COVERING WHIDBEY ISLAND’S NAVAL AIR STATION COMMUNITY
CROSSWIND Whidbey
VOLUME 1, NO. 7 | 13 M AY 2011
www.whidbeycrosswind.com
Memories of NAS Whidbey’s one and only ship, the USS Salisbury Sound
Oak Harbor loses WWII fighter ace By K ATHY REED
Whidbey Crosswind
A reception will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday in Oak Harbor in honor of retired Navy Capt. Lee Paul Mankin, 90, who died following a brief illness last month at his winter home in Indian Wells, Calif. Mankin, who was born in Mammoth Springs, Alaska, enlisted in the Navy in 1937, at age 17. His first assignment was as a radioman on the USS California. He was accepted for flight training in Pensacola, Fla. and earned his wings in Feb., 1942.
SEE ACE | PAGE 3
From 1963 to 1967, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island’s Seaplane Base was the home port of the seaplane tender USS Salisbury Sound (AV-13). PHOTO COURTESY OF WES WESTLUND
Haze gray and underway By DENNIS CONNOLLY
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with a length of 100 feet and a wingspan of 117 feet. The P5M Marlin only landed on the water as she did not have landing gear. Westlund recalls when he was stationed in Oak Harbor, the community had one traffic light and the population was under 5,000 as opposed to more than 20,000 today. When Sally came back to Oak Harbor after deployment, you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing someone from the ship. Westlund added that is was nice to see that the brown shoe contingent on Ault Field had 500 or so black shoe brethren on the Seaplane Base.
Whidbey Crosswind
es Westlund is a Navy chaplain who had an unusual working environment at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. He tended to his flock aboard a Navy ship - a seaplane tender moored to the finger pier behind the commissary on the Seaplane Base. From 1965 to 1967 Westlund served aboard the USS Salisbury Sound (AV-13), or “Sally,” as her men called her, as she made one of her 19 deployments to the Western Pacific from 1946 through 1966.
Cmdr. Orville ‘Wes’ Westlund
Nuts and bolts Sally was a Currituck-class seaplane tender, 540-feet long, 69-feet wide and drew 22 feet. She had room for 684 men with a huge hangar bay on the stern and two huge cranes that picked up seaplanes, or parts of them, easily. She was capable of supporting two, 15-plane squadrons of Mariner type seaplanes both in material, upkeep, repair and personnel. Her shops included engine repair, hydraulic repair, carburetor repair, metal, parachute and photogenic shop. In addition to her own officers and crew, Sally was capable of billeting over 120 squadron officers and 200 crew members. When Westlund was aboard the USS Salisbury Sound, she tended to P5M Marlin, one of the largest seaplanes in the Navy
Time on the water Sally went to sea often and for long periods of time, according to Westlund. Once the captain asked Westlund and Lt. Procetti, the electrical engineering officer, to find out how much time Sally spent at sea. “We went through the log books and when we were done I said, ‘I think we should go over these books again’ and (Procetti) agreed, ‘cause we both thought we had made a mistake,” Westlund said. “But we went over them again and we found out that we were right. We had spent 80 percent of our time at sea and 20 percent in Oak Harbor. When we showed the results to the captain he thought we were right immediately.” Westlund said his ship was older but clean as a whistle. The food was good and the motion at sea was comfortable, when the weather was good. But it could get hot at anchor or in port.
SEE SALLY | PAGE 7
THIS EDITION NASWI Change of Command ceremonies ............pg. 2 NASWI personnel recognized in Seattle ...............pg. 5 Disabled American Veterans meet ......................pg. 6 Crescent Harbor sets course for adventure .........pg. 8
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