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.
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