upper torso are bicycle inner tubes – his flotation device in case he had to ditch.

The seaplane that has been lifted onto the Whiting in World War II gives a perspective to over 40 years of development in Naval Aviation.  The ship’s records show that Commander Lyons was the Whiting’s first captain.  Dad was her first bos’n.