COVERING WHIDBEY ISLAND’S NAVAL AIR STATION COMMUNITY
Whidbey
VOLUME 1, NO. 42 | 13 JANUARY 2012
www.whidbeycrosswind.com
Holiday flags for more than mere show By MELANIE HAMMONS Whidbey Crosswind
It seems to happen magically on every major national holiday of the year: The streets of Oak Harbor suddenly blossom with red, white and blue, as hundreds of American flags welcome the morning. Oak Harbor is noted for being a patriotic Navy town, yet it may come as a surprise to learn that the responsibility for these flags rests not with the city, but with private citizens, businesses and Oak Harbor Lions Club volunteers. “The ‘Old Glory’ program has become
SEE FLAGS | PAGE 2
THIS EDITION Elbridge Gockerell, left, shakes hands with Capt. Peter Garvin, Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 10, Monday as he is presented with a certificate naming Gockerell a naval aircrewman. Gockerell, 87, served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1943 to 1946 but never got his Aircrew Wings. KATHY REED/WHIDBEY CROSSWIND
Winged at last
Sequim man, 87, finally gets his wings By KATHY REED Whidbey Crosswind
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t was an event more than 65 years in the making. Monday afternoon, in front of the PBY Catalina aircraft on display at the PBY Memorial Foundation on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island’s Seaplane Base, Elbridge Gockerell, 87, finally got his Aircrew Wings. “(Elbridge Gockerell) was an
Aviation Radioman and it was all on-the-job-training. He never went through (training at) Pensacola, so he was never awarded his wings,” said Capt. Peter Garvin, Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 10. Gockerell, who now lives in Sequim with Jean, his wife of 58 years, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in Dec., 1942. He was called to duty in March, 1943. Following boot camp, he attended radio school for six months in Atlantic City. “My company had 120 men when radio school started. It got down to 79, and I was 79,” he said with a chuckle. “There was a rumor going around that torpedo training would be a lot better,
so I had kind of eased up on the radio training, thinking maybe I’d change.” In the end, Gockerell managed to finish radio school, passing the Morse code requirement of 20 wordsper-minute. He was sent to the Coast Guard Air Station in San Francisco, he said, where he was put to work making an inventory of radio equipment. “My on-the-job training ultimately started on the OS 2 Kingfisher, then patrol bombers,” he said. “There were five of us on the flight deck (of the patrol bomber). The pilot, radar operator, copilot, radioman and the flight
SEE WINGS | PAGE 6
Dollars and Sense: Spending and sweethearts ....pg. 2 Association of Naval Aviation kicks off new year ..pg. 3 Local DAV chapter commended ...........pg. 3 Local veteran to be honored by France ...............pg. 7
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